“You don’t even know her! She is not fine. She is not herself. My daughter is having a meltdown.”
With that, she stormed into the house.
Marin flopped down on her bed, facing the ceiling. She was so hung over, the whir of the ceiling fan made her stomach lurch.
Did she really have that much to drink? Enough to get a good buzz on, sure. But to throw up three times?
Still, she had to admit it was worth it. Kelly was fucking awesome. She looked at the red flower etched inside her wrist, and smiled. Even if she hadn’t loved the tattoo—which she did—the look on her mother’s face would have been well worth it.
Marin closed her eyes and draped her arm over her face to block out the sunlight. She imagined her office in New York. The conference room. The lobby. Life at Cole, Harding, and Worth was going on without her. And the truth was, it didn’t feel that strange. She didn’t miss it. What did that mean?
A knock on the door. Marin ignored it.
“Marin,” called her mother. “We’re going to the beach. Want to come?”
“No,” she said.
“It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
Marin forced herself out of bed and opened her door a crack. Her mother smiled at her hopefully.
“I can’t get sun on my tattoo,” Marin said. “I’m going back to sleep.”
She closed the door again.
She was just dozing off when another knock disturbed her. She wanted to yell at whoever it was to leave her alone, but she forced herself to call out—with just a modicum of civility—“Who is it?”
No answer. Another light rap. Groaning, she sat up and dragged herself to the door. She opened it to find Kelly.
“Amelia will kill me if you’re too hung over to leave your room today,” she said.
Marin sighed. “I am pretty hung over. But I also just can’t deal with my mother. Or anyone.”
“So you’re hiding in here?”
“That’s the plan.”
“For how long?”
“You can wake me up when it’s time to drive back to New York.”
Kelly put her hands on her hips, cocked her head to one side. “I have a better idea. Come hang out in my studio. I could use an extra set of hands for a project.”
Marin rolled her eyes. “Kelly, you don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Babysit me. I’m fine, okay? There’s just a lot going on, and I want to be alone.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m not asking for you. I actually do need help with something, and if you wanted to be alone, you’ve come to the wrong house. You’ve come to the wrong town, actually. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all up in everyone else’s business. I think that’s printed somewhere on the brochure.”
Marin couldn’t help but smile. “I’m not very artistic.”
“I don’t need talent. I need manual labor. Come on.”
Marin followed Kelly up one flight of stairs to her third-floor studio.
The first thing that struck Marin about the room was color; it was everywhere. It wasn’t just the mosaics on the wall. Small end tables were tiled in cobalt and sky blue; a full-length mirror was covered in pieces of china, pale pink and moss green and red. A vivid green mermaid statue shone with opaque glass. The room was enormous, probably intended as a master suite. In the center, a wide rectangular table stretching nearly the length of the room. It was covered with plates of colorful tiles and glass, bowls of pebbles, a teacup brimming with shattered china. The table was also littered with tools: a metal ruler, a T-square, an odd device that looked like gardening shears with two round wheels at the top, giant rolls of tape, tubes of glue.
“Oh. Wow,” Marin said, walking around. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves and cubbies that were filled with plastic bins labeled by color and material: sea glass, tiles, china, and crockery. Some shelves were piled with dishes; others had towers of teacups. One long shelf was filled with sheets of stained glass organized by color: vivid greens and blues and purple in every shade from deep, dark violet to the palest lavender to cotton-candy pink.
“I have to say, it’s my favorite place in the world. This used to be Amelia’s bedroom—back in the day. But when I got serious about mosaics, we converted it into a studio.”
“It smells good in here. Like spicy vanilla.”
“Oh, that’s perfume. It’s from a fancy store, Calypso. Amelia gave it to me as a stocking stuffer one Christmas. I don’t wear it, but I do spray it around. Very expensive air freshener.” She smiled.
Marin kind of loved her. “How did you get into this whole mosaic thing?”
“Amelia taught me. Her family—your family—has been making them for generations. She just showed me because she thought it was a hobby we could do together, but then I got kind of obsessed. And since I moved here in my twenties, I had no idea how I was going to earn a living. I just got a hundred percent focused on it, and luckily it worked out.”
“You made all of these?” she said, touching a tabletop lighthouse design constructed from mirrors and glass.
“Yep.”
“You’re seriously talented.”
A panel on the floor was one of the few monochrome pieces, all pale stones and white stained glass. A sheet of paper was taped to it: Glass and stone on panel, twelve inches by thirty-six inches, $1,600. The lawyer inside of her, the one who calculated her worth by time sheets and hourly rates, wondered how long it took to make one of these pieces. She asked Kelly.
“It always varies, depending on the size, the material, the design. My energy level. And I’m really busy right now—that’s where you come in. I’m making a surprise piece for Amelia.”
She unrolled a large sketch and set it on the table.
“It’s a Beach Rose Inn sign she can hang out front to replace the old one. My not-so-subtle hint that I want her to reopen next summer.”
“Is this a color legend?”
“Exactly. I’m going to fill in this entire sketch with colored pencil but I’m working off this for now. This shows the areas that will be tiles and smalti. The lettering is going to be all shells that Amelia has collected over the years, and then here will be a beach rose. These notes are my materials: sea glass, Venetian tiles, smalti, shells.”
She gestured for Marin to follow her to one of the shelves.
“All of these bins are filled with stuff Amelia found.”
The containers were labeled: ANGEL WINGS, MOON SNAIL, BLUE MUSSEL, SLIPPER SHELL. On the bottom shelf were mason jars filled with sea glass.
“She collected all of this stuff?”
Kelly nodded. “Every morning for years, she’s walked the beach looking for pieces to bring back to me.”
Marin decided she wanted to walk the beach looking for its treasures at least once before she left.
“That sounds like a great morning routine.”
“Personally, I like to work first thing in the morning—or very late at night. It’s when my mind is most open and creative.”