Rafe Ortega, 57, has been the full-time lighthouse keeper at Cape Disappointment for 11 years, ever since he took a medical discharge from the Coast Guard after a rescue mission blew out his left knee. His biggest flaw? He’s spent the last decade turning down every half-hearted invite to dinner, every PTA tour request, every nosy question from the town’s church ladies about when he’ll “finally stop hiding up on that cliff and find someone to keep him warm.” His wife left him six months after he moved into the keeper’s cottage, said she couldn’t stand the quiet, the constant wind, the way he cared more about the beacon’s upkeep than their marriage, so he’s made a point of keeping everyone at arm’s length ever since. He’d rather spend his days tightening the beacon’s wiring, scraping salt off the metal railings, and listening to old country records on his beat up turntable than deal with small town gossip that spreads faster than brushfire in the summer dry season.
He’s camped out by the beer tent at the annual coastal seafood festival when he spots her, leaning awkwardly against a splintered wooden picnic table, trying to hold a paper plate stacked with fried clams, a sweating cup of pink lemonade, and shoo a stray golden retriever away from her food before it takes a bite out of her sleeve. He recognizes her immediately: Mara Hale, 47, the new elementary school principal who moved into the blue cottage two doors down from his place three months prior. All he’s ever exchanged with her are quick, tight nods by the community mailbox, and he’s heard half the town talk about how she’s so straight-laced she’d write a kid up for chewing gum in the hallway, how she turned down the sheriff’s date request two weeks in a row.
They talk for 45 minutes standing by the picnic table, him leaning against the leg, her perched on the edge, the stray dog dozing at her feet. She teases him about turning down the PTA’s request for a lighthouse tour back in May, says all the kids have been drawing pictures of the beacon for the last month begging him to change his mind. He grins, admits he turned them down because last year a group of 8 year olds snuck off and tried to scratch their names into the 1920s-era lens that’s worth more than his entire house. She says she’s been dying to see the top of the lighthouse herself, that she watches him climb the stairs every morning at 6 a.m. from her kitchen window while she drinks her coffee. He’s wary at first, already picturing the church ladies spotting them together and spreading rumors by sunrise, but she rolls her eyes and says she doesn’t give a damn what anyone in this town thinks about who she spends her time with, and that’s enough to make him cave.
They walk the half mile up the cliff to the lighthouse, the tide crashing against the rocks below them, seagulls squawking as they dive for discarded french fries along the path. Their shoulders bump every three or four steps, and neither of them moves away. When they reach the base, he unlocks the rusted metal door, and they climb the 127 steps up to the observation deck, her hand brushing his lower back once when she stumbles over a loose step halfway up.
The sun is dipping below the Pacific when they reach the top, painting the sky in streaks of tangerine and soft lavender, the distant sound of the festival’s fireworks show starting to pop over the treetops of the town. The beacon is still off for another 18 minutes, before its automatic timer kicks on to run through the night. He leans against the cold metal railing, and she steps closer, her arm pressed fully against his, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin flannel of his shirt. She tilts her head up to look at him, and her eyelashes are dusted with a fine layer of salt spray from the wind. He doesn’t overthink it, just leans down and kisses her, slow and soft, the wind tangling her hair in his gray beard, the faint taste of lemon and fried clam on her lips.
They stay up there until the beacon kicks on, the low hum of the motor vibrating through the metal floor, the beam of light sweeping over the darkening water every 10 seconds. He walks her back to her cottage, their hands brushing the whole way down the cliff. When they reach her porch, she leans against the doorframe, and asks him to come over for pancakes tomorrow after he finishes his morning beacon check, says she’s got blueberry syrup she picked up on a trip to Portland last week. He nods, says he’ll bring the tattered 1920s shipwreck scrapbook he keeps locked in the lighthouse office, the one he never shows anyone. He turns to walk back to his place, and when he glances over his shoulder 10 feet down the path, she’s still leaning against the doorframe, grinning, twisting the cap of that half-empty pink lemonade cup between her ink-stained fingers.
