Sea Glass Inn (12 page)

In between bites, she dug through the box of sea glass, looking for inspiration. She considered using whites and grays for the sea birds, or brown and black for the cliff face. Eventually she found herself pulling out an assortment of browns and greens, deep and murky colors. She would scatter them over the sandy beach on her painting, representing nothing but broken bits of sea glass left behind by the storm.

She finished her soup and left the pile of sea glass on the table.

She thought about slipping out the back door and taking Piper to the beach, but her curiosity and improving mood brought her to the dining room instead. This was the first time Mel had asked for help with any of her home-improvement projects, and Pam wondered what she’d be asked to do. Hopefully nothing requiring deep thought or decision making. The morning of painting had exhausted her, and even the simple task of choosing pieces of sea glass had depleted what little mental and emotional energy she had left.

She stopped in the doorway of the dining room, captured by the sight of Mel on a stepladder. She was carefully applying painter’s tape to the ceiling, leaning precariously to one side so her sweatshirt rode up and revealed a few inches of her small waist and smooth back. Pam stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans to keep them still. Not because she felt an urge to paint Mel, but because she wanted to touch her. The yearning to feel Mel’s skin under her palms surprised her.

She was about to sneak out of the room when Mel turned her head.

“Hi,” said Pam. “You needed help?”

Mel pointed at a pile of painting supplies with her free hand.

“I’m going to be painting the trim around the floorboards next, so it’d help if you could sand off the old paint.”

“Oh, okay,” Pam said, surprised. She had expected to be asked to do a chore requiring more strength or challenge, not one of the routine and simple tasks Mel always seemed to want to do on her own. She picked up a piece of sandpaper and settled on the floor with Piper beside her.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you about the studio,” Pam said after a few minutes. “It was a nice offer.”

“No problem,” Mel said as she moved the stepladder and climbed it again. She didn’t look at Pam. “I understand.”

Pam wasn’t sure what exactly Mel thought she understood, but she didn’t question her. She scrubbed at the carved molding, removing the faded and cracking paint. She settled into the silence and rhythm of her task, shifting position after each section was finished, and felt the tension of painting gradually ease out of her shoulders and mind. The work was mindless and repetitive as she slowly erased the ugly surface of the molding. Maybe she should worry about being caught up in Mel’s renovations, in her dream. Maybe she should be concerned that she’d be called on to complete more chores after this one. But she let it go. The room was quiet except for the occasional scrape of Mel’s stepladder or a snore from Piper. Companionship with no expectations. Pam focused on the steady sweep of her sandpaper as it gradually exposed the smooth grain of the wood beneath the old paint.

Pam sat cross-legged in the studio the next weekend, a sketch pad on her lap. Gaping holes, long since emptied of their windowpanes, let a light mist into the studio, but the roof still provided protection from the worst of the weather. Pam nibbled on the tip of a graphite pencil as she stared out at the overgrown backyard and listened to Mel and Danny chatting about his football game from the night before. She didn’t know why she was there. Well, she was there because Mel had asked her for a favor. What she didn’t know was why she had said yes. Guilt? She couldn’t accept Mel’s offer to use the studio for painting, but she could at least sit in it and sketch. She was giving Mel something. All she was capable of giving.

Mel hadn’t mentioned the studio since last weekend, but Pam thought about it every time she walked into the backyard. Of course it would be a perfect place for an artist to work when it was completed.

She had admitted as much the first time she saw it. Light and airy, it afforded a view of the ocean and would have the ever-changing panorama of a yard full of vacationers, once the inn was open for business. Couples strolling toward the beach, locked in their private worlds even as the whole horizon opened up before them. Children running through the yard, pulling kites or toys or their parents’ hands as they rushed headlong toward the ocean. A constant supply of subjects and inspiration. But not for Pam. Today Mel only wanted a rough draft, a general plan for her garden, and Pam wasn’t sure she could do even that small job. But the rubbery taste of her eraser, the dusky smell of graphite, took over. She slid her pencil across the pad, noticing every tiny bump in the lightly textured paper.

Pam drew an outline of the yard. She wasn’t a landscaper or a wedding planner. And who spent a rainy weekend in October gardening? She penciled in a stone walkway leading from the house to the beach access, then an offshoot path to the far corner of the yard. Pam sketched a small fountain in the corner. She could see the wedding taking place there, and a couple of wooden benches would make it an ideal place for guests to read or sit at other times of the year. Not that Pam planned to be around to see them. Once her house was fixed, the commission completed, Pam would be free to return to her quiet and comfortable life. Far away from the happy tourists who would eventually fill Mel’s inn.

The voices behind Pam faded away as she added a grassy area big enough for a game of croquet or a family barbecue. She feathered in fronds of hardy grasses and switched to a sharper pencil to draw the leaves of some rosebushes and ornamental plants. A few dwarf apple and maple trees would add height and texture, but they would be easy to maintain and would withstand coastal storms. And they wouldn’t block the light streaming into the studio. She didn’t draw the studio itself. Instead, she sketched a line to mark the edge of the yard.

When Pam finally set her pencil down, she realized Mel and Danny had stopped talking and were watching her.

“Awesome,” Danny said. “You drew so much detail, I bet I could find those plants at a nursery just from your sketch.”

“It is beautiful, Pam,” Mel added. She leaned over Pam’s shoulder and pointed at the fountain. “I love this private area. It’ll be perfect for the ceremony.”

Pam inhaled and caught the smell of roses, suddenly transported back to the morning when Mel had shown up at her bedroom door wearing only a robe. Wet hair, flushed skin, the curve of Mel’s breasts where the robe dipped open. Pam felt the tingle of Mel’s breath against her neck, calling her back to the present, and she wanted her own breath, her hands, her lips on Mel’s skin. Pam cleared her throat and looked out into the rainy yard. She had been focused on the vision in her head and hadn’t stopped to consider all the labor standing between reality and her finished sketch.

“Maybe I should make something simpler since you only have a week to get this done,” she said, flipping to a fresh page in her sketch pad.

“No,” Mel said as she snatched the pad from Pam’s hands.

She turned back to the drawing. “We’ll need to start by mowing the grass and cleaning out the old brush. Then we’ll cut out the path. I’ll measure and go buy the paving stones…”

She turned to a blank page and slipped the charcoal pencil from Pam’s unresisting fingers. Danny poked Pam in the ribs as Mel continued to list chores.

“See what you did?” he whispered. “We’ll be slaving away all afternoon.”

Pam still felt uncomfortable around Danny, but his easy familiarity softened her a little. He spoke like a put-out teenager, but he had driven to Cannon Beach that morning just so he could help Mel prep her inn for the upcoming wedding party. Even Pam could see how much he enjoyed being part of Mel’s new life. Pam stood apart, determined to keep her distance from Mel and Danny, but she was able to watch them interact. She was an outsider, allowed temporarily inside the family’s private world. They had experienced so many changes in the past months, and she could see how they anchored each other. Stability and trust. An unwavering faith that no matter what happened, they would always be mother and son.

Danny obviously loved his mother, but at times Pam saw him looking at Mel as if seeing her for the first time. And he was, in a way.

Seeing her not just as a parent but as a woman who was capable of following her dreams, working hard to make a better life. And while Mel never stepped out of her natural role as his mother, she also never hesitated to show her vulnerability, to admit when she didn’t know something or to ask his opinion, to let him share as they rebuilt their lives and renovated the inn. Pam was happy the two of them had found this common project to draw them closer. But she didn’t want to be involved. Their bond was strong, permanent. Their connection to Pam was circumstantial, transitory. Nice while it lasted, but not to be trusted. She’d made that mistake before.

“I probably should get back to the gallery since I left Lisa there alone,” she said, standing up and stretching her lower back.

Mel looked up from her list. “Lisa? You said she works for you every holiday season. And that your gallery doesn’t get really busy until Thanksgiving weekend.”

“Busted,” Danny said quietly.

Pam gave him a mock glare before turning back to Mel. “I really shouldn’t do manual labor. You wouldn’t want me to risk hurting my hands before I finish your paintings.”

Mel waved away her excuses. “I’m sure the next mosaics will have more depth of character after you’ve done some honest hard work.”

“‘Depth of character’ means you aren’t going to like what you’re about to do,” Danny said.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out myself,” Pam said. She was starting to enjoy the banter, especially since each interchange between her and Danny brought out a smile Mel couldn’t quite hide. “Okay, I give up. What do you want us to do?”

“Danny, you can run the lawnmower. I found a gas-powered one in the back of the garage, so no complaints. When I mowed last, I had to use the push mower. Start with these areas, where the path will go.

Pam can mark the boundaries of it, and I’ll measure and go buy the stones.”

Pam walked side by side with Danny out to the garage. She searched for something to say to break the silence, but she had no idea what a teenaged boy would want to talk about. He seemed comfortable with the silence as they cleared a path and pushed the lawnmower into the backyard.

“Hey, someone’s flying a kite in the rain,” he said, pointing toward the beach. A rainbow-colored box kite was barely visible at their height before it dipped out of sight.

“As long as there’s a breeze and it’s not pouring, you’ll see kites on the beach. Cannon Beach has a kite festival in April, and you’ll have a great view from up here.”

“I don’t want to watch, I want to fly one. Do you know how?”

Pam shrugged. “Sure. I usually make a few to sell in the gallery during the festival. There are always a few tourists who get caught up in the excitement, and they’ll pay a fortune for something unique.”

Danny checked the mower’s gas tank. “Maybe you can design one for me. A duck. A big green-and-yellow duck.”

Pam laughed. “I would have expected you to pick something fierce like a dragon or a tiger.”

“My school mascot and colors,” Danny explained. “Think you could make one?”

“Huh. I made an eagle kite last year. Just a variation of a delta, so it was easy to fly. No reason we couldn’t adapt the pattern and turn it into a duck.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Pam wanted to retract them. She wasn’t getting involved with this kid or his mom.

She was here for a few weeks, and then she’d be out of their lives. She tried to ease the panicky concern that she had made a commitment she had no intention of keeping by assuring herself Mel would be out of business and gone by then. Unfortunately, as the days passed she was having more and more trouble selling herself that lie. She hadn’t really believed it since Mel had painted her first bedrooms. Contrary to what Pam had expected, the work wasn’t breaking Mel down. It was building her up.

Danny appeared unaware of the internal chaos she felt simply because they had talked about possibly making a duck kite together.

He just said, “Cool,” and continued tightening bolts on the mower. He stood up and pulled the starter cord.

“You need to pull harder than that,” Pam suggested, ready for the noise of the mower so they could stop talking. Before she offered to do anything else with the kid.

“If I do, the cord’ll probably snap in two.”

“Well, if you don’t, it isn’t going to start,” Pam said, mimicking his smart tone.

He looked at her, his hands on his hips. Pam could see laughter in his eyes—so like Mel’s—but he seemed stubbornly prepared to refuse to move if she continued to tell him how to do his job. He got more than his eyes from his mother. “Then why don’t
you
take care of the mowing since you’re such an expert.”

Pam raised her hands in mock surrender. “Hey, your mom said you mow, I mark the path. I’m not going to disobey.”

Mel set the sketch pad on a dusty bench and watched her two laborers having a laughing argument over the ancient mower in the rain. Pam had seemed so reluctant to be around Danny, but he was slowly breaking down her barriers without even trying. Mel saw Pam’s body language soften and relax, mirroring the change in her speech patterns as she started to talk more normally, without the hesitation and reticence she had shown at first.

Mel brought some string and small stakes over to the patio.

She had been determined to prove she could do everything on her own when she started to renovate the inn, but there was something so much more satisfying about today’s project. She watched the odd parade move through her backyard—Pam in the lead as she showed where the meandering path should go, Danny behind with the old lawnmower, and Piper following them both with occasional yips as if she was concerned they might damage her yard. There was no way Mel could get all the yard work done in time for the wedding by herself, but her easy acceptance of this assistance made her nervous.