The Beach at Painter's Cove

by Shelley Noble

  “Nothing. Nothing.” Fae pushed back her chair. “Let’s get these dishes cleared if you want the parlor floors cleaned before your colleague arrives.”

  Stephanie walked slowly next to Grammy. She didn’t want to hover. Be like one of those helicopter moms. But Grammy needed someone to help her.

  They went into Grammy’s bedroom and Grammy thanked her, but she didn’t leave. She loved this room with its big bed and shiny satin comforter, the big wooden wardrobe and the funny plastic chairs that some famous friend had made for them. It was like being in a fun house, Grammy’s bedroom.

  She helped Grammy to get on her bed and then took her shoes off for her.

  Grammy was so sweet and smiled and thanked her, but Steph began to feel a little sick.

  “Grammy?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Do you know who I am?” Steph held her breath, silently chanting please, please, please.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Who?”

  Grammy looked at her with those bright loving eyes. “You’re my dear sweet girl.”

  “What’s my name, Grammy?”

  “Your name?”

  Steph couldn’t control her mouth. It twisted all ugly. “Please.”

  “You’re Stephanie, silly. Did you forget?”

  Steph shook her head, tears of relief rolling down her cheeks.

  “Oh, dear, come sit beside me and tell Grammy what’s wrong.”

  Steph climbed up on the bed. “I want to stay with you and Aunt Fae forever.” She leaned her head on Grammy’s shoulder and Grammy rocked them both side to side.

  “Well, my dear, nobody can stay here forever.”

  “Please say I can stay.”

  “It’s not possible, Issy. It’s time for you to go. There’s a whole world waiting for you. A world you’ll miss if you stay here with all these crazy artists. You have to go. You’ll love college. Besides, everyone wanted to go, it’s not right to keep you.

  “I’m tired now, Issy. Have Mrs. Norcroft help with your luggage and I’ll have a little nap.”

  Steph slid off the bed, her nose was running. “Please Grammy.”

  Grammy lay back against her pillows. “We lost Max and then we lost Jillian and George. Wes says we have to let you go or we’ll lose you, too. And we love you so much.”

  Grammy closed her eyes and Steph stumbled to the door. Stood in the hall. And then flew down the stairs to Aunt Fae and Issy.

  “She didn’t know me,” Steph choked out as she burst into the kitchen. Fae turned around in time to catch her in her arms.

  “Oh God,” Fae said, and sat in the nearest chair, taking Steph with her. Steph clung to her, crying, while Issy looked on helplessly.

  Then it was true, the little lapses that she’d noticed and dismissed as consequences of Leo’s fall. Issy groped for the nearest chair, pulled it next to Fae and Steph, and sat. She’d known it, from the first day, she’d known something wasn’t quite right.

  Fae pulled Issy close and the three of them sat together while Stephanie sobbed. Being together; sharing that moment when denial is shattered by devastating realization.

  When Steph finally calmed, Fae said, “Tell us what happened.”

  Steph sniffed, Fae handed her a napkin. “We sat down and I asked her who I was, because sometimes it seems like maybe she doesn’t know. And she said I was Steph, so I thought it was okay. And I said . . . Well, I said I wanted to stay here forever and she said I couldn’t.” Her voice cracked and she cried some more while the two women waited.

  “Then she started calling me Issy. And said I had to go because if she didn’t send you, you would go anyway and be lost to her, and they had to let you go because they loved you so much.”

  “She said that?” Issy asked, close to tears herself.

  “Something like that.”

  Then they were all crying and hugging each other until Fae pushed the other two away. She took a deep breath and looked over Steph’s head to Issy. “This is why we didn’t confront Vivienne and Dan about what was happening. Why I couldn’t go to George. If they guessed at Leo’s state of mind . . . They’re all just looking for an excuse to put the Muses up for sale.”

  “No,” Issy and Steph cried out.

  “And send you and Grammy to the old-folks home?”

  Fae smiled. “Yes. I won’t go. I’ll run away before I let them do that to me. But Leo? She won’t leave this house or Wes and Max and she won’t be able to fight. She’s not losing her faculties. At least not that it matters. She gets confused. I think it’s because she spends so much time in her mind with Wes in the past. She’s lost without him. She’s just waiting to go to him, but it’s not her time.

  “And if that helps her get through the day, it’s fine with me. But other people. Well, they already think I’m crazy.” She smiled at Issy and Steph. “And I am, a little, but Leo isn’t, not really. She needs someone to stay with her, make sure she eats and doesn’t fall, things like that. But they can’t send her away. It will break her heart; no one should be unhappy before they die.”

  Fae dabbed at her eyes with the backs of her hand.

  “You and I can stay with her,” Steph said.

  Fae smiled . . . sadly, Issy thought. “One crazy old lady and a twelve-year-old? They won’t allow it.”

  Issy leaned back in her chair. One more complication she hadn’t imagined when she’d jumped into the car a few nights before and driven to the rescue.

  The situation was a mess. And who could they find to live with her grandmother? And what could she do for the children?

  “Did Wes leave everything to Grammy?”

  Fae shrugged. “He left some things to other people—me, George, Jillian, Mrs. Norcroft, and—oh, I don’t know.”

  “But she owns the house and the contents?”

  “I’m not sure. John Renfroe would know. He did Wes’s will. Why? How can that help us?”

  Issy shook her head. “I’m not sure if it can. Right now we’re going to clean this place from top to bottom. And then we’re going to catalog the art, and if Grammy owns the contents of the house, we’ll have to figure out which paintings to sell to keep the Muses afloat.”

  Chapter 16

  “Sell?” Fae asked incredulously. “Leo will never let you sell any piece. It’s the legacy of Muses by the Sea. And before you point out that there will be no Muses to have a legacy, don’t bother. It would take more than a couple of paintings to keep this old house from falling down. Then what, sell more? Let the art collection dwindle down like so much beach erosion.

  “We might as well have been drawing with chalk for the last two centuries.”

  Steph cast an anxious look at Fae. “Aunt Issy, you have to do something.”

  “The land?” Issy ventured. “Can Leo sell a parcel of it?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s in trust.”

  Issy hung her head. It seemed whichever way she turned, her hands were tied.

  Don’t alert the police about the missing money, from George. You can’t sell anything, from Fae. Jillian, penniless, who’d moved in, lock, stock, and designer luggage. Issy couldn’t afford to keep Grammy in the house on her museum salary. She couldn’t even stay here to take care of Leo without quitting her job and then they would lose her income and the hideous spiral downward would just escalate.

  “So here we are,” Fae said. “Wes should have taken care of willing it over to some museum but he couldn’t leave Leo without a home. And now it’s turned into an albatross around our necks.”

  “And everything would have been fine if my parents hadn’t stolen all your money.”

  Damn, Issy had forgotten about Steph’s feelings in her own consternation. “We don’t know that they stole the money. There may be some explanation.”

  Steph pulled away and hugged herself. “No, they’re thieves.” The resignation in her voice broke Issy’s heart. But keeping secrets in this family is what had brought them to this; she just wished they had
been a little more understanding in the telling of the truth.

  “Well, that’s their karma, not yours,” Fae told her matter-of-factly.

  “And you’re part of this family,” Issy added. “You and Mandy and Griff, so no worries, okay?”

  Steph looked from Fae to Issy and strangely enough didn’t break down again. She’d grown up a lot in the last few days; Issy just hoped it didn’t break her.

  Fae pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the back pantry. Steph and Issy rummaged around to find dustcloths, paper towels, and Windex.

  “Parlor first?” Issy said.

  They divided up jobs, with Fae dusting, Steph cleaning the windows, and Issy vacuuming. Issy could imagine what the ladies from the Theater Fund must have thought during their visit.

  They had stopped to take a water break when they heard Jillian come in the front door. She took one look into the parlor, saw they were working, and headed for the stairs.

  Issy went after her. “Oh, good. Just change into your work clothes and come help.”

  Jillian stilled at the first step, turned around in slow motion—posed as if Issy’s aerosol can was a camera. Scarlett O’Hara in a peach silk pantsuit. Issy wouldn’t have been surprised if her next words came out in a southern accent.

  Jillian laughed a deep throaty disbelieving sound. “I would be so out of my element. I’ll just stay out of your way.”

  “If you stay, you work. Like the rest of us. You have a family obligation.” Who was she kidding? Her mother didn’t care about any of her family, including Issy. “Or you don’t have to stay.”

  “And where would I go? You won’t loan me your apartment, even though you’re not using it. One would think you’d be happy to have someone to keep an eye on the place while you’re gone.”

  “I wouldn’t, it isn’t up to your standards, and you can’t afford it.”

  “You’d charge your own mother rent?”

  “Yep. Double.”

  For a second Jillian stood perfectly still. So still and expressionless that Issy had an almost irresistible urge to call “line” and just managed to stifle herself when Jillian’s chin lifted. “Not funny, Isabelle. What on earth made you so bitter?”

  You did. “I’m not bitter.”

  Jillian raised one eyebrow.

  It pushed Issy right over the brink. “I’m not bitter, I’m pissed. I haven’t asked you for anything in twenty-four years. And when I finally do give in to ask for a loan—a loan—so that your mother and my grandmother can stay in her own home after my sister—that’s your other daughter—robbed her blind. What do I get? You. Broke. What if I hadn’t called? Who would you have sponged off then?”

  “That is such a middle-class attitude. If I were you I’d be too ashamed to call myself Isabelle York.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I don’t. I’m Isabelle Whitaker. Have always been. Because I’m not a York, am I, Mother?”

  Jillian gasped, and for an eternity, they teetered on the brink; maybe finally her mother would tell her the truth, the real truth. But it passed.

  The tiniest shift in the color of Jillian’s eyes. And Issy’s blood ran cold. The color of lying, Issy thought. The tabloid headlines rose in her mind. “Who’s the Real Father of Jillian York’s Surprise Child?”

  Issy shuddered and the image fragmented and fell like so much glass. “So. Until your public calls again, make yourself useful.” Issy tossed her a dustcloth.

  Jillian caught it without taking her eyes off Issy. It was pure trained-actor reflex. And very effective.

  And it cut Issy to the quick.

  Jillian tilted her head, cuing Issy that she expected her to make the next move.

  But Issy had nothing to add to this dialogue but hurt and humiliation, and she’d be damned if she’d let her own weakness sabotage the future of this family. She wouldn’t let Jillian break her down.

  She’d gotten better at dealing with Jillian over the years. It didn’t make her a better person. She hated the way she had to treat her mother, but it was the only way to keep herself from feeling like the piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of Jillian’s designer shoe. The only way to deal with the pain of knowing that your mother would never love you.

  “This is not a spa. We’re not your paid attendants, we’re your family. Like it or not.”

  The chin lifted higher, the beginning of a huff. “That my own child . . .” Jillian finished the lift with a full-body 180-degree turn. With the flash of her magic dishrag the evil queen swept up the stairs.

  Issy turned to find Steph and Fae standing just inside the doorway, watching.

  Neither of them said a word, just followed Issy back into the parlor, where Fae plugged in the vacuum and handed it to Issy.

  “I don’t trust you to handle the breakables right now.” Her smile broke the tension and they all exhaled.

  “She acts just like a movie star,” Steph said. “But”—she lowered her voice—“she’s my grandma.”

  “Never mind,” Fae said. “It’s the moon on the wax. Everyone is full and getting fuller.”

  “And when the shit hits . . .” Issy said.

  Steph snickered.

  Fae gave them each a patient look. “I’ve sage in my pocket, and when we finish cleaning, I’m going to burn it in every corner of this house.”

  Issy took the vacuum cleaner. She was afraid it would take more than Fae’s sage to cure what ailed this house and this family.

  As she pushed the vac around furniture and moved tables to reach hiding dust bunnies, Issy tried to forget about Jillian or to care whether she had taken her words to heart and would reappear like a modern-day Cinderella, dustcloth in hand and dressed for the part. More than likely she was enjoying a postluncheon gin and tonic in her room.

  Maybe she was packing. Or pouring out her woes to Leo.

  The problem of what to do with Leo and Fae and the houseful of memories suddenly seemed overbearing.

  She was crazy to think she could actually salvage any of it, much less all of it. Even if she gave up her job and moved back to Connecticut, found work locally doing whatever. She couldn’t support all three of them. She probably couldn’t even pay the taxes on the house each year.

  And if Vivienne didn’t return, there were the three kids to consider. They’d have to go to Dan’s family, if they’d take them. And if not . . . Maybe George was right and Grammy and Fae should go into assisted living. She didn’t believe Fae when she said she’d run away. She wouldn’t leave Leo alone in a strange place away from her home and Wes and Max’s graves.

  Fae couldn’t do that. And neither could Issy. Damn Vivienne and Dan for their greed.

  She thrust the vac under the tapestry chaise and it died. She pushed at the on-off switch several times. Damn, this meant a trip to the store for a new one, the last expense she needed right now.

  The plug appeared in front of her face.

  “What?” she asked, turning to face her aunt, who was holding the cord.

  “Do you know how much negative energy you’re spreading into the world?”

  Issy bit down on her reply.

  “Respect your surroundings; this carpet, these floors have held famous people, sensitive people, loving people. You played on this carpet, I played on it with you. You rode your tricycle—”

  Issy snatched the cord from Fae’s hand. Smiled through her teeth. “All right. I grabbed this cord from you lovingly, and now I’m going to plug it back in lovingly and finish the damn floor.”

  Issy marched over to the wall, hesitated as she bent over, and gently pushed the plug into the wall. And with it she let her anxieties, and indecision, and anger ease out of her. And when she stood she felt better and more determined to make things work.

  “How come you’re always right?” she asked Fae.

  Fae just smiled. “There is no right,” she said, holding an antique Turkish cigarette lighter in one hand and her dustcloth in the other. “Or left.”

  Issy laughed.
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  Fae gave the lighter a good scrub.

  From the parlor they moved to the music room. At least that room was a little less stuffed with furniture and artifacts. The baby grand piano probably hadn’t been played in years. Issy didn’t even open the keyboard; it was amazing that the sea air hadn’t eaten art and instruments alike.

  There was a distinct pathway across the carpet, whether mowed down by the passage of feet and time or just cleared of dust by recent traffic. Issy followed it to the back of the room, where an alcove overlooked the terrace and the sound. The game table there would be a perfect place to roll out the specs for her and Paolo’s new project.

  Which reminded her. “I think I’ll go clean out one of the bedrooms for Paolo on the outside chance I can convince him to stay a few days.” She unplugged the vac and retracted the cord.

  “I think we’re almost done here,” Fae said. “Steph, go help Issy. I’ll finish up down here.”

  “She wants to cleanse the rooms without us,” Issy explained.

  “By burning sage?”

  “Yep. But I’m sure she wants to cleanse us first.” Issy pulled Steph to stand beside her, then took the stance of a prim schoolgirl while Fae dug a thick brush of white sage from her overall pocket. Lit it with one of the many antique lighters around the room. And ran it over the space surrounding each of them, chanting something under her breath. Then she handed it to Issy, who did the same for Fae except Fae did the chanting.

  Then Issy and Steph went upstairs to prepare a room for Paolo.

  She gave him a room at the end of the southern corridor. It had a wonderful view of the sound, and he wouldn’t be disturbed by children running up and down the neighboring hallway.

  When they went downstairs again, it was nearly four thirty and the rooms smelled like a huge pot-fest from the “good old days.” Fae, Leo, and Jillian were seated in the parlor around the tea tray. Jillian was the only one who had started on the cocktails.

  “Car coming,” Fae said, and a few moments later a gray sports car drove up to the front of the house.