by Amber Burns
He picked up the coffee when she passed it to him. Annabelle cocked her head to the side.
“Wow, I had no idea, did he sell it?”
“No sweet-pea, Andy passed away.”
It was a shock to Annabelle, because through working in her father’s shop during season time she had gotten to know everybody who spent time in Crystal beach. Andy had always been sweet to her since she was a little girl, and she had watched the old house fall to ruin over the past few years because he hadn’t been here all that much. People had come to repair the worst of the storm damage after the Hurricane, but there had been no presence other than that.
“I have done so many sketches of that old house…” She trailed off in thought.
Her father stood and patted her on the shoulder.
“I know honey. Well I’d best get back to my place before it gets too late, just thought I’d check on you.”
She let him out and then locked the door, kicked off the sandals she’d been wearing all day and walked back toward the kitchen to pour a glass of wine, her bare feet padding on the rough-hewn wood floors of the passage and kitchen. Annabelle curled up on the couch in her lounge with her glass of wine and then sat staring blankly at the vase of roses on her coffee table.
Annabelle had received a bouquet of baby pink, medium pink and darker blush colored roses for the past two years from Malcolm Evans, the man who’d broken her heart. It was the memorial of her mother’s death, and even though the gesture was kind, it grated at her that he felt he had the right to remember the death of someone she loved so dearly, especially because to her this was a reminder of his betrayal.
A tear ran down her cheek and she reached up to wipe it away on her sleeve. Her mother had died of breast cancer three years ago, while Malcolm was still a part of her life. He had decided soon after that to find solace from Annabelle’s sorrow and depression in the arms, and between the thighs of his personal assistant. His actions broke up the relationship, ending an engagement that was one month away from a wedding, and bringing her life to an almost grinding halt.
If it hadn’t been for her art, art students and the house she now lived in alone, Annabelle might have gone insane. She rubbed her eyes and looked toward the painting against the side wall of her lounge, it was a landscape of Crystal beach, and sure as she’d told her father, it was one of the many she had done of the Lechat house. For some reason she had always been drawn to the property, and yet, she’d never been inside it. Even though Andy, or ‘Uncle Andy’ as all the local kids had called him, was always friendly, she had never visited, only painted the house from a distance.
With a heavy sigh she stood and walked down the passage to climb up the stairs and go to her bedroom, she needed a soak in the bath to unwind and help her get to the point of being able to sleep. She’d have a long day ahead in the shop tomorrow.
Annabelle stripped herself and turned the faucets to let both hot and cold water run into the Victorian tub in her bathroom. She had done very little to this house since her father had moved out after the death of her mother, pleading that there were simply too many memories here for him. This particular property was one of the few seafront houses that was a double-story. The only change she had made was to incorporate the upstairs bathroom into her own bedroom, making it an on-suite.
Steam filled the room once she closed the door, and she breathed deeply the relaxing scent of the Jasmine oil as she poured it into the tub. The full length mirror against the wall above the sink foggily reflected her pale and thin shape with small pert breasts and when she wiped the mist from its surface, her turquoise blue eyes, stark against her dark red-brown hair.
“Oh why would anyone want such a waif when tanned, toned and perfect girls flood the beach every season?” She muttered, climbing into the bath and closing off the faucets.
Since the sordid business with Malcolm, her self-confidence had all but vanished. She had thought he loved her unconditionally and found her attractive. She had also thought that when a man truly loved a woman he supported her through thick and thin, and didn’t abandon her in tough times. But when her mother had died and grief had become too much, instead of comforting her, Malcolm had run off to his assistant’s arms for distraction. Annabelle had caught them in his office one evening when he was ‘working late’ and she’d wanted to surprise him with dinner in a thoughtful gesture.
Part of his list of many excuses had been a mention of ‘you don’t look after yourself anymore’ and ‘I don’t like your skinny-ness’ after she had lost all the curves. It had left her broken and retreating into her shell. She had not been with another man since, and Malcolm had been her first. These things can destroy a young girl, she was only twenty three at the moment, and had just turned 21 when he left. Annabelle sank back against the porcelain, warmed by the heat of the water. Her eyes closed in absolute bliss as she tried to let the thoughts of him leave her head, thinking instead of the destroyed old Lechat house, and vowing to have a look at it when she walked the next evening.
She slept restlessly that night, haunted by the image of her mother, warning her that Malcolm was no good, and when she woke she had tears on her cheeks.
“I should have listened to you mommy.”
It was only five AM, but Annabelle got out of bed and went to make herself coffee. Unlocking the front door, she sat on her porch gazing out at the ocean in the pre-morning darkness and watched the sunrise over the horizon. The peace lasted an hour before she had to go and get dressed for work. Once she could no longer put it off, Annabelle hopped into her jeans and pulled a T-shirt over her head. She grasped her hair together in a long ponytail on top of her head and then pulled it through the loop of the elastic again; making a loose bun. Annabelle grabbed her sneakers, put them on and then headed for the door. She drove her little VW Beetle to the University in Galveston, where she tutored students in the fine arts department, and parked in the lot.
Her students, five of them today, waited in the small classroom the university had assigned her, and all greeted her with smiles as she walked in.
“Hey guys, ready to work on some detailed trees?”
Her students all nodded, stood to fetch easels and charcoal pencils, and then all found seats to get to work. She spent two hours with them before leaving to head back home, stopping at her father’s store to check on things there.
When Annabelle walked along the beach that evening, her bare feet sunk into the cold sand with each step. She stopped to look toward the Lechat house and stood for a while gazing at it in the fading evening light. It was so isolated along this stretch of beach, so few people had rebuilt after their homes were destroyed in the Hurricane. With that thought she smiled, it was just as isolated as she was, and she enjoyed the quiet.
Crystal Beach was a popular spot during the holiday season, but the folks who lived here year-round struggled to make ends meet unless they had external jobs in Galveston or surrounds. Looking at the old house now she could see the broken shutters and stairs even from this distance, and felt genuine pity for the person who got stuck with the place. It would need a seriously large amount of tender loving care to look good again from outside, and who knew what state the inside was in.
She turned back toward her house and slowly walked home, stopping periodically to look out at the sea, watching the waves break on the beach. The swells were getting bigger again, and she looked up at the sky, wondering if there was a storm coming. These walks were cathartic and kept the depression and loneliness at bay some days when she felt overwhelmed by life. She smiled as she caught sight of the thunderheads building over the distant horizon, and jumped as a flash of lightning shot down into the ocean, the rumble of the thunder only slightly delayed. Just as she stepped onto her porch a huge raindrop struck her on the nose, and she shook her head, running under the roof of the porch for shelter.
Standing barely covered from the oncoming rain, an idea occurred to Annabelle, and she ran into the house to grab her art supplies.
At the same time she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders against the sudden cold. She carried her easel and box of paints outside, and as the clouds got darker, her brushes made music on canvas. The image that was there when she finally finished by the porch light, was that of a stormy sky, the full moon peeking out from behind ghostly clouds, and waves crashing onto powder-white sand.
Annabelle carried her supplies back inside and set the painting in a corner to dry, standing back to admire the work once she’d locked the door. It was dark and more moody than anything she’d done before, but it was perfect. She stripped off her damp clothes as she walked up the stairs, and spent a full hour soaking in the tub to wash the oil paints off her skin. With a shudder she stepped out of the blue-grey water that had grown cool and toweled herself dry. Dry and naked, Annabelle fell into her.
Annabelle woke up still tired the next morning, and later than usual too. She crawled out of bed after seven. She felt as though she was dragging lead around in her shoes the whole day while she packed shelves with books and records. The wine racks were always pleasant, she had a fondness for fine wines, both enjoying a glass in the evening and also knowing as much as she could about them. Her mother had wanted her well educated in all fine things, books, music and wine being a few.
She selected a bottle of Bordeaux to take home for herself and by three o’clock kissed her father’s stubbly cheek and begged her leave.
“I’m sorry daddy, I didn’t sleep well last night and I am so tired I can’t see straight, is it okay if I go home for the day?
In a few weeks time, rumors started spreading around Crystal Beach about the new occupant of the Lechat house. Word was that he was an army vet, from Afghanistan. Others said that he screamed in the night so loudly that the houses miles away heard him in the dark. Even more gossip said that he had a drug problem, one that started in a Galveston boarding house, and was fuelled by a local dealer. Then there were the rumors that he was the one dealing… A few said he was ugly as sin, and even more that he was exactly the opposite. Annabelle never did trust local gossip.
Annabelle continued going on her walks and working in the store to ready it for the holiday season that was starting in a few weeks. She spent her days tutoring her students and in the evening she painted her pictures. During any moments in-between, she dreamt of love. She dreamt and wished for a good, pure and caring kind of love, and simultaneously felt that she didn’t deserve it.
The days turned into a blur until one evening when she was walking along the beach and turned to face the Lechat house for the first time in ages. She was surprised to see a new coat of paint and the repaired shutters. She shook her head and smiled, walking on. Surely a drug dealing loser and a person with a using problem wouldn’t make the effort to repair and beatify a house?
She watched each day as Crystal Beach started slowly filling with the holiday occupants, campers and vacationers. Slowly but surely things started speeding up at the store. Despite the changes with the oncoming busy season, Annabelle still took her walks. And every evening on her walks she gazed up toward the house furtively, hoping no one was watching her as she looked in that direction.
As Annabelle stood at the edge of the beach though, she could feel eyes on her, but there were no other houses along this stretch of beach, and she could see nobody in the light of the house’s porch when she looked that way. The feeling of being looked at lingered as she walked back to her house though, and her curiosity about the occupant of the lone house was growing, against her will.
“What is it about mysterious bad boys…” She walked off muttering.
Annabelle was sitting behind the check-out counter reading an interior decorating magazine, when the door’s little bell rang to alert her that a customer had walked in. She looked up into the face of a man she immediately felt she needed to know.
“Good morning, you’re new around here, aren’t you?” She simply greeted, smiling.
He stuttered and stammered like an idiot and walked off.
When he came back to the check-out, the first thing she noticed was kitten food. He looked like a real badass; there were tattoos peeking out from under his shirt at the shoulders, as well as on his forearms. She chuckled at the juxtaposition.
“Ready to try that talking thing again?” She said, brushing a strand of her long hair behind her ear.
The man paused as she rang up his items and he cleared his throat self-consciously.
“About that, I’m sorry. It’s just that I see you walking along the beach every evening from my house’s porch, and I never expected to see you face-to-face. Your walks have almost become as much my ritual as yours…”
Annabelle didn’t show just how taken aback she was; he had been the one watching her! He was the rumored Army vet now living at the Lechat house. She finished ringing up the purchases, and they chatted a little, and by the time he left she knew he was the one for her.
Though she had only seen him for a few minutes, Annabelle was already in love with this man. She watched him leave the shop, his muscular back moving under his shirt as he walked away from her. She sat there staring at him disappear out through the door.
“A guy like that would have his pick of the holiday girls that came here,” she thought to herself.
The thought made her a bit sad. She never saw how he hesitated at the door as though he wanted to come back and talk to her for a longer time, or the emotion in his eyes that would have mirrored her own and perhaps been even stronger if she had looked deeper into them for a moment. His name was Michel, and she remember just how he said it.
“That was French wasn’t it?” She questioned herself. “He must be Andy Lechat’s relation if he was living in the house… the rumored nephew I use to hear about.”
She took a deep breath and put him from her mind. She was still young, and if a man was meant to come along, one would. Yet throughout the day found herself thinking of and daydreaming about the man she had just met. She had images of the tattooed soldier holding a kitten, and like it or not, she smiled at the thought.
5
I sat on the porch rail waiting and looking at my watch. Armand was draped over my shoulder purring his little Mustang-engine purr, and life was good. He was now eating soft kitten food, and slept on my face if I gave him half a chance. If not he curled up in my neck each night, still a tiny little thing. The only thing missing from my evening was the figure down the beach, because now that I’d made her acquaintance, I needed more than just to see her in the far-off distance.
I needed more of the wind-chime voice, and more of the turquoise eyes. I was dying to run my hands through the long hair that burned with fire in the early evening rays of sun. I sat there and stroked Armand, and as I looked up and down the beach in expectation, my heart sank when she didn’t come by six. I took the kitten back inside and picked up a bottle of wine I’d bought from the store where she worked; un-corked it and taking a whiff. It smelled divine, but I knew nothing about wine, and simply poured a glass. I read the name, Pinot Grigio, and took a sip. Yum.
So my evening consisted of watching news updates of what was currently happening in Afghanistan, with a glass of wine, and a cat on my lap. I had avoided the news to date, because I didn’t want to have those nightmares again. They were only just fading without medication-induced sleep. At the first footage of a bomb blast I flicked a switch on the remote and the image flashed off. I didn’t need this shit again. I stood up and walked outside in the near-dark and stood on the porch. It was almost seven, but the sun set late this time of year, and surely, there she stood, staring out to the sea.
I put Armand down, shooed him inside to close the door, and left my glass on a small table that stood by the porch furniture. I jogged down the steps and then walked toward her, my heart virtually stopping as the scent of her perfume drifted to me on the evening breeze. It was the smell of fresh apples and roses, strawberries and happiness. I frowned.
“What the fuck? I sound like a fucking wo
man,” I thought to myself.
She turned toward me and smiled.
“Hey, um, are you okay?” She asked. “You look like you are about to kick yourself, or turn back around and run away from me. I don’t bite, promise.”
Then the sound of tinkling laughter crossed her lips, the most beautiful laughter ever. It was light, sweet and full of innocence. I straightened myself out and crossed my arms defensively,
“I was thinking, sorry to intrude on your privacy, but I just had this urge…”
I didn’t really know what else to say.
I sat down in the sand near her and simply breathed, perhaps the awkwardness would sort itself out. She looked down at me and then plopped herself down in the sand about a foot and a half away.
“Why did you come out here Michel?” She said softly, a note of fear and unease in her voice.
“I have wanted to talk to you since I started seeing you walk along this beach every evening. There’s just something so deeply sad in the way you hold yourself when you stop here, at this spot, to stare out at the sea.” I shrugged. “I guess in a way the manner in which you move makes me think of how I feel some days. And then I saw you in the shop, and, well…”