We Fade to Starlight
a Pearl Girls Story

     Cely gave the gleaming oak bar one last swipe of her dishrag and tapped her knuckles against it twice. A pause, one tap, then two more. The game she’d played with her father at this very bar was one of her earliest memories, and one of her last of him. It had been the way they said goodbye, though she hadn’t known that night it would be forever. 

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     That’s the thing about last times. You never see them coming.

 

     Tonight, it was time to say goodbye to the Trusty Sailor again. She’d lingered longer in Port St. Joe this year. The other seven seasons since Charlton O’Hara was buried in the town cemetery, she’d blown out before the summer wind blew in. The mild, quiet winters drew her back to her regular post behind the bar, but she itched to leave it behind her as soon as the warmer weather drew the crowds to the coast.  

 

     Now, an early tropical storm nipped at her heels, taking advantage of her hesitation to head out. She’d sensed it before the news picked it up and the locals started their hurricane chatter. The low pressure throbbing behind her ears days ago alerted her first. Then, the earthy layered scent of the salt air she’d been breathing so long that the slightest variance carried in whispered to her that a sea change was pressing in, a strong wind at her back. Maybe one day she’d stop running from every storm that threatened to roll in overhead. Not yet, though.

 

     “Last call,” she shouted to the empty bar, peeling her hat off and letting her unkempt auburn waves tumble down her back. 

 

     Well, the bar was nearly empty. As it sometimes happened, a lone customer remained, even after everyone else cleared out at closing time. The man slumped over a small table tucked behind the silent jukebox. Cycling neon lights glinted off the neat row of empty beer bottles in front of him.

 

     “Hey, you,” she said, waving a hand at him. “Bring me those bottles and let’s call it a night. Time to head home, or wherever it is you’re staying.”

 

     Cely knew the man whose gaze had been following her around the bar the last few nights until she closed up, even if she didn’t actually know him. Men passing through the Trusty Sailor were easy to categorize, for the most part. Two types showed up aside from the locals she’d known most of her life: ones who were nursing a broken heart, and ones who were looking for one to break.

This guy was the former. The two or three days’ stubble adding a trace of grit to his sharp jawline, dark circles beneath his warm brown eyes and rumpled clothes gave him away. Add the fact that he’d said barely two words to her beyond ordering his drinks, he was definitely nursing a heartache. She rested a hand on the mace in the pocket of the apron she still wore, but she sensed no danger brewing indoors… only the storm outside.

 

     “Can I call you a ride share, someone to pick you up?” Cely asked. Bart wasn’t keen on letting anyone too drunk to drive walk out of his establishment intending to get behind the wheel.

​

     The man squinted at her as if he were trying to make out her face in bright sunlight, even though she’d dimmed the lights. He unfolded his long body from the chair slowly and scooped up the three bottles by their necks. 

​

     He studied her face as he crossed the bar in a way that made her wonder why she wasn’t uneasy. She straightened her back and held his gaze.

 

     “Lillie?” he whispered, his voice hoarse, as if he’d been sick, or hadn’t spoken much for days. A slight inflection on the second syllable, making the name a question.

 

     “It’s Cely,” she said, tapping the ridiculous name tag Bart insisted she wear on shift.

 

     “Not Lillie?” 

 

     Cely shook her head. “Not Lillie. And you are?”

 

     He took a deep breath, let it out. “Will Mason.”

 

     “Well, Will Mason, I don’t know much, but I do think I know my own name.”

 

     “Cely,” he repeated. “Lillie. Cely.”

 

     She shrugged. “They do sound similar, but if you’re looking for a delicate flower, or somebody named Lillie, I’m not your girl.”

 

     “Sorry,” he said, dropping his chin to his chest. “I guess I was hoping…”

     

     “Hoping for…?” 

 

     Cely reached for the bottles he held out, letting her fingertips brush his. Long fingers, strong hands. Hands that were accustomed to hard work, and somehow gentle at the same time. 

 

     “Just wishful thinking, missing an old friend,” he muttered, pulling two twenties from his pocket.

 

     He slid them across the counter, then knocked his knuckles against it twice.

 

     Cely’s eyes widened. He’d been watching her more closely than she’d realized.

 

     “Sure you don’t want a ride? I can call someone.”

 

     “The hotel isn’t far,” Will said, then touched a finger to his hat. “See you around, Cely.” 

 

     The door whooshed closed as he left in a hurry, and Cely lost sight of him in the dark beyond the parking lot.

 

     “See you around, Will Mason,” she whispered.

 

     But not tonight, she thought, as she locked up a few minutes later, then jogged across the beach highway and onto the sand. She paused on the ocean side of the dunes to take off her shoes. The stars were bright overhead, but the Gulf of Mexico was already rumbling louder than usual, another warning of the impending storm. Before she could turn up the beach toward Bart’s place, where she set up her camper every season, her gaze snagged on someone standing knee deep in the churning waves, still as stone.

 

      Cely watched Will for a long moment, considering. She should probably leave this man alone. His grief was palpable—he’d recently lost something, someone? Maybe this Lillie. And Cely intended to leave Port St. Joe before daylight. The ranch where she spent summers working in the Sawtooths expected her in the next few days.

     

     She drew closer to him anyway. “You lost?”

​

     Will turned his head slowly, as if he were uncertain he’d actually heard a voice carrying over the sound of the wind, the breaking waves rushing at the shore.

​

     “I guess you could say…”

​

     Cely tossed her shoes onto the sand beside Will’s and waded into the restless water. She mirrored his stance, hands on her hips, then stared up at the stars while he stared down at her. 

​

     “What are you doing out here?”

​

     Cely glanced over at him and smiled. “Walking home.”

​

     “Guess you’re not lost, then,” Will said, turning his eyes back to the sky.

​

     “It depends on what kind of lost you mean,” Cely said. She nudged Will’s arm with her elbow.

“We’re probably all a little lost."

​

     “You from here?” Will turned his face back to the sky.

 

     “If I’m from anywhere, it’s here,” Cely answered. “I’ve never spent much time in one place, though. My dad sailed a lot, so we bounced from port to port.”

 

     “A mermaid, then.”

 

     Cely glanced up at him. He was almost smiling.

 

     “No, not a mermaid. I know the ocean to well to swim in it.”

 

     The wind swirled then, sending the saltwater into a swirl around them. Cely sloshed away to grab their shoes before the rising tide could catch them.

 

     “Walk with me,” she called over her shoulder.

 

     She didn’t have to glance back to know he would follow.

 

     They settled in to an easy pace, and Cely could see the string lights bobbing in the wind between her camper and Bart’s house ahead. It was prime beachfront property, and no campground could have offered her anything like it. She knew Bart and Sherrell set it up with her in mind after her dad died. They were the closest thing to family she had, and that kept her coming back each winter. It wasn’t exactly the same as having a home the way most people do, but it was what she knew of home.

 

     “So, where are you from, Will?” she asked as she began to angle them toward her camper.

 

     “A little town in South Carolina called New Hope,” he told her, content to follow her lead.

 

     “And what brings you to St. Joe?”

 

     He gave her a long look, then blew out a breath. “It’s my honeymoon.”

 

     She stopped walking abruptly, looking around them as if a wife would materialize nearby.

“Lillie?”

​

     “No, not Lillie. She’d have never left me looking like a fool in front of a church full of everybody we know.”

 

     “You wanna talk about it?” Cely pointed him to the hammock swing and flipped the lights on and off three times, her signal to Bart that she’d made it in.

 

     “No, I don’t.”

 

     Will laughed, the rich sound of it startling to Cely. He shook his head as she pulled a chair over beside him.

 

     “What?” she asked.

 

     “Lillie’s sister, Bay, she does that thing with the lights to say goodnight. I swear, if I didn’t know better…”

 

     “I really remind you of this Lillie?”

 

     He nodded. “You do. But you’re Cely.”

 

     She returned his nod. “I am Celestia O’Hara.”

 

     “Celestia.” Will breathed her name as he relaxed back into the hammock, having taken off his hat and rested his phone, wallet and keys inside. Cely lifted it from his torso gently. “That’s a beautiful name.”

​

     “Thank my dad for that. He always told me I’d fallen to earth from the stars… and that one day we all fade back to starlight, but I’m ahead of the game because I’m made of starlight.”

 

     “Wow, I can see that. Made of starlight.”

 

     Cely smiled. “I’m just going to put these on the steps underneath the house for safe keeping, but did you know your phone is blowing up?”

 

      “Mmhmm.” Will didn’t open his eyes. “That’ll be Bay and her husband, worried sick about me. And my sister, Elloree. My parents.”

 

     “Should you maybe answer them?” Cely asked. She sat beside him, held his phone up.

 

     “You have butterflies, too.”

 

     She’d thought he was reaching for his phone, but instead Will took her other wrist gently, swiping his thumb across the swirling butterflies that he couldn’t see continued across her back. Cely shivered. “What?”

 

     “Lillie has butterflies. You have butterflies, too.”

 

     Will pulled her hand against his chest and held it there loosely. She felt the steady rhythm of his heart slowing, his breathing steady.

 

     “Down he goes,” she whispered, studying his face for a brief moment before his phone began to buzz again.

 

     Bay. She started to swipe and answer the call, but the picture on the screen made her breath catch.

 

     An old photo. Four kids, faces close together. Two girls bookended by a young Will and another boy. One girl a strawberry blonde, blue-eyed beauty, laughing big. Bay.

 

     The other girl a darker version of her sister, eyes closer to silver-gray, auburn waves and a Mona Lisa smile.

 

      She could be looking at a picture of herself. Cely’s hands shook. The phone buzzed again.

This time, she answered it.

 

“Will? Are you alive?”

 

     It took her a beat to answer, but Cely cleared her throat and found her voice.

 

     “Hi, Bay, it’s Cely.”

 

     Silence. Then, “Lillie?”

 

     “No, not Lillie. My name’s Cely. Will is fine, just sleeping off a few beers.”

 

     Another pause.

 

     “Can you tell him we’re on our way, if he’ll send an address? We’re an hour away.”

 

     Cely closed her eyes, thinking fast. “Tell you what, I’ll send you a pin so you can pick him up here. I’ve got to go soon, but he’s perfectly safe until you get here. My boss, Bart, owns the place. I’ll text him so he knows you’re coming. There’s a light switch on the post for the string lights. Just flick them a couple of times and turn them off before you leave.”

 

     The line was silent so long that Cely thought maybe the connection dropped.

 

     “You could stay until we get there,” Bay finally said. “We’d like to say thanks—”

     

     “No thanks necessary, we were just walking the same way home. Goodnight, Bay.”

 

     Cely couldn’t explain the current of energy running through her, but it forced her into motion. Her camper was already packed and hitched, ready to roll out. She messaged Bart, then grabbed Will’s things to tuck into the hammock with him.

 

     She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she flipped through his wallet anyway. Tucked behind his license was the picture he used for Bay’s contact.

 

     It would be wrong to take something so obviously important to him, even if she felt a pressing urge to pocket it and run. Instead, she grabbed her on phone and took several pictures of the photo, shifting to try to decrease the glare from the lights above.

After putting everything back in its place, except for his hat that she now wore, Cely rested a hand gently against Will’s head.

 

     “See you around, Will Mason,” she whispered.

 

     Then, before the gathering storm could drag her under its current, Celestia O’Hara ran.