Tales From Sea Glass Inn (6 page)

Helen hung her blue striped apron on a wooden
peg and went into the bathroom to wash her hands and scrub flour off her
cheeks. She couldn’t do much about the smear of pink pastry cream on her
T-shirt or the dribble of chocolate batter on the thigh of her faded jeans
without going back to her apartment and changing her entire outfit. She’d
rather be a little messy than late for evening feeding at the rescue center,
but part of her wanted to look her best, or at least look reasonably clean,
when she saw Jenny. She turned away from her reflection with a tired sigh.

She was foolish to think Jenny would care
what she was wearing or how presentable she was—Jenny was interested in the
birds under her care, not in Helen. Well, Jenny did seem to care about her
volunteers but not how they looked. Helen shook her head. She was tired and
rambling to herself. She needed to get to the center and get to work before she
crawled on her bakery counter and fell asleep. She piled the remaining boxes of
sand dollar pastries into her arms and carried them outside, balancing them
against her hip while she locked the bakery door.

“Can I help you with those?”

Helen spun around and saw Jenny walking
toward her with an armful of pizza boxes. She looked tired and sleep-deprived,
as usual these days, but her natural loveliness shone through the veneer of
weariness. The drawn expression on her face only emphasized her high cheekbones
and curved lips. Her socks were mismatched and her sweatshirt was torn, but if
a television crew swooped down right now to interview her for the news, her
devotion to this cause and her unyielding goodness would enhance her looks more
than makeup or a restful night’s sleep could ever do. Helen was sure of it
because just last night she had watched Jenny on the evening news, lighting up
the screen with inner and outer beauty.

Helen wished she’d kept a change of clothes
here at the bakery.

“Looks like you’ve already got your share,”
Helen said, pulling her focus off Jenny’s lips and nodding toward the boxes she
carried. “Besides, the heat from the pizzas would melt the pastry cream.”

“Please tell me you made more of your sand
dollars,” Jenny said as they started walking along the sidewalk together. “I
don’t want to sound like I expect you to bake for me and the other rescue
workers every day, but I’m seriously addicted to those things.”

Helen laughed. How was Jenny able to relieve
all her tension with a few words? The money she was spending on ingredients and
the time she spent baking, assets she could barely afford to squander, were
worth every stressful moment just to hear Jenny’s compliments.

“Yes, these are sand dollars. The filling for
this batch is—”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess.” Jenny shifted
the boxes to her left hand and traced a path along Helen’s lower ribs with her
right index finger. “Strawberry?”

Helen nearly dropped her boxes at Jenny’s
touch. One finger, a second or two of contact, and a layer of cotton between
them. No big deal. Then why did Helen feel as if her ribs had been seared?
“What?” she asked, more startled by her response than by the touch. She stopped
and faced Jenny.

“You have the remains of something pink on
your shirt. I thought it might be a clue to the ingredients you used.” Jenny
put both forearms under her pizza boxes again.

Helen couldn’t read the look in her eyes. She
gave up and stared at the pastry boxes. “I would have changed shirts, but I
wanted to…well, it was almost feeding time, and…”

Jenny shook her head. “Why bother? We’ll be
covered with oil and mashed bird food before the night is done. Besides, right
now you look good enough to eat.”

Jenny cleared her throat and started walking
again. Helen swallowed the surge of arousal she felt at the simple statement
and hurried to catch up.

“Raspberry,” she said.

“What?”

Helen grinned. Jenny seemed as distracted by
her company as she was by Jenny’s. “The filling is raspberry, not strawberry.”

“Even better.”

They walked in silence while Helen struggled
to find a topic of conversation that wouldn’t leave her breathless. “You have
good taste,” she said. She realized too late that Jenny might think she was
referring to her
good
enough to eat
comment, and she hurried to explain herself better.
“People make pilgrimages from all over the state to get Fontana’s pizza.”

“I make it a point to sample all the local
favorites when I’m in a new place,” Jenny said. Helen thought she saw a flush
of red under the crew neck of her sweatshirt. “From local restaurants, I mean,”
she continued in a rush. “Fontana’s pizza, Mel’s scones, your sand dollars.”

Helen liked having her baked goods lumped in
with the other Cannon Beach specialties. She’d hoped to make that exact name
for herself and her bakery this summer. Too bad she was earning a reputation
from donations instead of sales. Money again. Why worry about it when there was
so little to be made right now?

“You called yourself a nomad before. Do you
travel all the time?”

“Yeah,” Jenny said. “It’s the only life I’ve
ever known, except for the years when I was in vet school. My parents worked
with Doctors Without Borders, and I traveled with them from the time I was only
a few months old. I even got my college degree online since I was still a
minor.”

“Really? What an exciting life you must have
led.” Helen paused at a street corner and looked both ways before crossing the
road even though barely any cars were out. The first weeks of summer had been
crazy, with city-sized traffic on small-town streets. Jenny must be bored with
the meager offerings of Cannon Beach, especially when she compared them to the
grander and more exotic specialties of far-off lands. Helen had moved around
far too much as a child—but not with her parents and not for philanthropic
reasons. She imagined Jenny running through villages like she belonged in them,
playing games with the local children…

“It wasn’t as romantic and exciting as people
think.” The bitter edge to Jenny’s voice broke through Helen’s daydreams and
caught her full attention. “If my parents were called to a specific place, it
was because a lot of people were sick there, and I wasn’t allowed to mingle
with them. Most of my childhood friends were stray animals I’d find when I
played outside of towns, and not other kids my age. By the time I’d pick up a
little of the local language and get to know a few families or get attached to
another pet, we’d be moving on to the next epidemic and leave them all behind.”

Helen wasn’t sure how to respond. The adult
Jenny, who had chosen a lifestyle similar to the one her parents had followed,
evaporated before her eyes. In her place was a lonely, isolated young girl who
seemed similar to the child Helen had been. But Helen had made different
choices, as soon as she was old enough to be on her own. She veered over and
walked close enough to Jenny so their arms touched. “Didn’t you ever want to
settle down in one place, once you could make your own decisions? A place where
you could make friends and be part of the lives around you?”

Jenny gave her a rueful smile and leaned in
to their contact for a brief moment. “I used to think I would someday, but when
I got to vet school, it was months before I adjusted to the idea that I was
going to be with these same people long enough to make friends. Forming lasting
relationships isn’t exactly a skill of mine.”

Helen almost tasted the bitterness and hurt
in Jenny’s voice. “From what I’ve seen, you are great with relationships.
Everyone who works with you here trusts and likes you. Was there someone in
particular who made you believe you aren’t capable of making lifelong friends?”

Jenny sighed and looked away, although she
kept her body close by Helen’s side. “I guess. I really had only one serious
girlfriend during vet school. I never really thought it would be a forever type
of thing, and we had our rough spots, but when she left me I had a really hard
time handling it. I was used to being the one who left, and even when our
family moves were sudden, they were never unexpected. It was a crazy
overreaction, but I almost dropped out of school because of it. But then I was
offered a summer internship with a wildlife biologist who was traveling to
South America. Travel was familiar to me, and I enjoyed the work, so I focused
on finding jobs that kept me moving.”

Helen couldn’t imagine how she would have
felt if she hadn’t had any significant interaction with people her own age
until she was of age and on her own. In some ways, Jenny must have grown up
faster than other kids, and in others she had been left behind. Her parents
should have been preparing her for school and life, not keeping her separated
from it. Helen heard the dichotomy coming through in Jenny’s tone of voice as
she went from relating the story of her girlfriend—who must have been insane to
let her go—to talking about her present life.

“I can help more animals and birds and
communities if I move to where I’m needed,” Jenny said. “My mom tried to
explain that to me when I would be sad about moving again. She’d say it was
selfish of me. I didn’t understand her at the time, but I think I do now.”

Helen spoke without pausing to think.
“Nonsense. They were the selfish ones, not you.” She felt a buildup of her old
rage. All she could hear was her uncle’s voice.
I gave you everything after your parents died. A
house, food, clothing. And this is how you repay me?
The cost of his
generosity had been much too high for Helen to accept, but she’d been torn by
guilt when she heard those words and was too young to know better. She was trapped
in her own memories, but the sensation of Jenny moving out of reach and the
chilly sound of her voice brought Helen back to the present with a thump.

“I did see more of the world than most people
ever will. I was exposed to local food and customs and places, so I learned
more than any school-bound class could have taught me. And my parents have
saved thousands of lives. I’d never be selfish enough to think that a real
house or a sleepover with school friends should have made my parents give up
their mission.”

“No, I guess not,” Helen said, trying to
adjust to the quick shift out of her own past as Jenny now defended her
parents’ lifestyle choice. She guessed that Jenny had wavered between anger and
guilt for a lot of years. Helen had been on that particular seesaw often enough
to recognize the signs. She wanted to help Jenny banish the guilt forever.
“Still, couldn’t they have compromised even a little once you were born? There
must have been plenty of opportunities to help others in the States or by staying
in one place where you could make friends and be safe.”

Helen paused at the edge of the rescue
center’s parking lot when Jenny stopped in the shadows. Beyond them, volunteers
were moving in and out of the building.

“I know you mean well,” Jenny said. She
sounded as if she was speaking through gritted teeth. “But you probably grew up
in a traditional home with parents who went to work from nine to five each day.
Maybe one of them even stayed home and took care of you full-time. You can’t
possibly understand the amount of suffering in this world. People who sacrifice
their lives to ease it are doing something vital, and if I had to give up the
stray dog I’d befriended or the tree fort I’d made, then I was doing what
needed to be done.”

Helen shifted the awkward boxes in her hands.
She was tempted to upend the lot on Jenny’s head. “You have no idea what my
life was like growing up. I’ve seen my share of suffering, and I’ve experienced
plenty, too. Just because I’m trying to find a quiet and settled home here
doesn’t mean it’s all I’ve ever known. It means I’ve had enough of the opposite
to last a lifetime.”

Helen walked away without giving Jenny a
chance to say anything else. She was worn-out from the amount of work she’d
been doing and by the conversation she’d just had, and she was about to lose
her business on top of everything. All she wanted to do was go home and curl in
a ball, but she pushed through the glass doors and set her boxes on a folding
table, where they were quickly attacked by hungry workers who mumbled their
thanks around crumbs and pastry cream. This might not be her community or her
home for long, but right now she was needed here. She grabbed some long rubber
gloves and a handful of trash bags.

Time to clean some cages.

*

Jenny took her time crossing the parking lot,
and by the time she entered the rescue center, Helen was nowhere to be seen.
She put her pizzas on the table next to the already-plundered pastry boxes and
snagged a couple of sand dollars before they disappeared. She paused in the
doorway leading from the large foyer to the open auditorium and leaned against
the doorjamb while she ate and watched the scene before her.

The main floor was covered with plywood pens,
laid out like houses on city blocks. Jenny knew the inhabitants of each one,
even without seeing them. A few Western grebes along the far wall, although
luckily many of them had been farther inland during breeding season and were
safe from the oil spill. Pens for the murres were clustered on the north side.
The gentle and timid loons were tucked in a quiet corner. A dark curtain
separated the washing area from the rest of the space. Quiet human voices
blended together, creating a background murmur.

Jenny licked a trail of raspberry pastry
cream off the side of her palm and thought about her reaction when she had
innocently touched the pink stain on Helen’s T-shirt. Powerful and unexpected,
like everything else about Helen. Jenny had been foolish to make assumptions
about Helen’s life before they met. She’d seen hints of toughness behind
Helen’s cheerful smile, as if she’d survived something difficult and had
stories to tell about her journey. Jenny had tried to ignore her interest in
Helen, had lumped her in with what she thought of as everyone else. Jenny’s own
life had been so far from the traditional ones she read about in books and saw
in movies that she sometimes forgot
everyone
varied from normal in some way. She’d activated her usual response against
getting attached to a community and had thought of herself as someone too
different from these people to ever truly relate to them. Or care about them.