Tales From Sea Glass Inn (23 page)

Heather shifted the heavy bag. One of the
books was an autobiography of a dancer, the second was a guide to operas and
their stories, and the third was about Gothic architecture. Heather wasn’t sure
why they had been chosen since she wasn’t an architect, a ballerina, or an
operagoer. Each one seemed to remind her of old interests, however, and she had
willingly bought all of them. She had taken an opera class in college because
she had to add a few fine arts credits to her economics ones in order to
graduate, and she had enjoyed every moment, especially when they attended
performances. She had never designed a house or building, but she had been
drawn to interesting structural shapes and forms and would sometimes wander the
city streets for hours at night, searching for new ones to admire. She was a
stiff and nonrhythmic dancer, but she loved music.

Heather would have time to read later. Now
she had to finish her shopping spree. She pushed through the door of the
Seascape Art Gallery and was surprised to see Pam standing behind the counter,
shuffling through a stack of invoices.

“Heather, what a surprise! I’m glad you
caught me here since my hours have been inconsistent lately.”

“Hi, Pam. I didn’t know you owned a gallery,”
Heather said, walking over to the counter. “How do you find time to do this and
paint and teach?”

“I usually have help in here, but after my
student hire went back to school, I didn’t hire another clerk. I sort of…well,
after the spill, I couldn’t paint for a long time. I’m slowly starting again,
but now I don’t have help here, so I’m juggling running the gallery and the
seminar with my own painting. I’m not doing a very good job of it right now,
but I’ll get there. At least the seminar is inspiring to me. Working around
other artists is giving me the push I needed to pick up a brush again.”

“It must be hard not to be creating,” Heather
said, thinking of Aspen and her willingness to sculpt less because she scorned
being a professional. Heather wondered if her reluctance had more to do with
fear than concern over losing her artistic integrity.

“It’s a horrible feeling,” Pam said. “And I
think it was almost as hard on Mel as on me because she understands how much I
need to paint to really comprehend the world around me.”

Heather understood a little of what Mel must
have felt during Pam’s dry spell. She had seen the rapture on Aspen’s face
after her morning sculpting. If she had to witness the light being snuffed out,
she’d do anything in her power to help Aspen find her passion again. “Are any
of your paintings here?” Heather asked. She’d been gradually deepening her
appreciation of the storm painting in her room. It had disturbed her at first,
maybe because the destruction on the beach reminded her of the turmoil in her
mind, but now she was able to glance obliquely at her unfulfilling job and her
fear that she had made a bad decision too long ago to rectify. Could the
tempest-tossed debris in her mind be cleaned away? Or would she need to return
to her old habits of ignoring and anesthetizing? Maybe a souvenir painting of
Pam’s would help her remember how she had felt here, as long as the memories
weren’t too painful. She’d prefer a memento created by Aspen, though. Something
to remind her of yesterday and her revelations and their laughter, like the
hazy memory of reality during a lucid dream.

“I have a couple full-sized ones near the
window,” Pam pointed across the gallery. “And in the display case on the back
wall there are some miniature oils I’ve done because a lot of our guests want
something similar to the mosaics in the rooms. Why don’t you put your bags
behind the counter while you look around? I see you’ve been shopping and
apparently singlehandedly keeping Cannon Beach merchants safe from bankruptcy.”

“I’m doing my best,” Heather said, putting
her bags down with a sigh of relief. “I’ve been to almost every shop Mel had on
the map in my welcome packet.”

“You do realize those lists are meant to be
helpful suggestions for our guests and not mandatory assignments, don’t you?”

Heather laughed. “Yes, I do. I started
working through them as a way to make a statement to someone who isn’t even
here, but now it’s turned into a game. I’m having a good vacation in my own
goal-oriented, obsessive way.”

“As long as you’re having fun, we’re happy,”
Pam said.

“Best vacation I’ve had in a long time,”
Heather said. It was a completely true statement, especially since she couldn’t
remember the last vacation she had taken. She’d been barely old enough to
legally drink.

“Good.” Pam smiled and went back to her
invoices while Heather wandered through the gallery. She looked at Pam’s
paintings first, admiring one with gulls circling Haystack Rock and another of
a calm sea with a pod of gray whales in the far distance, along the horizon.
She admired Pam’s subtle touch with oils and glass, and her subjects that
seemed to have meaning beyond their actual beings. When she looked through the
display of smaller oils, however, she found the one she wanted to own. It was a
smaller section of her storm painting, zeroing in on a segment of the beach
with windblown grasses and scattered driftwood. Maybe it would remind her of
the moments of doubt and clarity she had found here, even when she returned to
her mind-numbing life.

Heather held the little oil painting as she
examined the rest of the gallery’s offerings. A few pieces caught her eye
immediately: a blown glass wall hanging that looked like a waterfall in blues
and teals, a portrait of a sea captain at the helm of his ship, and a turned
wooden sculpture of an abstract figure. She wanted to run her hands over the
piece, feeling the grain of the wood and the smoothness of its finish.

“You remind me of Mel when she first came in
here,” Pam said. Heather turned abruptly and found Pam watching her. “She made
a beeline for the highest-quality pieces in here, just like you did.”

“I just picked my favorites,” Heather said
with a feeling of heat in her cheeks. Why was she blushing and trying to avoid
the compliment?

“They’re mine, too. If I didn’t need the
gallery to make money, I’d have nothing but works like those three.”

“I agree,” Heather said. “But I can see what
you’re offering with the other types of artwork. They’ll keep you in business
and satisfy the customers who want to buy a memory.” She gestured toward a few
pretty but unremarkable paintings of the ocean. Then she pointed at some more
abstract works with vibrant colors and pleasing shapes, but little depth beyond
them. “Or the ones who want to buy art because it’ll make them feel good to
have something attractive in their house or office even though they don’t know
much about what they’re looking at.”

Pam nodded slowly, watching Heather with an
unreadable expression. “You have a good eye,” she said eventually.

Heather was about to protest again, but she
let herself receive the compliment with a quiet thank you. She paid for Pam’s
painting and gathered her bags again.

“See you back at the inn?” Pam asked.

“Not until later tonight,” Heather answered,
using her elbow to open the gallery door. “Next on the list is a cooking class
at the culinary school. I think we’re making salmon.”

Heather was halfway back to her car before a
memory resurfaced that had been nagging at the edge of her mind while she’d
been in Pam’s gallery. She’d been maybe ten or eleven and had brought home some
papers from her classes. Her parents had been pleased with the A-plus on her
science experiment and had chastised her for making spelling errors on a short
language arts essay. They hadn’t even mentioned the picture she had drawn for
art class, and later that night Heather had found it crumpled in the trash. As
if the one memory was a trigger for others, she recalled too many times when
her mom or dad had steered her away from beauty and toward more practical
pursuits. Music, art, and literature were fine as sideline activities, but not
as the focus of her attention. She’d heard phrases like
waste of time
and
not a subject you’ll need to
master for your degree
too many times to count, and they had
insinuated themselves in her mind, making her nervous when Pam praised her for
something her parents would have dismissed.

Heather was under no illusion that she’d have
possessed the talent of someone like Aspen or Pam, even if she’d been
encouraged to explore her artistic side. Perhaps what she had been missing in
her life wasn’t an all-consuming passion and gift in one area, but an
appreciation for art and beauty and music in general.

She wasn’t certain what to do with these
revelations she kept uncovering. They were making her nervous and not helping
her make a decision about how to inject more life into her career. Instead,
they managed to emphasize and magnify her feelings of discontent.

Heather stowed her bags in the trunk of her
car and drove to the small culinary school and catering company. She had been
in kitchens before and had no expectation of uncovering a latent talent to be a
world-class chef, but she was looking forward to the evening anyway. She
thought of Aspen back at the inn, working on her sculpture with the
single-minded intensity of a true artist. She had something magnificent to
offer the world. What did Heather have to offer? What would be her legacy when
she was gone?

A thousand completed to-do lists.

*

Aspen used a small sculpting tool and carved
excess clay from a tendril of ivy until it was as thin and delicate as she
envisioned. She glanced at her sketch pad to make sure she was following her
original plan, and then she rolled another narrow snake of clay. She stepped
back and checked her progress, consulting her drawing yet again, before she
pressed the rolled clay into the figure’s neck.

An intricate filigree of ivy and flower stems
covered one side of the sculpture’s neck and face. The plant life blended up
into the figure’s hair. The lower portion of the filigree transitioned to
slender human veins on the shoulder and left breast. Aspen felt the movement of
the tendrils, just as she’d hoped. The lower parts were embedded in the person,
into its very veins. The upper reaches of vines and flowers were growing and
stretching upward, pulling locks of hair with them.

She took a few steps back again, searching
for balance points and a continuity of the natural elements as they infiltrated
the human. She was completely immersed in her work, but she still was aware of
the moment when Heather came along the path and stopped outside the window to
watch her. Aspen didn’t acknowledge her at first because she needed to remain
focused on the task at hand. The ivy was the most subtle part of her sculpture,
but it would be the main focal point. The viewer’s eye would automatically be
drawn to the face of the figure first of all, where the patterned stems and the
hand clutching them were located. Pam had spent hours with her retreat class,
looking at photos of sculptures and paintings as well as actual ones in the
local galleries until they were able to spot the center of any work of art. Not
the physical center, but the point where an observer would focus before branching
out to the edges.

Aspen made some minor adjustments to the
curve of stems, extending them a few inches farther around the figure’s neck,
like either a noose or a loving embrace. She had never been comfortable with an
audience while she worked, but somehow Heather’s presence was unobtrusive and
supportive. Maybe she was becoming more used to having others around during her
creative process. Since leaving school, where she’d sculpt and draw among other
students, Aspen had worked alone. Friends and family saw the finished products
but never the work in progress. This week, Pam and the other artists had been
with her every step of the way, offering encouragement and suggestions. Some
she had taken—especially the ones Pam gave her—and others she considered and
rejected. Her ability, her
potential
was expanding because of the input, whether she acted on it or not. An
unexpected and beneficial side effect of the retreat.

Was Heather somehow part of the retreat
experience in her mind? Aspen enjoyed feeling Heather’s gaze on her. She liked
sharing this intimate and personal process of sculpting with her. She had a
feeling her willingness to let Heather in this part of her life—even though she
had been as pushy about Aspen’s future as an artist as Pam and others had
been—had more to do with her as a woman than as another aspect of the group
setting here. Having Heather watch her create brought them closer together,
connecting them in a way Aspen hadn’t felt before with her girlfriends.
Heather’s presence helped her expand her awareness until she was no longer
sculpting for herself but for the connection it created between Aspen and the
world around her.

She turned abruptly, pleased with the texture
and form of the filigree, and waved at Heather, beckoning her inside. Heather
looked surprised to be noticed, as if she thought Aspen was too deep in her
work to see anything else but she recovered quickly and came through the studio
door.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt you,” she said,
standing respectfully far from Aspen and the sculpture. “I was heading to the
beach and saw you in here. Once I started watching, I couldn’t stop.”

Aspen grinned at the compliment. She liked
having Heather enthralled by her, even if it was just by her work and not her
as a person. She gestured at the sculpture. “What do you think? Honest
opinion.”

Heather moved closer when Aspen gave her
permission, and Aspen appreciated the unwillingness to intrude on her process.

“I love how you’ve created tension here. The
bark is solid, the roots on the lower legs are pulling the figure downward, and
the ivy is reaching up. The figure is in the center, trying to break free. We
have to look at this and ask questions. Should we try to break away from
nature? Is it confining, or freeing to be part of the living Earth?”