I make sure to check the sign on the fence outside the beach: Lifeguard schedule. I have enough going on in my head without seeing his gloating expression if he sees me again - if he recognized me at all. I don't tell Irene what happened. She'd probably think it was funny and if she tells her friend Jin, they'd both be convinced I am totally clueless.

But now Irene wants to go walking on the beach. She's sun-phobic, so she's only goes at sunrise or sunset.

"So wear sunscreen."

"That doesn't stop the damage," she says. It's obvious she's been over this before. "It just slows it down. Anyway, I like the beach after everyone has gone home." She slips on sandals and reaches for the straw hat hanging inside the door. "Want to come?"

Seven o'clock - he'd be off duty. I put on running shoes and go with her. The only people we pass on the beach are a woman asleep on a towel and a couple under an green umbrella with a sleeping baby between them. Joy walks with us, every now and then stopping to sniff things on the beach. Irene does that too, in her own way. Every so often she kneels down and unearth something like an archaeologist - a chunk of frosted sea glass, a shiny rock, or an strange shell. Then she holds it up to study it, deciding whether or not it has "the origin" - she says with a small smile - to make it worth keeping.

Her prize shell, which she keeps in a black showcase box on the coffee table, is called a rose murex. It's a rose color twisted shell with a bumpy and smooth surface. It's bigger than my palm. 

"Kids found it pretty and strange," Irene chuckled when she saw me examining it.

"It's unique in its own way."

She nodded. "That's right.

° ° ° ° °

Something in the water catches Joy's eye, or maybe her nose. She runs in searching for it, but when the waves come back in she darts out, as if she's afraid of their power.

"Do you swim, Irene?"

"Almost every morning, if the weather's good."

"I want to start swimming in the ocean, too."

I have to get over my nervousness about going past the waves. I'm a decent swimmer now. It'll just take practice.

As we walked along, I turned to Irene. I don't know that much about her. What I remember most are the postcards she'd send us with foreign stamps from places around the world she visited, like France, Hawaii, and Samos. I'd tack them to my bulletin board and search the globe, pretending it was a game and I had to figure out where in the world she was off to.

Now that we're out together, it's easier to ask her about herself.

"How come you don't work in an office like my mom?"

She closes her eyes and shake her head.

"Not the office type," she says. "I used to work as a nature teacher and talk to kids about life. We'd go on field trips to the park and I'd teach them about plants. I showed them how to recognize scallions in the wild, rosemary, mint, all kind of things," she says.

"I bet you could survive in the wilderness."

"I did, at least for a few days."

She took an camping trip, she says, and was part of a group that learned rock climbing and survival skills. Then everyone went off on their own to camp out in remote areas to test themselves.

I thought about the animals and bugs. "Weren't you scared?"

"At first - and that's the point," she says. "But you learn to rely on yourself and it gives you a chance to discover you hidden strengths. If you're never challenged, you don't find out what you're capable of."

"I'd died of fear first."

"We surprise ourselves," she says. 

° ° ° ° °

As we walked, the giant sun sinks lower in the dusty blue sky, like the world is a painting in motion. "I write books full-time at home now," she says. "I don't have to teach anymore because some of the science books did well."

"Just science books?"

"Science and lately science fiction."

That reminds me of the ghost in the house. It doesn't scare me. I am just curious. "So the . . . ghost . . . the one who whispers. Is that science fiction?"

A faint smile forms on her face. "Ah, good question."

But before she can answer, we run into Joy, who's spotted something dead and rotting on the beach. She drops on top of it, rolling her back over it like he's doing an upside-down dance. It dawns on me that he'll bring the smell up to my room where she now sleeps.

"EW, Joy, what are you doing?" She finally gets back on her feet and I throw water on her back to rinse off the dead, fishy smell.

Irene shrugs. "It's the way she picks up the scent of her prey to hide her own scent," she says. "So if she goes hunting, they won't recognize her as an outsider . . . That's one theory, anyway. Another says rolling in vile stuff lets her pack know what she found."

"She's the scent messenger."

"Kind of."

Since they learn about the world with their noses, that seems logical. I'm about to keep walking when Irene suddenly bends down and examines what Joy rolled over. There's a concerned look on her face.

"What is it?"

"Hmm," she says, almost to herself. "Strange." She lifts up a piece of what seems to be a spear.

"What do you mean?"

She hold it out to me. I reached for it, but she pulls it back. "It's sharp," she says. "Careful."

"What is it?" Very lightly I touched the ragged edge.

"It looks like a piece of the tail of a stingray, but you don't find them in these waters."

"So how did it get here?"

She shakes her head. "No idea."

We walked along when I looked down at the sand by my feet, I see something odd. It looks like a trail of droplets of blood. I lift my finger and that's when I see a cut. When did that happen? I didn't feel anything. I put it in my mouth and on it, pressing hard, until finally, the bleeding stops.

° ° ° ° °

As we walked, the sun edges closer to the water until it's about to be swallowed up by the ocean. A small boy kneels by the shore. He's playing with an inflatable duck. He hides it under the water, and then pulls it out and shakes it in the face of his sister.

"Stop it!" she cries. "Stop it!"

He laughs at her, enjoying the game. "Baby," he taunts her. "Baby."

"Has there ever been a shark attack here?"

"A long time ago."

"What happened?"

"It was near sunset and the swimmer was close to shore." She scratches her head. "We usually hear when there's a sighting in the area, but that time it happened out of nowhere."

We walked along silently. Irene looks like she's thinking about putting a scene like that into one of her books.

"Maybe if somebody had been watching closer, it could have been avoided."

"The lifeguards watch out all the time."

I worked on keeping a straight face.

"And Yoongi is usually out there. If anybody would have spotted it, it would have been him. He has this sixth sense."

"Yoongi?"

"I forgot," Irene chuckles. "You haven't met him. He's a former fisherman. He was born here, but raised in Brazil near the Amazon jungle. His father was a doctor, but he's lived here for most of his life. Ever since he retired and sold his boat, he spends most of the day on the beach, painting. A gallery in the center sells some of his work."

"I'd like to meet him."

"I'm sure he'd like to meet you. He's eighty and still very handsome," she says. "And he has a weakness for pretty girls."