Driftwood Point (2 page)

“It be time.” Ruby lowered herself into her recliner. “And in case you're wondering, when he paints out this room, this chair going to be gone. Ordered me a new one. Red leather.”

Lis leaned against the doorjamb and felt somewhat like Alice must have felt when she fell down the rabbit hole.

“Owen and I have been telling you for years that you shouldn't be living upstairs by yourself. Why all of a sudden was it time?”

Ruby looked smug. “You and your brother had no plan. Alec, he drew it all out. Here the kitchen, there the bathroom. It looked right.”

“How did Alec even know that you fell?”

“I 'spect just about everyone hereabouts knew. Like I said, Hedy Perkins be the one who found me. Woman couldn't keep a secret if the good Lord himself put her to it.” Ruby glanced up at Lis. “You wanting the news?”

Lis shook her head. It was clear her great-grandmother had said all she was going to say on the subject of her newly constructed living quarters.

“I suspect you be ready for that tea now.”

Lis, still in a bit of shock, nodded. “I'll make it.”

“Let me know if you need help finding things.”

“I'll figure it out.” Lis went back into the kitchen, where she found everything exactly where she'd expected. Ruby was a creature of habit, one who was meticulously ordered. Lis filled the kettle and while the water boiled, she took two cups and saucers from the cupboard. Since both she and Ruby preferred their tea without cream or lemon, it was an
easy fix. As Ruby had taught her long ago, Lis measured one scant teaspoon of sugar into the bottom of each cup and waited for the kettle to whistle.

She looked through the tall bottom cupboards to find the old wooden tray that Ruby preferred and placed the cups and saucers on it, then dropped in tea bags and filled the cups when the water was ready. She carried the tray into Ruby's crowded sitting room and looked for a place to set it down.

“Right here be fine.” Ruby pointed to the table next to her from which she removed a stack of books. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Lis took a seat on a nearby chair. “Aren't you going to ask me if I remembered how much sugar to put in?”

Ruby shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. “Not much chance you be forgetting.”

Lis returned the smile and lifted the cup to her lips. She was just about to take the first sip when Ruby asked, “You be hearing anything from Owen?”

Lis returned the cup to the saucer and placed both on the floor in front of her. “Last I heard, my big brother was in Alaska flying a mail plane. Of course, that was two months ago. He could have moved on since then.”

“I thought he said something about a shrimp boat in New Orleans.”

“You spoke with him?”

Ruby nodded. “Not too long ago. He said he be having a fine time.”

“When does he not have a good time?” Lis laughed. “He's a player, that's for sure.”

“Playing at what?”

“Playing at being twenty again instead of thirty-eight.”

Ruby took a sip of tea. “I'm looking to see that one grow up before my time is over.”

“Good luck with that.” To Lis, her older brother had always seemed bigger than life. Sinfully handsome and wickedly clever, Owen had been a magnet for mischief as well as for the girls in town. Growing up, she'd idolized him and wished she could have been more like him, carefree and daring and confident.

“He be getting his comeuppance, by and by.”

Before Lis could ask her what she meant by that, Ruby added, “He be here for your art show, no matter where he be now.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He doesn't have to. He be here.”

“I'd like that.” It had been almost a year since Lis had seen her brother. She thought maybe she'd extend her stay to spend some time with him.

As if reading her mind, Ruby asked, “How long you be staying around, Lisbeth?”

Lis shrugged. “I'm not sure. The show is next week, but I don't have any real plans.” She paused, then said, “To tell you the truth, my work hasn't been going all that well.”

“Oh?” Ruby rested the saucer on her knee and waited for Lis to gather her thoughts.

“I'm just stuck,” Lis blurted out. “I sit and stare at the easel and I can't seem to make anything happen. I want to paint—I love to paint—but I just . . . can't.
It's like whatever I had inside me, whatever it was that I saw when I looked at the paper, is gone.”

“Go on.”

“I've tried everything: different papers—cold press, hot press. Handmade. Paper on a roll, paper on a board. I've even tried painting on canvas, you know, like you usually use for oils?” Lis sighed heavily. “It's like it's just . . . gone.”

“What you be trying to paint, Lisbeth?”

“What I've been painting. What I'm known for. Skylines and city scenes.”

“Maybe what you be painting needs to change.”

Lis stared at her.

Before she could ask, Ruby closed her eyes. “It be back, Lisbeth. Soon enough. You be fine, by and by. Let it be. In its time, it be back.”

Lis knew better than to argue or question when Ruby made one of her pronouncements, so she bit back the protests that had been settling on the tip of her tongue and said nothing.

“Think I'll watch the end of the news.” Ruby turned on the TV with the remote, and just like that, the conversation was over.

Lis gathered the cups and saucers and returned them to the kitchen, where she rinsed them and started to place them in the dishwasher, then remembered Ruby's comments. She washed the dishes in the sink, dried them, and put them away.

Still—a dishwasher. In Ruby Carter's kitchen. Lis shook her head. Would she believe it if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes?

She rejoined Ruby in the sitting room.

“You want to sit a spell?” Ruby asked.

“Actually, I'm pretty tired.”

“You can find your way upstairs all right? Your old room be ready.”

“I remember the way. I haven't been gone that long.”

Lis leaned over to kiss her great-grandmother's cheek and felt the old woman's hand gently stroke the side of her head. The small gesture, so filled with love, caused Lis's throat to tighten, so that her words came out in a whisper. “Thanks for letting me stay with you, Gigi.”

“Now, where else would you go, girl?” Ruby's voice softened. “You come home to the island, you come home to me, sure enough.”

“Always, Gigi.” Lis gave her a quick hug. “I will always come home to you.”

Ruby grunted with satisfaction and patted Lis on the back. “Get on with you, now, get to bed.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to sit right here and read me another chapter of this book, then turn in.”

“What are you reading?” Lis reached for the book just as Ruby held it up. The cover was black with blood-red drops dripping down one side, the author a thriller writer known for his creepy and lurid tales. “Gigi! I can't believe you read this stuff.”

“Why not?”

“It's so . . . scary. Doesn't it give you nightmares?”

“Honey, at my age the only thing that ever really scared me was the thought of the hereafter, and
even that fear be gone these days.” Ruby smiled and opened the book. “You be needing anything else?”

Lis, still in shock, shook her head.

“Then go on up and settle yourself. I'll see you in the morning.”

“Right. See you in the morning.” Lis kissed the top of Ruby's head.

She walked through the unlit store to pick up her bag where she'd left it, then turned on the switch for the light at the top of the stairs to the second floor. As Lis climbed she tested herself to see if she could remember which steps squeaked and which had been safe to tread on when coming in late back in the day. She was pleased when she'd made her way to the top without one squeal or groan from the floorboards, as if her feet remembered where the squeaky boards were placed.

The room at the end of the hall had been hers for as long as she could recall. The door was open and a small lamp cast shadows on the pale green walls. The furniture stood where it had always been, the poster bed in the center of the left wall, the painted dresser next to the door. The same old chair, its slipcover unchanged from the blue and white stripe of Lis's youth, still curled into the corner next to the window, the same old faded carpet covered the floorboards. The familiarity of it was comforting. There was nowhere on earth she felt as at home as she did beneath this roof, in this room. She'd moved in when she was seventeen, when her newly widowed mother decided that life on the island held no promise for her and decided to move to Arizona.

Having one year of high school left, Lis had refused to go. Gigi had sided with Lis and had convinced her granddaughter to allow Lis to remain there at least until she graduated. Lis had joined her mother for the following summer in Arizona, but that had been enough to convince Lis that the Southwest was not for her. She'd returned to the Eastern Shore briefly before leaving for art college in Philadelphia, and from there, she'd moved to New York, to an apartment where she had three roommates, which had proven to be three too many. Realizing she couldn't work with an audience and that peace and quiet were much more conducive to creativity than constant conversation at night and talk radio from dawn to midnight, Lis moved to a New Jersey suburb where rents were more reasonable and she wasn't subjected to the habits and lifestyles of others. Her work flourished, and deep inside, she knew it was only a matter of time before her work would hang inside the galleries whose showings she had attended so many times.

It was ironic, she'd once told her ex-fiancé, that it was only after she left the city that her paintings of cityscapes began to come to life.

Lis had gotten lucky when she met the owner of a trendy Manhattan gallery who offered to exhibit several of her paintings. Her reputation was made when the star of a popular TV talk show stopped by one afternoon and loved Lis's work so much that she not only bought all the paintings in the gallery but asked to see more. In the end, she purchased six paintings and showed them off on her show one
morning before having them hung in her home. Lis enjoyed a quick uptick in visibility as an artist and a huge bump in her sales, appearing on that same talk show several times and having several newspaper and magazine articles cover her work. The eventual result of all the publicity was an invitation to exhibit some of her paintings in a showing of local artists' works in the new St. Dennis art center. The temptation to come back a rousing success on every level was more than she could resist. Besides, it had been six months since she'd been home—since the day after Christmas, and then she'd only stayed for an overnight—and it was well past time that she checked in on Ruby.

Lis took a quick shower in the bathroom across the hall, swinging her legs over the high side of the old tub, thinking it was no wonder that Gigi had fallen while trying to get out. Thank God she had a nice, new walk-in shower downstairs.

Thinking about the new bath made Lis think of Alec Jansen. What magic had he employed to talk her great-grandmother into a total renovation of the first floor?

He always was a sweet talker.

But Lis knew that Gigi never let anyone talk her into anything she didn't want to do, so she must have been thinking about it before Alec showed up. But how had that come about? Alec was a townie, a St. Dennis boy. How likely was it that he had just shown up one day with a sketch for Gigi's new first floor? Would a one-hundred-year-old woman know what such a renovation should cost? With no one there to
look after her interests, how would she know if she was being ripped off?

Lis sat on the edge of the bed, towel-drying her dark brown hair, biting a nail, pondering the possibility that her great-grandmother was being taken advantage of. Alec Jansen had always been a smart guy with a smart mouth, but she'd never known him to be dishonest. Still, people had been known to change, and this was Gigi, and any responsible great-grandchild would look into the situation. She couldn't be too overt, however. Ruby wouldn't take kindly to anyone questioning her judgment, whether of the work itself or of her choice of contractor.

Lis finished drying her hair, then changed into a nightshirt and climbed into the big soft bed that always seemed to welcome her with a comforting hug. She turned off the light and lay in the darkness, savoring the feeling of being in this place where love and warmth had always been hers for the taking, where the sheets and blankets smelled of Ruby's laundry soap and the bit of lavender she always tucked under the pillow. From below, she heard the sound of a door closing as Gigi, too, prepared to sleep, and from the open window, she could hear the faint lap of the waves against the beach. A late spring breeze brought the once-familiar scent of the salt marsh on the western side of the island. There was no other place on earth like Cannonball Island, with its history and its traditions, its storied way of life, even its own odd speech patterns, which still prevailed through the centuries among the older residents like Ruby. It was music to Lis's ears.

Of course, every year there remained fewer and fewer who spoke in that distinct fashion. The thought gave Lis pause. She tried to recall how many islanders remained who were in their eighties and nineties, whose speech reflected Ruby's. Surely there was no one older than a hundred left on the island. Lis's heart saddened at the thought that islandspeak would be gone from memory within the next twenty years or so. With the older residents would go not only their speech but their stories. As far as Lis knew, there was no written record of the island's unique history of having been settled by residents of St. Dennis who'd been driven from the town for supporting the British during the War of 1812. She'd heard the tales of near famine and the iron-willed islanders who refused to be defeated by the poor soil that supported little more than scrub pines and hackberry trees.