Sea Glass Inn (2 page)

What had she seen in the house? A chance to erase the nagging regrets she felt after a lifetime of self-denial and safety. To reinvent herself. To start over. But now, two months later, the reality was finally starting to surface. Mel headed toward a new life with the wrapped painting on the seat beside her and her earlier optimism lying in broken pieces in her heart. Desperate to regain some hope for the future, Mel pulled off the road when the shoulder widened. A sign marked it as a scenic-view spot, but all Mel could see beyond the trees were rain and clouds. She dug a business card and her cell phone out of her purse and hoped she had enough signal to make the call.

“Seascape Gallery.”

Two simple words, but the seductive sound of the gallery owner’s voice slammed Mel right back to that summer day.

“Hello?”

Mel raised her hand to her chest as if she could slow her racing heartbeat with her touch. She forced herself to start talking. “This is Melinda Andrews. I bought a mosaic from you in August. Do you remember me?”
Please say yes,
she added silently.

❖

Pam’s grip on the phone tightened. Of course she remembered Melinda Andrews. She could visually recall every person who had bought one of her paintings since she had opened the Seascape Art Gallery eight years ago. Of course, it helped that she had only sold seven of her own pieces amid the hundreds by other artists, but Pam would have remembered Melinda even if she hadn’t bought anything.

Pam could picture her distinctly from a few months earlier as she’d moved through the gallery wearing the excited glow reserved for tourists to the coastal town of Cannon Beach. Locals only came to Pam’s shop to complain about those tourists, and their irritation was usually reflected in their expressions. Pam had just walked out from the back of the shop, called by the chime on her door, when she’d seen Melinda standing by the front window. The sunlight caught something wistful, longing, in her eyes as she stood in front of the mosaic. Her carefully combed hair and too-pressed linen-and-silk outfit—a sure sign of a well-to-do traveler—had faded into the background as Pam had watched her connect with the blue-gold waves Pam had drawn.

Pam had known Melinda would buy the painting no matter what price she put on it.

“No,” Pam lied. She fought down her desire to sketch the slight curve of Mel’s nose, the sharper line of her chin, and instead doodled a series of connected triangles across a piece of paper. “I’m sorry, but I have so many customers it’s difficult to keep track of them all.”

“Oh. Of course.” Melinda’s voice didn’t mask disappointment well. “It doesn’t matter. The painting I bought is by an artist named Pamela Whitford. I’d like to buy a few more of her mosaics for my new inn. I bought an old house and I’ll be running it as a bed-and-breakfast. I’m calling it the Sea Glass Inn, so I’d like to have some art using sea glass in each of the rooms. Do you have more of her work in your gallery?”

Her sentences ran together as if she needed to spit them out as quickly as possible. Pam couldn’t tell if Mel’s haste was due to nervousness or excitement, but she knew for certain it should have been the former. New businesses were as common as seagulls on the coast. She had seen so many people, drawn to what they imagined was some idyllic way of life, attempt to open a little surf shop or inn or restaurant. They expected to wander through town in sandals and cutoffs and make money off tourists without stress. But, over and over, Pam had watched the businesses pick their owners clean and leave their empty carcasses on the sand, like gulls pecking at seashells. The long hours spent catering to the tourists during the high season. The creative effort needed to survive the rest of the year. Pam knew from experience that the schedule was grueling even for someone driven heart and soul to support her ocean-side, reclusive life. She accepted the workload, but she hadn’t come to Cannon Beach expecting paradise or an easy life free from pain. So she hadn’t been disappointed.

“Congratulations,” Pam said, silently adding the words Melinda really needed to hear.
Oh, honey. Back out of the deal while you can. You’ll be bankrupt before the next tourist season even starts
. “I don’t have any Whitfords in the gallery right now, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find something here to decorate your rooms.”

“I guess…maybe…but I really wanted…” Her words died away and Pam forced herself to remain silent. “If I could just get in touch with her, maybe she’d take a commission for more paintings.”

“She’s difficult to reach.” Pam hedged, not wanting to admit she was the artist Melinda was trying so desperately to find. Pam couldn’t accept a commission for more work when she could barely finish one painting a year. She started them frequently and would lose herself for a brief time until something broke her focus and the deceit of painting would come rushing back to her conscious mind. And make her stop.

How could she create something so lasting, so permanent, when she knew too well how transitory beauty and love really were? All she could promise Melinda was a big enough pile of broken canvases to fuel a decent beach fire.

“But I’ll try,” Pam said.

Pam didn’t know why she made the weak promise, but Melinda accepted it with obvious gratitude. Pam hung up after taking down her cell number and sat behind the front desk, her hand stiff from holding the phone so tightly. She looked at the paper on the counter and sighed. She had scrawled Melinda’s number and a series of geometric patterns in ink across the consignment form for a group of seal sculptures. She folded the paper and tucked it behind the register.

Now she’d have to ask the artist to sign a new form. And find a way to disappoint the beautiful Melinda.

Pam rarely had trouble disappointing people who wanted her paintings, and she was surprised by her reluctance to do so to Melinda. Even more surprising, Pam wanted to see her again, to draw her, maybe in pastels. Pam chose a pale green background to set off Melinda’s hazel eyes and the chestnut tones in her dark hair before she could stop herself. She had painted hundreds of portraits, had made a living at it, but there were very few people she had felt this yearning, this
itch
to paint. Not to capture Melinda’s beauty—Pam had seen plenty of gorgeous women, but she was usually content to admire and appreciate them in person, in the flesh, in bed. But Melinda offered something more, something Pam couldn’t define. Something she didn’t
want
to define but that her disloyal hand wanted to grab onto, suffuse with color and texture. Melinda had stood here, determined to look at Pam’s painting and not only accept the wave’s destructive power but to uncover the hope in it, while Pam—unable even to glance at her own work—had listened to her and almost believed.

A group of three twentysomething women entered the gallery.

Pam’s part-time assistant, Lisa, sat at a table surrounded by colored pencils. She was chewing on the end of her long blond ponytail and working on a drawing, but she stood up to greet the customers. Pam waved her back to her seat. Lisa more than earned her wages during the busy tourist seasons, and Pam liked to give her time and space to work on her own art when business was slow. Besides, she needed a distraction from Melinda.

She walked over to the women and smiled with more enthusiasm than she felt when the one with long dark hair made eye contact. She was too young for Pam’s usual taste, and within a few minutes Pam knew they didn’t share any artistic values. The three were immediately drawn to the cheap, mass-produced—but popular—trinkets and prints Pam carried out of necessity. They bypassed the original, quality pieces by talented local artists without even a glance. But the dark-haired woman glanced at Pam again, for a few seconds longer than before. Pam’s hands still tingled from the imagined contact as she posed Melinda for her portrait. Shifting Melinda’s shoulders so her face caught the light. Unbuttoning the top of her silky blouse and letting her hands linger as they exposed her neck a little more. Pam forced an image of the dark-haired tourist into her fantasy, and she was relieved to feel the too-intense physical arousal caused by Melinda’s phone call ease into something safer. Something sufficient for tonight.

“Where are you ladies from?” Pam asked, directing the question only to the woman cruising her.

“Portland,” she said. “We had a long weekend off work, so we came here for a few days.”

Pam smiled again. Temporary. Exactly what she was looking for.

Mel woke with the sun the following morning. She had arrived at the house the night before, thankfully when it was too dark to see just how bad her present circumstances were. The real estate agent had accepted delivery of her belongings, apparently instructing the movers to dump everything just inside the door. Mel had turned on as few lights as possible and had torn the protective plastic off her mattress and dropped it on the living-room floor so she had someplace to sleep. Now she wanted nothing more than to pull the blanket over her head and pretend she was safely back in her old life, but the relentless and unexpected sunlight streaming through the curtainless windows forced her to get up.

Boxes and furniture spilled out of the foyer and into the living and dining areas of the house. Barely enough to furnish one or two of the guest rooms, but quite enough to be annoyingly in the way. Mel squeezed past a bed frame and two mismatched end tables and found her overnight bag where she had left it next to the front door. She suspected most of the unwanted residents of her new house—the mice and spiders she was certain occupied the abandoned building—would congregate in the downstairs suite that would be her private part of the house, so she decided to use one of the upstairs guest rooms for her shower.

Faded strips of green wallpaper curled off the wall, exposing dingy yellow paper underneath. The fixtures were coated with grime, and hard-water marks stained the sink and tub. But the shower worked and the toilet flushed. She was thankful for the small gift of functional plumbing as she stood under the spray of hot water and tried not to touch the sides of the shower stall. A wave of resentment rose like a fist in her throat, no matter how hard she tried to swallow it down.

She hadn’t been overly happy in her Salem home, but at least she had had
something
there. A routine, a role that had defined her. Here she had nothing but an endless list of impossible chores. Nothing but a life wiped clean and demanding to be rewritten in every detail, from where she did her grocery shopping, put gas in her car, or got her hair cut to how she organized the rhythm of her days. Here she was alone.

Mel dried off with a towel she had luckily thought to bring. She took a carefully folded and coordinated pastel-colored outfit from her small suitcase and shook out the wrinkles before she put it on. She had packed for an afternoon of shopping and brunch, not a day full of dusty, dirty work. She sighed at the naiveté she had still possessed less than twenty-four hours ago. When she had first walked through the house, she had been full of dreams of the future. Now all she could think of was the past. From where she stood, overwhelmed and unprepared, the loveless but predictable life she had left suddenly looked safe and appealing.

Then she walked out of the bathroom and stopped short, an involuntary gasp escaping her lips as she really noticed her surroundings for the first time. Sunlight, even though autumn weak and diffused by clouds, streamed into the large corner bedroom. The two west-facing windows showed an expanse of ocean beach. Mel stepped closer. Haystack Rock was to her right, buffeted by the spray of waves. A steep staircase of weathered wood led from her backyard to the beach, winding between two small ocean cottages that were low enough so they didn’t obstruct her view. A lone woman, bundled in a heavy coat and with her long hair blowing free in the wind, walked along the sand and occasionally stopped to throw a piece of driftwood for her dog. The relentless sound of the surf finally reached past Mel’s daydreams and regrets and brought her back to the present with the constancy of a heartbeat.

Mel struggled with the rusty clasp and tugged until the reluctant window opened. Just a few inches, but it was enough. The ocean breeze brushed her skin with a hint of moisture, of salt. The briny smell of seaweed, strewn across the damp sand in lacy patterns, chased away the musty smell of the long-enclosed room. Mel smiled when a seagull took off noisily from the beach, scolding the dog that ran past it in search of its stick. Yes, she had been deluding herself about the state of the house and her ability to restore it. But the ocean of her daydreams, the setting she had chosen for her new life, was real and tangible and perfect. She felt a renewed surge of hope. She would hang Whitford’s seascape in this room, across from this magnificent view and over the space where the guest bed would eventually be.

One easy job, one step toward recreating her life in this beautiful place. Mel trotted down the steps to hunt through her boxes for a hammer and nail.

❖

Pam drove to the old Lighthouse Inn and parked behind a mud-spattered blue Honda. During an emergency trip to Cannon Beach’s tiny—and expensive—grocery store, she had been flagged down by another local gallery owner, the head of the town’s art commission.

Pam usually shopped at the Safeway in Seaside where she could shop in anonymity, less likely to be forced into conversation with an acquaintance, but she had picked a particularly bad day to run out of cigarettes. She had no polite way to avoid talking to Tia Bell, so she had forced a smile on her face and obediently crossed the quiet street to the art gallery. Instead of asking the usual intrusive questions about Pam’s painting, however, Tia had only wanted to chat about the foolish woman who was attempting to start a new B and B in town. The entrepreneurs who descended on the town every year were alternately a joke and a source of irritation to locals. Each year there were a few new ones who came into town and provided entertaining stories of spectacular failures. Pam had done her share of joking and complaining about the fly-by-night ventures, but she was always aware of the undercurrent of concern shared by the local business owners and the nervousness they all felt when empty storefronts and out-of-business signs marred the small town’s prosperous and utopian image, intruding on the attempt to shield happy vacationers from the realities and failure.