Evelyn Marsh

by S. W. Clemens

  “I can’t just sit around the house all day; it gets lonely.”

  She stared at a younger family that smiled back from the photo on her dresser. They stood frozen in time six years earlier at the top of Healy Pass in Ireland. She remembered it was a windy day. Howard was holding on to his cap; her hair was in her face. Teenage versions of Robert and Samantha, wearing sock hats, exchanged pleased expressions. She missed them. She missed them all.

  “Maybe I should get another dog,” she said, thinking of her Shih Tzu, Bella, who had died the previous autumn.

  “If you get one, don’t expect me to walk it. Dogs are goddamned poop machines.”

  She moved to the window and looked down on the Spanish fountain. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was a warm spring day and she thought it would be a good day to start a new painting in the plein-air tradition. The subject would dictate the medium. Her early work had been in oils, but for the past eight years she’d worked mostly in pastels and watercolors. Some artists had a hard time switching media, but she’d always enjoyed the challenge, and no matter her choice, the finished piece was always recognizably her own.

  She offered to make breakfast.

  “Cream of Wheat would be nice, thanks. And coffee.”

  She went downstairs to the quiet kitchen, remembering the pleasant bustle of mornings when she’d seen the children off to school. There’d always been lost items to be retrieved, discussions about what to wear, after school plans, admonitions not to forget homework assignments, and questions, always questions — “Mom, have you seen my shoes?” “Where’s my backpack?” “What time is it?” “Can you drive me to...?” “Can I go to...?” “Tryouts are today — can you pick me up at four?”

  It had been a chaotic but happy house, a house full of life.

  That morning Howard and Evelyn ate together (a rarity these days) at the small table in the breakfast nook in the kitchen. She’d discovered, in the absence of children, they had little to talk about.

  He perused the headlines of the newspaper. “Oh god, here they go again,” he remarked. “Our tax money at work. This plan for high-speed rail will be antiquated technology by the time it’s built. Who will…”

  Before their children had flown the coop, there had always been plenty to talk about — school and schedules, ambitions and dreams, relationships and entertainments. What did old married couples talk about? What did her parents talk about?

  “And where does that leave those of us on the coast?” Howard asked rhetorically. She realized guiltily that she’d tuned him out.

  “Sam posted the funniest video on Facebook,” she said, looking down at her phone to call up the web page. “Check this out.” She held the phone out to him so he could see the dancing dog.

  Howard put aside the paper and gulped lukewarm coffee. “I don’t see what this fascination is with social media. You’d think she had better things to do with her time.”

  Evelyn put the phone down. “When did you become such a curmudgeon?”

  “Who’s a curmudgeon? I’m not a curmudgeon.”

  “Just listen to yourself. We used to have fun.” She got up to clear the bowls. “At least I think we did.” She put the bowls in the sink.

  “Come here,” he said. He reached out and pulled her onto his lap. “What’s got into you?”

  “You’re so negative.”

  “Am I? I don’t mean to be. I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Business. You don’t want to know.”

  “Maybe we could get away for the weekend, go up to Monterey.”

  “Not this weekend; I’m busy. Sam’ll be home soon. She’ll cheer you up.” He patted her bottom as he pushed her off his lap. “I’ve gotta get going.”

  He paused to hug her at the door, more like his old self, she thought. Closing the door, she remembered him putting his briefcase in the office the evening before. She rushed to get it and was at the end of the walk by the time he’d backed his black BMW out of the garage. She opened the passenger door and put his briefcase on the seat. “You’re a lifesaver!” he said appreciatively.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was just an idiom — “You’re a lifesaver” — and it shouldn’t have meant much, but this simple praise filled her with a sense of well-being that, unfortunately, lasted but a moment, for walking back to the house she saw the shovel standing upright in the earth, and suddenly she didn’t feel like a “lifesaver.” That tiny, helpless creature had cowered before her, terrified eyes searching for mercy, and what had she seen? A murderer. Evelyn liked to think of herself as compassionate and benevolent, and yet, in this instance she had been neither. She couldn’t undo what she had done. All she could do in penance was to offer heartfelt remorse and silently cede the flower beds to the family of the slain. Did they worry when she disappeared from the burrow? Did they mourn her absence? They lived in their dark world under the yard, minding their own business. How could they know that people placed more value on ornamental plants than on the lives of gophers?

  Evelyn tidied the house while planning her next painting. It would be a small one, she thought, of a café table after a morning meal, after the customer had left, before the waiter had come to clean off the dishes and cup. The table was set for two, but only one side would be messy. The other side would be set with flatware and a cup turned upside down on its saucer, as though the customer had expected company that never arrived. The table would be at the railing of a terrace high above the ocean, the sort one might find on the Amalfi Coast. With or without a table umbrella, she couldn’t say (yet). She would start sketching that afternoon.

  First, she wanted to talk to her father. After their children reached school age, she’d met Howard for lunch one or two days a week, but as the firm became more successful, he’d had little time for leisurely lunches. At the same time, Bill Hightower was spending more time nurturing business relationships and less on the day-to-day drudge work. He began taking a day a week for lunch with his daughter, a tradition that had continued for a decade until his semiretirement the year before (he no longer came into work, but he remained a voting partner and received consulting fees). She called to invite him out to lunch.

  “I miss our lunches together,” she said.

  “I do, too, sweetheart. You know, there’s no reason we can’t make a new tradition in my retirement.”

  There was a reason, however, a reason Evelyn didn’t feel comfortable voicing, and that reason was her mother. Not that she didn’t love her mother, but the woman could be trying. She was the ultimate worrywart, and having very little to worry about in her own life, she kept an eye on the news so she could worry about people half a world away. As Connie had said of Evelyn, she had a life ‘most people would die for,’ a life of luxury and privilege, and yet she complained and fretted constantly. It was a life that was wasted on her, in Evelyn’s opinion.

  “Where would you like to go?” Evelyn asked.

  “There’s a new place, pretty close to home, I’ve been meaning to try. Why don’t you come here first?”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Is there an occasion?”

  “No, no occasion. I just miss you, and I could use your advice.”

  “Nothing wrong, I hope?”

  “No, no, just an opportunity.”

  “You know, your mother might like to join us.”

  “Of course,” Evelyn said, making an effort to sound happy about it. “How’s she doing?”

  “Ah, well, her hip is bothering her again.”

  “I think she uses it as an excuse not to exercise. You should encourage her to walk with you.” In his midseventies, Bill Hightower walked two to three miles a day, weather permitting.

  “I do. She comes with me sometimes.”

  “If it’s really serious, she could get hip replacement surgery. I know people
that’s worked wonders for.”

  “I don’t think it’s that bad,” her father said, and abruptly changed the subject. “What are my grandkids up to?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.”

  “I heard from your Uncle David,” he said, referring to his brother who had married a Malaysian girl and worked in Finance in Singapore. “We Skyped a couple of weeks ago. Apparently your cousin Ronnie has applied to schools over here and his mother isn’t happy about it. You might have some insight about it. I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

  The Hightowers lived in a modest 2,700-square-foot ranch-style beach house on Avenue Del Mar in Carpenteria. The familiar briny, iodine scent of seaweed baking on the sand greeted Evelyn as she got out of her white BMW, a scent she always associated with childhood. They’d moved in when Evelyn was thirteen. It was a tiny house in comparison with the grand estates that hemmed it in on either side. However, what it lacked in grandeur it more than made up for in location. The property fronted the beach and gave them an unobstructed view of the water.

  She let herself in the front door and announced, “I’m home!” For despite living in her own home in Hope Ranch for the past twenty-five years, she still had an emotional connection to her parental home.

  Her mother, Marjorie Hightower, came around the corner and gave her a warm hug. “It’s so good to see you. It’s ridiculous we should live so close and not see you for weeks! But the time slips away.” They went into the kitchen. “Would you like something to drink? Juice? Coffee?”

  “I’ll wait for lunch.”

  “I often think about calling, and then the time gets away from me. How have you been? What have you been up to? Your father’s just getting out of the shower. These days he sleeps in and lounges around the house in his robe until afternoon. You know, getting your husband back, after fifty years of his going off to work, is a bit of an adjustment. I hardly know who I’m married to anymore. Can you imagine your father sleeping in?”

  “Well, at his age, he deserves a bit of rest.”

  “I can’t get used to it. What brings you our way?”

  “I have an opportunity, a business proposition.”

  “Your father is the one to talk to. He knows about these things.” Marjorie looked up at the ceiling, finally at a loss for words, at least for a moment.

  “I wanted to make a list of my paintings that you have here.”

  “Oh, well, uh…” Marjorie looked this way and that, waving her hands back and forth in a way that reminded Evelyn of hula dancers. “They’re all over the place, and I think we have a few in storage. I’m not sure — you know you’ve given us so many.”

  “And each one better than the next,” Bill Hightower announced, buttoning his shirt. “How have you been, sweetheart?” He leaned over to kiss his daughter’s cheek.

  “Good. I’m really good.”

  “So, what’s this about your paintings?”

  “Oh, I’ve been making a list to...um...figure out how many we might have.”

  “Is this what you wanted to talk about?”

  “Well, partly...kind of....”

  They walked from room to room, while Evelyn made notes on a scratch pad. There were small paintings and large, some in oil, some watercolors, some pastels, some mixed media. Many of which she’d forgotten about. It was like looking at old photographs. You might entirely forget about something until you saw a photograph, and then it all came back in exquisite detail. For most, she could remember where she’d painted them, how old her children had been, and the motivation behind each subject. A few, however, blurred in her memory, and these she only vaguely remembered having seen before, as though they’d been painted by someone else. They stood before one of her larger paintings that hung above the mantlepiece in the living room. It was one of her coatrack series, with two coats and two hats hung in such a way that it almost looked as though they were two people hugging.

  “I hope they haven’t been damaged by the salt air,” Marjorie said. “I’ve heard that can be detrimental. You know, I’ve been worried about that. And you know the sea level is rising. It might be better to move them to higher ground. After all, we’re right here on the beach. If the sea level rises, we could be underwater. And what about tsunamis? You saw what happened in Indonesia and Japan, and here we are, right on the water. Oh my god, I don’t even want to think about it! We’d lose everything!”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom. You’ll be long gone before that happens.”

  Marjorie seemed appalled by the idea. “I’m not going anywhere soon!”

  “No, of course not,” Evelyn said. “I just mean that even if the climate is warming, it takes time for seas to rise. We probably won’t live to see it.”

  “That’s not very encouraging.”

  “It’s not something to worry about. Nothing you can do will stop it. It’s always changing, in any case. You know, ten thousand years ago, before the end of the last Ice Age, you could walk out to the Channel Islands.”

  “Well, that just goes to show you what I’m talking about.”

  Bill Hightower asked, “Why the sudden interest in your old paintings?”

  “You know I’ve been selling a few.”

  “About time, too,” her father said. “I’ve always thought your work was museum quality.”

  Evelyn explained what Brooke had found in Half Moon Bay, and how she could employ a similar strategy with her own work. “Only Howard doesn’t think it’s a good idea, and I’m torn.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, it’s not like I need the money. And I don’t have any business experience. He thinks I’d spend so much time learning how to run a business that I wouldn’t have time to paint.”

  Her father sighed. “He has a point, though not a very good one. It’s not like you have to do this alone. I’d be there to help you through it. He could help, too.”

  “Connie said she’d help.”

  Bill Hightower rolled his eyes to the ceiling at the mention of Connie Katz. “Yes, well, I suppose she might know a thing or two, though I’d prefer not to count on her coming through.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Never mind. I just....”

  “What?”

  “I don’t entirely trust her motives. She always looks out for number one.”

  “Don’t we all?” Marjorie asked.

  “Do we?” Bill replied with arched eyebrows.

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the wake of his rhetorical question. Then Evelyn continued, “It’s true we don’t need the money. But I’ve really felt validated, in a way, since I’ve sold a few. It’s one thing to hear friends and family compliment your work. It’s another thing entirely to have a stranger buy it to hang on a wall. If a stranger likes it, then it’s not about you; it’s about the painting itself. It gives it value. I like sharing my work. It gives me pleasure to know that other people enjoy it.”

  “Perfectly understandable,” Bill said. “But what has that got to do with all these paintings here? Do want to put them up for sale?”

  “No, oh no, I wouldn’t take them back. They were gifts. No, what I’d like to do is scan them. Then we can make prints in all different sizes, put them on cups and plates, placemats and calendars.”

  “I think it’s a marvelous idea,” he said. “I’d be happy to help in any way I can.”

  “If you could contact the people you’ve given paintings to....”

  “Most of our friends,” her mother said.

  “Ask them if I could borrow them for a time, to scan them.”

  “We should get them to sign a waiver,” Bill Hightower said, “allowing you to sell reproductions of their paintings. I don’t think anyone would sue, but you can never be too careful, and it’s a grey area under the law.”

  “It would be nice
if you gave them merchandize,” Marjorie suggested, “that featured their particular paintings. I think they’d get a kick out of that.”

  “It’s settled then,” Evelyn said. “I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Evelyn might have heard the doorbell if she hadn’t been so absorbed in her work. She was sketching at the small wrought iron table by the fountain when a stranger came around the side of the house. She looked up, holding onto the brim of her sun hat as a gust threatened to snatch it off her head. She was alone and would have been frightened, but for the young man’s appearance. He wore a white polo shirt with a turquoise collar, white cotton duck pants, and sandals. He appeared to be in his late twenties, was well groomed, and walked with a relaxed yet confident gait. When he saw her his face lit up with a smile as though he were genuinely glad to see her, and he raised his hand in greeting.

  “Mrs. Marsh? I tried the doorbell. Then I thought I’d come around to scope out the yard. I’m Ramon. The Pool Boy?”

  “Oh, yes, nice to meet you.” She shook his hand when he offered it — he had a firm grip. He held her hand and eyes a moment longer than usual as she registered his thick, dark hair, swarthy complexion, and genial brown eyes framed by long feminine lashes. There was nothing feminine about his physique, however. She noted his torso and arms were firm without being muscle-bound, and felt for just a moment like a schoolgirl at an athletic event, appreciating lithe, well-muscled bodies.

  “I always try to meet my customers before I start to work. It helps if I’m not anonymous.”

  She noticed the barest trace of an accent and, given the number of immigrants both legal and illegal, one might assume he hailed from Mexico. It was her observation that those who were bilingual rarely lost the accent of the mother tongue entirely, though if she were hearing him on the phone, without preconceived expectations, she would not have been able to place his origins — the lilt wasn’t quite right for Mexico, and he looked more European than mestizo. “I want to make sure I meet your needs. If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints, I want you to feel free to call me.” He handed her his business card.