House on the Forgotten Coast

by Ruth Coe Chambers

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m the one who should have gotten sick, not you. I’m the guilty party.”

  “Now who’s being ridiculous? You were just a pawn, nothing but a pawn. But I don’t want to discuss it. I’m glad we moved, that we left all that behind. I’m happy here. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes. No. Oh, Edwin, we’re much too young to be retired, really we are.”

  “I can’t say that I’m totally disappointed that you’ve come to that conclusion. See, this is our fountain of youth after all.”

  “I’ve thought about it a lot. Unpacking gives one hours of time to think, and, Edwin, I think we should open a stationery and bath shop.”

  Edwin nearly strangled on his drink. When his coughing subsided he said, “You really have done a lot of thinking, haven’t you?”

  “Well, yes I have. After being an interior decorator for so long, I have too many contacts to just let those years of work go to waste.”

  “Actually, I’m glad you feel that way because I was about to tell you that I didn’t totally sever my partnership with the firm. Not totally. I still have my hand in.”

  “But you never said a word!”

  “I was afraid you’d be upset after giving up your career. I wasn’t sure how to approach it, but now that you have this other interest, well, you won’t mind if I do some consulting from time to time.”

  “No, I won’t mind if you’re certain that’s what you want. I’m convinced I can make a success of this venture. I’m really pleased about the idea, and we’ll both have our careers again. Why, Edwin, just think of it, bath products and stationery. We’d be meeting two basic needs of newcomers and locals alike. It’ll double the business,” she assured him. They smiled, pleased with their keen sense of business acumen.

  But “fishing village” was in some ways still an apt description of Apalach, one the Fosters didn’t fully understand. They might fill a local need with soap, perhaps with soap, but lined tablet paper, the main writing vehicle of the locals, was not part of Margaret and Edwin Foster’s vocabulary.

  6

  Sunshine streamed through the windows of the sun porch where Margaret poured coffee into heavy pottery mugs. Edwin sipped his brew appreciatively. “Margaret, this is your idea, and I’ll support it, but I don’t want to run all over the place looking for a building to house your shop. Why don’t you and Elise do that?”

  Margaret leaned over and kissed him. “That was just what I was hoping you’d say. Oh, Edwin, I’m really excited about this. I guess I never admitted my misgivings, but I really think this will work out.”

  “God, I sure hope so, Margaret. If it doesn’t, we’re up Shit Creek.”

  She laughed and took another sip of coffee.

  Margaret spent a great deal of time poring over catalogs and sending letters to people in Atlanta and New York. The more she considered the idea, the more adrenalin pumped through her slender, well-toned body.

  She was like a thoroughbred straining for the race to begin. When she had her business plan in order, she was ready to act. She walked into Elise’s room one morning and slapped her backside, jumping back when Elise screamed and rolled off the bed to the floor. “What in the world is the matter? I didn’t mean to frighten you. Get dressed. We’re going shopping.” She walked around the room opening shutters and humming.

  “Shopping for what?” Elise asked sleepily.

  “A building! We need a building for my bath and stationery store.”

  The frightening dreams that disturbed Elise’s sleep left her with a headache, but there was no getting out of this trip. They began their search by walking, appraising their surroundings. Some buildings seemed to have been deserted with no further thought to their usefulness, cast off like unwanted pets. They leaned and sagged like ancient crones.

  “That’s disgusting,” Margaret complained. “Those places should be condemned and torn down. They’re eyesores.”

  “Apalach’s homeless people,” Elise said softly. “They make me sad.”

  “Well, it doesn’t make me sad,” Margaret snapped. “It’s just plain slovenly, that’s what it is.”

  These were Elise’s first tentative steps in exploring her new surroundings. Apalach was different from anything she’d ever known, yet she felt an instant kinship with it. She was glad her mother forced her out of the house where she had begun to feel captive to her dreams. She could never recall them fully, except to know they were disturbing. In the beginning they were nothing more than mists and dark jumbled voices that left her uneasy.

  While Elise rubbed shoulders with a town she found familiar and inviting, Margaret Foster sniffed change in the air. She saw only its promise, chose to ignore its history, and scorned a present that didn’t include her. They pressed their noses to dusty windows and tried the handles of dented doorknobs. If those doors were closed to her, Margaret never hesitated to march right into a store open to business and ask if the owner would consider selling or leasing to her.

  Apalach had begun tempering Elise’s forward manner, and she hung back with embarrassment, not realizing the locals were past being surprised by such offers.

  Margaret Foster and Peyton Roberts were cut from opposite ends of the same cloth. The only difference was that Peyton was cut against the grain. They rubbed each other the wrong way the minute Margaret stepped inside his shoe store.

  She had learned to dress comfortably for her excursions and wore a striped v-neck blouse with an expensive golf skirt, topsiders, and a stylish straw hat. No one would have taken her for a local.

  “Mr. Roberts?” Margaret walked forward and extended her hand. He might have been a suit-clad man from Atlanta, a successful Peachtree Street executive.

  “Peyton,” he answered, rubbing his palm on the side of his khakis before grasping her soft, slender hand.

  “Mr. Roberts, I’m new to town and . . .”

  “You don’t need to tell me that,” he interrupted and several men who’d been talking to him laughed.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You don’t look like you belong here, ma’am. I do look like I belong here.” He winked at her. “That’s how I know you’re new in town.”

  Margaret’s nostrils flared slightly, and she forced a smile. “Well, Mr. Roberts . . .”

  “Peyton,” he interrupted again.

  “Oh yes, Peyton. Well, Peyton, I may not look like I belong here, but I assure you that I do. I own a home and furthermore, I intend to open a business here.”

  “That right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s that got to do with me?”

  “I might be a customer wanting to buy something, for all you know. I hope you don’t give all your customers the third degree.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yes, that’s a fact, and I do want to buy something. I’d like to buy your store, Mr. Roberts.”

  “Peyton.”

  “Damn! Excuse me. I’m sorry. Peyton.” She heaved a sigh of exasperation.

  “Is there a for sale sign out there, Miss, Mrs. . . .?”

  “Foster. Margaret Foster.”

  “You see, I don’t recall putting my place up for sale, but being a local and all maybe it slipped my mind.”

  “There isn’t a sign. I just thought that perhaps you might consider it.”

  “You just thought. Just because I don’t have a barrel of posies out front, you thought it was time for me to move on. Well, I’m not moving on, not yet, lady.”

  “Foster,” she countered. “Margaret Foster.”

  The men laughed again, and Peyton made an elaborate bow.

  “Margaret Foster, of course.”

  “I won’t waste any more of your time or mine. It was nice meeting you, Mr. Roberts.”

  “A beautiful woman is always welcome,” he called after her. Elise couldn’t help herself. She looked back and winked. “Can you believe that guy?” Margaret asked Elise when they were ou
tside.

  Elise thought that perhaps she’d just had her first sip of happiness. “We’re off to a great start, aren’t we?”

  “Hush. Don’t you start, Elise. I’ve had enough for one day. Elise? Elise, what are you staring at? Come on.”

  Elise tried to quit staring at the wavy glass of a vacant store, but she was sure she heard voices inside. It sounded as though a black woman and a young girl were arguing and the glass appeared to cast moving shadows. One of her waking dreams maybe? She leaned closer to see if she could hear, but Margaret grabbed her arm and pulled her away.

  “A true flower of the South,” Peyton said when Margaret was out of earshot. “Walks around like she’s as delicate as a gardenia in a hail storm, but, gentlemen, let me tell you, her backbone is pure steel. Nothing less. Bet she’s got one pussy-whipped husband too.”

  “Now, Peyton. You got customers.”

  “Yeah, well let ’em listen. Give ’em something to talk about besides the weather. She sails in here with that blouse half-buttoned and her tight little ass bound up in that expensive skirt. You’d have thought she owned the place already.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of selling to her?”

  “I didn’t say one way or the other now did I, Bobby? I’d hate to think of her in here, in my space. But if she wants to sweeten the pot with enough money, who knows? I’d never set foot in here again though, I tell you that.”

  “Well, it’d sure save you money redoing all that electrical you’re so worried about.”

  “Yep, and don’t go broadcasting it. If I sell to the likes of her, she’ll be buying more than she reckoned for, and I won’t feel a bit bad about it. Coming in here so high and mighty. You catch the way the girl winked at me? Saucy. I like that in a girl. She knew her mother had no business coming in here like that.”

  “She sure was a looker though, Peyton.”

  “The girl?”

  “Oh, the girl’s striking all right. There’s no denying that, but I was talking about the mother. She’s a piece of work. I guess she was the mother, but she didn’t hardly look old enough.”

  “Yeah, I’ve known women like her. She’s the quintessential sorority type, boys, out to improve the world.”

  “She sure must have got under your skin, Peyton. You never use big words unless you get good and mad.”

  “I’m just tired of people fooling with Apalach. Apalach is like a good woman that’s paid her dues, and these new people want to trade her in for some shallow, flashy broad. It turns my stomach.”

  PEYTON ROBERTS DISTURBED MARGARET IN ways she didn’tcare to admit. With her background she’d felt like a sighted person among the blind, and she was quite beside herself at the thought of some uneducated yokel getting the best of her.

  “I’m not about to be taken advantage of,” she told Edwin that evening. “This may take awhile, but I have the time. I’ll wait.” Elise was in the next room and didn’t hear the figure she named but knew it was considerable when she heard Edwin whistle.

  “That’s a lot of paper and soap, Margaret.”

  “You’ve always acknowledged that I have a good head for business. You’ve never questioned my judgment before.”

  “But we’re in different circumstances now. These people aren’t like us.”

  “Of course they aren’t. If they were, we wouldn’t be here buying them out.”

  The more she was frustrated by her attempts to open a new business, the more attention she focused on Elise. “Now, Elise,” she began one morning at breakfast, “just because I’m having a little trouble finding a vacant building is no reason for you to be complacent.”

  “Complacent?” Elise stared at her feet stretched on the chair in front of her and took a sip of coffee. “We just got here.”

  “A year will pass before you know it. You were accepted at several colleges. Think about what you want to do. Get letters in the mail. Keep your applications active.”

  Elise swung her feet off the chair and stood up. “You’re sure we’ll have the money a year from now, that it won’t be tied up in stationery and soap?”

  Margaret wanted to slap her, slap her silly, but she forced a weak smile and said, “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Then I’ll be ready,” she replied, not at all sure she wanted to be.

  “See that you are!” Margaret snapped and left the room.

  I will be ready, won’t I? She’d counted on college for such a long time. College was going to wash her insecurities away. She’d find herself then, feel at home in her own body. Wouldn’t she? Or was she doomed to be a misfit?

  She knew it was more than her avoidance of mirrors that set her apart. All through high school while other girls preened and primped, more often than not, Elise passed mirrors with quick sidelong glances.

  But she’d already sensed that Apalachicola didn’t need mirrors. It was its own bright reflection, and Elise had fallen in love with it. The last thing she wanted to do was leave. Let her mother use the money on her new shop. She hoped she would. Apalach touched a wellspring of emotion she hadn’t known existed, and like her, it was a place of conflict.

  Day after day Elise explored, unaccountably drawn to the river where she stood mesmerized, staring at the water. Sometimes it took a dead fish or bird washing up at her feet to break the spell. She wandered lonely streets, looked at lovely old homes scattered among neighborhoods of neglect and wondered at their history. Her favorite, of course, was her beloved river-boat house. There was something otherworldly about it, as though it was caught in another dimension. Even the nightmares that continued to plague her didn’t diminish her love or respect for its unique design.

  Elise felt the tension Apalach shouldered, and it made her skin tingle. Discontent was a breeze that ruffled her hair. Margaret said she was being foolish, imagining things. All her life her mother had been telling her she was imagining things. Only Elise knew better.

  7

  Night after night Elise heard her parents discuss their business prospects. It made her so unbearably sad she finally spoke out against the idea. “I wish y’all wouldn’t open a business here. Can’t you see we don’t belong? Let these people be.”

  A stern expression, reminiscent of the Atlanta Edwin, washed over her dad’s face, and her mother gave a disgusted sigh. “Elise, it isn’t like you to interfere in our business. We belong here as much as they do. Maybe more. We can afford to be here. It’s not like we’re tearing down a home to put up a parking garage. It’s more like a blood transfusion. These people should get down on their knees and thank the ones who are putting their money into fixing this place up.”

  Elise realized she was treading on dangerous ground, but she couldn’t help sensing how the people felt and had developed a kinship with them she didn’t have with her own family. Progress made the locals feel they didn’t belong any more. She knew what it was like not to belong, but it was worse for them. She’d never belonged. They had, and they missed it.

  Elise cleared her throat and tried once more. “But I hear them talking. It’s like the Civil War all over again, neighbor pitted against neighbor. One person wants to keep things like they’ve always been and another doesn’t.”

  “So now you’re listening in on people’s conversations! I’ve never known you to be so interested in the concerns of strangers.”

  “If we’re going to live here, Mom, they won’t always be strangers.”

  “Perhaps not. I surely don’t want to offend a potential customer. But keep your distance. These people are nothing to you. Nothing.”

  But they did mean something to Elise, and her heart went out to them. All her life she’d felt like she was on the outside looking in. Many times now she really was on the outside looking in. There was a home several blocks from the Fosters that had a large screened porch on one end. Elise liked to slip out of the house at night and stare at the porch, lit by floor lamps and cooled by two large ceiling fans. Even in Atlanta she’d loved walking their neigh
borhood after dark, trying to see inside the pale yellow spaces lit from within. Rooms and people in them seemed transformed, softened and surreal. The few times she’d looked inside her own home, she strained to see herself transformed, softened by the yellow glow of lamplight. She couldn’t control the urge, could never quit searching for a glimpse of herself.

  The illumination of the screened porch, so much more than a window, was a gift Elise had never expected. She’d seen young people playing Monopoly and thrilled to their jokes and laughter. It was better than a movie. This was real, more real than her own life, which seemed possessed by dreams that somehow blended into her waking hours. Faintly, clear as though etched on glass, she could hear people talking, but that didn’t seem as unusual as the familiarity of what they said.

  Miss Annelise, Ruby knows you sneak out at night dressed like a boy. You best watch yourself, missy.

  Don’t you talk to me like that, Ruby. You’re just imagining things. Humph!

  The conversation faded, and the voices came from the porch. “Oh, no, she has Park Place now.”

  “She always goes for Park Place.”

  “I’m a railroad man myself.” More laughter.

  “I don’t know why I like Park Place so much.”

  “I don’t either. You never win.”

  Elise laughed with them. It was the small Italian girl called Jill who always wanted Park Place.

  “Well, there’s more to life than winning,” Jill countered. “Why didn’t you tell your old man that before he sold your house to that big developer?”

  Jill stood up, and her paper money fluttered to the floor. “I can’t help what my dad did. Everybody hates me now, and I didn’t have a thing to do with it.”

  “Aw, sit down, Jill. It’s just a game.”

  “Not any more it isn’t! I’m going home.”

  The screen door slammed, and Elise stepped farther back into the shadows, glad she’d worn pants that protected her legs from briars growing on the vacant lot.