“What is it, Ben?” The moderator seemed annoyed at the interruption. This meeting was going to be hard enough to control without Ben Rankin’s bad temper. “What’s your point of order?”
“There’s a lady back there, in the visitors’ section.” He pointed at Allie, and all the heads in the auditorium turned in her direction. “She’s drawing pictures of us. I want to know what she’s drawing pictures of us for. Is she drawing pictures for a newspaper or something? I want to know, Lester, did you authorize her to draw our pictures?”
At the back of the room, one man was smiling, amused by the commotion Allie’s presence was stirring up. Zach had been meeting earlier with the selectmen in a back room and had come late into the auditorium. He had chosen to stand unobtrusively near the door and from there he had immediately noticed Allie’s golden head bent over her sketchpad. He’d known right away there was going to be trouble. This crowd was in a hostile mood to begin with, and it wasn’t going to take much to set everyone’s teeth on edge. Anything out of the way, especially from an outsider, was going to be practically intolerable.
“Damn,” he said to himself for the thousandth time, “that woman is nothing but trouble.”
And now, just as he was trying to figure out what she was doing here, what kind of mischief she was up to, suddenly everyone in the place was looking at her, and Lester Pinns was questioning her.
“Ma’am?” He had stopped everything and was looking directly at Allie. She looked up from her sketchpad, startled to realize he was talking to her. “What are you doing there, ma’am?”
“Who, me?”
She glanced around quickly and realized three hundred pairs of eyes were focused on her. She could hear her voice quavering nervously. “Nothing. I mean, I’m just sketching.” She held her pad against herself protectively.
“Are you representing someone, a newspaper or something?”
“No. I’m just an artist.” Allie tried to keep her voice firm, but she could hear it fading away before all those hostile faces. “I’m just doing some sketches?” Her rising inflection made a nervous question of her statement.
“Well, ma’am, I’m going to have to request that you put your pad away.” Lester’s voice was growing still firmer as he continued. “These are serious proceedings, ma’am, and they’re not for the entertainment of every outsider who decides to drift in just to amuse himself. Or herself,” he added sarcastically.
At that, Allie’s back stiffened. “I’m not ‘amusing’ myself. My work is serious, too, and painting pictures is the work I do!”
“I’m sure your work is serious ma’am”—the emphasis he put on “ma’am” made his sarcasm very clear—“and the next time you want to come in and sketch people at a town meeting, you just come and get permission from the moderator first.” He glared at her with the full force of his authority. “That’s the way we do things around here and I’ll thank you to remember that in the future. If you have a problem with that, I’ll just ask our marshal here to conduct you out of this auditorium!” With that, he squared his shoulders and rearranged the papers on the podium in front of him. “And now, if you’ll just put your things away in your bag, we’ll be able to get back to our meeting!”
She was mortified. Ben Rankin and his wife gave her one last self-satisfied, righteous smirk before they turned their faces away from her. Allie felt a powerful impulse to stick her tongue out at them, but managed to control herself, thankful, at least, that the three hundred pairs of eyes were no longer on her.
Except one pair, of course. Though Allie was still not aware of his presence, Zach had watched the whole thing, at first with amusement at her discomfort, thinking it served her right to be stuck on the hot seat like that. But as he watched that golden head bent over her bag, putting her things away, he knew how painfully embarrassed she must be, and realized that his anger was as much on her behalf as it was directed against her. Lester needn’t have been so rough on her. She hadn’t been doing anyone any harm. And that Rankin pair, Ben and his wife. He’d like to have smacked their smug faces!
Allie tried to listen to what was going on around her but she was now too angry and too mortified to pay attention. Dimly, she heard the arguments for and against the project. Tempers were flaring as the president of the town’s Chamber of Commerce lost his patience, trying to explain how the plan would increase the town’s tax base, while owners of small restaurants and diners argued that the park’s theme restaurants would drain off their business. Affluent residents, those who had planned all their working lives to use this quiet, attractive community as a retirement getaway place, were fighting to preserve its peaceful atmosphere, and ordinary folks worried about the increased traffic and the burden on community services and infrastructure.
Ken Rice, who owned a small landscaping business, thought the project might mean more work for local people, but he was shouted down by those who were sure that a project of this size would bring in only off-Cape contractors, and the local construction people wouldn’t benefit at all.
And Judy Jackson, who was five feet tall and all brass, and who could always be counted on to be ready to fight with someone, was waving her fist at the stage and letting everyone know that as far as she was concerned, the last thing that was needed was a lot of outsiders—here she waved generally in Allie’s direction—coming onto the Cape and stirring things up and spoiling the ecology and the environment and bringing with them their big-city litter and crime and who knows what else!
Lester Pinns, who had been banging his fist on the podium for the last ten minutes, finally gave up his angry efforts to allow only recognized speakers to stand and be heard, and he called a twenty-minute break to give everyone a chance to cool down.
Allie had been hoping for a chance to slip unobtrusively away from this humiliating scene. The crowd moved slowly up the aisles, muttering and continuing their arguments as they left the auditorium, and she waited till the room was mostly cleared before she headed for the hallway where her poncho was hanging. As she passed the small groups of people gathered around the coffee urn near the front door, she heard the angry buzz of their comments.
“We sure don’t need these make-believe Mayflowers churning up the waters of the bay, disturbing the lobster pots, the clam beds—”
“—you said it—crazy idea—bunch of tourists, pretending to be pilgrims, digging for water, or sunken treasure, or who knows what all—”
“—damned fools, they don’t understand, it’ll make jobs for lots of people—”
And as she picked her way through the crowd, getting at last to the front doors and out into the parking lot, where the rain was really falling now, the one word that pursued her, overheard repeatedly: “Outsiders, these damned outsiders.”
She pulled the hood of her poncho over her head and ran through the unlit parking lot to where the Cherokee was parked, eager to get away from this hostile place as fast as she could. With no light in the parking lot, she didn’t see Zach leaning against her car door until she reached it. He appeared before her out of the dark, apparently paying no attention to what the rain was doing to his hair and his clothes. He’d been waiting for her and, as he pulled the car door open for her, he said, “I saw what happened in there, Allie.”
She got into the car and threw her bag onto the seat beside her. Seeing Zach there, knowing he’d witnessed the whole thing, that was really the frosting on the cake!
“I suppose you found that really amusing.”
“In a way. You should have known better than to come in and make a spectacle of yourself.”
“A spectacle? I didn’t think I was making a spectacle of myself. I was just doing some sketches.”
She tried to pull the door shut, but Zach held it open so he could talk to her. She yanked at it a couple of times, but he wouldn’t let her close it.
“Allie, you can’t just waltz into these meetings and do whatever you feel like. You should have realized that. Don’t you have any respect
for anything?” He held the door firmly. “Stop yanking at this door. I want to talk to you!”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you, Zach! Close that door! I’m getting wet!” She started the motor, gunning it involuntarily. She was getting madder every moment. “Adam should have warned me this would be a meeting full of small-town, closed-minded bigots!”
The mention of Adam’s name had its usual enraging effect on Zach.
“So that’s what you were doing here! Well, you ought to have stayed for the rest of the meeting.” With all his force, he slammed the door shut. “They’re going to vote in favor of an environmental impact study,” he shouted after her as she tore out onto the highway, doing sixty in about four seconds. “How are you going to make a full report to Adam if you don’t stay for the whole meeting?!” He was yelling after her in the direction of her disappearing taillights.
He was left alone in the black parking lot with the pouring rain soaking through his clothes, alone with his fury and his frustration.
Chapter Eleven
It rained hard all night, and it rained hard all the next morning, and the foul weather was not helping Allie’s rotten mood. She had slept badly and had awakened still angry and unrested. Now, at ten in the morning, she had already spent two hours trying to work in the studio and she wasn’t getting anywhere.
It was awful enough to have been humiliated in front of the whole town. But how much worse it had been that Zach had been there to watch her being ridiculed! The memory of him, rain-drenched, yelling at her as she drove away out of the parking lot last night, was with her still, interfering with her concentration. What was it he’d been shouting at her? She hadn’t been able to hear more than a fragment. Something about Adam. It was always something about Adam.
With each passing hour, she had grown more fidgety. She’d paint a bit, and then lay her brushes down, and walk aimlessly around the studio. Then she’d paint some more, and then walk some more. After a while, she gave up and went into the living room. Ten or fifteen minutes passed while she paced nervously, like a caged animal, back and forth, alongside the big sliding door that opened out from the living room onto the deck. Every now and then she paused to watch the storm whipping up the surface of the ocean, churning up great waves and smashing them against the shore. The unending downpour was being driven relentlessly against the house by fierce winds from the northeast, and the racket of the elements outside matched the turmoil and anger that were increasingly raging inside her. The winds and the rain seemed to be challenging her to come out and fight.
For a while she studied the monstrous flashes of lightning across the water, trying to analyze the scene, hoping to turn it into future paintings, wondering if any painting of the wild water and the whipping wind outside could express the tangle of her own confused emotions. The studio had a window facing the ocean, and the light would be good for several hours. She could try to do it.
But instead of going back into the studio, she abruptly walked to the closet next to the front door. From a shelf inside the closet, she took a thick, warm sweater and pulled it on over her cotton shirt. The bright yellow rain poncho was still crumpled up on the chair where she’d flung it last night, and she slipped that on over her head. She stepped into a pair of worn Top-Siders that were standing next to the front door and then, without even picking up her handbag, she opened the door and walked into the fury that was raging around the house.
She didn’t know where she’d be going, but she felt a great need to get out into that storm, to feel its strength around her, to feel the rain on her face and in her hair. She wanted to drive through the drenching downpour and watch it blowing through the trees, sheeting the roads with flowing water. She wanted to see the boats down at the dock, being tossed against the waves, pulling violently at their moorings.
Once outside, she realized the storm was even more ferocious than she’d anticipated. She had trouble opening the car door and, by the time she got in behind the wheel and turned on the ignition, the water was streaming through her hair and down her face. Along the road that led through the woods to the highway, the tree branches were bending under the powerful wind, and she was glad when she reached the main road where the visibility was better. She drove to the nearby town and through its narrow streets, down to the harbor, where she stopped the car and sat still for a few moments, trying to figure out why she felt compelled to be there. The dock was washed beneath torrents of rain and the floats below were covered by waves of seawater smashing up against them. In their slips, along the length of the dock, the boats were rocking against the waves, straining at their lines, the wind-driven rain blowing across their decks.
And way down at the far end of the dock, barely visible through the sheets of rain, Zach’s green Ford pickup truck was parked near the ramp.
“What’s he doing here now, in this storm?” Her question to herself was immediately followed by another. “And what am I doing here?”
She was struggling with an irrational impulse to drive to the end of the dock, to find Zach. It made no sense. What was she doing here? Why did she feel compelled to be near him? Especially after his incredibly infuriating behavior last night!
She pulled the Cherokee away from the dock and into the parking area in front of The Lobster Pot, the diner where the fishermen hung out when they weren’t out on their boats. Maybe, with a cup of coffee and a little casual conversation, she could get a grip on herself. Steady down and get back to work. Somehow, she would have to drag her mind away from Zach.
She turned off the car’s motor and pushed the door open against the blowing rain and, in the rush and whirl of the wind against her face, managed to reach the diner and pull the door open. She got it closed behind her with difficulty, with the wind dragging hard against it. And there she stood, dripping, inside the warm and inviting diner. She really wanted that cup of coffee.
“Looks like you ran into some weather out there.” The plump, dark-haired waitress behind the counter was setting a couple of beers in front of two young fishermen who’d come down to the dock to check their boat’s mooring lines. “Whyn’t you hang up your things over there and dry out a bit. What can I get for you?”
Allie hung the poncho on a hook and ran her hands over her face, drawing the water back off her forehead and through the thick hair that was clinging in soft, wet tendrils.
“Some coffee, please. Black.”
As she sat down at the counter next to the two fishermen, the woman behind the counter gave her a long sideways look. Allie knew she was being examined, and she recognized the woman from last night’s meeting at the school. She was one of those who’d been vociferously opposing the development plan. The woman had recognized her, too, and had identified her as “the outsider.” The friendly manner of a moment ago disappeared, and the woman’s eyes were glinting with cold suspicion. She set a mug in front of Allie, banging it down on the counter hard, sending a message.
Allie abandoned any hope of friendly conversation there. She turned to the man sitting next to her.
“What an awful storm. I thought it was going to blow me away.”
He kept his eyes fixed on his glass of beer. “It’ll pass pretty soon.” He turned away from Allie to the man next to him. “We get them much worse around here, don’t we?”
His companion laughed drily. “We sure do. This one’s just a little baby rainstorm. It’ll be over in a few hours.”
“Well, it’s strong enough for me.” If this was a baby storm, she sure didn’t want to see the grown-up version. “I thought it was going to pull the trees down. And some of the boats out there look like they’re going to get washed away.”
“Hell, no,” said the first man, still not looking at her. “If you were from around here, you’d know we grow our trees a little tougher than that. They’ll last just fine.” He drank down some of his beer. “And the boats’ll be okay, too.”
Allie was bristling. These people were apparently not going to let her forget
she wasn’t “from around here.”
“Yeah,” said the other man. “They’ll be okay.” Then, forgetting all about Allie, he said to his friend, “But I did see one of the sailboats out in the harbor broke loose from its mooring. About a half hour ago, Zach Eliot went out with the harbormaster in the launch. They were going to try to pull it in.”
The first man shook his head sympathetically. “That’s too bad. I hate to see anyone have to go out in this kind of weather.”
“You said it. But they’ll be okay. Old Gordon’s a good man.” He signaled to the waitress to bring them each another beer. “And Zach knows what he’s doing out on the water.”
“That’s for sure. I’ve got to hand it to him. That guy’s really got guts.”
“I know. If I were in his boots, I’d never be out on the water in a storm like this.” He shook his head thoughtfully, staring down at the countertop, making a pattern of overlapping rings on it with his wet glass. “Not after—” He stopped abruptly, mid-sentence, as his friend jabbed at him with his elbow, gesturing with his head toward Allie. The man glanced over at her, pursed his lips and nodded slightly. Whatever it was he’d been about to say, it was now locked securely away from her. Instead, he contemplated his beer.
The other man said a long, drawn-out “Eee-yup,” and also stared into his glass.
Allie finished her coffee and the waitress said, “Will there be anything else?” It wasn’t a question and she didn’t offer Allie a coffee refill.
Allie realized these people were not doing anything to improve her bad mood. She had a couple of dollars in the pocket of her jeans, and she dropped them on the counter.
“No, thanks,” she said. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going. I guess a little rain won’t hurt me.”
She walked back to get the yellow poncho and slipped it on over her head. As she pushed the door open and went out into the storm, an echo of the men’s words was troubling her. Something about Zach and the storm. Zach, out in the motor launch, in that driving rain and the fierce wind, and the waves, higher and wilder than any she’d ever seen.
Summer on the Cape Page 12