Sea Glass Inn (22 page)

Pam hurried back to her gallery after lunch and locked the door behind her. She went into the small back office and pulled a fresh canvas from the stack she stored behind the desk.

She didn’t know why she had continued the habit of storing unused canvases in various places around her home and gallery when she so rarely painted—well, at least until about eight weeks ago, when she’d started on the commission pieces for Mel’s inn—but right now, two weeks since she’d moved home, she was glad to have a clean and prepared surface at hand.

Her haste was so at odds with the subject she had to paint that she almost lost her focus. Then the image rose up again, and she began squeezing colors onto her palette. She had been staring out to sea during her lunchtime walk, and she had almost stepped on a huge jellyfish lying like a puddle on the sand. Only Piper’s sharp bark had alerted her in time to break her stride and avoid the creature. It had oozed along the beach, its movement imperceptible but for the telltale indentation behind it, revealing its path.

Pam quickly streaked a thin wash of Payne’s gray over the surface to make a blue-gray ground for the painting. While it was still wet, she stippled paint over the base for the damp sand. Dry sand created a border along the bottom of the canvas, and the edge of a wave defined the top. She played with several blends of colors on her palette before she sketched the jellyfish slightly to the left of center, its trail leading off the canvas to the right. She couldn’t reproduce the quivering blob with her heavy oils, but she visualized the sea glass in place before she even finished the early stages of painting. Pale blues and grays and clear, polished glass would bring life and lightness to the heavy mass of paint and imitate the glistening reflection of sunlight off the creature’s surface.

Smudge this line a little. Yes, perfect.
Pam’s brush froze on the canvas. She held her breath and carefully finished the stroke before lifting the brush. Where had the thought come from? Where was her usual disconnect from the work? She was right there, watching the painting unfold, making adjustments so it matched her vision, holding both the painting-in-progress and the finished product in her mind.

Instead of locking part of herself away and letting the painting happen.

Almost against her will. Now she was present, making conscious decisions about the work. She slowly put her brush against the canvas again, exhaling through her mouth as she stroked across the painting.

Seeing the paint as it spread, anticipating the next layers of color, visualizing the completed and sea-glass studded mosaic.

Pam’s mind moved ahead even further, beyond the completed picture, and she saw Mel hanging the painting in what Pam called the Gray Room. She named the rooms by their colors, but Mel had taken to referring to them by their paintings. She had a Starfish Room, a Seascape Room, a Storm Room, a Kite Room, and soon she’d have a Jellyfish Room. Pam refused to use those terms out loud, but under Mel’s influence she was beginning to secretly follow Mel’s lead.

She had been unaccustomed to living with her art. Over the past years, she had put her paintings up for sale as soon as she had managed to finish them. But the daily exposure to the pieces while she had been living with Mel had worn away some of her discomfort. She hadn’t spent a lot of time contemplating the paintings as they hung on the walls, but she had at least been able to walk past them without cringing.

She had to admit that Mel’s excitement with each new painting was a big part of the reason she was slowly allowing herself to accept inspiration when it came instead of fighting so hard to ignore it.

Pam stepped back from the easel and from the vision of Mel hanging the picture in her inn. She had seen jellyfish on the sand hundreds of times, but never before had she felt so compelled to paint one. Maybe she felt a kinship with the slow, shapeless animal.

These past weeks with Mel had left her feeling as if she were crawling through sludge in an attempt to keep pace with Mel’s explosion of growth. From her inn to her garden to her relationship with Danny, Mel was transforming at a rapid rate. Pam, by comparison, barely was able to drag herself from painting to painting, from isolation to an uneasy companionship. She’d settle back into her own pace as soon as she delivered the last of her paintings to Mel.

Or would she? Go back to her sluggish pace of one painting a year, when she had just finished her fourth in less than twice as many weeks? She had been so accustomed to denying herself this outlet, this way of expressing her pain. Her pain and vulnerability, those feelings too intense to express any other way than through her art. She had blamed Mel for forcing her to paint, but Mel had only asked. Pam had picked up the brushes, had let the images pour out, had slowly moved from expressing her pain to easing it.

She looked closely at every detail of her painting. Looked at every line, every texture, breaking it into sections as she analyzed her work. She made some small changes to the jellyfish’s shape so it didn’t appear so symmetrical. Darkened the sand in one area, so the contrast between wet and dry was more pronounced. She had fought Mel’s positive interpretations of her paintings at first. Then she had started to see them through Mel’s eyes. Indirectly, cautiously. Always on guard against the chance of being hurt again. But she didn’t need the filter anymore.

Her vision was direct and clear, even through her tears. Seeing the painting objectively, but still investing all her emotion in it.

Somehow Mel’s courage as she rebuilt her life and her inn had helped Pam find the courage to stop denying her art. The return to being an artist had been a long one. Eight years followed by eight daring and complex weeks. The eight weeks she had known Mel. Pam wanted to share her tentative hope, the hesitant resurfacing of her abilities, with Mel. But she couldn’t. She’d share this painting with Mel, but not the breach in her protective shell. Not the aching joy she felt as her desire to express and create broke free. Love had almost destroyed her, as an artist and as a person. Being in love, losing her love. How many decades would it take for her to get over Mel if they started a real romance and failed? Pam might never pick up a brush again. She had used up all her courage. She wasn’t brave enough to take the chance.

❖

Mel slowly peeled back the blue painter’s tape from around the window sash. The neat white trim contrasted nicely with the slate-gray walls. She had chosen colors with more depth for the third-floor rooms. Pam’s kite painting hung next door, against a rosy background.

Pam was delivering the painting for this room today. She had given Mel some suggestions for colors but wouldn’t tell her what she had painted.

Mel stopped to admire the panoramic vista offered by the upper-level rooms. They shared a bath, but the view more than made up for the slight inconvenience. Plus, the two rooms worked well as a suite for families, and Mel had already booked the full suite several times for the following month. She sighed and turned away from the ocean to gather her scraps of tape. She was doing all this work for other people to enjoy the views and the rooms while she languished alone in her downstairs dungeon. She was lonely without Pam and Danny and nervous about her soon-to-arrive guests. She had come up with the idea of an inn so she could have more people in and out of her life. But a few days with Pam in her bed, in her house, sharing her world, had spoiled her. She wasn’t certain she’d be able to live her whole life like this. She didn’t think she’d be able to survive with only intermittent companionship, with no lasting closeness.

Her body, her senses wanted Pam. Pam, windblown and smiling after drifting through ocean winds, a storm replacing the calm sea of her eyes when she took Mel in her arms. The taste of her kiss, as wild and uncontrollable as the tides. The feel of her arms, so strong and comforting, as the crashing waves of release washed over Mel’s body. Mel had spent so many years denying her body, and now she was tempted to keep their affair alive. But her instincts whispered a warning so quiet it was almost lost in the turmoil in her mind. She wanted more. She wanted everything. Sex, yes. Definitely. But love, too. Companionship and honesty.

Pam wasn’t ready to give her anything but sex. And it was almost enough, but not quite. Mel had to keep searching, find a new path to the future she wanted. Pam had emotional limits because of her past, because she had been hurt, because of things Mel still didn’t fully understand. But would the women Mel was going to meet be any more available? Travelers, passing through town before they returned to their real lives. Short days in which to find a spark of interest, to try to find someone who didn’t fail when compared to Pam.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. Pam. Bringing her fourth painting. At this rate, she’d be done with the commission within the week. Without the business deal to link her to Pam, Mel doubted they’d see each other at all except for accidental meetings in town.

She had been so excited when Pam finished the first mosaics. Now, she dreaded the final one.

“Wow, the walls look great,” Pam said, walking sideways to fit through the door with the large painting. She turned it to face Mel.

“The color will be perfect with this.”

Mel stared at the jellyfish. She had seen the creatures on the beach but had never expected Pam to paint one. She loved it. “It’s different,” she said, unable to articulate what she meant. Pam had painted a
portrait
. Of a globby jellyfish, but it was a portrait. Her other paintings were distant, as if Pam was standing as far away as possible.

This time, however, she had stepped close. Stared her subject in the eye—or whatever it was a jellyfish had. She had somehow captured nuance and subtlety in the heavy oils. Mel wasn’t sure what this step meant for Pam, but she knew it was progress. Special.

Pam laughed self-consciously. She had become accustomed to Mel’s enthusiastic responses to her work, and the implied criticism she heard hurt. This painting wasn’t more technically proficient or conceptually interesting than her others. Mel had no reason to like it better, no way to know how different the
process
of painting had been. Why had Pam expected her to understand? “Saying it’s different is like saying a blind date is an interesting conversationalist.”

“I didn’t mean
bad
different. It’s beautiful and unique. You can see sunlight glistening on it. I just meant, well, I’ve never seen you get so close to a subject. So single-minded in your focus. You’ve changed.”

“Whoa,” Pam said, backing away. She wasn’t changing, wasn’t turning into whatever Mel suddenly seemed to see. Vulnerability shifted to anger in a second. The hint of her former creative spark was still too new, too fragile to share. She had needed Mel’s praise somehow. Her appreciation of the painting. But Pam wasn’t ready to have the focus shifted off the art and onto her as an artist just yet. Not until she had regained some control, some of her old ability to paint at will. Some proof that the tentative confidence she had experienced while painting had some foundation in reality. “Don’t read too much into it. I saw a jellyfish and I painted it. You know what they say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

“Careful, the trim is still wet,” Mel said, pointing at the wall behind Pam. Her voice rose in pitch to match Pam’s.

Pam stopped backing up and stood her ground. “If you don’t like it, I can try to paint something else…”

“I like it. I want it in my inn, so don’t try to replace it. I wasn’t trying to offer a psychological analysis of you as an artist. I just meant the subject and how you treated it is different from the other mosaics.”

“Okay,” Pam said. She was reacting foolishly and she tried to calm down. Just because Mel made the observation about her focus didn’t mean she was trying to interfere with Pam’s creativity. Dissect it until it disappeared. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been…a little edgy since I moved back home. I miss, well, I miss you. Having sex with you, I mean.”

Mel rubbed her arms. “I miss it, too. The sex part. And I’m lonely here, but I’ll be better this weekend when my guests come.”

Pam carefully put the jellyfish mosaic on the floor. She wanted to take Mel in her arms, keep Mel talking about sex. Make some joke about her
trim
comment and lighten the mood. Strip off her clothes and initiate the new guest room. Because that’s what casual sex partners did.

But she had to let go of the illusion. She and Mel were anything but casual. Mel had been the key to unlocking her old talent, her broken love of art and creation. And Mel was the one person with the ability to make Pam lose everything once again.

“You’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine,” she said. She walked away from Mel and from her painting. From the only part of herself she dared to offer.

The soft
ding-dong
of an old-fashioned doorbell startled Mel.

She had installed the electronic chime on her front door, choosing the homiest sound-effect option, but no one had activated it until now. Her guests. She was tempted to stay in the kitchen until they gave up and went away, but she reluctantly put her eggs back in the fridge and walked out to greet them.

“Hi, I’m Mel. Welcome to the Sea Glass Inn,” she said, forcing a smile.

“I’m Angie, and this is my partner Sara and our friend Tracy.”

Mel shook hands with the three women. Angie had called last month to make this reservation for the group—her first official guests, since the wedding had only booked because they’d lost their original venue. She should have been excited, eager to celebrate the momentous occasion of launching her inn, but she felt curiously empty inside, lonely without Pam. She had gotten attached too quickly, and just as fast, their relationship was over. She had lost part of herself by getting too close to someone, just as she’d feared.

“What a beautiful old house,” Angie continued as Mel picked up one of the suitcases and started up the stairs. “After talking to you and hearing about all the renovations you had to do, I was expecting to be staying in a construction zone. But this place is gorgeous.”