Summer Beach Reads

by Thayer, Nancy

  Was it too monotone? Morgan chewed on her fingertip, studying the room. One wall was all glass, displaying the lake. Couldn’t get better than that! Chrome lamps stood around, casting light, and she’d placed one large red vase (wedding present) in the center of the chrome table, then removed it because it appeared just too House Beautiful. This room needed something, though.…

  Just as a lightbulb went on in her brain, she heard Petey calling out, awake from his nap.

  Natalie opened her door, letting sunlight flood into the front hall. “Hi, Morgan! Come in! Hello, Petey!” She wore cargo shorts and a loose white shirt covered with a million dots and dribbles of paint. “I’m so glad you phoned. I’ve been working all day and getting nowhere but frustrated. Want a Diet Coke? Lemonade?” She took Petey’s chubby hand. “Graham cracker?”

  “He’s fine; he just had his after-nap treat,” Morgan told her. “And I came over to see your paintings again. I want to buy one.”

  Natalie looked staggered. “Man, I should have people over for drinks more often,” she joked, but her smile was uneasy. “Morgan. Listen. That’s really nice of you, but none of my paintings is ready to be exhibited yet. They’re all works in progress.”

  Morgan shifted her son onto her other arm. “I remember a large abstract of reds and blacks.…”

  Natalie shook her head. “I don’t think my real forte is abstract painting.”

  “I have to put Petey down someplace,” Morgan said. “He weighs about a hundred pounds. Can we go in your kitchen, give him a couple of pans and spoons and spatulas?”

  “Sure. Of course.” Natalie led them into the kitchen, and Morgan settled the little boy against the wall to stabilize him. “The floor’s clean. At least I think it is.”

  “Don’t worry. Petey hasn’t quite mastered the art of picking up crumbs yet. He’s better with big things. There. Anything rubber is good, because—”

  While Morgan was talking, Natalie squatted down and placed a pot and a big slotted spoon in front of him. Petey gave a macaw scream of joy and began enthusiastically banging the spoon on the pot.

  “Oh,” Natalie said. “I see why rubber is good.”

  They gave the child a rubber spatula, which didn’t interest him. Natalie took out a nest of Tupperware bowls and put them in front of him. Soon he was pounding on the Tupperware, which made much less noise.

  “It’s almost five,” Natalie said. “Glass of wine?”

  “In a minute. Natalie, I really want to buy that painting.”

  “You only saw it once.”

  “Then let me look at it again.” Before Natalie could respond, she said, “Petey, you play with Natalie. Mommy’s going upstairs just for a minute!”

  Petey had discovered he could hit the spoon on the tea tin, making a new noise. He didn’t even notice his mother leave the room.

  Morgan zipped through the house and up the stairs. She found her way to the room Natalie was using as a studio and entered. The still life remained set up on the easel. Morgan cast a quick glance at it, noticed how Natalie had softened the colors of the shawl, and felt a momentary twinge of guilt for intruding this way. Weren’t artists supposed to be defensive of their unfinished work? She looked away, to the darker corner of the room where the pile of abstracts were stacked on the floor, leaning against the wall.

  She rummaged through the paintings, taking care to do so slowly, until she found the one she remembered. It was very large, perhaps four feet by five, an explosion of color. She pulled it out from the others, carried it over to the wall lit by sunlight, then walked away to study it from a distance. It looked like an erupting volcano, or an exotic blossoming flower, or a swirling gypsy skirt, or …

  She picked it up to carry it downstairs, and saw, on the back, a small white label:

  ROMANCE

  ABSTRACT IN OIL

  NATALIE REYNOLDS

  $500

  “Aha!” Morgan positioned the painting with the oil facing away from her body and slowly, step by step, went down the stairs, through the hall, and into the kitchen.

  By now, Natalie had joined Petey on the floor and added a red colander and a set of measuring cups to their timpani. Petey was intent on his hammering, crawling from one pot to another, and Natalie was hitting various items with a whisk while singing, “I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day!”

  Morgan set the painting on the floor, shoved her hand into her pants pocket, and yanked out her cell phone. She took a video of the pair, and just in time, because Natalie looked up and saw her.

  Natalie stood up. “My ears are ringing. Don’t tell me you got us on video.”

  “And it’s going right to YouTube.”

  “I don’t think so. Look at him. He’s still banging away. Doesn’t he ever get tired?”

  “Not tired, no. He’ll get bored in a while and crawl off to wreak havoc somewhere else.”

  “Let’s go down to the beach,” Natalie suggested. “Sand is quieter.”

  “Good idea. Let’s take the Tupperware and a spoon for him to play with.”

  “And I’ll bring some iced tea for us.”

  Morgan scooped up Petey and some bowls. Natalie carried the iced tea and a spoon. They went out the kitchen door onto the deck and down the wooden steps to the flagstones leading through the short stretch of lawn to the beach. When Petey saw the sand, he struggled to get there.

  “I could fetch chairs …” Natalie offered.

  “No, sitting on the ground is just fine.” Morgan established Petey in the sand and sat cross-legged next to him, leaning back on her elbows, lifting her face to the sun. “What a great day.”

  The beach was wide and ran up from the water a good ten feet. A short wooden pier extended between Natalie’s house and the Barnabys’, with a wooden boathouse a few feet away from the lake, which today reflected a cloudless blue sky. Oaks, birches, and pines grew in all the yards, casting shadows that would be welcome in the heat of deep summer and providing homes for the birds who chirped and rustled among the leaves. From across the water came an occasional note of music or the industrious hammering of the fellow whom they could see repairing the roof of his boathouse.

  Natalie handed Morgan a glass of iced tea and took a long sip of her own. “The sun feels so good on my shoulders.”

  “Is painting hard physically?” Morgan asked.

  “Not really. Sometimes I get stiff.” She yawned. “This is nice.”

  “Natalie, I found the painting I want. It’s called Romance. I saw the label on the back, so obviously you exhibited it at least once.”

  “And no one bought it,” Natalie said.

  “Because it was waiting for me to buy it,” Morgan retorted. Then, because she could tell that Natalie was struggling, she said, “Natalie. Listen. I really like that painting. But I’d be the first person to admit that I know nothing about art. Plus, not to be rude or ignorant, I probably could tell a first-rate still life from a bad one, but with abstract art … it all looks incomprehensible to me. But this painting has spirit. It has emotional power.”

  Natalie smiled shyly. “Thanks.” Her eyes were cast down, her face shadowed.

  “I want to buy it.” When Natalie didn’t respond, Morgan coaxed, “It would only be next door. You could come visit it anytime.”

  Natalie’s posture straightened. She lifted her chin and stared straight at Morgan. “Look. I’m not an abstract artist. That painting is not my best work.”

  Morgan cocked her head. “And yet, I like it.”

  Natalie snorted, exasperated.

  “Listen, Natalie, what if it were hanging in a gallery? What if I saw it there? I’d buy it, and I’d have no idea what the artist thought about it, right?”

  Natalie picked up a handful of sand and let it drift through her fingers as she thought. “I see what you’re saying.” After a moment, she admitted, “I’m struggling with my still life, too.”

  Morgan could tell that Natalie was working something through. It ha
d been a long time since Morgan had shared such a moment with a friend. Life was full of decisions, and exposing such personal conflicts was risky.

  “What about landscapes?” Morgan asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you ever thought of painting landscapes? Of painting”—she held her hand out, indicating the glowing blue lake—“all this?”

  Natalie shook her head. “I don’t know why, but landscape painting has never appealed to me.”

  “That’s interesting. Why not?”

  Natalie shrugged. She relaxed a bit, considering her reply. After a moment, she smiled at Morgan. “Why biosafety?”

  “Hmm. Touché.” Now it was Morgan’s turn to sit in contemplation. She actually knew the answer, but the full truth required personal revelation. “I’ve always been interested in safety. I love science, but it can be dangerous. When I took chemistry in high school, something lit up inside me at all the safety measures and rules we were taught. One day a girl in my lab was in a hurry and her hair caught on fire from her Bunsen burner.” Morgan shuddered. “She was all right—someone dragged her to a sink and stuck her head underwater. Her face wasn’t burned, only a bit of her scalp. But I couldn’t forget that moment. When I was in college and realized there was such a field as biosafety, I went right for it. And the more I learned about hazardous waste management, the more I wanted to work in that field. Protecting the world as well as people.”

  “Wow,” Natalie said. “That’s impressive. You must feel a huge sense of responsibility.”

  Morgan laughed. “Actually, I do, but my responsibility now is all about taking care of that little guy, which means saving for a college education and all that raising a child requires.” She gestured toward Petey, who was carefully adding sand, spoonful by spoonful, into a bowl of water Morgan had carried up from the lake. “I love my work. I miss my work.” She sighed. “But I’ll get back to it someday.” She didn’t want to stay focused on herself, and she certainly didn’t want to get into her growing dissatisfaction with her husband and his job. “So. Now you tell me. Why not landscapes?”

  Natalie tugged at the hem of her cargo shorts. “I think I’ve been a kind of gypsy artist, wandering from genre to genre. I’ve been told I can be good. Unfortunately, some of the positive appraisal has come with strings attached, so I don’t really know if it’s been the truth.”

  “You’re talking about male art instructors wanting to sleep with you?”

  “Well, you summed it up very euphemistically, thank you.” Natalie’s mouth quirked downward.

  “You’re a babe,” Morgan reminded her.

  “So are you. So are lots of women. We shouldn’t have to have sex with our teachers to get the truth.” She ran her hand through her cropped black hair, ruffling it so it stood up like a raven’s plume. “That’s not all of it, though. I mean, I haven’t been able to spend more than nine months at a time working on my art, and that’s just not sufficient. I’ve gotten scholarships at art schools over the past fifteen years, but they didn’t cover living expenses so I never could stay long.”

  Morgan said sympathetically, “That’s tough.”

  “It is. That’s why I’m determined to be disciplined in my work now that Aunt Eleanor has provided me with this amazing opportunity. No men in my life, no dating, no flirting. That always leads to trouble. Just work.”

  “You’re painting a still life now, right?”

  “Right.” Natalie exhaled. “And I don’t like it.”

  Morgan laughed. “Okay, then. What would you like to paint?”

  Natalie stared toward the lake, and Morgan watched the strain ease from her face, replaced by a dawning hope. “That. I’d rather paint that.”

  “What?”

  “Petey. A little boy in blue shorts and a red-and-white striped shirt, pouring water into bowls, his face so intent on his work. Children have done that for centuries, and here he is, one particular child. It would be something eternal and ephemeral at the same time.”

  “Why not do it?”

  “For one thing, how long is he going to keep still?” Natalie asked.

  “Here’s a solution.” Morgan reached into her pocket, took out her cell phone, and snapped a few shots of her son. She handed her phone to Natalie. “The resolution isn’t great.…”

  “And the lighting will change every day,” Natalie mused aloud. She stood up, pulled out her own phone, and took a few steps back, clicking shots at different angles. “Clouds, shadow, the earth’s angle to the sun, but still … Wait. I have a better camera. I’ll be right back.” She sprinted away.

  Morgan held her breath. Her son could grow bored in an instant; she didn’t dare move for fear of distracting him. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Natalie did a portrait of Petey!

  A minute passed. A bumblebee buzzed over to check out Morgan’s hair. She didn’t even twitch. The bee flew away. Petey continued to pour sand into the bowl. The sunlight fell on his strawberry blond curls, turning them into a mystical substance, liquid fire. His dimpled hands clutched the spoon fiercely as he cautiously, trying not to spill even one grain of sand, raised the spoon from the beach to the bowl. He would be a good chemist, she realized.

  But where was Natalie? Petey wouldn’t do this forever! She heard a click and turned her head. Natalie was on the deck with a camera, snapping photos. Morgan relaxed. She sipped her tea.

  By the time Natalie returned to the beach, Petey had become bored with this project and was toddling around the lawn, looking for bugs and falling over.

  “He’s still working on the walking thing,” Morgan told Natalie. “Did you get the shots you wanted?”

  “I think so. I’ll start tomorrow morning to see what I can do, and if the weather’s good, maybe you two can come back over.”

  “Great,” Morgan said. “But I do have one stipulation if you’re going to use my son as your model.”

  “Oh?” Natalie was looking down at her camera, clicking through the shots.

  “I want to buy the abstract. Today. We’re having Josh’s boss over for drinks this Friday, and I want to hang the painting in the living room.”

  “Oh, Morgan, just borrow the damned thing!”

  Morgan grinned. “Uh-uh. I’m paying you for it.” She picked up her son, whose diaper sagged against his sandy shorts. “I’ll carry him. You can carry the painting over. Now.”

  5

  First, Natalie thought, she’d do a quick sketch of Petey on the beach with a charcoal pencil on a sheet of her less expensive paper. She selected her favorite photo taken of Petey in the sand by the lake, uploaded it onto her computer, and zoomed it as big as her computer screen would take it without distorting it.

  Next, she put on her music, some CDs she’d burned, a mix of upbeat and mellow, and set the volume at low. She picked up her pencil and put it down.

  Standing in front of her easel, she stared at the digitalized shot of the little boy, letting her eyes blur as she took in the background: the golden sand, blue water, green trees all around him. Her pencil waggled in her hand as she loosened her wrist. She hadn’t done portraiture for years. She wasn’t sure what she was doing. This would be only a sketch. When she used oils, she could bring out the radiance of the child’s hair, the bloom of his fresh skin, the gentle spread of light around him. For now she wanted to capture only line, shape, and shadow. His profile was to her as he squatted in the sand. His hand was halfway between the ground and the bowl, the small spoon heavy, clutched tightly in his hand, his entire body tensed with the effort not to spill the sand.

  Her own hand lifted. She didn’t think. She hummed to the music. She swayed slightly with the beat. She touched the charcoal pencil to the paper and swooped a line, the plump wrist, the fat fist, the straight handle and curved bowl of the spoon.

  She worked swiftly, but still, two hours had passed when she finally stopped, discovering the nape of her neck and the back of her knees moist with sweat. It remained cool in the mornings so she didn�
�t need the air conditioner and she didn’t want to use mechanical air if she didn’t have to, but by noon the heat had intensified, and even in her shorts and tank top she was uncomfortably warm. She had to take a break. She wasn’t hungry for lunch yet. She needed to move. As she went through the house, opening all the windows wider, hoping a breeze would sweep through, she caught sight of the lake, glistening in an inviting span of blue.

  She didn’t possess a bathing suit. It had been years since she’d gone swimming. She wasn’t a very strong swimmer, anyway, but right now every molecule in her body wanted to immerse in that cool water. She stepped out of the kitchen onto the deck and looked around. After the still closeness of her studio, the world blossomed around her, an explosion of warmth, fragrance, birdsong, and light. She took a quick peek toward Bella’s house. Bella was at the shop today, she knew, but was Louise out on the deck? No. Good. Sometimes—well, probably more than was good for her—Natalie craved solitude. When she’d been painting, she needed time to emerge from her solitary state and rejoin the normal world. Walking to the end of the deck, she peered around at the O’Keefes’ house. Both cars, Josh’s Cadillac and Morgan’s Toyota SUV, were gone.

  Lovely. The lake was empty, except for someone in a canoe in the distance. It was, after all, a weekday, when most people were at work.

  So no one would see her, and she couldn’t wait any longer. She hurried down to her beach, kicked off her sandals, and waded into the lake in her shorts and tank top. The water temperature was heavenly, warm at the top from the touch of the sun, with a teasing coolness the deeper and farther out she walked. She couldn’t resist. It was so inviting, especially after two hours of intense mental concentration. She threw herself into the water and began to swim in her own pathetic uncoordinated way.

  After a while, she flipped over on her back and floated, letting her arms drift out to the side, kicking her feet a bit, soaking in the healing power of the warm sun on her face and the cool water supporting her back. Each finger drooped downward as the water caressed it, and her neck, stiff from working, loosened as her head fell back, her chin lifting toward the sky. Ripples of water combed the curls of her hair with delicate swirls. Oh, this was bliss.