Tales From Sea Glass Inn (18 page)

“You’ve read her books, Joss. They’re
powerful. She captures something profoundly human and universal in her stories.
Do you think someone could write like that, yet not be more emotionally
sensitive than your average person? Of course not.” Maggie answered her own
question. “Remember our book club meeting when we read her book? Her words
spoke to everyone there. We each saw something of ourselves in her stories, and
we understood ourselves a little better after reading them. I think that kind
of gift is worth a wallow now and again.”

Jocelyn thought back to the comments made
during that night’s book club. Maggie was right, again. Ari’s process for
understanding emotions and writing them out might not be efficient or sensible
or painless, but it was
her
process. Because of what she wrote, readers were able to work through their
emotions in turn. A cycle of expressing and ruminating, moving closer to
clarity with every turn.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have tried to fix
her.”

“You can’t help yourself. It might not be who
you were born to be, but it’s who you are. You see everything as a challenge
and you’re always determined to win because winning means life. But
relationships aren’t cancer or a business challenge or a marathon. You can’t
conquer them.”

Jocelyn wanted to argue, but she couldn’t.
Maggie knew her too well, plus she spent most of her days with patients like Jocelyn
herself had been. She understood how the struggle to survive could become a way
of life. Jocelyn did have one final card to play, though.

“Everything you’re saying makes sense, but it
doesn’t change the fact that Ari and I are too different. Even if I stopped
trying to change her, we’d never be a good fit. She withdraws to deal with the
world in private, and I rush out and try to tackle it.”

“Sounds familiar,” Maggie said quietly,
reading the dessert menu and not looking at Jocelyn.

Jocelyn waited until they ordered sundaes
before she spoke again. “What sounds familiar?”

Maggie shrugged. “How alike are we? We have
some similar values and interests. We have the same nose and forehead shape.
But aren’t we as different as you claim you and Ariana are?”

“Yes, I guess so.” Since the topic of cancer
had come up already, it brought one example to Jocelyn’s mind immediately.
Their different but related experiences with leukemia had led Maggie to a
career helping others with the disease. She had also grown up to be more
fearful—although Mags called it
careful
—than
Jocelyn. Jocelyn had become fearless.

“Maybe we should stop seeing each other,
then. Give up our weekly lunches and stop talking on the phone all the time.
Since we’re so different, you know.”

Jocelyn scraped the whipped cream off the top
of her sundae and licked it off the spoon. She pushed the tempting and
unexpected image of Ari covered in cream aside and answered Maggie’s foolish
question. “We’re sisters. We’re allowed to be different. Besides, we balance
each other in a lot of ways. I’d be half the person I am if I didn’t have you.”

Maggie merely looked at her without speaking.

Jocelyn sighed. “Yes, I get your point. But I
think there’s a difference between two people who are balanced with each other
and two people who are opposite extremes.”

“Fine. Give up your chance to have a famous,
talented, sensitive girlfriend. Keep looking for another one like Horrible
Heidi.”

Jocelyn laughed and would have flung a
spoonful of ice cream at Maggie’s head if they hadn’t been in public. Heidi
really had been horrid. Clicking around in her heels and power suits, running
casual lunches like high-stakes boardroom meetings. Jocelyn had taken her
attraction to competent and successful women a little too far that time.

“Do you really want to start criticizing
ex-girlfriends? Because I’d be happy to talk about Crazy Kat and her fetish
for—”

“Fine,” Maggie said, covering her ears. “I’ll
stop if you will.”

“Deal.”

Jocelyn and Maggie kept to safer topics
during the rest of lunch. They laughed and chatted while they finished their
desserts, but Ari hovered in the back of Jocelyn’s mind the whole time. She had
been drawn to her from the start—even before they met, she had been captivated
by Ari’s voice in her books. Was Maggie right about finding balance? Jocelyn
had spent years searching for mirror images of herself. Women who had the same
outlook on life and problem solving. But those similarities had never been able
to keep relationships alive, or even to help them through rocky patches. Was
Ari a good match for her? Would they mesh or would they clash?

Jocelyn had felt connected to Ari during
their talks on the beach and in the bookstore. They had argued a little, but
they’d also opened up to each other in ways Jocelyn rarely did, and she
suspected the same was true for Ari. And that kiss…There was no question of
their connection in the physical aspect of a relationship.

Still, Ari would be going back to California
soon. They hadn’t even spoken of a relationship, and when Ari walked away from
her the other night on the beach, she had done so with a sense of finality.
Even if Jocelyn wanted to pursue something with Ari, Ari most likely didn’t
feel the same way. Ari needed someone special in her life, someone who would
help take care of her talent and her emotions. Someone who recognized her
strengths. Could Jocelyn be the person Ari needed? She wasn’t sure.

But that kiss…

Definitely worth a shot.

*

Ari looked up from her laptop and checked the
clock on the wall. She had been writing for an hour—twice as long as yesterday.
Not her personal best by any means, but much better than three hours of typing
and deleting a single sentence. She saved her document and closed the screen.
She was happy and relieved to be back to work, even on a small scale, and she
didn’t want to push it and scare her newfound ideas away.

She grabbed her notebook and a heavy wool
sweater and jogged down the steps with a renewed sense of energy. When she
crossed the backyard and passed the studio, she saw Pam inside. She was sitting
at the wooden table with a pile of multicolored sea glass in front of her. They
waved at each other, and Pam went back to sorting while Ari walked to the
staircase and down to the beach. She hoped Pam would be creating again soon,
and not just looking for menial tasks to do in the studio. Although she had
talked to Pam about her rediscovery of her ability to write, Ari had carefully
refrained from offering any advice or cheery encouragement. She and Pam both
understood how difficult stagnation was. Ari was crawling out of the hole she
had dug for herself, but Pam was still inside hers. She’d find her way out
sooner or later, with Mel’s support and her own drive to paint.

Ari climbed on the tall driftwood trunk and
sat with her legs dangling over the side. She gently kicked her heels against
the wood while she opened her notebook and started to write. Not a story, but a
journal. She started with details, like what time she had gotten out of bed and
how her new novel was progressing, and then she jotted down some of the
memories from her teenage years she had recalled this morning. She was still
using words to explore the turmoil of emotions she felt, and not working them
out internally, but at least she was writing as herself and not filtering her
feelings through a fictional character. Someday she would create a novel using
these notes, her image of the woman on the bluff, and the premise of loss and
guilt. Just not now.

Ari stared at the waves. They were calm and
gray-green today. She closed the notebook and sat still, matching her breath
with the steady thrum of the vast ocean. She wasn’t about to offer unsolicited
advice to Pam, but she had been willing to take the words Jocelyn had thrown at
her and act on them. After her anger had ebbed, Ari had considered Jocelyn’s
suggestions. They
had
been pushy and intrusive, but slowly Ari had recognized the sense behind them.
The night of the book signing, she had made notes until two in the morning for
an idea she had thought of during her stay at the inn. She had ignored the
unfolding story at first because she was determined to write the novel about
mothers and daughters, but it had remained buried in the back of her mind. Once
she turned her attention to it, the words and sentences began to flow.

Pam had told her about her ex-girlfriend’s
child, Kevin, and how he was slowly becoming part of her life again. Ari had
been intrigued when she heard how Mel’s son Danny and Kevin were bonding like
brothers even though no actual blood or legal relationship existed between
them. Ari had changed most of the details in her story, including turning the
brothers into sisters, but she’d kept the basic theme of people who were creating
a unique family for themselves. Some of the concepts overlapped the book she
eventually wanted to write about her mom, but most of it was unrelated. She had
been determined to hold on to a project that wasn’t working, and she had nearly
overlooked this new one. Her fingers stalled sometimes, hovering over the
keyboard and trembling with doubt, but she always managed to write the next
word, and then the next sentence and paragraph and page.

Ari spotted a horse and rider in the
distance, cantering toward her end of the beach. She jumped off the log and was
going to meet them when she realized it wasn’t Jocelyn and Mariner. She stood
still while the young girl and her chestnut horse passed by.

Once they were nearly out of sight, she
turned and went back up the stairs and circled around the inn to get to her
car. She was stronger now, and ready to face Jocelyn.

She drove the short distance into town and
parked in front of the bookstore. She sat in her car for a few moments and
watched Jocelyn through the window. She moved along a shelf, running her index
finger across the spines of books. Every once in a while she pulled out a book
and added it to the pile she held in her arms. Probably acting her part of Book
Witch and choosing a bundle for one of her devoted customers. Ari loved the way
Jocelyn paid attention to her readers. She connected with the people who came
in her store, bringing them together with books and with other locals through
her recommendations and book clubs.

Jocelyn might have cited money as a main
reason for having the book signing, but Ari didn’t believe it after watching
her during the event. She united her neighbors with each other and against the
threat of business failures and closures. She talked like someone who only saw
goals to meet and challenges to overcome, but there was something more
inspirational and relatable inside her. Ari had benefitted from Jocelyn’s
attention and observation once she had gotten past the bossy language it’d been
housed in.

Ari got out of her car and went into the
shop. Jocelyn came out of the stacks with a smile that grew wider when she saw
Ari.

“Hi, Jocelyn,” Ari said.

“Hi.”

This was going well. Ari wasn’t sure how to
proceed. She had made quite a few decisions since the last time they spoke, and
she wanted Jocelyn to hear every one of them.

“My month at the inn is almost over,” she
said. The smile faded from Jocelyn’s face and she put the pile of books on her
desk.

“I guess you’ll be going back home, then? I
hope you enjoyed your stay at Cannon Beach.”

Jocelyn’s tone had grown stiff. Ari shook her
head. “No, I mean, yes, I’m glad I came. But no, I’m not going home yet.”

Jocelyn had been fidgeting with the books.
She stopped and looked at Ari. “Not going…Are you planning to stay at the inn
longer?”

“That’d be too pricey long-term. I rented a
room in town, just a block from the beach.”

“Long-term?” Jocelyn laughed. “I keep
repeating what you say. I’m just surprised. I didn’t expect you to want to
stay.”

Ari closed the distance between them and
stood next to Jocelyn without touching her. She wasn’t sure how Jocelyn would
react to what she was going to say, and she didn’t want to push her. “I guess I
found my inspiration here, but not where I expected. I thought I’d be inspired
by the waves or the smell of salt in the air or the cry of gulls. But I found
it in you.”

Jocelyn shook her head and bridged the gap
between them, resting her palms on Ari’s hips. “I didn’t inspire you to do
anything. I should have let you find your own way. Better yet, I should have helped
you through this block by being a sounding board and just letting you vent.
Instead, I pushed you into a book signing and told you how to handle your own
pain and creativity.”

“I needed a push. I was stuck in a spiral of
sadness and guilt, and the more time I spent not writing, the worse it got. You
showed me a different direction to take.” Ari paused, overcome by the emotions
of the moment and tempted to run away from the intensity. The realization that
Jocelyn cared enough to want to support Ari’s writing spread a beautiful warmth
through her, but doubt followed quickly with an icier chill. Would she be able
to reciprocate? What could Ari give Jocelyn in return? Only the steady anchor
of Jocelyn’s hands on her kept Ari from bolting to either her keyboard or the
highway home. “I’m writing again, Jocelyn, and I have you to thank for it.”

“You’ve started the book about you and your
mom?” Jocelyn raised one hand and caressed Ari’s cheek. Ari saw a mixture of
pride and pleasure in her expression.

“No. Something else.” She kept her answer
vague, but Jocelyn would be the first to read her new book. Ari had never felt
the urge to share her work—her life—so intimately with someone else. “I’ll
return to the one I envisioned someday, but I need to take a step back and
spend more time with my memories and emotions before I transform them into
fiction.”

“But I was the one who was wrong,” Jocelyn
said. “Your books, the way you write, they’re important to people. Your
characters resonate with readers because their emotions are genuine. And
they’re genuine because they’re things you’ve actually felt and experienced.
Don’t let something I said take that away from the work you do.”