Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) (15 page)

“She was. I love the way she welcomed everyone into her home. She cared about each guest.” I see her seated on the sofa in the parlor, listening to a wrinkled man in a cowboy hat share the details of his wife’s last days with a malignant tumor that no amount of chemo, radiation, or surgery could cure. Mrs. Bailey rubbed his back when he pulled his hat down to cover his face, sobbing into the creased leather. Later, she brewed him one of her finest orange pekoes. I want to tell Davis that I saw the compassion of Jesus in her.

But before I can say anything else, he’s telling me to have sweet dreams.

The next afternoon, I drive to Coastal Finds, Vanessa’s shop in Avon. As my truck rumbles the miles over Route 12 on this overcast day, I recall how Buck teased me when I told him I had an interview set up with Vanessa. “Now, don’t get carried away and let her talk you into too many of her overpriced pottery mugs,” he warned playfully. “If you need a loan, I’ll be glad to call the bank for you.”

The outside of the shop is painted pink and lime green. The name of the shop is hand-painted on a piece of driftwood that hangs in the showcase window. Inside, the scent of peaches and cloves greets me, as well as Tina Turner. The singer’s strong voice pipes through the store’s speakers: “What’s love got to do with it?”

As I walk around the store in search of Vanessa, I see a huge vase of red roses. They are displayed on a wide shelf near an arrangement of hand-blown glass bowls. Keeping my purse close to my side so that I don’t knock anything over, I count the blooms—twenty-four.

At the counter, a young girl with a nametag that reads DONNA and Vanessa are talking about jewelry to a woman in a pair of cotton shorts, tank top, and yellow flip-flops with plastic sunflowers. The customer says she wants a silver bracelet studded with emeralds and rubies. Her grandmother apparently left her some money and she wants to use it to buy a bracelet.

Vanessa opens the glass counter, and with a delicate motion, takes out a silver bracelet shining with blue and clear jewels. Vanessa is art in perfection. Every strand of her hair is glossy and in place. She’s wearing a two-piece suit, skirt and jacket with a cream silk shirt. The amount of money she spends on clothes could probably feed a small nation. And I can tell that exercising is something she likes to do. I’ve been told she schedules her life around sessions at the gym with her personal trainer, Fiat. Sheerly believes that Fiat is related to Arnold Schwarzenegger because he looks like Arnie did in the first
Terminator
movie.

I greet Vanessa with a smile when the customer slips the bracelet around her wrist. “I’m Jackie.”

Vanessa nods my way, but I can tell that she’s not finished with the customer yet. “That bracelet is one of a kind,” she tells the woman. “The four blue sapphires are encased in tiny diamonds. Yesterday a man was asking about it for his wife. He said he’d be back today with her.”

The sales associate marvels at how beautiful the piece of jewelry is while Vanessa tells the customer that the sapphires are imported from Madagascar.

“Really?” says the woman. “My grandmother went on a trip there one summer.”

“You’ll never find anything this gorgeous at this price,” Vanessa tells her.

I’m eyeing a shelf of pottery with price tags that run more than I make in two weeks when the customer agrees that the sapphires do sparkle beautifully. “I love the color blue,” she says. The customer lifts her arm, and we all watch as the diamonds glitter, the ones nearest the sapphires reflecting blue. “I’ll take this.”

Vanessa smiles at me. I see triumph in her eyes. “Donna,” she says to her sales associate, “find a nice box for this bracelet. We are going to my office.” She motions for me to follow her, and I do. The air around her is sweet as her heels click against the wooden floor.

I look at my sandals and wonder if I should have dressed up. I have one black dress in my closet.

We enter Vanessa’s office at the end of a short hallway marked Employees Only. Warm sunlight dances into a room that is painted melon green with cream trim. Vanessa sits at an oak desk as shiny and waxy looking as her potted plants that line one wall.

I start the interview by asking if she minds if I use my little Sony pocket tape recorder during our time.

“Go right ahead.” Her lipstick is red, matching the collar of her jacket.

I decide I’ll start by asking how long she’s owned the store. Then I ask what she likes best about dealing with the public. When she says her customers often compliment her on how clean and fresh the shop is, I think of the roses in the vase.

“I noticed the roses you have.” I smile into her blue eyes. “They’re pretty.”

Vanessa returns my smile. “I read your piece on Davis. I think that was a fairly good portrayal of him.”

“You know him?”

“Oh yes.” Her laughter is light, breezy, like a day in May. “He sent me the roses this morning. His note said he hopes they make the shop as beautiful as me.”

My smile freezes on my face.

She laughs. “He can’t seem to accept the fact that we aren’t dating anymore.”

Somehow I find my voice. “Oh.” I pretend to make a notation in my notebook, my fingers feeling like Jell-O.

“Now, don’t be publishing this.”

“Oh no,” I say much too rapidly. “How . . . how long did you date?”

“Off and on for a year. With Davis it’s always off and on.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We try to break it off every so often, but then, well . . .” She pauses, smiles.

I hear the sound of my pounding heart, which is almost as loud as the song now playing through the speakers. Kelly Clarkson belts, “The trouble with love is it’ll eat you up inside.”

“What else do you need to ask me?” Vanessa asks crisply.

I feel like I’ve been slapped. The sting of Vanessa’s revelation, mixed with Kelly singing about why we are so vulnerable hits me. I want to find the nearest exit, which I can see is directly to my left. I want to grab Zane’s toy trucks and race them all into each other just to hear the crash of metal.

Instead, I continue with my questions, faking interest in her answers about what she likes to do for fun and what her favorite meal is. The scent of cloves seems too sweet for my mood.

At last, the interview is over, and I walk on wobbly legs to my truck, waiting for me in the parking space like a refuge. I close the door, turn on the engine, crank up the air-conditioning, and breathe in and out.

Two miles down the road, I have no idea where I’m headed. I pull into a small diner’s parking lot and kick my foot against the floorboard. I hit the dashboard with a tight fist as anger flares through my veins. There is nothing I can do when it comes to Vanessa’s good looks, her tiny, fit body, small feet, and, apparently, Davis’s interest in her.

“God!” I cry. “I thought you sent Davis to me! I thought you were answering my prayers!” What I want to demand is, “How could you give him to me and then take him away?” but I’ve never spoken to God like that.

Suddenly, my thoughts jolt like a car halting at a red light. Minnie moaned these same sentiments back when Lawrence first died, and even now, a year later, she still sometimes asks the universal “why me?” question. The difference between her situation and mine, of course, is that Davis and I have been dating only a short while. Minnie lost her husband of nine years. Severed, torn, gone in an instant.

I drive home and, in a daze, take my flute out of its case and fit the slender parts together. Then I lift the mouthpiece to my lips and blow. I expect a tune as loud and fierce as the waves that overtook Lawrence’s boat to come out of my instrument. But instead, the music is soft and melodic. Like an early-morning rowboat ride on the Sound, with oars that dip into the water’s surface and glide over all the broken rocks lying deep underneath.

Sheerly says you never know what music the heart will bring forth. But it always seems to ring more true than our expectations.

Minnie calls to ask if I’ve picked up Zane from Ropey’s. That’s when I remember I was supposed to pick him up at six. I call Ropey to apologize and say I’ll be late, but I’m on my way.

“Take your time,” he tells me. “Zane is making a masterpiece. He’s got rope twisted to look like a Tonka truck.” My uncle laughs. I want to join in, but anything to do with happiness seems hollow to me now—and so far away.

21

“He won’t eat his tuna.”

At the office, the mood is heavy because Selena is worried about Shakespeare. “I even sprinkled it with parsley like he enjoys,” she tells us. “He’s looking frumpy.” She asks each of us whether or not we think her pet has lost weight.

Cassidy stands over the sleeping terrier with a cup of strawberry yogurt. “Yeah, I’d say he’s lost at least half a pound,” she says, which makes Selena reach for the phone to call Shakespeare’s vet.

I spend much of the morning checking my phone. The tiny screen shows no missed calls, no messages. Maybe I should just turn it off and shove it inside my desk, forget that it connects me to Davis. I write Davis’s name on a Post-It and then toss the yellow square into my wicker trash can. I wish my heart wasn’t so tender. I wish that I could be like Selena and swear off men altogether.

Shakespeare whimpers when the UPS truck pulls up to the front of the office but does not wag his tail. Selena asks the driver if her pet looks ill. The large man in brown lowers his head to view the dog lying on the sofa by an opened window. Selena decided he needed some fresh air. “Looks like he has a sore throat,” the man tells Selena.

I can’t tell if he’s joking.

But Selena takes his words into consideration. “You might be right,” she says, brows arched into a frenzy of concern. When the driver leaves, Selena doesn’t rush to open the boxes he delivered as she usually does; instead she spends time trying to open Shakespeare’s mouth. “Come on, sugarpie, let Mommy see what’s wrong,” she coos as the rest of us busy ourselves so that we don’t burst into giggles.

I try to focus on the next assignment Selena has for me, which is to interview the owner of Rent by the Sea. This shop rents beach chairs and umbrellas, coolers and grills, and cribs and cots. I feel its owner is about as classy as a hermit crab shell mounted to the wall, but even so, Selena wants an article about the store in next month’s issue. I try not to waste too much time figuring out her rationale.

At lunchtime, my stomach feels hollow; I head to the Grille. “Promise me you’ll never ever go to Coastal Finds,” I say when Buck asks me how I’m doing.

“Aw, Jackie, you know I go there all the time to buy fifteen-hundred-dollar mugs to drink my coffee out of. ”

I frown and feel my whole body sagging with the same emotion it held yesterday when I sat in Vanessa’s office and heard her talk about dating Davis. I don’t think I ever want to see a vase of red roses again. I also don’t want to listen to her recorded voice to write my article on her and her shop. Perhaps Bert could write the article for me. When he had the flu last winter, I took over all of his assignments.

Buck squirts Diet Pepsi into a mason jar and, after sliding it toward me, touches my hand. “So what did Vanessa do to rupture your spirit, Hatteras?”

I sink teeth into my lower lip, trying to find the right words.

“Tried to sell you a diamond purse? Or was it a diamond shark fin? I heard the shark fins are popular these days. Every home needs one right above the fireplace.”

“She’s just . . .” I look at Buck and stop. I can’t be honest with him; he’ll only tease me.

He edges closer to me so that his arms are resting only inches from my hands.

I avoid his eyes and sip my drink. My notebook lies open in front of me, but I’m distracted as I watch a waitress bring plates of hamburgers and fries to a group of women at a table to the left of the counter. I bet Vanessa never eats fries and burgers. I bet her diet is stricter than Cassidy’s. I bet her cosmetic drawer holds only beauty products from France, costing a hundred dollars an ounce.

“I want a bacon cheeseburger,” I tell Buck. “And lots and lots of fries.”

After a nod, he places the order for me at the computer. Soon he’s refilling drinks at the other end of the counter.

I’m grateful that he made no comment about my need to drown my insecurities in a pound of beef and side of greasy potatoes.

But perhaps my relief is short-lived. When he comes over to me again, he says, “You know what you really need?”

Here comes the joke; I take a deep breath and wait.

“Some fun.” His smile is warm.

I grip my pen and wait for the rest of whatever silly thing he’s preparing to tell me.

“You’re too busy interviewing and writing all the time. You need to take a break.”

I search his hazel eyes to see if there is laughter within them.

“You’ve had a lot going on in your life. A kid who cries all the time, an overworked roommate, all those dates gone bad, and being infatuated with the wrong guy.”

My voice jumps out. “Infatuated?”

“My take on it. I could be wrong.” He lifts his hands as though surrendering his take on it.

“Infatuated?” The word tastes like vinegar in my mouth.