When they started to see each other officially—no longer separated by a wood and metal cattle fence—he discovered that different was good. While she wasn’t the exact opposite of his old girlfriend Summer—she wasn’t gloomy or irritable or depressed—she wasn’t a spoonful of sugar either. When she’d get worked up about something, she’d occasionally vent to him about it. She’d rant and rave and he’d watch, pleased to see a real woman let herself feel her anger. But most times she’d clam up, and he had to use superhuman powers to decipher her mood.
That generous dose of mystery, the unknown depths, made him feel like a man. Like it was his job to spend his days plumbing those depths, deciphering her particular brand of hieroglyphics.
He’d still choose her now. Of course he would. Even if he suspected that, as with Carlos’s wife, there were volumes of words Betsy was leaving unsaid.
thirteen
Jenna
Though Halcyon focused on freedom and a lack of structure, Jenna slipped into a routine in her first couple of days. Breakfast, camera, woods. No yoga. Then the same thing after lunch. And she did it all alone. Some of the other artists teamed up and worked together—painting, drawing, building—but the thought of forced politeness, of awkward camaraderie, of other people asking her opinion and waiting for her deep, philosophical answers made her squirm with discomfort. No thanks.
She did, however, wish she had a little more mentor input. Other artists meandered around the preserve with their mentors deep in conversation or with their heads together, looking over the day’s work. With her mentor mostly MIA, she couldn’t help feeling left out.
It was late afternoon on the third day. She’d called Betsy that morning from the cabin so she wouldn’t have to worry about the call dropping. When she’d again apologized for the retreat, for the kids, for her and Ty’s messed-up plans, Betsy had come close to scolding her.
“Jenna, you’re there. You made the decision and you need to stick with it. It’ll all be wasted if you don’t actually do something while you’re there.” Funny that she echoed the exact words running through Jenna’s mind. “Let it go. We are fine. The girls are completely fine. Don’t worry about us. Just . . . go do your thing. We’ll all be here when you finish up.”
Jenna had exhaled, long and deep. Betsy was right. She’d made the decision, and she needed to trust her sister—and her own choices. Right or wrong, she needed to stick by them. She thought of Delores’s words about airplane oxygen masks the night she found out she’d gotten into Halcyon: “Sometimes you have to take care of yourself so you can take care of your kids.”
Buck up. Do what you came to do.
With the reassurance that her children were well taken care of, she longed to sink back into her creativity, to find it waiting for her, ready for her eye and fingers and steady breathing, but every single photo she’d managed to take was worthless. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was off in all of them. There was no focus, no purpose.
Before kids, her photography focus had usually been people. Bodies at rest, bodies in motion. When she picked up her camera after having Addie and Walsh—on her excursions with Max to the Botanical Gardens or Centennial Park, or just playing with the kids in the front yard—she tried to broaden her focus into the natural world, but her favorite subjects were always people and their expressions. Desires and fears splashed across their faces.
At Halcyon, alone for the first time in she didn’t know how long, she had no idea where to start. Trees, moss, sand. Murky ponds, skittery birds, strange animals—was that what she was supposed to be capturing? That’s all there was out in this “pristine and protected” nature preserve, as the flyer had said. That and heat.
Her phone, tucked into her camera bag, had buzzed with a text message earlier in the day. She’d brought it with her in case of an emergency—either hers or Betsy’s—but the service on it had been next to nothing every time she checked it. The buzz—the first non-nature sound she’d heard since leaving the dining hall after breakfast—startled her. She unzipped the bag and checked her phone, thinking of everyone it might be—Betsy, Max, maybe even Delores checking in on her. But she didn’t recognize the number.
Missed you this morning. The guy behind the counter—the really chatty one—told me you’d skipped off to the beach. Lucky girl. He gave me your cell number. Hope it’s okay I used it. Also hope you’re having fun and relaxing. You deserve it. Sam
She thought of Sam arriving that morning at Full Cup, searching the line for her as he always did. The tall black coffee he probably ordered for her before Mario gave him the news that she wouldn’t be joining him for their nondate.
It wasn’t like she’d had any way to let him know she hadn’t just “skipped off to the beach,” as Mario put it. They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers, their only contact being the ten minutes a day when she could partially let her guard down. Even with Sam though, she never could let it down all the way. She hadn’t wanted to hurry his inevitable realization that she was too much, too risky, too . . . something.
She tried to send a text back—Thanks for checking in. Not having too much fun yet, but better than making drinks for Mrs. Rich.—but service had dropped back to zilch. It was probably part of the master plan of Halcyon: get a bunch of artists out in the middle of nowhere, cut off their lines to the outside world, and see what happened. So far for Jenna, what had happened was a whole lot of nothing.
Occasionally, she held her camera out and scrolled through the images. Halcyon provided a large-format Epson printer, and she had the option to print any images she wanted and discuss them with the group during the evening workshop. So far she’d avoided that, not ready for complete strangers to talk about her work like they could better explain what she was trying to say with it. And what was it with everyone here going on and on about what they were trying to say with their work?
Why do I care? She knelt to the ground, one knee pressing into wet dirt and soaking her jeans. It’s their art. Who am I to do anything but appreciate it? At least they were making progress. She, on the other hand, was at least half a mile away from the retreat center, alone except for two hawks circling above and huge fox squirrels rustling in the trees. The beauty around her was so new, so savage and raw, but she couldn’t capture it in a way that felt real. She was spinning her wheels, missing her girls, and waiting for inspiration to strike. And sweating.
Enough. She zipped her camera into its bag and headed back for dinner.
The dining hall was abuzz with chatter when she entered. Artists and mentors mixed together at tables in the long room and the screened porch at the front. By now she was used to not having her own mentor at her elbow like the others. It was fine. Everyone already had food on trays, so Jenna hurried to the buffet tables at the back and picked up a tray, filling a plate with grilled shrimp, wild rice, roasted asparagus, and salad. At the end of the line was a platter of brownies. It wasn’t chocolate bread pudding, but it would work.
Standing alone with a tray of food and a glass of iced tea in her hand, she felt like she was in high school all over again. All the cool kids were already seated at tables, talking, smiles on their faces. She found an empty spot at the end of a table and set down her tray. Before she could even sit, Casey appeared before her. Clad in different but equally as strappy and trendy yoga gear, she sat on the bench across from Jenna. “How are things going for you?”
“Good, they’re good.” Jenna arranged her food and drink and sat. “I mean, I’m still trying to find my footing, I guess.” She took a sip of tea.
Casey nodded. “I totally get it. It can take a little while to get used to the quiet and lack of distractions. We’re so wired for noise and activity that when life does slow down, we can feel a bit . . . disoriented. Does that sound about right?”
Jenna had paused with her glass in her hand. “Sure. Yeah. That’s it.”
“Mm-hmm,” Casey murmured, her chin in her hand, then sat up a little straighter. “I’ve noticed you haven
’t said much in the workshops at night. We’d love to hear how you’re feeling, what you’ve learned so far. You may think it’s nothing, but even small steps are forward progress, you know?” She squinted and nodded, a perfect combination of pretension and encouragement on her face. Jenna wondered if she practiced that look in the mirror.
Just over Casey’s right shoulder, Jenna saw Gregory at a table with Yannick, the mentor she had seen hunched over a large sketch pad and a box of charcoals in various parts of the preserve. They were deep in conversation, but as Jenna watched, Gregory glanced her way. He paused for a brief moment, then turned his attention back to Yannick.
“Right, I know.” Jenna fiddled with her napkin. “I may. It’s just . . . Sometimes things make more sense in my head without me trying to mess it all up with words. Does that make sense?”
“Sure, absolutely. Just remember, we’re all in the same boat here. We’re all trying to connect to the passion, to that internal drive.” She stood and adjusted her slim black tank. “I look forward to hearing your insights whenever you’re ready.”
Then she glided away, her footsteps quiet and graceful. Jenna had met people like Casey before, back in Wyoming when she taught yoga at the colony, commune, whatever Betsy had called it. It was a place for creative, enlightened people to feel at home. They preached all the same things—connect to your passion, find your inner light, blah blah blah. While she’d loved being there—far from her family’s disapproval and lack of understanding—she always felt like she was standing on the rim of something deep, peering over the edge but unable to jump in like everyone else. Even as she taught yoga and heard herself say the words that went along with it, she felt removed, set apart from the hive-mind. She only jumped in deep when she was alone with her camera.
After dinner, everyone gathered on the porch with their work of the day. Canvases, notebooks, sketch books, and laptops filled the space not occupied by artists and their mugs of tea or glasses of wine. She found a seat close to the door, comforted by the nearby escape route. As everyone pulled out their work, Jenna stared down at her camera. She wanted to be assured by its presence, this little black box that served as her ticket to spend a couple weeks away with these people, these true artists, when she felt like a fake.
Max had said she had rare, untaught talent. Put the girl in the wild, he must have thought, and she’ll blossom into the photographer, the artist, she’s meant to be. But instead, the camera had done nothing but block her out. Fend off her attempts to create something worthy, as if her fingers on its buttons and dials were clumsy blocks of wood.
They went around in a circle, each person speaking of his or her experience of the day, how it shaped the art they put before the group. As a woman a few feet away from her wiped away tears, explaining how she had broken through her month-long writer’s block and cranked out fifty pages of her Great American Novel, Jenna stood and opened the screened door a few inches, just enough to squeeze through but not enough to make it creak. After closing it behind her, she exhaled and descended into the comforting dark.
The night air was thick, saturated with scents of pine needles and damp earth. By now Jenna could make her way through the dark to the cabins. She’d left the lamp on in her own cabin, and as she trudged down the path, the glow from her front window drew her like a magnet.
She’d said to Casey on the first night that Halcyon seemed like a campground, and she wasn’t too far off in that initial estimation. Everything was built from logs and thick planks of wood, but the buildings were somehow sleek too, as if the place had been built for discerning adults as well as kids. The cabin—hers, at least—was small and tidy, outfitted in smooth, fragrant cypress and cedar. Downstairs was a mini-kitchen and bathroom, while the loft upstairs contained a twin bed, comfortable side chair, and small dresser. Just the basics, but all she really needed.
Inside, she set her camera on the tiny kitchen counter. What she wanted to do was take it outside and throw it into the lake. Instead, she climbed the ladder to the bedroom and lay down across the bed’s patchwork quilt. Having just been here a handful of days, she was surprised by how at home she felt in the small space. She could stay here a while, holed up in the woods, leaving only for food and dips into the lake. But her camera, sitting alone on the counter downstairs, would beckon. It wouldn’t leave her alone for long, that much she knew.
She exhaled and willed the tension to leak out of her shoulders and neck. She held her hand up and prodded the space between her thumb and forefinger where a sandspur had pricked her earlier in the day. It was still sore, the prick a tiny red dot on her skin.
She turned her hands this way and that in the dim light. Small palms, short fingers. She had her mother’s hands. Even her fingernails were shaped the same—thin ovals with deep crescents. How she knew that, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like she and her mom had ever bonded over manicures. They hadn’t bonded over anything.
Jenna pressed her fingertips to her forehead, remembering how the phone call six years ago had come so out of the blue. She’d only spoken to her mother a handful of times since she’d left Tuscaloosa and moved away, first to Wyoming, then to Asheville, North Carolina. Each time they spoke it was clear they didn’t agree on what Jenna should be doing with her life. That morning though, it was Betsy on the phone, relaying bits of information in staccato bites. Their mom, the totaled car off the edge of Highway 31, the sheet of stationery on her desk at home with the meager beginnings of a letter. Dear Jenna, I wish . . .
Jenna pointed and flexed her toes, then pointed them again to stretch her legs as far as they’d go. She had the letter. Not with her now, but it lived in the bottom drawer of her bedside table at home. She hadn’t looked at it again since the day her dad said she should keep it, but those four words were imprinted on her brain.
She pulled off her shoes and dropped them to the floor with a satisfying plunk. Sometimes she liked to imagine what the rest of the note from her mom would have said, had she taken the time to finish it before she left for work that day. Before she lost control of her car when another driver crossed the median into her lane.
Dear Jenna, I wish things between us had been different.
Dear Jenna, I wish I could tell you how much I love you.
Dear Jenna, I wish you knew how extraordinary you are.
But Jenna was a realist, not that kind of dreamer. More likely it was along the lines of Dear Jenna, I wish you were more like your sister.
fourteen
Betsy
After that first day, when she ended the evening in bed, emotionally depleted and physically spent, Betsy roused her sea legs. Up before the girls in the mornings, she made breakfast, helped them get dressed, and took them outside. Inside the house, their sweet routines and innocent sleepy movements pulled at her loose threads, threatening to unravel all her determination. Outside was easier. Fresh air, space to breathe.
Walsh loved the hens and eggs the best, having overcome her initial fear of the shadowed henhouse, but Addie loved tending to the cows. With Ty’s supervision she’d choose one and brush her with the stiff-bristled brushes he kept in a wooden box by the barn door. After a thorough brushing, Addie fed her as many apple cores, banana peels, and chunks of stale bread as she could before Ty caught on.
“Why can’t I give them treats?” Addie asked one day after Ty gently pried the bag of bread from her hands. “Treats make everyone happy, even cows. You should know that, Uncle Ty. You’re a cow farmer.”
Ty glanced up at Betsy and bit back a laugh. “Yes, I am. And you’re right, they do like treats. But we can’t spoil them. They’ll get sick like kids who eat too much candy.” He patted the cow on the rump and steered Addie out of the barn.
Both girls loved to run through the fields, darting between the silent cows chewing grass and clover. When they tired of running and dodging steaming patties, Carlos or one of the other guys would hoist them up onto a tractor and take them for a short ride. Addie laughed every time s
he caught sight of the honey wagon out in the fields. Ty had painted a huge bee on its side in white and black paint, leading Addie to think the long, tube-shaped container was full of honey.
Addie stopped laughing when she realized what it actually carried, even more so when she learned that what was inside the honey wagon went straight back into the fields, helping to grow the grass and grain that fed the cows. Ty tried to explain the importance of the cycle of nutrition, but she wrinkled her nose and gave the honey wagon a wide berth.
Jenna finally called again on Wednesday, just as Betsy was wiping the girls’ faces with a damp washcloth and getting them into pajamas. Betsy gave the phone to Addie so she could say good night, but the call dropped just after Addie said hello.
“Mommy, I’m here, I’m here,” Addie repeated, pressing the phone tighter to her ear and shouting.
Betsy pried the phone out of her hands and tried calling Jenna back. It went straight to voice mail. Addie stormed off and threw herself onto the bed, a rare flash of anger. Walsh’s eyes grew big and her bottom lip trembled. Jenna texted later and said cell service was spotty and that she’d try again when she could. Betsy tried to explain about phone coverage and dropped calls, but both girls went to bed with tears in their eyes.
The next night Jenna called again, but it was after nine o’clock. The girls had been in bed for almost two hours.
“Sorry to call so late,” Jenna said. “I’ve had no service bars on my phone all day. This is the first time the call has gone through.”
“It’s okay. I wish you’d been able to call earlier though. The girls are dying to talk to you. I’d get them up, but . . .”
“No, no, don’t worry about it. I’ll call again soon. They’re doing okay?”
“They miss you, of course, but they seem to be pretty happy. What about you? Have you been able to take a lot of pictures?”
Jenna paused before speaking. “Yeah, I have. I’m out all day with my camera, and there’s plenty of time for whatever I want to do. The schedule is super loose. And it’s beautiful here. Palm trees, Spanish moss, ponds with tree frogs and geckos. Everything is lush and overgrown.”
Hurricane Season Page 11
