“No, we won’t!” I pumped a fist in agreement. I’d gotten used to Sandy’s rabid enthusiasm. The woman was part pit bull, part Energizer Bunny, and part tent preacher. For her, nothing was beyond the realm of prayer and possibility.
“Youth music festival starts this week,” she reminded, then noticed Zoey trailing behind me. “Oh, hey, Zoey. You look like you’re a whole sight better today. That’s good. You can sort jewelry for me and put together some Build Your Own Beach kits —I want to have plenty in stock in the glass globes and also the little ones in the clamshells. Tourists love those for take-home gifts. No time to loll around. We’ve got to be up and running, fully stocked, and back in the swing before the first day of the festival. George is going to stop by Sam’s Club on his way home from the airport to pick up supplies for the coffee bar. If we don’t pass inspection and get the place open, all will be lost and the food George brings home will go to rot, but no pressure or anything. Help me check these walls one more time. Just to make sure. Not that I don’t trust you. But you don’t know what that new inspector’s like. Not you, Zoey. You get those crates off the counter and sort out the jewelry for the Peg-Boards and then get to work on some BYOB kits. Ask Sharon to show you the stuff, and you can pick what to put in each one. It’s all in a big jumble back there. We just threw it in boxes last fall. Don’t work too much. You should be resting. But get the jewelry sorted and the kits made, okay?”
Sandy paused for a breath, and Zoey looked at me, blinking wide.
“Welcome to the Sisterhood of the Seashell Shop,” I laughed, then slipped behind the counter for my putty knife. I wouldn’t need it, I knew. These walls were right as rain. I’d been over every single solitary inch.
We were checking the walls, and Zoey was sorting jewelry, when the phone rang on the coffee counter.
Sandy answered, then handed it to me. “It’s Lover Boy.”
Ross had called me at the shop yesterday. He was sitting at a hotel, bored and stuck somewhere in Mississippi, waiting for repairs on the lumber truck. I’d yakked as long as I thought I could get away with, holding the phone to my ear and commiserating while Ross ranted about his father being too cheap to buy new trucks. He was going to miss an amateur surf competition after he’d already paid the entry fee.
Sorry, I mouthed as I reached for the phone. Sandy clearly wasn’t in the mood for distractions today.
I let Ross spill the latest in the saga of the broken truck for a minute, then tried to gently tell him I needed to go. “It’s inspection day, so we’re really cramming right now,” I added. “Call me this evening, ’kay? I’m sorry you’re stuck on the road.”
“Yeah . . . well, it stinks. But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the part comes in today. I could drive all night and get back to Hatteras in time to still make it before sign-in. I need my board, though. I left it down at the house on Ocracoke, so if you can catch the ferry down today, then bring it back, I’ll pick it up at your place and be good to go. There’s a key under the dead plant on the porch. I’ll give you directions to the house. It’s not hard to find.”
“What? Ross, I can’t go —”
“And the dog’s there too. I didn’t get a chance to take him over to Mom and Dad’s before I left, and he’s probably out of food by now. I left a bucketful, but he eats like a horse. There’s extra in the garage.” His voice echoed into the room.
Zoey snorted, sorting jewelry on the coffee table. I realized that everyone else was catching at least the gist of this.
“Ross, I can’t go down to Ocracoke today.” Balancing the phone on my shoulder, I squatted by the baseboard to pull off the painter’s tape from last night. “It’s a forty-minute ferry ride, one way, and we’re trying to get the shop ready for inspection today. I can’t leave.”
Ross made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a whimper. “Well, okay . . . all right, Zoey can go after school. Tell her that as soon as I get back, I’ll give her fifty bucks for doing it. She can get Romeo to ride along. They can take his car across with them.”
“Zoey can’t go. She’s had West Nile virus, remember?” What world did Ross live in sometimes?
Zoey sneered at the phone. “Of course he doesn’t remember.”
Across the room, Sandy smacked her lips apart.
“Ross, I have to go.”
“But the dog needs food and water, Tandi, and I need my board.” All of a sudden, he sounded like a lost little boy.
“I can’t take care of it. I’m sorry. You’ll have to call Gumby or a neighbor down on Ocracoke or somebody else to feed your dog at least, okay?”
“Yeah . . . well . . . fine.”
He said good-bye and we hung up.
“He’s such a jerk.” Zoey was untangling one pearl necklace from another. “I feel sorry for the dog.”
Sandy scooped up Chum and gave him a noogie while he snorted and tried to lick her. “I’d never lock you in a yard and leave you without food while I went out of town.” She started toward the back door without saying anything more, but clearly Sandy didn’t have a high opinion of Ross so far.
I was glad when the morning passed and he didn’t call again. Hopefully that meant he’d found someone to take care of the dog.
Zoey fell asleep on the sofa before lunch. By then, Sharon and Teresa had shown up, and the four of us had the shop ready for inspection. I left Zoey on the sofa and went outside to join the Shell Shop girls at a table on the deck. Sandy had decreed that there wasn’t one more thing we could possibly do to prepare, and so we should take a break for crab balls and coffee. The inspector wasn’t due for two hours yet.
I lost track of the chatter at lunch. I was thinking of Zoey and how monumentally sad she’d looked, sitting there sorting the jewelry, her movements robotic and disinterested. This fairy tale of an empty bedroom at Aunt Gina’s was just one more blow, one more rejection when she was already hurting. I wanted to make everything better, but I didn’t know how.
A pile of driftwood in back of the workshop caught my eye as Teresa and her mother said good-bye and Sharon got up to walk around front with them.
“You’re in another world,” Sandy remarked.
Chum hopped into one of the recently emptied chairs and sat down, his bug eyes shifting back and forth between Sandy and me as if he were looking for a chance to break into the conversation.
“I was just thinking about Zoey. She’s having such a hard time getting over the breakup with Rowdy. She doesn’t want to go back to school.”
Sandy reclined in her chair, watching two kids in kayaks pass by on the sound. “Well, she’s young. Rejection is hard to deal with when you’re young. Give her time. She’ll be stronger for it in the long run.” Chum bounded into Sandy’s lap and tried to kiss her, and she pushed his little snout away. “Stop that. I’ll throw you to the sharks. You’ll end up somewhere out to sea with my picture frame and the rest of my glass boxes.”
An idea lit in my mind, sudden and alluring. “Sandy, could I have a piece of that driftwood that’s piled behind the shop?”
Leaning around me, she looked at the wood. “Well, sure, if you want it. We just threw it there after the storm to get it out of the way. What’ve you got in mind?”
“I want to make something for Zoey. Would you mind if I used the tools out in the workshop? I mean, if there’s nothing else you need me to do inside right now, that is. I’m too nervous to sit and wait for the inspector to show up, but I don’t want to go home, either. I want to be here when he can’t find one thing to complain about.”
Sandy winked, then pointed a finger at me. “I like your confidence, and of course you can use anything you need in the workshop. My place is your place.” Bracing her hands, she pushed to her feet, groaning. “I’ve gotta go sweep the porch or something. I’m a wreck.”
She patted my shoulder as she circled the table, then walked back into the store. Chum started after her but decided to follow me instead. Together, we selected just the right piece of driftwood from the pile —one grayed and cracked from the salt water, twisted and knotted in a way that spoke of struggle and strength. Chum helped himself to an empty stool near the workbench, watching as I measured and planned. Sometime later, he fell asleep to the hum and whine of the band saw.
All else seemed to fade away as I worked. I forgot about Zoey’s problems and my own and the store inspection. There was only the bit of driftwood, slowly changing as I worked, slowly becoming something new.
Its intended form was taking shape when Zoey’s voice traveled in from the back deck. “Mama! Mama!”
I hadn’t heard that much emotion in her voice in so long. My heart sped up, and I wondered if something was wrong.
I covered my driftwood creation just in time. Zoey burst through the door, and Chum met her, yipping and wagging. They skidded into each other on the sawdust and nearly toppled a plastic container filled with sheet glass.
“Mama!” Zoey wheezed, catching her breath.