by Nancy Thayer
“Keely? Darling?”
“I’m in my room, Mom. Gosh, I have a lot of books to take to the library for the book sale.”
Eloise stepped into the room. “Oh, darling, don’t do that. I might want to read some of them.”
Keely started to argue, but held her tongue. It broke her heart to see her wonderful mother looking so—so lost. Unwashed and shabby and lost.
Lost in her own home.
“You’re right,” Keely said. “We’ll do it together and you can decide which books can go and which can stay.”
Her mother stubbornly faced forward, chin lifted defiantly.
Keely thought desperately and came up with the perfect solution. Islanders called their dump the Madaket Mall because so many summer people dropped off their cast-offs at the Take It or Leave It shed. A few minutes’ search on the bookshelves and tables could provide new hardback mysteries from England, available a year before the American publication. The wealthy summer women had their help drop off clothes with the tags still on them—if they hadn’t worn them that summer, they didn’t want them; they wouldn’t wear anything a year old. Antique chairs, slightly scratched, Italian majolica dinner sets that didn’t work out for the summer house, wicker armchairs with one strand of wicker missing—the dump was like a mad hatter store. Many islanders stopped by there at least once a week, partly to cruise the shed, partly to visit with friends, because so many islanders were there. One of the great things was that when you met up with friends at the mall, you could be wearing old saggy clothes, crazy hair, and no lipstick and it didn’t matter—everyone looked that way at the Madaket Mall.
“Listen, Mom. I’ll stay a few days and help you sort all this stuff. We’ll do it together. Then we’ll take it to the dump and we can air out the house and I’ll take you somewhere nice for dinner. Okay? Sound fun?”
“Okay. Just let me get my cheaters.” Eloise brightened. “Isn’t that a cute name? It’s really readers, short for reading glasses.”
“Very cute. But don’t get them now. I want to help you take a nice long shower and wash your hair and get dressed. Then we can go for a drive around town and you can tell me about all the things that have changed.”
“Oh, we don’t have to go out. We can curl up and have a nice long catch-up.”
Keely was silent. How was she going to handle this? Eloise was her mother, the one Keely turned to for advice. Eloise was only sixty-five. Had she become mentally incapable? Did she have Alzheimer’s?
“No, Mom, I want to get out and see with my own eyes. I’m going to take you out to dinner, too.”
Eloise shifted her gaze from Keely’s. “Oh, I don’t know about eating out…”
“So you have plenty of fresh food in the kitchen?”
Her mother’s shoulders sagged, then she brightened. “Brenda brought us a casserole and a pie!”
“Do we have something for breakfast? Eggs? Bread? Coffee?”
“Um…I’m not sure…”
Keely stepped forward and took her mother gently by the shoulders. “Mom, are you okay? I mean, really?”
Eloise stared at the floor. “I suppose I’ve let things go,” she whispered.
“Have you gone to the grocery store recently?”
Like a small child not wanting to admit guilt, Eloise shrugged her shoulders away from Keely. “It doesn’t take a lot of food to keep one old useless person alive.”
“Oh, Mom. You’re not old and you’re certainly not useless.”
“You don’t understand. Everyone else has someone. I’m all alone.”
Keely was speechless. This attitude was a one-eighty from her mother’s normal optimism. The question was, how could Keely help?
“If I had a grandchild, like Donna Maxwell has a grandchild, I could be useful then, plus I’d have”—she choked on the words—“someone to hold.”
A flurry of emotions hit Keely. Pity. Irritation. Guilt. And—here it came—she thought she’d erased it from her life—envy.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Keely said sternly. “What are we doing, standing here crying! Some people would give their back molars to be where we are in life. Now come on. Get in the bathroom and shower and wash your hair or I’ll have to do it for you.”
“I’m not sure—”
“I am. Let’s compromise. You get cleaned up and we’ll stay in tonight and eat Brenda’s casserole, okay? Now go.”
Her mother nodded and shuffled off to the bathroom. Keely leaned against the wall, listening carefully. When she heard the rush of water from the shower, she headed into the kitchen to see just how much of a disaster it had become.
* * *
—
Keely’s second day back on the island dawned warm and sunny. She rose before her mother. She made coffee, opened the back door, and stepped out into the fresh day.
Ah. Now she was really home. And it was the first day of April. Spring.
Years ago, her father had built a small slate patio for his outdoor grill and her mother’s wrought iron picnic table and chairs. Every spring, her mother bought new covers for the chair cushions and chose a small plant like a primrose or pansy to set in a porcelain pot in the middle of the table. Most summer evenings, the family ate outdoors.
Keely settled on a chair and raised her face to the sun. Her parents had planted flowering trees when they’d first bought the house, and now they were sturdy, their winged branches dappled with opening buds of pink and white. Birds flew back and forth between the trees, singing, and Keely leaned back into the chair and into the day and breathed it all in. She wanted to walk down South Beach Street to see the cherry trees in bloom. And maybe she’d bike over to the Wicked Island Bakery and get a morning bun, which wasn’t a bun at all but a delectable swirl of sugary cinnamon pastry like nothing else in the world. And maybe she’d walk down to The Creeks at the end of the harbor and see how the water had shaped the inlets over the winter. And maybe…
First, she would concentrate on helping her mother with the house. Next, she would get her mother out of the house. This afternoon, she would set up her laptop and download the notes Juan had sent and start rewriting, again, her third novel. She went back inside, poured herself another cup of coffee, and rapped on her mother’s door to waken her.
* * *
—
By late afternoon, she hadn’t touched her laptop, but she had dropped her mother off at the hairdresser. She made a quick run to Stop & Shop, where she’d bumped into several friends and caught up on their news—births, weddings, divorces, feuds, and for some of her mother’s friends, deaths.
Keely clapped her hands when her mother walked out of the salon.
“Mom, you look so pretty!”
“Thank you.” Eloise blushed.
“Hey, Mom, guess what Janine told me at the grocery store. Kathleen Knight’s art gallery has an opening tonight. I think we should go!”
“Darling, you go on without me. I’m not really up to it today.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Come on, this will be fun. You know Kathleen always serves champagne and fabulous munchies.”
Eloise waved her hand vaguely. “Too many people…”
“Yes, and they’ll all point and snicker and whisper, ‘There’s that pitiful Eloise Green who retired from the hospital and now just sits around being uninterested in the world.’ ”
“Don’t be mean.”
“Don’t be lazy.” Keely bit her cheeks to keep in a smile. Lazy was, to her mother, a deplorable trait.
“I’m not lazy! I worked with you all morning sorting out the house. Now I’m tired.”
“I’ll take you to dinner at the Boarding House if you go with me.”
“I’m not hungry. That sandwich you made was too filling.”
“Mom, are you depressed?”
“
Possibly. I certainly have the right to be depressed. My husband’s dead and I no longer have the job that was my life.”
“Okay, think about me for a minute. Obviously I don’t rate very high on your scale of reasons to live—”
“That’s not true! You’re putting words in my mouth!”
Keely stifled a grin. She’d gotten a rise out of her mother. “Back to the subject of me. I want to go into town. I want to see old friends. But, Mom, what if I run into Isabelle or Tommy? They’ll be together, the happy married couple and I’ll be all alone, the pitiful and unattached.”
“No one thinks you’re pitiful!”
“No one thinks you’re pitiful!” Keely fired back.
Eloise sighed and slumped. “You are a manipulative child.”
Keely pulled into the drive. “Wait till I get some lipstick on you. Maybe some blush. You’ll look gorgeous.”
* * *
—
Early in the evening, Keely drove into town. Nightlife wasn’t up to full speed yet, so not all the boutiques and galleries were open. Still, the winter was over, and the island was waking up. Lights shone from the stores, and the doors of some of the shops were open, allowing alluring fragrances to drift out.
She strolled side by side with her mother, window shopping.
“Do you remember, Mom, how Isabelle and I used to attend the gallery openings on Friday nights in the summer?”
Eloise smiled. “Lord, yes. You were fourteen, fifteen, and you draped yourselves in layers of black, wore mahogany nail polish and lipstick and kohl eyeliner, and such high heels I knew you’d break your ankles.”
“But we didn’t break our ankles. We were terribly grown-up and sophisticated, sauntering around with artists and the summer visitors who could afford to buy the paintings.”
“Yes, and you also managed to snag a forbidden glass of wine.”
“We did not!”
“Of course you did. I smelled it on you when you got home.”
“Well, it was champagne. Or prosecco. Anyway, we didn’t make fools of ourselves.”
“I suppose not. You two were such beautiful girls. You both wore your hair down your back almost to your waist.”
Keely laughed at the memory. Tonight she was wearing an apple green slip dress with an orange and gold shawl that brought out the flecks of gold in her eyes. Her mother wore slacks and a trendy geometric black and white top that Keely had given her for Christmas.
They turned onto India Street and in a few steps were at Kathleen Knight’s gallery.
“We’re here, Mom,” Keely said. “Come on.”
Reluctantly, Eloise followed Keely up the stairs. The gallery was a large, airy space with high walls displaying paintings and tables set here and there to hold sculptures. Dozens of people were studying the exhibits while sipping wine. Keely quickly scrutinized the crowd. She didn’t see anyone she knew, and was oddly disappointed by that.
Suddenly, Daphne Hayes rushed up to Eloise. “Eloise! I’m so glad to see you! I’ve missed you at our lunches, and I have loads to tell you.” Before Eloise could object, Daphne said, “Keely, if you don’t mind, I’m going to steal your mother away for a minute.”
“Of course.” Keely was as happy as if her mother were a toddler greeted by a friend in a playgroup. She took a glass of prosecco and strolled around the gallery, studying the art.
In the corner, beneath glass, a display case showed pieces of scrimshaw, an art form from the days when sailors on the whaling ships passed the time finely engraving the bone and teeth of the whales with scenes from the ocean, the boat, and their memories of home.
Keely bent over the case, admiring the workmanship of the three minutely detailed square-rigged whaling ships. She’d always considered this work, requiring such concentration and skill, similar to writing a novel. She couldn’t produce a novel all at once, with the broad sweeping strokes of a Pollock. She had to create her books carefully, a bit at a time. Just so with scrimshaw. Although, she admitted, she had the ability to erase and rewrite, to cut and paste, or toss out and begin again. With scrimshaw, the slightest slip could ruin a work.
“So you’re interested in scrimshaw,” a man said. “I never would have guessed.”
Startled—she knew that voice—Keely looked up. Next to the display case stood Sebastian. He was tall and lean and his eyes were a startling blue against his tan. He seemed more grown-up than when she last saw him. His shoulders were so broad…
“Sebastian!” Flustered, knowing she was blushing, Keely babbled, “Yes, I do like scrimshaw, although I don’t own any. Didn’t I read somewhere that because whales are an endangered species, carving on whale teeth or bone is illegal? I certainly hope the artist, who I think is amazing, but anyway, I hope he or she is aware of the laws.”
“I am,” Sebastian said quietly, with a gentle smile.
“You are what?” Was she going mad? She was so attracted to Sebastian she wanted to lean up and kiss him, hard and long.
“I am aware of the laws. Because I’m the artist.”
“What?”
“I’m a scrimshander. The whale teeth in the case are all over one hundred years old and legally documented.” He rested a possessive hand on the back of the case. “They’re expensive, which is why this case is locked.”
“I had no idea,” Keely said.
Sebastian shrugged. “I was working on resin when I was in high school. I was obsessed with this particular art.”
“Doesn’t it take forever to complete?”
“It does.” Sebastian leaned close, smiling down at her. “But I like to do things slowly and surely. I like to take my time.”
Keely went hot all over.
He grinned mischievously.
Keely went weak at the knees.
“I didn’t know you were on the island,” Sebastian said.
“I’m not here for long. I mean, I still have my apartment in New York. I flew home to”—she swiveled her head, checking to see that her mother wasn’t near enough to overhear—“spend some time with my mother. She’s retired and miserable. I hope I can cheer her up.”
“I’m sure you will. And hey, I enjoyed your book.”
“You did? Why?”
“Because you wrote it.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a good book, Keely. Good writing. I enjoyed it, although I wasn’t crazy about the descriptive passages of Hope and Adam having sex.”
Keely blushed deeply. “That wasn’t autobiographical.”
“Yeah, it was.”
He had read her book. He thought she wrote well. He’d read passages she’d written about sex. So much heat surged through her she was afraid she’d explode.
“You seem to know everything about me, Sebastian. I’m impressed. Maybe you can tell me how long I’m going to be on the island.”
“I think you’ll be here for the summer. I think I’ll take you out to dinner like I’ve been waiting to do for a long time.”
Stunned, Keely took a sip of wine to give herself a moment to process his words. Sebastian wanted to take her to dinner.
“Hello, Sebastian.” Eloise approached the scrimshaw display. “I’ve read about your work. Congratulations.”
Keely restrained a sigh of relief. Her mother was as friendly and relaxed as she had always been.
Sebastian leaned forward and kissed Eloise’s cheek. “Mrs. Green, how great to see you. Thanks for coming.”
“Oh, it’s all thanks to Keely. Now that she’s home, I find I’m much more cheerful.”
“You know,” Sebastian said, looking directly into Keely’s eyes, “I feel that way, too.”
“I think she should stay,” Eloise said.
“I agree.” Sebastian’s mouth curled in a smile. “But maybe she’s too much of a city gal now. We’re to
o provincial for her.”
“You’re one to talk,” Eloise teased. “You lived in Sweden for what, four years?”
Her mother’s lighthearted interrogation of Sebastian gave Keely the courage to say, “And by the way, where is your Swedish girlfriend?”
“Ah, well, she’s remained in Sweden. We’re still friends.”
“Are you really here for good?” Eloise asked.
“I hope so. I’ve bought the print shop out on Old South Road. We do invitations, posters, newsletters, brochures…”
Eloise brightened. “Why, yes, I know right where you are. So you’ve got the shop to support you financially, and I’ll bet in the winter you have plenty of time for your art.”
“Exactly.”
“So tell me,” Eloise asked, “how did you get interested in scrimshaw?”
Keely leaned against the wall, smiling. Her mother seemed to be sliding right back into her normal, friendly self. Maybe Keely could stop worrying.
“Hello, Eloise. Keely.”
Donna Maxwell sailed up in an invisible whirl of perfume and confidence. Keely said hello and stood watching as the two mothers chatted.
And it all came rushing back. How charming Donna was, how charismatic, how blazingly beautiful. She was tall, with the powerful sleek body of a sailor and tennis player, and the sleeveless dress she wore displayed her taut muscular upper arms. Next to Donna, Keely’s mother looked, well, dumpy. Eloise’s months of reclusiveness had allowed her to become doughy and pale. The geometric top Keely had been so happy to see Eloise wear now looked sadly out of style and actually faded next to Donna’s Lilly Pulitzer.
Keely had always admired Donna, and gotten on well enough with her, at the same time hiding a burning envy, almost an anger, that Isabelle’s mother was so all that while her own mother was exhausted from nursing and seldom attractively and never glamorously dressed. Yet she had to admit that even though Donna was never affectionate to Keely, she had always allowed Keely to muddle in with her own children for meals or trips to the beach or late night thriller movie marathons.
