Bound for the Outer Banks (8 page)

“Thanks Art,” said a grateful Ella.

“You’re very welcome, Belle.” Art smiled and turned to walk back in the store.

Ella repeated, “No, really, thank you.”

Art threw up his hand in acknowledgement. He figured he already knew that Belle would be heading to the non-descript cottage on Cemetery Road, the temporary home of so many “writers”, “artists”, and work at home “IT folks.”

Chapter 9

After returning the truck to Art and biking back to her new temporary home, Ella began painting over the shiny aluminum surface of the large foam insulation pieces. Since she couldn’t paint the generic walls of the cottage, she painted the large four by eight rectangles of foam aqua and hung two in the living room on opposing walls. She then hung the remaining piece in her small bedroom above the head of her full bed.

Ella removed the brown French Provincial headboard from the bedframe with her new Phillips head screwdriver and laid it in the backyard on the plastic drop cloth. There was no need to sand the wood. It looked as if the old headboard’s varnish had been rubbed off decades ago. She proceeded to spray the piece with the glossy, candy apple red spray paint. Thus far The Bureau had never reprimanded her for decorating each safe house. She knew she was using the term decorating loosely but she did the best she could on her limited stipend with local garage sale and thrift store finds.

There was nothing Ella could do about the beige couch and side chair but she removed the two side tables and the generic wood coffee table and placed them on her drop cloth. Within an hour the headboard and the tables were glossy red and dry as a bone in the late summer Carolina sun.

After returning the tables to the living room and reattaching the headboard to the frame, Ella sized up the drab glass dinette set. She snarled her lip and removed the glass top and leaned it against the wall. By early afternoon all four brown wooden chairs and the tan wicker base were painted Cayman Waters. Ella had successfully eradicated all the traces of brown from the areas of the cottage she would be using. Ella agreed with BeBe that brown was the color of shit and she refused to have it in her house.

Ella knew this was a labor intensive proposition since she would accompany BeBe to furniture stores where there were rows and rows of brown couches, chairs, side and coffee tables, rugs, desks, hutches, dining room tables, and ottomans. BeBe would leave exasperated, but not before she sought out the manager and promptly informed him or her that not everyone wanted furniture the exact color of feces. Ella and her mom always ended up at Salvation Army or some Humane Society Thrift Store. They would buy whatever piece of furniture they were in need of and stop at the paint store on the way home in order to transform it. If it were an upholstered piece they’d stop at the fabric store and sew a slipcover for it.

Ella smiled and silently thanked BeBe for encouraging her to make it if she couldn’t find it. She was certain that others felt the way she and BeBe did but she guessed they’d never realized they could take the bull by the horns and do things themselves. Ella liked to think this was the case. BeBe would have said, “Oh no, they’re either too lazy or they’re happy to be led around by the nose by whatever the furniture industry is willing to provide. Ella would roll her eyes, fairly certain that folks just either liked the neutrality of brown, didn’t have time to devote to combing thrift stores and painting furniture, or they honestly hadn’t thought to do it. This way of thinking was in direct opposition to BeBe’s notion that most people were lazy, useful idiots to the furniture industry, a corrupt industry which had a secret conspiracy to furnish every home in America with shit colored furniture, and refused to branch out and produce white or any other colored furniture.

Once at an Ethan Allen store, the young sales associate suggested that New England Cottage sold white coastal furniture. Instead of thanking her for the information, BeBe promptly replied, “At those prices I’d be better off painting this crap colored furniture my damn self.”

Ella suddenly realized she’d had nothing to eat all day. Every time she arrived in a new place, she got a manic burst of creative energy, and instead of stocking the kitchen with groceries, she obsessed over getting rid of her blasé surroundings. She realized her blood sugar had dropped to the point where she needed some calories as soon as possible before taking a trip to the grocery store and trying to lug the items back on her bike.

After showering and putting on a pair of jean shorts and a pale, thin, apricot T-shirt, Ella headed back toward the waterfront. On the bay side of the street she saw a large, painted brick building with oversized arched windows on the first and second levels. In the center of the building over the main entrance was a small balcony with French doors. Underneath the balcony was a pink awning. In an elaborate black script across the pale pink awning was the word Pinkie’s.

Ella parked her bike against the wrought iron street lamp at the north end of the street and secured it with her bike lock. Next door was one of the wooden façade buildings left from the great fire. Ella saw a menu encased in glass next to the large paned doors. Pinkie’s was only open for dinner and it was still ten minutes until five, the designated opening time according to the menu. It didn’t matter to Ella though. From the looks of the menu Pinkie’s was the epitome of fine dining and Ella was just looking to fill the void in her stomach from hours of hauling pieces of furniture outside, painting them happy colors, and returning them to their places in the cottage.

As Ella finished reading the dessert offerings of Pinkie’s which included “Non Yankee Bread Pudding,” which apparently did not have raisins according to the caveat next to it, the front door flung open and almost knocked Ella down.

“Oh! My! God! I am so sorry!” A woman Ella judged to be about her own age grabbed Ella by the shoulders. “Are you O.K.?”

“I’m fine,” Ella replied.

“I kicked the door open because I was trying to drag that sandwich board or whatever they call it out here to put on the sidewalk. Why don’t you pick out one of the specials on the board I almost maimed you for and it’s on me. The lady had long blonde hair in a sleek pony tail and she was wearing what Ella recognized as an orange and white bamboo patterned Jude Connally tunic dress.

Ella looked down at her jean shorts and said, “That’s really sweet but I’m not dressed appropriately.”

“Oh please, Honey with beauty like that nobody’s paying attention to the wrapping. Besides you’re on vacation! Hakuna Matata and all that!”

Ella laughed, “Actually I’m not a tourist. I just moved here.”

“New meat in Manteo! That’s even better! New residents around here are rare animals. Now you HAVE to come in and let me show you some Manteo hospitality, but wait just a sec.”

The lady held the door open with her buttocks and leaned in to get the sign advertising Pinkie’s specials for the evening. She placed the sign at the edge of the sidewalk and then opened the door motioning with her free arm toward Ella to enter. “After you. By the way I’m Lacey.”

“I’m Belle,” Ella replied.

Hesitantly Ella entered Pinkie’s. She stepped in far enough to let Lacey clear the doorway, but stopped to take in the breathtaking décor. Opulence was nothing new to Ella. She was raised in New York City and had worked for several years in lavish casino environments in Biloxi. What she was seeing was just unexpected. She’d assumed that all the dining establishments in Manteo would be decorated with fishing nets, old wooden buoys, and stuffed sport-fish carcasses on the walls.

But the walls of Pinkie’s had none of those things. The walls were painted a tasteful muted pink. Silk drapes were swagged over the large arches of the windows. The drapes were edged with heavy braided fringe in a lovely, hazy blue color. On the wall to the right was a five foot high by three foot wide portrait of the restaurant’s namesake, the Sir Thomas Lawrence painting of young Sarah Barrett Moulton whose nickname was Pinkie.

Directly across the room was a six foot high painting of what most people considered her counterpart, The Blue Boy. People always had this notion although they were painted almost twenty five years apart and by different artists.

Ella had seen the original paintings in the Huntington Library in California while on vacation with Joseph and BeBe when she was in high school. She remembered being fascinated by the size of the paintings since both were close to life size portraits. The reproductions which hung in Pinkie’s seemed to have the exact dimensions as the originals.

The heavy mouldings at the ceiling, along the floor, and around the large arched windows were painted bright white. All the tables were round and painted the same bright white and were covered with crisp white linen tablecloths. The wood frame of the Heurtaut inspired chairs were also painted white. Each table’s chairs were upholstered either in a pink or blue toile.

Lacey led Ella to a table for two in a corner in the rear of the restaurant. Lacey pulled out one of the chairs and snatched the linen napkin from the table. Ella sat down and Lacey gently laid the napkin across Ella’s lap.

“I hope I did that right. I don’t really work here. I’m just covering for my Mom.” Lacey took a menu from a slanted wooden holder. The holder was above a table covered in stainless steel water pitchers with little white linen, bandana like napkins tied around them to prevent condensation from dripping on patrons. As Lacey handed the menu to Ella she said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to send someone to wait on you who knows what they’re doing.”

“Thank you,” Ella said, thinking that under different circumstances Lacey and Ella might become friends. She quickly dismissed the thought since she knew she could be uprooted at any moment by The Bureau.

The menu was an impressive array of surf and turf with interesting side dishes. Ella laughed at the caveat printed in italics under one of the more unique appetizers – Fried Green Tomatoes (
Because everyone should have the opportunity to experience the deliciousness of one)
.

As Ella flipped the menu on its back, a picture of a woman who looked like an older, chunkier, carbon copy of Lacey appeared at the top of the page. “WELCOME TO PINKIE’S” was stamped across the bottom of the photo. The narrative which followed told of Pinkie’s humble beginnings and how the owner, Melody Gainsborough, had turned a “meat and three” run down cafeteria into what was now Pinkie’s. Ella read her name again – MELODY Gainsborough. She quickly dismissed the idea assuming that BeBe’s contemporary had probably left tiny Manteo years ago.

Lacey, who clearly had not learned her lesson from earlier, came barreling out of the kitchen and kicked the sling door which slapped against the wall alongside it. “Shoot!” Lacey was carrying two glasses of wine. “Merlot or Riesling?”

“Merlot,” answered Ella. Lacey sat the glass of Merlot in front of Ella as she headed toward the door to greet some early bird diners, Riesling in hand.

A waiter with little round glasses brought water and asked if Ella was ready to order. Without hesitation she ordered the fried green tomatoes and the shrimp and grits for an entrée. She was officially famished.

Lacey glided back over to the small table and plopped down into the pink toile chair. “What’d you order?” Lacey asked as she took a sip of Riesling.

“Fried green tomatoes and shrimp and grits. I hope that’s O.K. I kind of worked up an appetite today,” said Ella, squinting her eyes.

“Of course it’s O.K.,” Lacey said comfortingly. “I’m going to warn you. Every time Manteo gets new blood it’s a big deal. People are going to third degree you here about things like, what you do for a living, how you chose Manteo, if you’re married, single, or in between…”

Ella looked stumped, “In between?”

“You know, engaged or in the middle of a divorce. If it’s a divorce, some people dive out of their own town for a while and visit The Outer Banks while the ugly fades. You know, if they’ve cheated or their spouse has cheated. Stuff like that.”

Ella couldn’t believe that a person escaping that scenario would be candid about it if asked, but then again sometimes Ella was amazed at all the talk shows where people openly chatted about not knowing what man was their child’s father, or sleeping with their girlfriend’s sister….or brother.  The ridiculous scenarios went on and on. Besides the folks on the stage hanging out their dirty laundry, it baffled Ella why anyone would want to watch another person’s problems all day. Did these people not have any problems of their own to contend with?