A Change of Heart

by Nancy Frederick

"Well, I've gone as far as to Orlando. And Birmingham. Pensacola. Usually no more than a day's drive. Sometimes I persuade Shep to come with me and then we have a good time, staying in a motel, going out to eat. Usually I make enough to cover what we spend." Becky laughed then continued, "In the summer I do a couple a month, usually on weekends. And of course in November and December there are a number of shows."

  "So you and your husband travel together. How fun."

  "Yes, we have a great time. I was a housewife for a lot of years. Six kids!" Becky grimaced good naturedly. "The last one moved out seven years ago--when I was fifty. I didn't know what to do with myself."

  "They grow up too fast, don't they?"

  Becky nodded. "I loved it when my kids were small. I was always baking cookies and sewing clothes. Scouts. School trips. Birthday parties."

  Annabeth smiled, "Yes, all of that."

  "Then I just kind of wandered into the hobby shop. It was next door to the bakery. I have a weakness for sweets."

  Annabeth nodded, "Me too." She gestured along the length of her body, "And here's the proof."

  Becky laughed. "I'm sitting on mine."

  "So go on about the hobby shop."

  "Yes, right! So I bought a couple of wooden boxes, some paint and I was started. By the time I ran out of people to give them to it seemed like I needed a new hobby or else I should sell them. And now it's like this is one of the best times of my life. I love traveling around, talking to people, it's just fun."

  "And you get to have romantic weekends with your husband."

  "Yep. That too. Except after a day doing a show, we're usually too tired for the romance. But hey--it's still fun." Becky had an engaging smile and a good-natured way of describing her life and laughing about it.

  "I thought that I'd drive around, check out some stores like Etta's, see if I could sell to them. Maybe buy unpainted furniture or stuff at flea markets."

  "I'm sure there are quite a few in every direction." Becky reached down to brush one of the legs of the coffee table. "I just love your work. So full of life. Darling little frog there among the mushrooms. So vivid and bright."

  Annabeth smiled, "Thanks. I think I paid about five dollars for that coffee table in nineteen-seventy-three."

  "It must have taken you hours and hours to paint it, though."

  "I paint pretty quickly. It took a couple of days, not working full time, of course."

  "I'm impressed. It takes me quite a while to do mine, maybe because I'm always looking at a picture I'm copying. What would you put on those boxes I paint?"

  "You could put anything on them. Flowers, birds wearing jewelry, children playing at the beach, shells, kittens, puppies, on and on."

  "Do you think you'd be interested in drawing some little sketches that I could copy? Then I wouldn't have to steal my designs from those coloring books. I would pay you, of course."

  Annabeth thought for a bit. "How many sketches would you want?"

  "Oh, I don't know. A couple dozen? Would five dollars a sketch be too cheap? I'm sure they're worth more. Actually you could keep the originals if you wanted and I could make a color Xerox for me. And they could be small. You wouldn't even have to fill in all the colors."

  Becky's energy was contagious. Annabeth could envision the designs Becky wanted so easily that it didn't occur to her to refuse. "Okay, sure. And if you don't like them you don't have to pay for them."

  "Why wouldn't I like them? Your art is beautiful."

  "That's so sweet of you to say."

  "Listen, why don't you come along to the next show--mid-October I think. We could share a booth. Of course we'd each keep our stuff separate, but we could take turns at the table, ride together. It could be fun."

  "I don't know how much I'd have ready to sell that quickly."

  "Make a lot of small things. Letter holders. Only don't make boxes and key racks! Nobody would buy mine if they had yours." Becky stretched out her hand and rested it briefly on Annabeth's arm, smiled at her, then reached for few more cookies, which she ate with obvious pleasure. "It's been so nice meeting you today."

  Genuinely touched, Annabeth replied, "It's been nice meeting you too."

  "I think we could be good friends."

  "You know, I think so too. And I could use a good friend now." Sensing a bond with Becky, Annabeth opened up and told her about Maggie, completing the story with, "And it just doesn't make sense. I could see it if the kids broke up permanently, but they're right back together."

  "Oh, I don't think it has anything to do with the kids. She probably just feels threatened by all the changes in your life."

  "It wasn't my idea for my husband to leave me."

  "It's been my experience that things happen when it's right, don't you think? Maybe it wasn't your idea, but it was probably for the best."

  Annabeth bit the inside of her cheek, thinking about Becky's comments, but not saying anything.

  "And now you'll build a new kind of life with new people. Maybe Maggie is afraid she won't be one of them."

  "Maybe, but that's pretty hard for me to imagine."

  "Give it some time. You'll work it all out."

  After Becky left, Annabeth sat quietly, thinking about their conversation. So many people lately said how talented she was. Was this the first time anyone said it or the first time she'd heard it? Could it really be that Maggie thought she'd leave her or their friendship? She'd never left anyone in her life. It just didn't make sense.

  Carrying the dishes and the platter of leftover cookies, Annabeth walked into the kitchen, set them down on the table, picked up the phone, and dialed Maggie's number, not having a clue what she would say. On hearing her friend's voice, she began, "Maggie, listen to me. We've been friends since first grade. All our lives. I don't want you to be mad at me and I certainly would never be mad at you. Can't we stop this feud now?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about. We're not feuding. Not at all. I've just been very busy. You know how busy I am with the kids. Oops, Peter's calling me right now. We'll talk another time, okay? Gotta go."

  Annabeth continued to hold the phone to her ear, long after the connection was severed. Eventually she replaced the phone in its cradle, reaching for a cookie from the plate on the table. Relaxing into her thoughts, she sat quietly munching cookies, and soon the leftovers were consumed. Becky was probably right, and eventually it would all be resolved. Annabeth banished from her mind the sorrow over her friend and turned her focus to the sketches she would do for Becky. She hadn't done that sort of thing in ages. Where were her watercolors anyway?

  Annabeth walked outside to the detached garage where her furniture painting equipment was. There were paints in many colors, brushes in a variety of sizes, rags, lacquers, sealants, but no watercolors. Back in the kitchen, she peered under the sink. No watercolors. The den was basically R.J.'s domain. She glanced in the door but was certain there was nothing of hers in there. The night tables beside her bed were smallish cabinets, two doors at the bottom, a slender drawer above. Opening the doors wide, Annabeth removed an old sketch book, which she tossed onto the bed. There was also a folio of colored pencils, but no watercolors. Pulling the drawer open, she spotted the photographs made at the mall. Annabeth sat on the bed then, and gazed down at her likeness, staring first at one shot then at the next. She smiled briefly, then tossed them back in the drawer, sliding it shut quietly. She hadn't done any watercolors in a long time; they must be up in the attic; that was the only place left.

  At the rear of the second floor was a door, and that lead to a narrow stairway, at the top of which lay the attic. Opening the attic door, she entered, hearing the creaking of the old floor boards beneath her feet. A lifetime of memories was stored neatly in drawers, trunks, boxes, and even an old armoire. Not stopping to look closely at anything there, Annabeth walked to a cardboard carton sitting in the rear corner. Inside were several big pads, one of which contained watercolor paper, a large set of pastels, a plastic tool box whic
h held her oil paints, and a set of watercolors in tubes which were mostly unopened. Annabeth removed what she needed along with a plastic palette and a folded piece of old cloth which contained a cluster of brushes. Pausing for an instant to touch a large table which was pushed to the side wall and partially covered with boxes, Annabeth sighed, briefly remembering the day R.J. and Rum carried it upstairs from the dining room, then she closed the attic door and walked back down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Pulling a large plastic tarp from under the sink, Annabeth covered the kitchen table and then spread out her paints. Stopping only once to walk into the living room and turn on the stereo, Annabeth painted for hours. When it began to grow dark outside, she switched on the overhead light and continued painting. Eventually every inch of counter space, the kitchen table, and the dining table were covered with pictures. Some were in series-- children at the beach; kittens of all types with their mothers; hidden spots in nature which featured the tiniest places like the worlds under toadstools, undersea pictures, a gopher in his burrow. Some were individual pictures of the sort of quaint scenes Annabeth usually painted on her furniture. They weren't the dainty watercolors that are the custom, but instead were more like sketches with color, ideas set down on the page but not fully articulated.

  After hours of non-stop work, Annabeth's neck and eyes ached, her fingers were tight and cramped, her legs stiff, her back knotted, yet still she painted. When she could no longer lift her arm, Annabeth glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. "Imagine that," she said aloud to the cat, who was seated placidly at her feet. She rose then and treated the bewildered feline to another can of food, despite the fact that he had not asked for it. "Let's see," she said, walking through the room, stopping at each painting to examine her work. All but the last were dry and she separated them into piles which she mentally labeled: not too bad, all right, and terrible. Flipping them over so that the cat couldn't mess them up with his foot prints, she left the three piles on the counter and switched off the light, climbing the stairs, walking stiffly into her bedroom then tossing her clothes into the hamper. She washed her hands and face, pulled on a nightgown and climbed exhausted into the bed.

  She slept almost instantly, and in her dreams she walked through grassy meadows, a heavy pack on her back, herself younger and her children small tots clinging to her hand. Together they moved through the fragrant grasses, the gentle rustling of fruit tree branches overhead. Off in the distance was her home, but how odd it looked. It was her house but it wasn't her house. Annabeth squinted toward the dwelling ahead of her. Pulling the girls along, they moved faster but the house got no closer. Momentarily distracted, Annabeth looked up at the sky. It was a perfect blue, vast and untroubled by clouds. When she looked back down, Laurel was gone. Off in a distance was a bus and Annabeth could see her daughter inside waving to her. "Is today a school day?" she mused to Sally, who was too little to speak.

  She walked with Sally for a while longer, and the house seemed a bit closer. Why had they journeyed so far from home? Fearing that Sally would tire before they completed the trip, Annabeth stopped to rest, pulling her daughter down beside her. Dozing in reality, and briefly in her dream, Annabeth looked about, still in the meadow. Sally! Where was she? Off in the distance, she spotted her daughter, waving to her from a tree house where Sally was playing. She walked up to the tree house, but Sally waved her on, making it clear that Annabeth was to go on without her.

  She walked some more, sensing that she was getting closer, knowing she would arrive soon enough. What is this, she thought, pulling the heavy pack off her back and dropping it to the soft ground. Reaching down, she tried to unzip the pack, but the zipper stuck. Tugging harder, she was able to budge it, and inch by inch it opened, revealing the contents inside. There were framed portraits of the people in her life. Her parents. Maggie. Her husband. Julie. Where are the girls' pictures, she wondered, but there were none. Look at this, all my report cards. A heavy bundle of paper, fastened by two rubber bands, was much larger than all her accumulated report cards might really have been. At the very bottom of the bag was a collection of art materials which was tightly sealed. Leaving all but the art materials lying at the base of a tree, Annabeth rose, thinking, I can come back for these later; they're too heavy now. The pouch, much lightened, hung easily on her shoulder, and she walked into the distance toward her home.

  Remembering nothing of her dream upon awakening, Annabeth glanced at the clock. Ready to tense, thinking she had to hurry off to the drugstore, she thought for a moment and relaxed again. It was her day off. She wished she could snuggle back down for a while, but instead she rose, dressing and brushing her teeth. The cat, startled by her haste, leapt from the bed and raced down the stairs, although he was probably not hungry. She fed him immediately and downed a glass of orange juice as she baked a batch of cupcakes for Julie to take into little Bobby's class, and while they were in the oven, she flipped through the work of the previous night. Next time she would work a little longer on each one.

  There was a flea market outside of town, and although it wasn't well stocked on a weekday, Annabeth went there nevertheless. She found a couple of small, spindly tables, some old recipe boxes, a couple of wooden bowls, one wooden compote dish, and about a dozen other small pieces of the general variety classified as this and that. The whole lot fit easily into her trunk, and Annabeth drove then to the hobby shop that Becky had recommended. There she acquired a bit more of this and that.

  Back at home, she set up a makeshift work table of plywood on a couple of sawhorses and applied a base coat of white to everything. Allowing the paint plenty of time to dry, Annabeth walked back into the kitchen where she washed her hands, prepared some lunch and took it into R.J.'s den. When it had been built, this room was designed as a retreat for the man of the house, and had been paneled with dark wood, which remained. One could imagine the mahogany desk and heavy drapes at the window, although there was nothing like that in there now. An old table, of the Formica and metal variety, sat in a corner, next to a dented metal filing cabinet. The bookcases at the rear of the room contained an outdated set of encyclopedias as well as a collection of atlases, travel books and an assortment of maps R.J. had assembled over the years. How many trips had he planned and how few had they actually taken? Once they were even set to move up North, a plan that R.J. was certain offered him every opportunity he had lacked in Gull's Perch. They had gone so far as accepting a deposit on the house, but before it was time to sign the papers he changed his mind, and so they stayed put.

  Most of the room was filled with the infamous and mostly unused gym equipment. An old couch, covered in ragged, garish plaid, that had once belonged to Mother Welner, was pressed against a wall, and reaching for an atlas, Annabeth sat on the couch eating her lunch and looking over the book.

  She had lived in Gull's Perch all her life, but she had driven no farther than an hour beyond its limits. She knew where the surrounding towns were, of course, and she knew how to reach them, but until now there had never been a reason to devise an itinerary. Following the spidery lines on the atlas' pages with her finger, she envisioned the trips she would take, the stops in each small town to check for shops that might want to buy some of her things. Looking down at the map made it real. She had only to prepare a reasonable number of items over the next couple of weeks, load the treasures, as Becky called them, into her car, and then go traveling.

  Highway Ninety-eight lay on the edge of the state, running along the water, and it connected all the coast towns in the panhandle from Pensacola to Panacea, where it turned inland toward Tallahassee. Considered the scenic route, it provided a spectacular vista in either direction out of Gull's Perch, whether the view was of the pristine Gulf waters or through the forests of pine that once covered the entirety of the state. Going east, one saw the little beach towns with their insignificant but charming cottages on the seaside, or in the least elevated areas, houses built on stilts so tall their bottom floors were e
ssentially floating at second story level. To the west lay elegant communities of newly erected Victorian homes that looked more like doll houses than human dwellings, golf resorts with high rise hotels and condominiums, all dotted with charming ponds, little inlets and marked duck crossings. Each spot was a vacationer's paradise because of the famous white sand beaches that even in the hottest weather remained cool to the touch.

  Wisely realizing that all the towns on that route catered to tourists and would therefore have shops like Etta's, Annabeth selected it. Equipped with R.J.'s atlas, which she would not need, a sports bottle of ice water, a tote containing a sandwich, some fruit, and a bag of cookies, she set out on her exploration, the trunk full of the newly decorated items she had readied.

  It was the first time Annabeth had undertaken any such project on her own, and she was petrified. It was worse than having to perform in a play. She wanted to turn the car back around and forget the whole thing. Whatever would she say to these people? They'd think she was just some silly housewife out to pester them. Over and over as she drove, Annabeth rehearsed a series of opening lines. Her heart raced each time she imagined having to walk into a store with her work, and only the thought of her house and how she was going to save it gave her the will to keep going.

  Thinking intermittently about R.J. and his travels, for the first time she understood the lure of his vending machine business and of being on the road. Driving like this was liberating; it was exciting to be able to go anywhere she wanted. How hard it must have been for him to be trapped all those years as a mechanic, penned up inside when he yearned to be free and out in the world. How hard to work on the planes when what he wanted was to be the glamorous aviator flying them.

  The approach to each small town was pretty much the same. There would be miles of open road, followed by an occasional dwelling, then a business here and there and finally a cluster of houses and shops that defined the town, then everything in reverse until there was more open road again. Stopping in front of her first possibility, Annabeth pulled from the trunk two large shopping bags filled with small items, but instead of pushing them back into the car and racing away as she wanted to do, the image of her house floated into her mind, so she took a deep breath and walked into the store, which was empty except for the proprietor, a woman who was much too old for the skin-baring sundress she sported.