Firefly Beach (3 page)

Lou passed the ladies and began to ascend the stairs with Beth’s suitcase in tow.

“Put her in Mother’s room,” Mary called up to Lou. “She won’t be needing it.”

Beth cringed.

Mary’s face lit up in amusement. “Oh, dear, this isn’t the psycho mansion. My mother lives in Palm Beach. She won’t be visiting until later this month.”

Blushing, Beth followed Mary down the hallway. Several generations of family photos arranged in small groups decorated the walls. Pictures of the Schmidts’ three children – school photos, vacation photos and senior portraits – surrounded Lou and Mary’s wedding photo. Another cluster of photos celebrated their parents at various stages of life. There were other wedding photos, presumably those of Lou and Mary’s children, and a number of photos of toddlers, most likely grandchildren. Although she passed by the photos only briefly, Beth felt a momentary pang of regret for her solitary lifestyle, but Mary’s ceaseless chatter drowned out wistful thoughts.

“Anyway,” Mary pointed to a door. “You can wash up in here. The dining room is down the hall to your right.”

Beth stepped into the bathroom, splashed a little water on her face, smoothed back her hair, and washed her hands. She dried her face and hands with one of the four small hand towels arranged neatly in a small basket next to a dish of miniature soaps. She would have preferred to apply a little make-up and use a hairbrush, but the Schmidts’ hospitality made her feel at home. As she emerged from the bathroom, the smell of roasted chicken and potatoes made her realize how hungry she was.

She found the dining room and nearly gasped when she saw the table decorated and loaded as if it were Thanksgiving. “I hope you didn’t do all of this on my account.”

Mary laughed joyously. “Oh, just a flower arrangement and the cloth napkins on your behalf. The chicken’s been roasting since this afternoon.”

“We always eat like royalty,” Lou said, as he entered the room patting his protruding stomach.

“Sit, sit,” Mary said, gesturing to the chair next to the head of the table. Beth settled in next to Lou and across from Mary.

Dishes were passed back and forth, plates were loaded, and the glasses were tinkling with ice water. All the while Mary chatted boisterously, asking Beth dozens of questions about the drive, the house, and the weather. Beth answered as politely as she could. She was not comfortable sharing stories in vivid detail, and she had barely spoken at a dinner table setting for years.

“Anyway,” Mary said at one point, interrupting Beth’s hesitant response to a simple question. “If anyone gives you trouble about being
from away
and all, you just let me deal with them.”

Beth looked confused. “From away?” She suddenly felt self-conscious about her nonresident status. It hadn’t occurred to her to be concerned until that moment. “People don’t want me here? Will they threaten me?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Goodness, no. Lou, how do I describe it?” she asked, turning to her husband.

He shrugged.

Mary looked up at the ceiling. “It is just a feeling hanging in the air, you know, like a cloud of cigar smoke…a little stifling. We encountered it when we returned in 1992. Lou was in the Navy, you know. We lived all over. When we moved back, I had to put a couple of people in their place. Then the air cleared and things have been normal ever since.” She took a sip of water. “Remember Betsy Mallard, Lou?”

Lou groaned. “She was a piece of work.”

Mary turned to Beth and explained. “She was the town manager for a number of years. She was so full of herself. Unbelievable. Eventually the townspeople got sick of her. She didn’t last past 1995, I believe. But, anyway, at one town meeting, shortly after Lou and I were settling in, she started going on about ‘people from away,’ looking straight in my direction, you know, and I gave her a piece of my mind. ‘I’m a true Mainer, Mizz Mallard,’ I told her, drawing out the Ms. for dramatic effect. ‘It’s just that in all my
extensive
travels I’ve picked up a few ideas here and there that might be useful in Virginia Point.’ Ooh, that really got to her because, of course, she’s never been out of Maine in her life. And several of the selectmen were interested in what I had to say. It was a golden moment, I tell you. Pure gold.”

Beth feigned a smile. Town managers. Selectmen. She had no idea what Mary was talking about. Confused, she looked down at her plate and felt a bit out of place.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll win ‘em over,” Mary said enthusiastically. She took a large bite of chicken, paused for a moment, and changed the subject. “Anyway, so old man Rod let the plumbing go, huh?”

“Uh, yes, I guess so,” Beth replied.

“You can’t leave a house empty for six months and expect it to manage itself,” Mary said with disdain. “I don’t know what goes through that old geezer’s head sometimes.”

“Mary!” Lou scolded. “Mind your tongue. He’s our neighbor and a client.”

“Pfft,” Mary replied. “A fine client he is. He may be prompt with the check, but he needs a kick in the pants in the manners department.”

Beth listened with interest, delicately balancing peas on her spoon.

Mary took a sip of water and leaned toward Beth almost whispering, even though she knew perfectly well that Lou could hear her. “We have to mail him Lou’s invoices. Heaven forbid we drop by in person. He won’t even answer the door. I know when he’s there, the old coot. He just won’t answer the bell.” Mary enjoyed a bite of potato and a big gulp of water before resuming her character analysis. “It’s like he has no need to interact with other human beings.”

Beth looked down at her chicken and cut off a small bite. She took a brief inventory of the last ten years of her life and wondered if her acquaintances and co-workers would say the same things about her.

Mary prattled on, oblivious to Beth’s internal dialogue. “If it weren’t for people’s boats breaking down—” She interrupted herself, turned to Beth, and explained, “He fixes boats at the marina, but he spends most of his time on his own boat, tinkering and sailing.
The Bottomless Blue,
he calls it…the boat that is. A rather sad name if you ask me.” Mary took a sip of water and continued. “Anyway, if it weren’t for people’s boats breaking down, I don’t think he would talk to anyone, period. I don’t know what happened in his life to make him so cross. He’s got a few gears loose in his head if you ask me.”

“He’s just a lost soul,” Lou said.

Mary glared with little compassion. “You mean he’s lost his soul.” She took a bite of chicken and allowed a rare moment of silence. “My mother will tell you otherwise, dear,” she said to Beth. “Mother says he used to be quite a gentleman and a decent neighbor. I rather have my doubts. I vaguely remember him. I grew up here before I became a military wife and moved all over kingdom come.” She flashed an impish grin in Lou’s direction. “I believe he had a daughter in elementary school when Lou and I were in high school. Obviously she hightailed it out of here as soon as she could, the poor dear.” Mary sighed. “The man has no one, but it’s his own damn fault. He drives people away.”

Lou cleared his throat.

Mary ignored him. “It’s just as well he’s a hermit. I’d rather not have a conversation with the man, anyway. He gives me the willies, sucks all the good energy out of the room when he walks into it.” She toyed with her potatoes. “What do you think, Beth?”

Beth fidgeted in her chair. “I’ve never met him, actually,” she admitted.

Mary’s eyes flew wide open. “Heavens! You rented the cottage without meeting the man? That’s a whole new way of doing business.”

“We do it all the time, Mary,” Lou reminded his wife. He had a wry smile on his face.

“At least we meet them, eventually.”

“Yes. And we let them run all over our house.” He wiggled his fingers in Mary’s direction as if casting a spell.

Beth stifled a laugh. Mary scowled.

“Never mind her, Beth,” Lou said in response to Beth’s apprehensive expression. “He’s a good landlord. When things need fixing, he gets them done. He’s not very cordial about it, but he gets them done.” Lou scraped the last bite of potatoes and gravy onto his fork. “I’m sorry about the delay in getting your water back to running. The plumbing was last updated in the seventies. Old man Rod should have had me go over the house before you moved in. Houses that sit tend to develop kinks.”

“Old man Rod, indeed,” Mary snorted. “Old men that sit
also
develop kinks.”

“He hardly sits.” Lou corrected her. “The man’s not idle, just quiet that’s all.”

Mary glared at Lou and harrumphed under her breath.

Beth looked at the quarreling couple with some amusement. She broke the silence. “I’m surprised the cottage sat idle for so long. I mean it is an amazing location at a great price.”

Mary and Lou exchanged a look. “You may change your mind after you’ve dealt with Rod for a few months.”

“What were the last tenants like?” Beth ventured, trying to change the subject.

“The last ones were an odd bunch, a little family from New Jersey. They left after eight months or so. I think we were a bit too provincial for them,” Mary concluded. “The couple before them lived there almost eight years. They were such a nice family. But the kids moved out, they divorced. A sad story, really.”

Beth sighed quietly, feeling some empathy for the unknown woman with an empty nest and no companion. But that woman had more to show for her life than Beth did – grown children, a life of memories and scrapbooks. Beth’s only achievements were years of balanced books and tidy accounts.

“But we’ve never had ourselves a famous artiste,” Mary declared, raising her glass in Beth’s direction, as the three of them finished their meals.

“I’m not exactly—”

“Nonsense,” Mary interrupted. “Everybody else has one. It’s high time we had one of our own.”

Lou rolled his eyes.

“Where are the paintings, dear? Lou said you were bringing your paintings.”

Beth blushed. “Oh, I left them in the car,” she explained.

“For goodness sakes, go on and get them. I’ll put on some coffee and we’ll look over them in the parlor.”

Beth’s face turned bright red. She was anxious to get her artistic career off the ground but suddenly embarrassed at the thought of actually showing her paintings to strangers. “I…well—”

“Go along,” Mary commanded. “You can’t become famous if you’re going to be shy.”

Beth sighed and reluctantly retrieved the paintings from her car. When she returned, Mary was fussing over a tray of coffee and cookies on the glass table in the sitting room. Beth entered the room cautiously, toting her paintings. She slowly unwrapped them. First came the flowers, which did not seem to impress Mary, then the lighthouse. Mary’s eyes brightened.

“Oh, that’s lovely. How could you capture such a realistic portrait of a lighthouse while living in New Mexico?”

“Actually, I lived in Minnesota at the time. Lake Superior has some stunning lighthouses. We vacationed near the lake every summer. This is the Split Rock Lighthouse,” she said, pointing at the painting.

When she unwrapped the third painting, a soft oil image of her grandmother’s house with the afternoon sun brightly lighting up the flowers in the front garden, Mary gasped. “For the love of God, would you look at that. You absolutely must paint
The Cove.
I insist. I’ll pay top dollar. I want to be your first Virginia Point customer.” She gestured toward the antique desk in the foyer. “I could hang it right there over the guest sign-in table and get rid of that drab painting of the starfish.”

Beth was confused. Her eyes slowly followed the direction of Mary’s outstretched hand to the earth-toned painting of starfish on a beach that hung in the entryway. She tried to unscramble what had been said. It finally dawned on her that Mary must be referring to the inn as
The Cove
and that Beth was about to secure her very first commission as a professional artist. A huge smile formed on her face.

“I would love nothing more,” she replied, feeling that, finally, she had arrived.

* * * *

The following morning Beth awoke before dawn and welcomed the day with anticipation. She drove back to the house to retrieve her sketchpad and charcoal pencils and returned eager to draft
The Virginia Point Cove.
She grabbed a plastic lawn chair from the Schmidts’ backyard and sat across the street, her mind lost in her work until she saw Mary’s friendly face waving to her from the front porch.

“You can’t start the day on an empty stomach,” she scolded. “Come on in for breakfast, dear.”

Beth obeyed, bundling her art supplies in one hand and dragging the lawn chair in the other.

“Oh, leave it. No one on this block is going to steal that old thing.”

Beth smiled as she climbed the steps. She held out her preliminary sketch for Mary to review. An impulsive move, hardly characteristic of Beth; she was willing to expose herself and allow her unperfected work to be examined by a woman she barely knew. She made a mental note of that development, hoping it was a sign of growth, a testament to change.

“Oh my,” Mary cooed. “Here you are creating beautiful things before I’ve even finished drinking a cup of coffee. Come on in. I’m sure you’re famished by now.”

Beth enjoyed a delicious breakfast on the patio with the Schmidts before heading into town. She drove through the neighborhood, which consisted of an eclectic collection of homes from a variety of periods. Many included barn-shaped structures that had been converted into garages or guest quarters. Most of the houses were white with dark shutters. She also passed a bright blue colonial, several late twentieth century models in earth tones, and a dingy trailer with an unkempt yard.

Virginia Point was tucked in a sheltered cove to the north-northeast of the lighthouse. A breaker rock wall further protected the boats at the marina. Main Street modestly sloped toward the docks, and small stores and restaurants lined both sides. Every store had its own awning and at least one window box, yet none of them matched. Buildings from the mid to late nineteenth century blended from one to the next – a rebellious group of structures forced to connect, but each determined to retain its own unique style. Most of the buildings, whether constructed out of brick or wood, were painted white, while others used natural brick. Several buildings needed repairs or a fresh coat of paint.