Sea Glass Inn (11 page)

An idea started to form in Mel’s imagination, a way to give Pam a studio space while also creating a useful extra room for her inn.

And a way to selfishly have a chance to stay in touch with Pam after she moved back to her own home and completed the commissioned paintings. With her vision in mind, Mel began mentally listing the supplies she’d need to buy and the steps she’d have to take to complete the project. Her first step was to share her idea with Pam as soon as she got home.

❖

Mel drove Danny into town to pick up a pizza for dinner, and she left him in the living room hunting for a movie for them to watch while she took Piper back to Pam. She had noticed a now-familiar cloud of smoke in the backyard when she’d gone into the kitchen for pop and ice. The dog raced over to Pam for a brief reunion before she set off to explore the backyard. Mel followed more slowly, enjoying the sight of Pam leaning against the weathered madrona. The old tree had watched over countless guests at the old house, and Mel hoped it would see many more when she finally opened the Sea Glass Inn for business. She felt a kinship with the tree. Aged and battle scarred, observing life quietly from a distance. She could so easily picture Pam painting in the refinished studio while she and the madrona watched from the sidelines.

“Thanks for keeping Piper today,” Pam said once Mel was near.

“She’s easy company, and Danny loves dogs,” Mel said. “I hope you don’t mind we took her in the car.”

“Not at all. She likes to go for rides.” Pam exhaled a deep puff of smoke.

“How did it go with the contractor?” Mel asked. After her efforts to avoid Pam over the past few days, Mel was surprised to feel disappointment at the thought of Pam moving back home so soon.

Pam shrugged. “He’s starting work next week. Typical though, he won’t make any promises about how long it will take. Hopefully I won’t be in your hair too much longer.”

“I like having you here,” Mel admitted. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I got a call this morning from a couple who are planning a wedding in Cannon Beach. Their venue canceled at the last minute because of some water damage from the storm, and they want to have the ceremony here in a couple of weeks.”

“Oh, and you need me out of here by then,” Pam said, pushing off the tree and stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray she kept by the staircase to the beach.

“No.” Mel hastened to assure her. “They only need a couple of rooms for the weekend, so there’s plenty of space. But I need to fix up the backyard for the ceremony. And I wanted to get the windows and roof replaced on this old studio so we can have the reception here.”

Mel gestured at the sagging building next to them. She had walked through it after the phone call, and the framework seemed sound. New glass, some scrubbing of floors and walls, a fresh coat of paint. Nothing she couldn’t handle. When she had first arrived here, the project would have seemed impossible. Now she not only could visualize the necessary steps, but she had faith in her ability to actually do them. Even though she hadn’t done the work yet, her newfound self-confidence felt damned good.

Pam went over to the building and leaned against one of the empty window frames. “I can see that,” she said with a slow nod.

“It’s a good size for a reception room, and it’ll get lots of natural light. Sounds like a good investment if you want to draw more wedding parties here.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Mel said, excited to have Pam sharing her vision. “And when I’m not using it for guests, I thought it would make a nice studio for you.”

“What?” Pam turned to face her.

“I just thought…with the light and space…even when you move back home, you could use this place for painting.” Mel’s confidence in her plan rapidly disappeared as Pam’s entire demeanor seemed to shut down before her eyes. Pam crossed her arms over her chest, and her closed expression mirrored her body language. Pam got tense whenever her art was discussed, but there was always some sign of emotion visible behind her tight expression. Pain or reluctance or embarrassment, Mel wasn’t sure. But now Pam had shut off all connection. A brick wall wouldn’t have been more impenetrable. Mel didn’t want to admit she was reluctant to lose Pam’s company, and now she was afraid of losing even their still-young friendship, so she tried to use logic to convince Pam her idea wasn’t crazy.

“You don’t seem to have much room at your house to work. It wouldn’t cost you anything, of course, since it’d be nice for me… well, for my guests to walk by on the way to the beach and know you’re painting in here.”

Pam couldn’t believe what Mel was suggesting. “You want to put me on
display
?” Mel had already exposed too much of Pam’s private pain by forcing the commission on her and highlighting the infrequency of Pam’s inspired moments. Now she wanted a parade of guests to watch her stare at a blank canvas? Mel was creative and industrious and talented, and she was under the impression Pam was the same. Once she had been, but not now. But like Mel’s insistence on seeing the starfish painting in a hopeful, life-affirming way, she continued to believe Pam was capable of creating at will. Affirming her gift. Embracing it. Pam might be able to keep up her charade if she could get the commissioned work done and get out of Mel’s life, but working here every day—or, rather, sitting around not working every day—would expose her as the fraud she knew she was.

“No one would disturb you. It’d be a unique experience for people to watch a real artist at work, especially since your artwork is hanging in the rooms. Something to draw people to my inn, and a great advertisement for your gallery. And I’m sure you’d sell plenty of paintings. Guests will want to bring a piece of the ocean home with them, like I did when I bought your seascape.”

Pam leaned her hand on the madrona’s trunk for support. She felt as revealed and unprotected as the blood-red, barkless wood under her palm. Mel had changed the rules. A simple business deal had become an unacceptable obligation. Pam had to refuse the offer. Admit she couldn’t possibly be an artist in residence because she was no longer a true artist. Mel would see firsthand how Pam had failed her art, her talent. She couldn’t let Mel’s guests witness her disgrace, as well.

“I’ll make it a nice place for you. We can add lighting, and a heater so the temperature is good for your—”

“Listen, I don’t care if you add a hot tub and a steady supply of nude models. I am not going to entertain your guests for you.”

“I’m not asking you to draw caricatures of them riding surfboards.” Mel’s voice rose to match the angry tones Pam heard in her own. “I’ll have this big room sitting here empty most of the time, so why not let you use it?”

“Don’t do me any favors. I promised you the mosaics, and you’ll get them. But I don’t owe you anything beyond that.”

Pam whistled for Piper and stomped into the house. She paused at the bottom of the stairs. Danny was most likely in the living room, judging by the smell of pizza and the sound of television coming from that direction. Through the small windows by the back door, Pam could see Mel still standing by the madrona, looking out toward the ocean. Pam shook her head and trudged up the stairs with Piper at her heels. She didn’t belong here. She needed to finish her paintings and move back into her own home. Back to the solitude she had built around herself.

After Danny left on Sunday afternoon, Mel spent a self-indulgent evening in front of the television to help drive away the sudden quiet in the house. But on Monday morning she got back to work. She pulled a pile of new purple towels out of the dryer and started to fold them. Once she had hung Pam’s starfish painting on the lavender wall in the front bedroom, the rest of the décor had been easy for her to envision. She wanted to keep the rooms simple and uncluttered, with Pam’s mosaics as the main focus, and she had to be patient and wait for each new piece before she could finish the room around it. For some reason, Pam refused to be encouraged in her painting. Mel tried to be respectful of her talent and methods, but she still felt hurt by Pam’s indignant reaction to her offer of the studio.

She didn’t want to put Pam on display and charge admission, and she couldn’t understand why Pam was so opposed to letting anyone watch her paint. Mel had seen plenty of artists working in galleries or on boardwalks along the coast, and they didn’t seem to mind having an audience.

She carried the neat stack of towels upstairs and came to an abrupt halt on the landing. Pam stood in the oceanfront bedroom, her back to her seascape painting, actually holding a paintbrush and palette for the first time since she had come to stay in the inn. Mel held her breath, not wanting to disturb Pam even though the concentration on her face looked impossible to shake. Mel had a feeling she could march through the room playing a tuba and Pam wouldn’t even glance her way, but she didn’t move as she watched Pam swirl a brush across the canvas. Mel could only see the easel and the back of the canvas.

She was surprised to realize she wasn’t even curious about the subject of the painting, even though she had been anxiously waiting for Pam to get back to work. Somehow this moment was only about Pam and the act of creating. Not about the work of art.

Mel hugged the towels to her chest. She had recognized the strength in Pam’s other paintings, and she had expected the creative process to be one of passion, a bright red fury of action. But this was childlike and vulnerable, as if Pam were crying the paint onto the canvas. Mel backed up a couple of steps before she turned and crept down the stairs. Walking in on Pam naked would have been less a violation, and Mel suddenly understood why she couldn’t possibly be exposed while she worked. She wondered how Pam managed to return to normal after being so raw and open. Mel had thought her own chaotic emotions and personal upheaval had colored her interpretation of Pam’s paintings and made her find such intensity in them. Now she knew the power had come from Pam herself.

Pam caught a flash of color at the edge of her line of vision, and the thought of Mel hovered at the edge of her mind, but she pushed both aside and focused on the unfolding painting in front of her. She arced her brush across the canvas, outlining a curved trail of sea foam across the sand with a confusing sense of confidence. She had awoken with an image in her mind of a stormy sea, a world in turmoil, and she had unsuccessfully tried to ignore the insistent desire to paint.

She thought she needed to reproduce the storm that had broken her house and sent her to Mel’s, but instead, when she finally gave in and brought out her paints and drop cloth, she had immediately started sketching a debris-covered beach. Driftwood and shells, kelp and dirty foam. Sandpipers and gulls searching for food. Waves receding from the shattered beach. The aftermath of a storm. The meaningless destruction of a once beautiful and serene place.

Even though Mel had given her permission to paint anything she chose, Pam had nearly managed to convince herself that a raging storm wouldn’t be appropriate for the peaceful sanctuary Mel wanted to create. The logic of subject matter hadn’t been enough to stop the compelling need to put brush to canvas. Pam stepped back from the picture, the constant and tense movements of the past two hours replaced by a sudden sag of exhaustion. Looking at the completed painting, she decided the active fury of the storm itself would have been better than the impotent, passive anger left in its wake.

She had painted her own rage and hurt into the littered seascape, but maybe she would be the only one to notice. She was growing accustomed to the way Mel interpreted her work, so she might see a lovely place for a picnic where Pam saw nothing but her own pain.

Pain she felt because Mel had exposed her inability to paint by forcing the studio on her and because, simultaneously, Mel was breaking down the shields Pam had erected to keep herself from painting. Pain when she looked at Danny and instead saw only a reminder of her lost son and an image of the unfinished portrait she had of him. Pain when she sat at breakfast with Mel or passed her on the stairs with all the intimacy of a married couple. Pam set her palette and brushes aside and rubbed her arms. Her skin felt raw to the touch, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to step back into the world this way.

Pam took her box of sea glass and quietly headed down the stairs. Maybe she could steal past Mel, hide out behind the old house for an hour or so with only the sound of waves and circling seagulls for company. She was accustomed to being alone the few times she’d managed to paint over the past eight years. Before, when she had lived with Diane, she had learned to hide away from her company as well. Pam would be unprotected and vulnerable, still caught in the emotion of her art, while Diane would be moody and angry. Pam didn’t believe Mel would have the same issues of jealousy as Diane had, but Pam couldn’t trust Mel to understand how she felt, and she silently cursed when she came around the corner at the bottom of the stairwell and nearly ran into her.

“Oh, hi,” Mel said. “There’s soup on the stove if you’re hungry.

I’ll be working in the dining room and could use some help when you’re done. I guess I got used to company after having Danny here this weekend. And I…well, I thought you might not mind helping out today. Unless you’d rather be alone, go for a walk.”

Pam watched Mel disappear into the dining room without another word. The relief of not having to respond immediately left Pam a little more relaxed, and she realized she was hungry. She went into the kitchen and lifted the lid off the heavy enamel pot, taking a tentative sniff of its simmering contents. Not clam chowder, thank God. Seafood would have reminded her too much of her painting.

Tomato, but not the kind from a can like she usually made herself.

She dished up a bowl before settling at the kitchen table. She had noticed a basket of heirloom tomatoes on the counter this morning.

Mel must have magically transformed them into this velvety deep-red soup. Sweet and creamy and comforting. Soothing enough to help Pam relax and move on to the next stage of her mosaic.