In the early morning hours of the long Memorial Day weekend all immediate members of the Stockwell family stand single file on the ferry slip waiting to board the Newport News ferry headed to Wildwood, New Jersey. They present immaculately. Not even the unflattering glare from the dock lights can wash-out their honey-hued, cinnamon-colored faces and sunkissed limbs draped in Brooks Brothers and Saks linen tunics, Jordache jeans, and New Balance sneakers. Nothing but the best, from the most expensive department stores for this Black family of Gold Coast, Washington, D.C.
Earl Stockwell, the patriarch, juts out like a hangnail, draped in his gray trench coat. His legs, looking more “au lait” than café, stick out from under a pair of tennis shorts. Tennis shoes and a polo tee complete the look. He stands slightly apart from the rest of the family, chain-smoking his beloved Camel Reds.
His distance is not with disdain, but he takes it as a courtesy he’s only recently bestowed to the youngest and newest member of the family, Ruth, making her beach debut in a head-to-toe cotton cloud of sea-foam blue and off-white tulle. At eighteen months old, little Ruth (not to be confused with her aunt and namesake, Ruth, or, as of late, “Big” Ruth) is the best dressed member of the clan, if not the entirety of passengers ready to board the ferry.
The baby watches the old man, standing in swirling rings of gray, struggling to keep her eyes open, heavily lulled by the soft reverberations of her mother’s voice, rolling, and rippling from chest to chest. The tones and beats remind her of the warm wet home she left not too long ago.
This is the baby's first trip to the beach and Diane, the newest mother – not to be confused with the mother of mothers, (as if she’d ever let that happen) Mrs. Ursa Stockwell— knows everything must be perfect for such an occasion. Thusly, she is currently in heated discussion with her older sister about the pending itineraries.
Big Ruth (the older sister) barely engages, absentmindedly nodding at her little sister’s list of all things beach and baby — First I went to People’s Drug and then I realized halfway there what kinda fool mother would get baby sunscreen from a drugstore, so then I called the pediatrician and do you know he wouldn’t take my call and — because Ruth has to be on high alert for her own child, Brandon, who at twenty-two months is in the full stage of self-actualization, refusing his mother’s pleas to stay still and stand by her side while they board. Instead, Brandon would much prefer to see just how high a dock is from the water below, and he knows the only way to do this is to race toward, then stop right at the dock’s edge.
Snatching up her son and hauling him onto her hip, Big Ruth looks at her anxious sister —But Desitin can’t treat all diaper rashes, there’s a special kind of rash they can get from the beach with all that sand. But I’m not too worried, this is her first time, I doubt she’ll try and venture too far, she’ll just be so enamored by everything, anyway, right? — and, not for the first time, feels the pain of envy.
At last, the ferry captain greets everyone from the top of the transom. Ursa whistles loudly. “Good God, it’s too hot for this pleasantry, can we move along now, finally?” Earl and Diane wince at Ursa’s harsh tone. Big Ruth couldn’t have noticed — Brandon, I swear if you don’t stop we will go to the car and go all the way back home, I mean it! – but only Diane’s pained expression draws comment from Ursa. “And please don't start this trip with your sniffling nonsense. I was hoping having a baby would finally wisen you up from all that. Can’t have mom and baby both having fits now, can we?”
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