Beach Road

RYLIN JACKSON, 52, a gay woman and watercolorist, returns to her hometown to stay with her aged mother and pursue art after a break-up with a married woman. A local hairdresser tells her that a mutual high school friend, TERESA BOND, 53, gay, has been seeking her at the high school reunions Rylin never attends. Rylin locates Teresa, and they plan a reunion on Galveston Island. While waiting to go, Rylin undertakes paintings of the remnants of the beach road she and Teresa travelled as teen-agers. In September, Rylin arrives at Galveston early to paint on the beach, where she sees and briefly talks to a man she is asked the next morning to describe to a detective, PATRICK GARRISON, who is investigating a homicide of the night before. When Teresa arrives, Rylin chooses not to inform her of the homicide; nor does she tell her later of two more sightings in town of the same man. The two go to the resort Teresa booked and take in tourist attractions of the town, including the 1900 Hurricane Museum and a nautical shop. Rylin drops off a painting to Heard’s Gallery, where JANET, the manager, is as interested in Rylin as in her paintings. When a hurricane enlarges in the Gulf, Rylin and Teresa choose to bet against the timing of landfall, to the chagrin of Teresa’s girlfriend at home, BRENDA, and the two are trapped on the island when the ferries break down and evacuations jam the highways. Forced to move further from the seawall, Rylin books the penthouse of the famous Tremont. She and Teresa become intimate there as the storm drops 14 feet of water on the city. Trapped for days after, Rylin paints Teresa as if she were Andromeda sacrificed to Poseidon, sparking a conversation about Teresa’s incest by her stepfather. Another conversation about their own relationship is impinged upon when Teresa finds out that Rylin has kept secret the homicide on the beach and the suspicions man. Once Teresa resolves her anger at Rylin, they leave with Teresa promising to see Rylin again and suggesting that Rylin pursue a stable relationship with the gallery manager, JANET. Rylin, driving home, recalls the summer Teresa came to her summer job on the beach road. The two walk off the dock together as the sun goes down behind the dock and a montage of Rylin’s series of beach road watercolors rolls out in sequence, a road before and behind them.