Stranger on the Shore (Mirabelle Harbor, Book 4) Read online

  “Yes,” I replied, reaching to pick one up. “They’re really lovely.” The one I was holding was made of white slipper shells, pierced and strung in an alternating pattern with delicate pale-pink beads and an occasional indigo-silver swirled bead. In the middle of the bracelet was a single sterling butterfly charm. But there was no price tag. “Are you selling these?” I asked, knowing I shouldn’t buy more of anything, especially since I was already planning to get the scallop earrings, but this bracelet was just as pretty in its own very unique way.

  “Not yet, but we will be,” Joy said. “They’re for the special project I was telling you about—B.E.A.D.S.—Bracelets for Endangered And Defenseless Species. All of our donations will go directly to help Florida’s most endangered mammals, birds, insects, and marine life. We’re selling the bracelets for the first time this weekend at the Annual St. Armand’s Craft Festival.”

  “And, because Little Miss Texas has been talkin’ them up in her shop all month, we have a list of advanced orders and have to make at least a hundred more pieces by Saturday,” Lorelei complained, digging for a clamp and arching her eyebrow again.

  “Well, what was I supposed to do?” Joy cried. “Not show the customers the new charms when they came in? Y’all know how cute they are.”

  “They are the cutest,” Lorelei admitted, putting the finishing touches on the bracelet she was working on by attaching that final clamp.

  Abby glanced at me, noting that I was still clutching the bracelet with the butterfly, and she smiled. “Let’s show them to Marianna. I think she’ll like them, too.”

  Lorelei nodded and tipped over a small black canister filled with sterling-silver-shaped creatures. “See this one here?” She pointed to a butterfly charm just like the one in my hand. “That’s the Schaus’ swallowtail butterfly. It’s been threatened since 1976 and endangered in these parts since 1984.” And then she rifled through a few more and pulled out a chunky sea animal of some kind. “This one’s a manatee.”

  “Oh!” I’d heard of them, of course, and I knew they were endangered, but I’d never seen a charm shaped like one before. “What other animals do you have?”

  The three women hunted through the pile until they found a representative charm of every type—seven in all. In addition to the swallowtail butterfly and the manatee, there were also charms for the shortnose sturgeon, the American crocodile, the peregrine falcon, the Florida panther, and the green sea turtle.

  “All endangered,” Joy said, frowning, the change in expression creating a crease just above the bridge her nose. “Even before the big oil spill, but that sure didn’t help. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission does what it can, but it’s a never-ending battle. They can use every penny we send them. Aside from subtracting the cost of materials, we donate one-hundred percent of what we make from the jewelry.”

  “So, you three came up with this idea?” I asked, reaching for my wallet and pulling out a couple of twenty-dollar bills. Yes, yes, I vowed there’d be no more unnecessary spending, but I fully intended to help support this cause. A world without butterflies and sea turtles wasn’t a place I wanted to live. Definitely worth cutting back on a few carryout dinners and fudge treats.

  “No, Joy came up with it,” Lorelei said, “but we were enthusiastic supporters.”

  “Well, I’d really like to help, too,” I said. “Is there any chance I could buy just three bracelets early? This one for me—” I held up the one in my palm. “And two others? I’d like to get one for my sister and another my daughter. I know they’ll love them. Plus, I’d like to make an additional cash donation.”

  Joy glanced at me speculatively, and I noticed Lorelei and Abby exchanging a look that I didn’t immediately understand. In a surprise move, Joy lurched forward and grasped my hand. Her slender, cool fingers were very gentle, but it was still a little...odd.

  “She’s very turquoise,” Joy informed her friends. This comment took the moment past “a little odd” and deep into the territory of “rather strange.” Then she released my hand and broke into a grin. “No,” she said brightly.

  I blinked at her and thought back to what I’d originally asked. “You’re saying, no, I can’t buy the bracelets early, or, no, I can’t make a donation, or both?”

  “You can’t buy that bracelet,” Joy told me, referring to the one in my hand, “because I’m giving it to you. You can buy the other two, if you’d like, but not until this weekend. You said you’ll still be in Sarasota, right?”

  I nodded, sensing a catch coming.

  “Good. Then come to the Craft Festival and get ‘em on Saturday. Ten a.m. to five p.m., right here in the Circle. And if you want to make a cash donation, I won’t stop you, but I’d much rather have you make a time donation.” Joy wagged her index finger at Lorelei and Abby, who were unsuccessfully trying to suppress their amusement. Then Joy added, “What are you doing this afternoon and evening, Marianna?”

  “Um, I don’t have any particular plans but—” I began.

  “What about all day tomorrow?” Joy asked. “I know it’s a Friday, so maybe you’ve got a lunch date with friends or family? An evening get-together? ”

  I smiled at her, taking guesses at what the jewelry lady might be up to. Hoping I was right in what might transpire next. “Nothing, really. Not today or tomorrow. I’m here in Florida alone.” This was true, of course, but I felt a rare fluttering in my chest and a surprising surge of excitement in hopes that my status might change.

  “So, yay! You’re free then. Now you’re ours!” Joy concluded, clapping. “Excellent.” She swiveled around. “Let me grab another chair.”

  Abby laughed at her friend’s quick-moving form. “I knew she’d reel you in somehow.”

  And Lorelei got up and motioned for me to put my belongings in the backroom. “Honey, you’re gonna be here a while. Get comfy.”

  Joy returned with a chair for me and an irrepressible grin of triumph that I suspected was as much a part of her nature as her liveliness, her sun-streaked light-brown hair, her freckles, and her blue eyes. “Ready to make some jewelry?”

  Chapter Eight

  Illuminations

  Gil was not able to escape meeting Veronica. His mother and her longtime friend JoAnn were both far too crafty. They’d cornered him in the parking lot when he returned to Minerva’s Tea Shop to pick up Ma.

  “So, what’d she look like?” Carter, Gil’s animated college-aged employee, asked when he finally got back work that evening. “A little cute?”

  Gil shrugged. “Yeah, she was fine. It wasn’t about her looks.” Actually, if he were perfectly honest, she was pretty hot for a thirty-something divorcee. “But I could tell she was just going through the motions, too. The four of us chatted by the car for fifteen minutes. I think she checked her iPhone about two dozen times during our conversation.”

  Carter appraised him, a speculative gleam in his eager brown eyes. “You know, my mom has this friend who’s about forty and single. She’s real pretty. Blonde. Just moved to the area from Orlando and—”

  “Jesus, Carter. Not you, too?”

  “I’m just sayin’, there are a lot of pretty women out there. I don’t think my mom’s friend even has a smart phone.”

  Gil stared at him then slowly shook his head. “Seriously, man. It’s not about the phone, either.”

  “Well, c’mon,” Carter said. Then, lowering his voice, “You’ve gotta be able to get, like, a ton of action. You’re a cool dude. You’ve got your own place. You’re, um, experienced at picking up the ladies.”

  In spite of himself, Gil laughed. He remembered what it was like to be in his early twenties and still thinking that a night spent with a woman was like finding the Holy-effing-Grail. He supposed that, to Carter’s way of thinking, he was squandering a lot of opportunities. But the appeal of mindless one-night stands wore off after a few years. Even for reputably cool dudes with their own place.

  “Hasn’t there been someone you’ve been attr
acted to in the past week? The past month?” Carter persisted. “I’m, like, hot for new girls every day. Sometimes, you know, I see, like, six or eight in a row that I’d totally jump...if I could.”

  Gil was about to shake his head but, then, he remembered that funny tourist lady at the beach. She seemed nice enough. A little clueless about Gulf Coast life but pretty cute. And she’d been trying to be helpful when it came to catching that preschooler. But the most memorable thing about her was that, when she spoke to him, she wasn’t distracted by other possible conversations. She may have looked at him oddly at first, like he was a yellow-eyed alien, but she paid full attention to what he was saying, and that was an increasingly rare trait.

  “Yeah, okay,” Gil admitted. “I met a woman I sort of liked in Siesta Key a few days ago. But, you know what it’s like around these parts. Half the people you see aren’t here to stay for longer than a week or two.”

  Carter was forced to nod in agreement on that point, but the kid still managed to find a silver lining. “Yeah, but then there are no strings, right?”

  He punched the tall, skinny young man lightly on the bicep. “You got me there, Carter.” No strings, no commitment. Given his lack of interest in the latter, Gil felt this thought should have cheered him more than it did.

  But the kid grinned as if he’d just cured cancer, put an end to world hunger, and solved the problem of peace in the Middle East in one fell swoop. “I’m here for you, dude,” he said.

  “I know you are, Carter. That, I know for sure.”

  ~*~

  After three hours of work, we finally broke for dinner.

  Joy, a vegetarian, I soon discovered, ordered us garden salads and a spaghetti-marinara feast, while Lorelei ran out to grab a bottle of red wine to accompany the meal. But, though my hands were aching and I’d developed a weird crick in my neck from hunching over, I wasn’t tired at all. Truth be told, I didn’t want to stop working.

  Being here, in the company of these women, made me happier than I’d been in a long time. My loneliness of the past few years was acutely obvious by comparison. Aside from Olivia Michaelsen and her family and, perhaps, a few former work colleagues and kind neighbors in Mirabelle Harbor, I had a hard time thinking of anyone who’d cared enough to talk or laugh with me lately. My sister, sure. My daughter, on rare occasion. But I’d had more in-depth conversations with Vivian at the beach than I’d had recently with most of the acquaintances who’d been a part of my life when Donny and I were still married.

  I inhaled the scent of delicious food and good wine, and realized it was more than that, even. This feeling created a strange and wondrous dichotomy. Being around people I liked, and who seemed to like me, made me calmer, more grounded, and content.

  But there was yet another layer to it.

  At the same time, I felt myself becoming more curious, more alive, and more adventurous. Those two layers swirled within and through me simultaneously—like standing knee-deep in the ocean and feeling both the current of the sea and the waves lapping above it. If I weren’t afraid these women might think I was too needy, I’d camp out overnight on a chair in Joy’s backroom, so I could be rested, ready, and the first one at the shop tomorrow morning.

  When Abby unveiled some of her homemade apple cake—the delectable aroma of cinnamon, pecans and buttered apples enticing us all—I jumped up suddenly, remembering something.

  “I have fudge,” I told them, wanting to share my specially purchased dessert treat with my new friends far more than my earlier desire to parse it out in bits to myself over the next month. I wanted to show them my deep appreciation for their immediate acceptance of me into their little circle. Their generous sense of inclusion.

  “Oh, yum!” Abby said, spotting the logo on the bag. “I love Fudge Fantasia. And, obviously, it loves me.” She patted her curvaceous hip. “My favorite is their Oreo one. Any chance you have some of that?”

  I nodded.

  Abby hooted in delight. Joy hunted for a knife to section the fudge into pieces we could all sample, and Lorelei poured everybody some more alcohol. “Well, it is a dessert wine, you know,” she said wryly. We all laughed and chatted some more.

  It was this ease of simply being in each other’s company—not trying to hide anything, not trying to prove anything—that I found so very endearing about this trio of women. And about myself when I was with them.

  After a while, Lorelei rooted through her bag to unearth her cell phone. “Got to call my boys,” she said. “My husband has a work dinner, so they’ve been left to their own devices all day. Just want to make sure they haven’t blown up the sunroom or anything yet.”

  Abby grinned and shook her head. “Teen boys... My brother and his friends were always ‘experimenting’ with rockets and homemade explosives. Did I ever tell you about the one time when they—”

  Lorelei covered her ears with her palms. “No! Don’t wanna hear it. You’ve already scared me plenty.” She race-walked into the backroom to make her call.

  “She’s never going to forget that chemistry lab story you frightened her with last year,” Joy told Abby. “Or the one about how your family went on that beach vacation and your brother made baby Molotov cocktails.”

  “Allan and his friends definitely had pyromaniac tendencies. Especially his best buddy, Rick Zimmerman. We used to call him ‘Rocket Rick’ behind his back,” Abby said. “He was, quite possibly, even more dangerous than my brother when given free reign with science equipment.”

  “His name sounds really familiar,” I said. “Rick and Allan both went to Mirabelle Harbor High?”

  “Yep. The guys were in the same grade, two years ahead of me. Remember when there was a fire in chem lab at the high school about a decade ago? Thousands of dollars in damage and a large hole that burned straight through the wall into the geography classroom?”

  My jaw dropped. “That was them?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Abby shrugged. “You understand what I grew up with now, right?” She laughed and glanced at her watch. “Oops! I need to check on something at the agency.” She grabbed her keys and raced toward the door. “Be back in fifteen minutes,” she called over her shoulder.

  Joy explained, “She works part time at Floriday Excursions—it’s like Florida plus holiday—an agency that specializes in local vacation packages. It’s just a block away. And she also works part time here with me.” She paused and smiled so warmly. “Marianna, I’m so glad you were able to stay this afternoon.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “Me, too.” I got up, helped Joy throw out the carryout bags, paper plates, and plastic utensils. It felt wonderful to stretch and, also, to be able to talk to Joy a bit just one on one.

  In the flurry of getting swept into the bracelet making, I hadn’t had the chance to look around The Beaded Periwinkle as much as I would have liked, so I took this opportunity to conduct a more thorough investigation. As with the other shops nearby—The Golden Gecko and Castaways—there were paintings of the seashore that had the distinctive look of that one artist. Same vivid colors. Same gorgeous seascapes. But a few more weird elements this time. I noticed a canvas in Joy’s shop that featured a salamander on the sand wearing a beaded necklace, and there was a shell-rimmed clock face that was baking on a rock nearby. The salamander seemed to be slithering toward it.

  “This is a really...interesting painting,” I told Joy. “The colors are just stunning, and the water is as beautiful as I remember it.” I paused.

  “But?” Joy asked, and I could almost hear the giggle behind the word.

  “I—um, I’m not sure I quite get the salamander and the clock,” I admitted. “Although, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this artist’s work in a few stores, and I really, really like it.” I peered at the canvas up close and spotted the initials GC in black at the bottom right.

  Joy was openly laughing at me now. “My brother Gil painted it. He’s a fan of Salvador Dali, you see. It’s his response to The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory,
which he’s gone to gawk at a bunch of times at the Dali museum in St. Petersburg.” She strode up to me, still energetic, even after all of these hours of racing between helping customers and helping the three of us with the beading. “Gil owns the shop next door and is an artist as well. He loves having his work praised, by the way, so I’ll have to tell him you like it—in spite of the watch and the silly salamander.” She studied the painting, as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s all scrambled eggs and burnt toast,” Joy said in a dreamy voice. “Very crunchy on the edges but melty in the middle.”

  I desperately tried to make sense of this statement. To see what Joy saw. I felt as though I could only approach knowing what she meant, though, not completely get it. And there was a persistent fear running through me like an electrical circuit that, perhaps, I was missing something super huge. I’d never studied art history during the two years I’d worked on my associate’s degree. I’d tried to keep up with new ideas by reading, watching the news, and catching programs on the Discovery Channel whenever I could (at least back when I could afford cable), but I hadn’t traveled the world like my sister or had time to visit museums or go to cultural lectures. Not as much as I’d wanted to. Certainly not with a child at home, a deadbeat husband, and a full-time job. All of which were gone now.

  So, was the problem that I just wasn’t comprehending this? Or was the gap between my level of education and Joy’s as large as it was between mine and Ellen’s?

  “What are you thinking?” Joy eyed me carefully, the dreamy tone now gone.

  I cleared her throat. “I’m thinking that you have a really poetic way of viewing the world,” I told Joy truthfully. “I’m not sure I know enough about art to call it crunchy or melty, and I don’t know what was pomegranate-like about Lorelei’s voice earlier or what you think is turquoise about me. But you’ve been very kind to me today, and I...I really wish I understood everything better.”