“Let’s agree. I accept I’m not always right, and you don’t pull away from me.”
She nodded, rested her cheek on his chest. “It’s a good homecoming after all.”
“Come on back to the party. Be my date.”
“I can’t. Honestly, Nat bugs the crap out of me, but I don’t want to spoil her party. Maybe you could come out to the island sometime, and I’ll tell you about the trip, and show you some things I’m working on.”
“All right.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“So am I.”
Glad to be back, she thought, especially when she stood at the rail of the ferry and watched the island come closer.
CHAPTER TEN
CiCi’s house offered views of the bay, the ocean beyond, and the tumbled coastline of Tranquility Island, including the jut of rocky land on the far eastern point where the lighthouse perched.
When CiCi first settled on the island, the lighthouse had been a stark, uninspired white.
She’d fixed that.
Lobbying with the artists community, she’d convinced the island council, as well as the business and property owners, to kick things up. There had been doubters, of course, at the idea of a group of artists on ladders and scaffolds painting the slender lighthouse with sea flowers, shells, mermaids, sea fans, and coral.
But she’d been right.
Since its completion—and even during the work—tourists came to snap pictures, and other artists featured the now unique lighthouse in their seascapes. It was a rare visitor who left the island without one or more of the Light of Tranquility souvenirs sold in any number of village and beachside shops.
Every few years, the community refreshed the paint—and often added another flourish or two.
CiCi enjoyed looking down the coast, admiring that spear of color and creativity.
Her home stood west of the light, on a rise above another jut of the uneven coast. Big windows, stone terraces, graced its two stories—plus the converted attic with its little balcony, which made three. A generous patio skirted the water side, her favorite side, where in season she had dramatic pots of flowers and herbs soaking in the sun along with oversize chairs with brightly colored cushions and some painted tables.
More flowers and comfortable seating ranged along the wide terrace on the second floor. It also held a hot tub, which she used year-round, under a pergola where she often lounged—happily naked—with a glass of wine while watching the water and the boats that plied it.
She could enter her studio with its bay-facing wall of glass—designed and added after she’d bought the house—from the great room or the patio. She loved painting there when the water gleamed blue as a jewel, or when it went icy gray and thrashing in the grip of a winter storm.
She’d converted the attic—or Jasper Mink (who’d warmed her bed a time or two between his marriages) and his crew had converted it when Simone had gone to Italy.
It offered lovely light, plenty of space, and now had a charming little powder room.
As she liked to say, CiCi was a little bit psychic. She’d imagined Simone working in that space, staying in the rambling house until she found her place.
CiCi, a little bit psychic, had no doubt where that place was, but the girl had to find it for herself.
Meanwhile, whenever Simone came back to Maine, she always came back to CiCi.
Despite two artistic temperaments, they lived together easily. Each had their own work and their own habits, and they might go for days barely see ing each other. Or they might spend hours sitting together on the patio, biking into the village, walking the narrow strip of sand by the water, or just sitting on the coastline rocks in comfortable silence.
After Simone returned from the west, they spent hours with CiCi looking through Simone’s photos and sketches. CiCi borrowed a couple of the photos—a street fair in Santa Fe, a stark shot of buttes in Canyon de Chelly—to use in her own work.
When Ward came to visit, CiCi slipped away to light candles and incense and meditate, pleased father and daughter were making an effort to reconcile.
For ten days, while the summer people thronged the island, they lived happily enough in their own world, with their art, the water, and cocktails at sunset.
Then the storm came.
Natalie whirled into the house like a force of nature. CiCi, still on her first cup of coffee (she still preferred seeing a sunrise as the last thing before bed instead of the first out of it), blinked owlishly.
“Hi, honey. What flew up your ass?”
“Where is she?”
“I’d offer you coffee, but you seem pretty hyped already. Why don’t you sit down, catch your breath, my cutie?”
“I don’t want to sit down. Simone! Goddamn it!” She shouted, raging as she stormed through the house, swirling negative energy CiCi already accepted she’d have to white sage away. “Is she upstairs?”
“I wouldn’t know,” CiCi said coolly. “I just got up. And while I’m all for self-expression, you’re going to want to watch your tone with me.”
“I’m sick of it, sick of all of it. She can do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, and you’re just fine with it. I work my butt off, I graduate in the top five percent of my class—top five—and the two of you can hardly be bothered to show up.”
Sincerely stunned, CiCi lowered her coffee mug. “Have you lost your mind? We were both there, with fucking bells on, young lady. And I can’t believe you just pissed me into saying ‘young lady.’ I sounded like my mother! Simone worked weeks on your gift, and—”
“Simone, Simone, Si-fucking-mone.”
“Now you’re the X-rated Jan Brady. Get a grip, Natalie.”
“What’s going on?” Simone came in, in a fast trot. “I could hear you yelling all the way up in my studio.”
“Your studio. Yours, your, you!” Natalie whirled, shoved Simone three steps back.
“Hold it!” Stepping forward, CiCi snapped out the order. “There will be no physical violence in my house. Shouting, foul language, fine, but no physical violence. Don’t cross my lines.”
“What the hell, Natalie?” Shifting, Simone laid a hand on CiCi’s shoulder.
“Look at you! Always the two of you.” Face bright pink with fury, blue eyes molten with it, Natalie jabbed out with a finger from each hand. “I’m sick of that, too. It’s not right, it’s not fair that you love her more than me.”
“First, there’s no ‘fair’ about love. And second, I love you just as much, even when you’re being a crazy person. In fact, I might love you more when you’re being a crazy person. It’s an interesting change of pace.”
“Just stop it.” Tears spurted, hot with rage. “It’s always been her. She’s always been your favorite.”
“If you’re going to accuse me of things, be specific, because I can’t remember ever slighting you.”
“You didn’t convert an attic for me.”
Close to fed up, CiCi gulped down coffee. It didn’t help. “Did you want me to?”
“That’s not the point!”
“It is the goddamn point. I didn’t take Simone to D.C. after her high school graduation and arrange for tours of Congress because she didn’t want me to. You did, so I did. Get over yourself.”
“I can’t even come out here anymore because she lives here.”
“That’s on you, and it sure looks like you’re here now. And one more thing before I trade this coffee in for the Bloody Mary I now crave, Simone can and will live here as long as she wants. It’s not up to you who lives in my fucking house. If you wanted to move in, you’d be welcome, but it’s not what you want.”
CiCi went to the refrigerator. “Anybody else want a Bloody Mary?”
“As a matter of fact,” Simone began.
“There it is.” Natalie sneered. “Just like Mom says. Two peas in a snarky pod.”
“So what?” Simone threw up her hands. “So we have things in common. You and Mom have things in common. So what?”
“You have no respect for my mother.”
“Our mother, Nat the Brat, and I certainly do.”
“Bull. You barely spend any time with her. You didn’t even bother to spend any with her on Mother’s Day.”