“Can’t imagine where you get all that energy, but go for it. The only way I’m moving from this spot is if things get crazy inside, or the sun goes down and the mosquitoes get bad . . . unless, of course, the concert lets out at the music fest and everyone comes here for coffee. Which they probably will. Better get your workshop time in while you can.” Sandy gave me a conspiratorial look. She knew why I wanted workshop time, of course. “We’ll just sit here and hold the deck down, won’t we, Zoey?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Zoey answered with a weary smile. Fortunately she didn’t look like she wanted to go to the workshop with me. “This morning was crazy. Is it always like that?”
Sandy nodded. “During the season, it is. The rest of the year, it’s just locals wandering by for coffee and us girls working in the shop or curled up by the fireplace.” She backhanded Zoey’s arm lightly. “You’ll see this winter.”
A truck passed by, and Zoey didn’t have to answer. I knew without looking at her that the idea of still being here by winter was almost more than she could stand.
The problem consumed my mind as I worked in the glass shop, lightly sanding the latest coat of varnish on Zoey’s treasure box, then adding a new coat, watching it flow over the bits of glass and mother-of-pearl tucked into the network of cracks created by the sea and the sun. Like the beach glass, the wood was more beautiful because of its journey, because of the things it had been through. Holding it up to the window, I watched the light press through the cracks, gathering the colors of glass and mother-of-pearl.
Inside the perfect shells is dim,
It’s through the cracks, the light comes in.
My life was like that box. The best things in all the imperfections. A college girl’s unexpected pregnancy —a daughter who was almost a young woman now. A failed relationship I thought was love —a son who wanted to grow up and be a sea turtle researcher. A frantic flight from Texas —a hiding place by the sea. A healing place. A house filled with an old woman’s clutter —prayer boxes in a closet.
The journey itself was the architect of the wood. The interior would never be fully dark because the struggle had cracked it, providing an avenue for the light.
Impulsively I grabbed a sawdust-covered notepad and pen from the workbench, wrote the story of the box next to a black-and-white etching of the lightkeeper’s house at Currituck. I told about Pap-pap and the box he’d built for me, how much it had meant, and why I’d made this one for Zoey. I told her that she was beautiful and treasured and that I loved her in a way for which there were no words.
Hold the box up to the light, I finished. See what happens to the cracks. Some of the hardest things you go through will teach you the most. Don’t let other people tell you who to be, Zoey.
You are loved just the way you are.
Happy fifteenth birthday,
Mom
When I was finished, I tore out the paper, folded it, and put it in my pocket. When Zoey’s box was ready, I would tuck it inside for her to read.
The chime went off overhead once, then a second and a third time, alerting me to the fact that the front end was busy again. Tucking the driftwood box high on a shelf to dry, I hurried off to join the crew.
An hour whirled by in a rush of coffee, souvenirs, sandwiches, soup bowls, and jewelry sales. Kids played in the sandbox while women in sarongs and sundresses shopped, tried on straw hats, experimented with the necklaces and earrings, and picked out T-shirts for people back home. Men sat on the sofas and watched TV or pulled out laptops and iPads to check e-mail or monitor the stock market. The deck outside drew a crowd again, now that there was a break between concerts. Sandy’s desserts and sandwiches were selling like hotcakes, and other customers carried plates over from Boathouse Barbecue next door.
Sandy asked Zoey to bicycle down to Burrus Market for an emergency bread run. “You’re a lifesaver,” she said as she tucked money into my daughter’s palm. “Watch out for the traffic. And don’t get distracted, smiling at some cute boy. You’ll run into a signpost like one of my shopgirls did last year.”
“I won’t.” Zoey smiled and rolled her eyes as she slipped out the door, temporarily too busy to be depressed.
Three more groups came in as soon as she was gone. In the flurry of human activity around the coffee counter, I was eventually aware of someone watching me. I looked up, scanned the crowd, and suddenly there she was, a blingy bandanna tied around her platinum-streaked hair, her tall frame willowy and alluring in a white sundress and cowboy boots. My mouth fell open. I froze. She smiled at me. She’d been waiting by the display of quirky shell art near the door —waiting for me to notice her.
My sister.
She smiled now, swept across the room as if there were no one else in it. Circling the end of the coffee bar, she opened her arms, exposing the tiny vine of red roses tattooed on the inside of one wrist. Her voice came in an excited squeal —“I found you!” —as if we’d been playing some sort of game and she’d unearthed the winning card.
I stood with a pot of hot tea in hand. Protection, a barrier. I blinked. Blinked again, had the odd thought that perhaps I was still sitting on the blue chair out back, rocked to sleep by the lull of the water. Only dreaming. She couldn’t really be here.
How? Why?
An impatient wag of her head instantly reminded me of Zoey’s teenage angst. “Well, give me a hug, stupid! I drove all this way. I had to get a hotel in Buxton last night because I didn’t have a clue where to find you. Have you got a place? All Zoey mentioned was that you were working at Sandy’s Seashell Shop. So you’re a coffee lady now? Seems like kind of a step down from living on the hacienda with Dr. Strangelove, Little Sis.” Heavily cloaked lashes lowered, a smirk lifting her ruby mouth on one side. The skin below her blue eyes was smooth and tight. She’d had some minor nip-tuck since I’d seen her. Wonder who’d paid for that? A boob job, too. They were larger and . . . evident. Well-displayed in the sundress.
Zoey . . . the e-mails . . . the call to the Seashell Shop yesterday from a woman looking for me. It all made sense now. For whatever reason, Gina had tracked us down. “Gina . . . what are you doing . . . ?”
At the counter behind me, a woman tapped her credit card against the wood, impatient for two glasses of iced tea to go. Sandy glanced over from the main register. I was conscious of past colliding with present, the pileup of two speeding trains on the same track, reaching the same point at the same time, going opposite directions.
“Hello-oh?” Gina’s voice clattered above the din of activity. She stiffened her arms in the air, presented them again. “Give me a hug already.”
I hugged her, taking in the cloying scents of perfume and cigarette smoke. Her body was thin, the muscles and bones tight beneath the surface. “I . . . I can’t talk right now.”
“Oh, no problem.” She held on to me a moment, then let go when she was ready, the way a business executive clenches a handshake just an instant longer to let an underling know who’s in control. “I’ll just go hang over there on the sofas. I’m wiped out after that concert. I’ve been backstage. I met the guys last night when I couldn’t find you.” Pulling a wadded-up five-dollar bill from her small straw purse and setting it on the counter, she added, “Bring me a chai latte when you get a chance, ’kay?”
“Okay.” I nudged the money aside. I just wanted Gina as far away from me as possible. I needed to think, but I didn’t have time to figure her out right now. There was too much work to do. Sandy was clearly wondering what was going on. Letting customers come behind the counter was against her rules and the health department’s. We’d all been warned to mind our p’s and q’s, in case anyone official happened by. I couldn’t let Gina mess things up for me or for Sandy. Or for the kids.
Ohhh . . . the kids. The last thing my daughter needed was more of Gina’s pipe dreams. Zoey was so fragile right now.
I grabbed the shop phone, dialed Paul’s number, and braced the receiver on my shoulder while I finished the tea and delivered the customer’s order, then helped the next person in line.