Stargazey Point

by Shelley Noble

  Marnie pulled a face. “Just saying,” she said under her breath and went through the open doorway.

  “It wasn’t a date,” Abbie said under her breath, following close behind.

  “Are you two tellin’ secrets?” Millie looked eager to join in.

  “No, Abbie was just asking who owned a skill saw.”

  “Skill saw? Why on earth?”

  “Abbie is going to refurbish the summerhouse for Beau’s birthday.”

  A frown creased Millie’s face. “That old thing. It’s practically fallin’ down.”

  “Which is why it’s getting a spruce-up.”

  “And it will be a nice place to sit on warm days,” Abbie added.

  Millie shook her head. “I would never go out there. I won’t.”

  Shocked at her vehemence, Abbie glanced at Marnie.

  Marnie looked thoroughly disgusted. “I think we’ll have some early beans in a week or so.”

  “I’ll be glad to have fresh beans,” Millie said without missing a beat. “Don’t know where the ones at the supermarket come from. Probably some South American country where you don’t know what kind of conditions they’ve been grown in. And the seafood. The Publix last week had shrimp caught in Thailand. What kind of fools are those folks? We have more shrimp than we can eat right here without going to Timbuktu and back for what’s right in our own backyard. Jerome might be able to come over here after school lets out. He’s good with his hands.”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Marnie said perfectly seriously. “I’ll call over to Hadley’s and ask him to go over to the community center and ask him.”

  After lunch, Millie went upstairs to listen to the radio. Marnie made the call to Hadley, and she and Abbie walked outside together.

  “She’s fine, you know,” Marnie said when they were some distance from the house. “She’s dotty, strays from the point, and gets confused sometimes. But she’s always been like that. ‘One to chase after her own thoughts,’ Momma always said. But she’s a good soul under all that superficial prejudice. She wouldn’t let a person starve no matter what their pedigree—or their color.”

  They parted at the garden gate, Marnie to nurture the nascent beans, Abbie down to the gazebo. She wasn’t alone. Her two visitors from the morning were back, and they’d brought three friends. They were sitting in a circle on the grass playing some kind of game with stones, but they stopped and turned to watch Abbie as she came toward them.

  Two of the new kids were older. A girl, maybe twelve, with fire engine red hair pulled up to the crown of her head into two ponytails and freckles so thick across her face to almost be a mask. The other was a serious-looking boy, of maybe ten, with stringy blond hair that fell over his eyes. Abbie wondered why they weren’t in school. A girl, who looked hardly old enough to walk, stood on the edge of the circle rocking back and forth between two feet.

  Abbie smiled but didn’t try to approach them. She’d met lots of kids in her work, and she’d learned you couldn’t push friendship or trust on them, especially when their culture was different from yours. And so far, just about everything about Stargazey Point was different. It could almost be a foreign country.

  There wasn’t much more she could do without Jerome. But she could take a closer look at the roof while she was waiting for him to arrive. She dragged a heavy wooden ladder out from the shed and wrestled it up the side of the gazebo. When the top rested against the most solid-looking eave and the feet were braced in the long grass, she tested the first rung, then climbed up.

  The ladder groaned, shifted, and bowed beneath her weight. She carefully took another step, and another. And was suddenly surrounded by the five children, hands grasping the ladder to steady it and looking curiously up at her.

  She smiled down at them. “Thanks.”

  “What’chu doin’, missus?” This from the new boy.

  “I’m fixing up the gazebo.”

  He nodded seriously. “What’chu doin’ that for?”

  “I want to make it beautiful again.”

  “What’chu climbin’ that ladder for?”

  “To see how bad the roof is.”

  He nodded again. The heads of the other four lifted and fell as they followed the question-and-answer session.

  “It’s bad. It gotta hole in it.” He smiled, broad and proud.

  The other four giggled. He cuffed the closest one, who happened to be the boy twin. He didn’t cry, just frowned and rubbed his ear vigorously where the blow had landed.

  “Well, I figured it might be bad, but I want to repair it. What do you know about roofs?”

  He screwed up his face, looked up to the sky. “Roy, he crawled up on our roof and fell off. Broke his arm. Got a cast and everybody wrote their name on it.”

  “A good reason not to climb up on a roof,” she said.

  “Then why are you goin’ up on it?”

  “I’m not, I’m just taking a look to assess the damage.”

  “Huh.”

  They were silent while Abbie inspected the roof. There was definitely a hole in it, and some of the shingles had broken off. The eaves seemed to be solid enough, though it would take someone more knowledgeable than her to repair it. She climbed down the ladder.

  They all held on until she reached the ground, then they dispersed as rapidly as dandelion down, stopping about five feet away.

  “I bet’chu could use some help.”

  “I might.” Though Abbie didn’t know what she could find for five children under twelve to do.

  “What’chu gonna pay?” the smallest girl asked.

  “She ain’t gonna pay you nuthin’,” said the boy twin and cuffed her on the ear.

  The trickle-down principle, thought Abbie, as efficient here as with any corporation.

  The girl stepped away, mumbling something Abbie couldn’t hear. Then she stuck out her tongue and ran away.

  “JuJu Jenny, JuJu Jenny,” chanted the older boy. The other three joined in and ran after her. Abbie watched until their cries were drowned out by the waves and they were mere dots on the beach. Then she lowered the ladder and dragged it back to the shed.

  When Jerome arrived a little after four o’clock, Abbie was sitting in the gazebo, staring out to sea. She watched him come down the walk with long bouncing strides and she thought how much more comfortable he looked in jeans than he had wearing that ridiculously small waiter uniform her first night.

  Someone was with him and at first she thought it must be Marnie showing him the way, but as they got closer, she recognized Bethanne.

  “Hope you don’t mind that I traipsed along with Jerome,” she said a little breathlessly and Abbie thought maybe a little nervously.

  “Of course not,” Abbie said. “I’m glad to see you.” She was glad to see her even if it meant she had an apology to make.

  “It’s beautiful,” Bethanne said.

  “It will be,” Abbie said.

  Bethanne stepped closer to look, and Abbie took the opportunity to talk to Jerome.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  The ma’am made her feel ancient. “My name is Abbie.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miss Abbie?”

  Abbie gave up and told him what she needed.

  “I got a gas skill saw,” he said and leaped onto the gazebo floor.

  “I marked out the worst ones,” Abbie said.

  Jerome nodded, placed one foot on the marked board, and tested the strength. He tested the next and then the others she had marked until he returned to the entrance. “You need some two-bys; I can probably get Otis to take me down to the lumberyard and get some scraps. Fix up those seats, too.”

  “Great, when do you think you can get started?”

  “Saturday? Want me to pick you up some paint, too?”

  “Yes, please. An exterior white that i
s weather resistant.”

  “Do better with whitewash, ’cause nothin’s weather resistant down here. It won’t be fancy, but it’ll last.”

  “Whatever you think best.” Abbie reached into her jeans pocket, where she had several folded twenties on the outside chance Jerome got by today. “How much do you think it will cost?”

  Jerome looked over the gazebo frowning and nodded to himself. “I’d say about forty, if I can get scrap lumber, fifty if I have to buy whole.”

  “And the paint?”

  “I know a fella.”

  “Ah,” Abbie said. “Let me know, okay?”

  Jerome nodded. “Yes’m. You want me to fix that roof, too?”

  “If you can.”

  “I can. Might have to get Otis or somebody to help me some.”

  “Good.” She unfolded sixty dollars and handed it to him. “Will this get you started?”

  At first he just looked at it, then he gave her an appraising look and pocketed the bills. “I’ll be back on Saturday. Shouldn’t take more’n four hours for repairs. You want me to do the paintin’, too?”

  “I can do the painting.”

  “All right. See ya on Saturday. Ma’am, Bethanne.” He tipped his chin and started back up the walk.

  “Wait, Jerome. How much do you charge?”

  He looked at the ground, suddenly the uncomfortable boy in the dining room. “Don’t usually charge the Crispins.”

  “I’m not a Crispin,” Abbie said.

  “I don’t know. Mr. Cab usually gives me fifteen an hour.”

  “For helping him?”

  “Yes’m and for when I do stuff for the Crispins. But don’t you go and tell ’em, please.”

  “I won’t.”

  So Cabot was playing anonymous benefactor, Abbie thought as she watched the sturdy teenager walk back to the house. She didn’t know whether she should like him more for that or be affronted by his high-handedness. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she wanted to like him. Did like him. And owed him an apology.

  Which brought her right back to Bethanne who was examining the gazebo like someone who had just discovered the mother lode.

  “I had no idea this was back here. And that view. It’s gorgeous. A perfect place for a wedding.”

  “You’re—”

  “Oh, not me, but for someone’s wedding. I know it’s weird a widow talking about weddings, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time.

  “Jim and I were planning to expand into the next building. Turn it into a reception hall where we could host weddings. We were going to call it Weddings by the Sea. But this really is weddings by the sea.”

  Abbie looked around, trying to see it through Bethanne’s eyes. With a little paint the gazebo would be charming, but for the rest of the venue, she just saw a huge amount of work. The grass was brown and patchy. The trees were partially consumed by a trailing vine that made the whole ambience kind of creepy.

  Rosebushes had been left to straggle, and bare beds that must have been perennial borders at one time or another lay dormant. The wall around the vegetable garden was almost hidden by ivy.

  It would need some major landscaping, and the house would need to be painted. White, with deep green shutters, not the faded grayish color they were now. Bridesmaids entering from the ballroom doors, walking down the brick walk, followed by the bride surrounded by yards of lace and tulle— Yeah, she could see it.

  It would certainly be a possible income for the Crispins, but it would take a lot of money and time to get the place in shape. What the Crispins needed now was an immediate infusion of cash.

  And somehow she just couldn’t imagine Millie going for it.

  “Would you be able to handle the inn and a wedding business by yourself?”

  “Well, no. But Penny has already agreed to be the caterer; I’d have to hire a staff.” She sighed. “I’ve saved some startup money but not nearly enough for something like this.”

  She reluctantly turned from the sea. “Listen to me, carrying on about weddings when what I really came for was to apologize for asking you to tea and then deserting you. I don’t know what you must think of me. I’m sure Sarah told you about Jim and all about what a crybaby I am.”

  “She did, and you’re not. You have every right to grieve.”

  Bethanne shook her head. “It’s been over three years, and I just can’t seem to move on.”

  Three years? Three whole years? Already tears were pricking the back of Abbie’s eyes as her throat tightened on the familiar pain. She didn’t want to become someone everyone else had to tiptoe around in order not to upset her; she didn’t want to be pitied. What she really wanted was to have her old life back and knew she never could.

  “I lost someone, too.”

  Abbie watched her words sink in. Bethanne grasped her hand. “I’m so sorry. Your husband?”

  “We weren’t married. But he was my friend, my lover, my mentor, and—” She stopped. She hadn’t intended to say that much, but she must have unlocked the floodgates by crying on Beau’s shoulder and telling Marnie about Werner the day before.

  She pulled her hand away, looked out to sea.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. But thanks,” she added as an afterthought. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to relive, didn’t want to share. It was time for her to move forward.

  “I know nobody can ever know how another person feels about that kind of loss,” Bethanne said. “And I wish with all my heart you hadn’t gone through it too. But it’s a little help to have someone who gets it, don’t you think? Sarah thinks I should just get over it and get on with it. She tells me that all the time. She just doesn’t . . .” She took a big breath, whooshed it out. “Anyway, I just meant to come apologize. So what are your plans for the gazebo?”

  “Well, Beau’s birthday is coming up in a couple of months, and Millie said how he used to paint out here when he was a boy, so I thought it might make a nice present.”

  “You’re going to stay for a few months? That would be great.”

  “I’ll have to wait and see. I have to start thinking about getting another job.”

  “Would it be nosy of me to ask what kind of job?”

  “No. But I’m not sure. Something . . . interesting.”

  “Ever think about weddings?”

  Abbie shook her head. “No.”

  “It takes a lot of people to hold a reception, waiters, catering, a cake person, rentals, a photographer—”

  “No. But thanks for the offer.”

  Bethanne shrugged slightly. “It’s just a pipe dream anyway. Come have tea sometimes, okay?” She smiled. “I promise I won’t cry.”

  “Sure,” Abbie said as they started up the path.

  When they reached the gate, Bethanne turned back for a last look at the sea.

  “One more thing. It’s not my business, I know, but it is a small town. Cab’s sorry he upset you. He didn’t say what happened. But he’s a nice guy, so maybe you could give him another chance.”

  Chapter 12

  Abbie walked to town with one purpose in mind. Apologize to Cab. Just walk into the carousel building and say she was sorry. Simple, except he deserved an explanation of why she’d acted like a nutcase, and she would have to tell him that she was a nutcase, and then he’d either be horrified or feel sorry for her and that would be that.

  Better to get it over with.

  But when she reached the carousel, a red late-model sports car was parked outside. Behind it, the door to the community center opened and Sarah came out, motioning frantically to Abbie with both hands.

  Abbie hurried across the tarmac. As soon as she reached the porch, Sarah pulled her inside.

  “What’s wrong?” Abbie asked.

 
“Didn’t you see the car? You don’t want to go in there right now.”

  “I saw it and I was going to come back later.”

  “You can wait at the center. Come on.”

  She practically dragged Abbie through the front room, a square area that was cluttered with old couches and chairs, chalkboards, and an old television.

  That’s all Abbie saw before she was being propelled down a narrow hallway to a smaller room where a variety of old tape recorders, video cameras, and computers littered a wide shelf that ran the length of one wall.

  Abbie took a quick look around as Sarah guided her toward the one window. Next to the window a larger monitor sat behind two VCR players. Someone was making a movie with equipment that had become obsolete years before.

  And Abbie got a terrible suspicion that she was being set up. How had they found out? Did everyone know? Bethanne with her Weddings by the Sea photographer, now Sarah and her outdated equipment.

  Sarah paused long enough to give her a look. “From my defunct family history project. But that’s not important at the moment.”

  “And what is?” Abbie asked guardedly.

  “I have a favor, sort of.”

  Abbie automatically shook her head. No way was she going to help with any video project.

  “Look, I know about your freak-out at the carousel the other night. Hell, you can’t sneeze in this town without everybody ducking. And I won’t ask you what it was all about, though I’m curious, naturally. And Cab was, let’s just say, confused about your reaction.”

  Abbie sighed. “I know. I was going over to apologize, but he has company.”

  “That’s the favor I want.”

  “Oh.” Abbie slumped with relief, then immediately became suspicious. “What kind of favor?”

  Sarah pulled her over to the window and looked out. They had a full view of the red car and could just see the entrance to the carousel. “Do you know whose car that is?”

  “No.”

  “Two of Cab’s old colleagues from Atlanta.”

  “And? I’m sensing an ‘and’ here.”