Biddy was ephemeral, and that was why she bobbed up and down like a top in the water. She had been lonely as a toddler and roughed up as a child, she was suspicious of a family friend, later in life, she was relieved to find out the man was actually an uncle. Biddy laughed every time she told the story, unable to understand why the listener suddenly asked her about work or ordered another round. Now on the beach, the wind was lifting Biddy’s hair, checking for unmapped points of reference. She hoped a modest level of scrutiny would always be guaranteed. Hope, Biddy had kept her imagination childlike and her illumination flickering, when many times it would have been more humane if the partnership had lied about being needed amongst a crop of facial stubble, and promising to return with the harvest from another worshiping fan. She could still do a handstand and all of its fancy variations. Recently, Biddy had found that first digging a hole in the sand would allow her head to separate from her neck, once she was vertical and upside down. That would make her lovable, she could even accept ‘cute,’ although if observations were traveling the back roads, Biddy preferred to be called ‘adorable.’ She giggled in the cool darkness, blowing outward to clear away intruding pellets of white dirt. That was how they had built up the unnatural dunes. Biddy assumed that Woody knew that. So now, she would have to as well. She giggled again, this was going to be fun. As the blood was beginning to make its way to the base of her skull, the tingling sensation associated itself with breaking Woody’s heart. It was as powerful as it was to hope, the two of them sitting distinctively apart, on her couch, him commenting on how pretty she looked, Biddy genuinely interested rubbing his arm, before telling him that he had to go. But she would find him tomorrow and the next day, mirroring everything that Woody had wanted for his life. Her head was pulsating, as she felt the others sitting on the beach, in the light, full of distraction, they had to be attaching themselves to her body. Now she saw Woody, who was angry. She was euphoric and in love. Not with him, but with what was warranted. Her braided hair, just the way Woody had preferred, the lifeguard massaging her feet, haggling for a life to share. And then she was upright once again, as her purple face acquiesced, splitting all that pooled, begrudgingly with the rest of her body that was pale. In real time, Woody was picking his feet as he sat on the bottom rung of his stand. He was clothed only in his red trunks. Biddy wondered if next time she could hold her position a little longer, at least until Woody was in a tuxedo and his beard was well kept. She laughed the hardest when she thought about her Uncle, and wondered if they had actually ever met.