The Secret of Hailey's Comments

by Kristy Tate

  Artie looked crestfallen. “Oh! Why not? I thought you’d be over the moon! I sold it for more than what you make at the academy in a whole year.”

  “It’s not about the money,” I said, and then told her about the Hawthorne contest.

  “Oh,” Artie looked at Ryan and then back at me. “I’m sorry, but cripes, what a stupid premise for a contest.”

  I looked out at the cottony clouds above the Sound. “You don’t get it.”

  “No, I get it,” Artie said, her eyebrows lowering. “You want critical acclaim and a drawing of Pinkerton doesn’t get you that.”

  I rolled my eyes, knowing I couldn’t explain my disappointment and ingratitude for what I was sure Artie would consider a financial windfall. “The contest was a doorway into the artist community.”

  “You already have an artist community.” She looked peeved and her mouth turned into a downward line.

  I’d worked with Artie and been her friend for four years. We shared lunch, dinner, and gossip. I had sat with her when O’Toole had an emergency vet visit because he had eaten all the Halloween candy she’d bought for the students. I’d never seen her angry before, even when I told her I couldn’t date her favorite cousin, Timmy.

  “At the academy! You have artist friends at the academy!” Artie said, her voice deepening. “Wait. I’m beginning to understand. We aren’t the artists you want. You want the galleries and shows.”

  I held up my hand, stopping her. “Artie, you’re misunderstanding me. Besides, why would you sell my drawing? It wasn’t really yours to sell.”

  She stamped her foot. “You gave it to me.”

  “To keep!”

  “I thought you’d appreciate the money! The buyer has contacts and friends who will see your work. She’s incredibly influential.”

  A horrible thought occurred to me. “Who bought Pinkerton?” I asked through tight lips.

  Ryan and Artie exchanged another long look. Artie took a deep breath and reached out and placed a hand on my arm. “I’ve sold the academy.”

  “What?” I jerked away from her.

  “I had to. It’s just not profitable. I thought by selling your drawing I could soften the blow and the proceeds would give you an entire year to find another job.”

  “Who bought Pinkerton, Artie?”

  “Hailey Clements.”

  Ryan barked with laughter. I wanted to hit him, to hit anything.

  “Can you believe it?” Artie asked, smiling. “Just before you left, she came in and asked about you.”

  I turned away, completely humiliated and beaten. “Excuse me, I left my things on the hill,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear the rest of the story. Any pretense of my being an artist had been stolen and sold. Completely ignoring the throbbing cut on my foot, I hurried up the path that led to the play house.

  Ryan came after me. “Emma, wait.” He caught up to me and laid a hand on my shoulder.

  I shook him off and turned my face so he couldn’t see.

  He stepped around me and blocked my path. “Emma, stop.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m sick of being told what to do.” My voice sounded tight, as if my throat was closing. I stepped around him.

  Ryan matched my stride. “Why are you so angry? Artie was just trying to be a good friend. When she first came to me about listing the academy, she told me that she worried about her teachers.”

  I didn’t say anything and stopped mid-path. “You sold the academy? To who? Hailey Clements?”

  “No,” he faced me squarely, his generally good-natured face concerned. “An investment firm is going to turn it into a shopping mall. Does that bother you?”

  I sniffed. “Of course not, Hartley Field could use another mall.” I willed myself to calm down. I knew I was being unreasonable.

  Ryan blocked my path. “Who is Hailey Clements to you anyway?”

  “I don’t want to talk about her.” I continued up the hill.

  “Wait, just because you can’t enter that contest doesn’t mean that you can’t paint. Painting shouldn’t be dependent on contests or sales.”

  I stopped so quickly Ryan bumped into my back. When I turned to face him, I took two big steps backward. “You don’t understand and I can’t explain it to you. Just go away and leave me alone.”

  He looked into my eyes and, to my surprise, he turned and left.

  Now I was friendless on an unfriendly island. I sighed. Low clouds gathered on the distant water. I sat down on a lump of a rock, feeling bought, sold, and miserable. Grammy Hailey controlled my life financially and emotionally. By buying my painting, she’d bought my one dream that had nothing to do with her.

  Why would she do that? She probably thought she was helping. Or did she? She didn’t want me to be an artist; she wanted me to write her column. I wrote, she paraded. That was the deal. I got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to quip. And quipping is a form of art—it just wasn’t in the medium I wanted.

  I stood up and decided to visit Otter’s Play Yard on my own. Ryan still had to draw up the contract before we returned to Edmonds. Otter’s Play Yard sounded like a happy, solitary place. Maybe while I was there I could come up with a new life plan.

  I would miss the academy. A lot. It was the one place where I felt like an artist. I certainly didn’t feel very artistic standing behind an easel and a blank canvas. At the academy, the children inspired me. Each child approached their blank canvas differently. Some attacked it with bold strokes and vibrant color. Others hesitated and then approached their work cautiously- solvent at the ready for mistakes.

  Of course, I’d taken art courses most of my life, the most intense period being my four years at the institute. But even after my graduation and teacher’s certification, I had continued to take workshops. I knew how to use oils, acrylics, pastels, charcoal, the computer, and even potatoes.

  I tramped over the heath toward Otter’s Play Yard, listing my problems. First, my muse, unlike my inner-critic, didn’t like to hang around and she wasn’t interested in being wooed. I didn’t know where she was or what she was doing but left on her own without a class or an instructor, she pretty much just slept. In a class, she blossomed.

  Maybe she was competitive. The thought made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like to see myself as competitive. Second problem, releasing my inner creativity meant releasing the inner art critic, and the inner art critic and I were not on good terms. In fact, I disliked her. I didn’t like her nasal tone, her Hitler hair or her mincing walk. One art instructor said that an artist should consider her inner critic her best friend, her protector against melodrama, cheesiness, and the simple solution. But what was so wrong with the simple solution? Did art have to equate to angst?

  My other problem, the one who loved me maybe too much, was my grandmother. It didn’t surprise me that she had bought my drawing. She had spent my whole life trying to pave the perfect path for me: the best schools, the right clothes, riding lessons when I hurried through the horsy phase, piano lessons when I decided to devote my life to music. I knew I should be grateful. But I resented her constant presence.

  The art had taken me somewhere beyond her grasp, but then it had dropped me and I couldn’t seem to move on. I didn’t mind the column. In fact, as long as I could stay detached from the readers’ cares and concerns and focused on witty platitudes, I enjoyed writing the column. It took a sinfully small amount of time for a hefty amount of money. It was more like a gravy train than a job.

  A small strip of sand pocked with black shiny boulders rose like huge beached whales covered with seaweed, barnacles, and perched gulls. The gulls, correctly guessing that I didn’t have any food, took no notice of me. And that was my other problem. Like the gulls, no one really took notice of me.

  The real problem, I decided, was no one really knew me. Even though I didn’t want the notoriety Hailey enjoyed, I wanted to feel like a contributing member of a society. The academy provided that in a way, and now it was gone. And here I was
, alone on an island inhabited by only otters.

  Which was, actually, very cool.

  The animals lounged on black slippery rocks, lazily watching my approach. A mother lifted a fin at me, in greeting or warning. Her baby, a silky gray curl of fur, turned his large black eyes to me then shyly burrowed into his mother. Below the bank, the ice-blue water churned with otters. One brown creature back floated past me with a fish pinned to his belly.

  I wondered what would happen if I stripped off my clothes and swam with them. The frigid water and the cut on the bottom of foot stopped me. I climbed up the bank and followed a path up the side of the hill. I arrived at the top winded.

  I had a clear view of the bay and the Dunsmuir boat house. The yacht, so impressive up close, looked toy-like from the distance. I also caught sight of a bright blue triangle. Was James still up to James Bond tactics?

  I turned and headed down the hill, my stride long and loose. The wind blew cold against my face, making my eyes tear. It felt good. I felt alive. So what if Gram had paid for a drawing I could have easily given her? So what if I’d never win the Hawthorne? So what if I no longer had a job teaching art? I could get another teaching job, but maybe before that, I’d try another vacation. This time a real vacation, somewhere far away, foreign and romantic. Wyeth could stay with Hailey and keep her company while she wrote the column. I wouldn’t try and paint, but I could bring a sketch pad.

  I’d found another life map, and it felt good to be on new path, a path not subjective to art critics and contests. I felt light hearted, as if I had left my anger and frustration on the Play Yard’s rocky beach.

  But happiness disappeared on the beach, or you could say my happiness disappeared with the beach. The narrow strip of sand that separated Otter’s Play Yard and Lister had been completely submerged in a rising tide. Water swirled in an angry froth between the rocks where the crossing should have been. It didn’t seem like I’d been gone that long, so how could the path have disappeared so completely?

  Chapter Nine

  I’m a swimmer, but I didn’t consider braving the waves that crashed among the rocks. Had I really been with the otters that long? My rumbling stomach said yes. I climbed the hill and headed for James’ friendly blue tent. Maybe he had something for dinner.

  I ducked into the warm and stuffy tent. A down sleeping bag lay on top of an air mattress. I gave it a dubious look and hoped I wouldn’t need it. I rummaged through James’ belongings: bug spray, binoculars, a first aid kit, cooking supplies, and a cigarette lighter. I grabbed the binoculars, extracted a white T-shirt from a duffle bag and hurried back outside. With the binoculars I saw the Jensons, Ryan, Artie and James. Even though I knew they couldn’t hear me I tried calling, then yelling, and finally screaming.

  I watched Artie. She stood a little too close to James and took every opportunity to touch him. James seemed oblivious and I wondered if I were misreading the situation. They’d known each other since childhood. Sometimes people who have known each other a long time fall into a pattern and the expected response is all that’s needed. Maybe Artie knew James loved her, and she didn’t need the outward signs of devotion. Or, what seemed more likely, Artie cared more for James than James cared for Artie.

  Ryan stood with his hands on his hips, occasionally pointing toward the cottage. I wondered if he was looking for me. I waved but Dina turned her back. I sat down discouraged. Only gulls answered my calls. I looked at my watch. It was after six. Ryan should have left by now and a surge of hope ran through me.

  Maybe in the twilight they wouldn’t notice, but after the sunset, surely, they’d notice a fire on the hill. I returned to the tent, retrieved the cigarette lighter and looked for something to burn.

  The sky had turned pink by the time I returned to the camp and my friends on the beach had disappeared. “No, no, no,” I whispered. My stomach replied with a long, deep growl. I went back to the tent where I’d seen a promising-looking cooler and a propane stove. I found a collection of canned and packaged food and selected a can of chili, a box of crackers, and a large slab of chocolate. I broke off a hunk of the life-saving candy and decided that I’d misjudged James. He looked stiff and unfriendly, but unfriendly stiffs don’t keep slabs of chocolate. Good nature returned. Briefly.

  I watched the boat house. The yacht remained tied and I was glad that Ryan wouldn’t leave without me, even if I hadn’t been very nice. In the small, stone-ringed fire pit I piled my kindling into a teepee. James didn’t have any newspaper, so I had to use strips of toilet paper. It didn’t burn very well, but unfortunately, the chili did.

  I ate the blackened chili and crackers and then went to make further use of James’ toilet paper. My necessary sojourn in the clump of trees took much longer than I would have thought. First, I had to find an appropriate spot then I had to will myself to remove my pants. By the time I returned to camp the yacht was gone. It didn’t exactly surprise me, but it did make me sad.

  Plus, I had visitors.

  I ran to the tent, my hands and voice raised. I screamed in frustration at the gulls enjoying James’ crackers. They pulled the box to bits and fought over cracker crumbs. I cursed the birds and then my stupidity for leaving the box out. There wasn’t anything worth saving, maybe I should have let them have the crumbs. I used my shoe to bury the cracker’s remains anyway. I gathered up the box bits and the chili can and took them to the plastic trash bag James had tied to a tent pole. When I opened the bag something sharp caught my sweater. A glass shard poked through the plastic. I peered into the bag, and among the candy wrappers and tin cans were glass fragments. I recognized a unique, distinctive, nutty smell that was somehow familiar, yet I couldn’t place it. It seemed out of place in the islands. I unhooked my sweater from the glass shard and grimaced at the small oil stain it had left.

  I returned to my campfire. I stoked it and coaxed it into a blaze. As the sun set, the breeze picked up and made the flames dance. I sat on the log near the fire, willing someone from Lister Island to think of me.

  #

  I’d been dreaming of a flutist dancing in a swirl of mist, but the flute didn’t carry a melody and gradually, I grasped that the strange whistling sound came from outside my sleep and the tent. The world looked gray, the moon a faint smudge of light in a sea of fog. To the east, the sun tried to cut a pink and yellow dawn through the mist. A bald eagle swooped by, and I realized that the whistling came from his wings. His song receded when he flew into the low hanging clouds.

  Everything looked still in the pale dawn but a small bobbing light on the water. I got the binoculars. The fog rolled over the Sound and slowly receded around the red hull of Phil Henderson’s boat. It pulled into the bay then bumped against the dock. On board stood two figures—Phil Henderson and Wyeth.

  I exhaled. Wyeth gave a series of short, rapid barks. Phil lifted his hand to him and Wyeth cringed. Pepper spray. I instinctively stood, my head stopped by the tent’s roof and my hair snagged in the zipper.

  “Fudge,” I whispered, fighting with my hair but managing to keep my eyes on Phil and Wyeth.

  Phil vaulted over the stern of the boat, but Wyeth remained. Phil headed toward the Dunsmuir’s at a quick trot. He glanced side to side, as if afraid of being watched, and then vaulted up the front steps. Moments later he exited the house carrying something large wrapped in a blanket. I watched him disappear into a thicket of trees near the bank. Shortly, he emerged from the trees, brushing twigs and leaves off his sweater, before he headed back to the Dunsmuir’s house.

  James was right—Phil Henderson was a thief. But the only thing in Phil Henderson’s possession that I cared about was my dog. I sat down to keep watch and to think of a rescue plan.

  #

  The cottage looked dark and still. I still had the skeleton key in my pocket and I planned to just stake out and watch for an opportunity to rescue Wyeth. But after a few minutes of standing in the semi-dark woods I began to fight to stay awake. I rolled my shoulders, stretched my arms, a
nd tried, unsuccessfully, to do a few jumping jacks, but still my body remained heavy with sleep and my head nodded. I jerked awake and pushed my glasses back on my nose. I couldn’t risk losing another pair. I stumbled into the empty cottage and fell onto the sofa.

  Hour later I woke with a cricked neck and that feeling that said I wasn’t alone. A pillow had been shoved under my head and a blanket had been thrown over me. I clutched the blanket around my shoulders and sat up. I smelled bacon and heard a shower running. I decided that the person in the shower had to be friendly, or at least non-threatening. They’d had an opportunity for foul play as I’d slept. No villain would leave a sleeping victim to shower, would they?

  I was sitting on the sofa, straightening my clothes, finger combing my hair, wiping sleep from my eyes and drool off my chin when Ryan came down the stairs. His hair had been towel-dried, and his T-shirt clung to his still partially wet chest. I’d never seen him in casual clothes before and he was bursting out of these ones. The clothes seemed vaguely familiar.

  He caught me looking. “They’re not mine,” he said. “I found them in the closet.”

  He pulled a kitchen chair over in front of the sofa and sat down too close. His toes hung over the tops of the sandals. “Why are you wearing borrowed clothes?” I asked.

  Ryan folded his arms and studied me. “Where were you last night?”

  My head swam and I propped it up with one hand on my forehead, elbows on my knees. I smelled of campfire, my clothes were dirty from totting firewood, and my teeth screamed for a toothbrush. “Why are you here? I saw the yacht leave.” I didn’t mean to sound unfriendly, I certainly preferred his company to Phil Henderson’s.

  Ryan’s eyebrows lowered, making him look fierce. I found this interesting. Why would he be angry? “My question first,” he began.

  “No, I asked my question first.”

  A vein in his neck began to throb and his clenched fists turned white. “My question is more important.”