Driftwood Point (17 page)

“What you sorry for?” Ruby called back but did not turn around.

“For making you think about your children.”

“I think about them every day, child. Whether I talk about them or not. Always be with me, Lisbeth.”

Ruby continued to her sitting room, then closed the door quietly behind her. At the table, Lis picked up the wooden box, turned off all the lights in the store, and went up to bed.

LIS ROSE EARLY
the next morning, and before she went downstairs to the store, she walked to the
other end of the hall and opened the last door. Once Ruby and Harold's bedroom, it was now totally empty, the furniture all having been moved downstairs to Ruby's new living quarters. Lis opened the drapes on one side of the room and pulled up the shades, leaned on the wide windowsill, and gazed at the view. From here she could see the dunes and the bay, and in the distance, the green of the point. There were windows on two sides and plenty of light. She could work well here if need be, if Ruby okayed it, and there was no reason she wouldn't that Lis could think of. There was still another bedroom up here for Owen, should he return anytime soon.

Last night she'd tossed and turned in her sleep, and she recognized it as the restlessness she always felt when she'd gone too long without working. It had been almost a week since she'd held a brush in her hands, or felt the satisfaction of having mixed the exact shade she was looking for. She'd only planned on staying on the island until the reception. She'd come early to spend some time with Ruby, but deep inside, she knew that she'd needed a change of scenery. She'd been at loose ends since Ted moved out, not because she missed him, but because she felt out of place. After five years in the same apartment, two of those years with him, it felt stifling and she felt closed in, as if she no longer belonged there. Even the work she'd tried to do there didn't, well, didn't work. She wasn't satisfied with anything she'd done over the past three months, and hadn't finished anything new. For the first time since she
decided to be a working artist, she felt self-doubt creeping in.

Everything felt different since she arrived on the island, and she wasn't sure what that meant in the long run. Things seemed fresher, her ideas more vibrant. Had she gotten into such a rut that any change would seem epic? She thought about the works she'd left unfinished back in her apartment. Not one of them raised enthusiasm or that sense of joy she had when she was into her work and knew it was good.

The view out the window where she stood raised her pulse rate, just as the view from the pier on the point had made her heart beat faster and her plans to paint a portrait of Ruby excited her. The thought of working in the cottage—that made her soul sing.

“Know where you belong,”
Ruby always said.

Well, maybe just for a while, maybe for right now, she belonged here. There was so much for her to do that felt meaningful. Ruby's stories. The cottage. The joy that swept over her when she stood on the point and looked out at the bay. And Ruby wasn't getting any younger.

And then there was Alec.

“Unfinished business weighs on the soul and preys on the mind,”
Ruby had said.

Alec definitely felt like unfinished business.

Maybe it was time to return to New Jersey, gather her supplies, and bring them back to the island. She itched to work and she hated to waste time, especially when scenes were forming in her head and impatient
to take form, when Ruby's beautiful face was waiting to be memorialized.

In her mind, she was already packing up what she'd bring back, which palettes and papers and brushes. Her sketchbook. Antsy to get started, she headed for the stairs to share her plans with Ruby.

Chapter Nine

L
is gathered the mail that had spilled from her mailbox and piled on the floor in the vestibule outside her apartment and made a mental note to have her mail forwarded to Ruby's store for a while, how long she still wasn't sure. She turned the key in her door and went inside. It was so quiet and felt so empty that she was tempted to tiptoe. The air was still and stuffy, and the first thing she did was turn on the air-conditioning.

She checked her plants on the windowsill and found them in need of a good drink. Clara across the hall had offered to keep an eye on them, but apparently her idea of plant sitting and Lis's were not quite the same. Lis put down everything she ­carried—her bag, an overnight, the mail—and went into the kitchen. She filled a glass with water and poured generous amounts into the dry pots.

Her studio was in the small back room and it was there she went next. The door was closed, and inside everything was just as she'd left it. She should
have felt better about being there, surrounded by all she valued most. Instead, she felt more like a visitor, one who looked upon the room and all it held with a curious eye. How could things change so quickly in a week? How had she left here so recently, only to return feeling like a stranger looking into the details of someone else's life?

If the truth were to be told, the feeling of not belonging, of not feeling at home, began when she first started to realize that she and Ted were a huge mistake. It had grown from that moment until they parted, and had only intensified since. She'd been almost relieved to have received the invitation to exhibit her works in St. Dennis. She'd been wanting to escape, but hadn't been willing to admit it to herself until she had a reason to leave that had nothing to do with Ted.

The paintings stacked against the wall were all works in progress that she'd been unable to finish. The inspiration had been there once, but then . . . wasn't. She knelt down and pushed her hair behind her ears and went through them one by one. Nothing spoke to her. Nothing said, “Finish me. Finish me now!” Scenes from a park in winter, from a bridge, from a busy street corner in the city—all stood waiting for the brushstrokes that would complete their story, but looking at them now, Lis couldn't recall what those stories were. She debated if she should take them with her back to the island, but decided against it. Their straight lines and grays and blacks and muted greens would look out of place there, where the colors were the clearest blue of a cloudless
June sky and the deeper blue of the bay, the golds of the sand and the crayon box of colors that reflected the flowers that grew everywhere on Cannonball Island. With some reservation, she left them where they were.

She packed up what she thought she'd need and stacked her supplies near the front door, then went into her bedroom. Shorts and T-shirts were placed in piles on the bed, followed by several long tees to sleep in. She opened the closet and stared at the contents. She'd taken a sundress with her to the island for the reception, but had since decided she needed something special, dressier, something pretty and feminine. But the selection was meager, and almost all black except for a little brown number that she'd bought on sale two years ago and never wore because Ted said it made her skin look sallow, and she'd had to admit he'd been right about that. She pulled out one short black sleeveless sheath and held it up. Maybe. Shoes? Something strappy and high. She'd had a pair she bought last summer. After searching through one box after another, she remembered she'd loaned them to her friend Pam for a wedding she was going to. Lis found her phone in the bottom of her bag and pulled up Pam's number, then hit the call icon.

“Hello?” A voice that sounded oddly like Ted's picked up the call.

“This is Lis Parker. I was calling Pam?” she said uncertainly.

“Oh. Lis. How are you?” It
was
Ted. An awkward, uneasy Ted who most certainly wished he hadn't answered.

Ted and Pam? Pam and Ted? Seriously?

When had that happened?

“I . . . I'm good, Ted. You?” For a moment, Lis's mind went numb.

“Good. Listen, Pam's in the shower. Can I have her call you back?” Smoothly said, as if Lis were any other friend of Pam's who might have called.

“Ummm . . . no, that's okay. I'll catch up with her another time.”

“Okay, well, nice talking to you.”

The shock had worn off slowly, but once it did, Lis couldn't just fade away.

“Wait. Ted. You and Pam . . . ?”

“Ah . . . yeah.”

“I don't know what to say. Seriously? You're with Pam now?” Lis fought to keep the anger she felt from seeping into her voice lest he think it mattered to her.

“Ah . . . yeah. We're . . . ah, we're together.”

Did it matter to her?

“I thought you said she was fat and that her voice gave you a headache.” She couldn't stop herself.

Ted laughed uneasily.

“And you know, she always said you sweated too much and bored her to death. Sounds like you guys have found a way to get past all that.”

He cleared his throat. “Lis . . .”

“Well, it was nice chatting. Be sure to tell Pammie I called.”

Lis disconnected the call feeling just a tiny bit guilty for having been so petty, but really. Ted and Pam?

I never, never would have guessed the two of them would hook up, that I could be replaced so quickly
in his life, and by someone who professed to be my friend. And do I care, really? Aside from my feelings being singed, do I really care?
Is what I'm feeling anger or relief?

A little of both, maybe. But then again, it isn't as if I haven't already turned my gaze elsewhere.

Yeah, but Alec and Ted weren't besties.

Apparently, neither were Pam and I.

She wrote off the shoes—if Pam had been wearing them with Ted, Lis would set fire to them before she would ever put them on her feet again. Pam was welcome to her shoes and her ex.

But still. Ted and Pam? Her old yoga buddy Pam who couldn't keep a job to save her butt and who lived in a sparsely furnished apartment in Hoboken the size of a fishbowl? How was Ted coping with that? He'd thought Lis's two-bedroom flat was too small.

Not my problem, Lis told herself as she closed the closet door. Not anymore. She expected to feel worse than she did at that moment. After all, she and Ted had been together—had started planning a wedding . . .

No, they hadn't, she reminded herself. They should have been planning a wedding, but she was too busy to look for a dress or think about venues or flowers or any of the other things brides were supposed to be happily responsible for. The few times Ted had suggested they start thinking about where the ceremony should be, or when, she'd had an excuse to put him off.

Pam, on the other hand, looked at every first date
as a potential lifetime commitment, would tell anyone who'd listen that her goal was to find a husband before she turned thirty-five. If Lis remembered correctly, Pam's birthday was in October. She just might make it.

Lis sat on the edge of the bed and tried to look at the situation objectively. Did she miss Ted? No. Did she want him back? Good Lord, no. Would she miss Pam's friendship? She mulled that over for a moment or two. Not really.

“All righty, then.” Lis slapped her hands on her thighs, then stood and stretched. Onward.

She'd take the black dress and a pair of plain black heels, but she wasn't sold on either. There was that cute little boutique in St. Dennis, though. Maybe she'd find something there. If she couldn't find something different, her not-so-fashionable black dress and generic black heels would have to do. She packed them into a large canvas bag. She stuffed underwear and a pair of yoga pants in next to the dress, then carried the bag into the living room.

She and Ted had picked out the furniture—the sofa, two chairs, and several tables—when he first moved in with her. Or more accurately, they'd gone to pick out furniture together, but once they hit the store, it was Ted all the way. He'd shot down her choice of a small cozy sectional that she could see piled high with pretty pillows and went in search of black leather. She wouldn't have given the black leather sofa with its modern straight lines a second glance, but Ted was into watching TV and movies. In the end, she'd agreed because she knew she'd
never sit on it to watch television. When she had downtime, Lis preferred a good book to the shows Ted enjoyed, and she had a cushy chair in a corner of the bedroom for reading. Until then, she'd only had a desk and an antique round oak table and four chairs next to the bay window. Because she spent most of her time in her studio, she hadn't felt the need to furnish the front room before Ted moved in. Once he had, her things had been pushed aside to make room for his, the table and chairs being relegated to a corner. One of the first things Lis did after Ted moved out was to move her table and chairs back to the bay window.

She should probably email Ted and tell him to pick up the sofa and move it to Pam's apartment. Not that it would fit. She toyed with the idea of calling a moving company and having it delivered to Pam's apartment. Let her figure out what to do with the annoying thing. Both of them.

On the other hand, did she really want to pay to have Ted's things moved for him? Not really.

If Lis were to do the room over on her own, she'd do it in deep blues with touches of gray and gold. Maybe she'd do just that. Maybe now, on her own again, she'd spend less time in the studio and give herself more of a life. She'd spent so much time trying to convince Ted and everyone else she knew—including herself—that she was a serious artist that she rarely gave herself downtime. Now that she had nothing to prove, that she finally had acknowledged that she was not only good, but
damned
good, maybe she could give herself a break.

Then again, maybe the biggest break she could give herself would be to move to another apartment.

Of course, she could stay for as long as she liked with Ruby. The island had always given her a boost. Why had she stayed away so long? It would be easy to blame it on Ted, but that wouldn't be fair. She could have gone on her own to Cannonball Island. She wasn't sure why she never did.

There was nothing in the refrigerator that didn't have a layer of white fuzz growing on it. She tossed everything, considered calling for her favorite takeout, then grabbed her bag and left the apartment. Two blocks down, Curcio's served the best Italian in North Jersey. Just thinking about Lena's gnocchi made Lis's mouth water.

Cool air rushed out as she opened the door to the storefront restaurant. She took off her sunglasses and eased them to the top of her head. There were twenty tables, seven of which were occupied. She waited at the hostess station to be seated.

“Hey, girl. Where've you been?” Marianne Curcio, the owner's daughter, greeted her with a smile.

“Visiting family in Maryland,” Lis replied.

“Looks like you got a little color in your cheeks, on your arms. Looks good. Relatives must live near the ocean?” Marianne picked up a menu from the desk.

“Chesapeake Bay.” Lis grinned. “Better than the ocean.”

“Nothin's better than the ocean.” Marianne gestured for Lis to follow her to a table on the side of the room.

Out of habit, Lis glanced at the table in the front window.
Their
table, where she—she and Ted—had spent so many nights with a bottle of really good red and a plate of whatever Lena's specialty was that day.

“No, you're not sitting there.” Marianne dropped the menu on the table she'd selected for Lis. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, you heard . . . ?” Lis pulled out a chair and sat.

Marianne nodded. “Yeah, I heard. Straight from the horse's mouth.” Marianne leaned over the other chair at Lis's table. “You know that ass had the nerve to come in here with that skank—”

“It's okay, Mare. I know. My ex-friend and former yoga companion Pam.”

Marianne rolled her eyes. “Had the nerve to sit at that table with her. Seriously? After it was your spot for what, two years? Believe me, they got the worst service anyone ever had in this establishment. My mother didn't even want to cook for them.”

“Mare, it's okay. I don't care.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were true. Happily, gloriously true. “It isn't worth you losing customers over.”

“Sorry, some things are sacred.
The table
is sacred. You don't bring the new girl to the table you shared with your ex. It's a violation.”

Lis laughed, though she knew Marianne was serious.

“So what can I get you?”

“What are the specials?”

Marianne went over the menu and Lis settled on mushroom gnocchi in brown butter sauce and
a salad. Along with the salad, Marianne's mother brought Lis a glass of wine.