by Karis Walsh
“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.
Chapter Eleven
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 p
aint 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.
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.
Chapter Twelve
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 Me
l’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.