Sea Change (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 1) (2 page)

They were there for her every morning at the same time.

Always swimming in the same direction.

She had thoughts of naming them. Something literary of course, as were all of the other things she had named:
 
cats, dogs, roses, mopeds, raincoats….

…but no, they were beyond naming, those two.
 
They lived in a no-name realm, and if they experienced some immense pleasure by being together in the tide and the moonlight and the night sea air, why that pleasure was something that had no name either.

They were simply they, and that was an end to it.

And now they were gone, the glistening backs replaced by sun sparkle on the blue black waves.

No,
she thought, there was no sadness to the ocean, not a bit of melancholy in all the seas of the world.

Good morning to you, Frank, she found a voice within her saying, as though some elemental part of him was spread out there before her, his smile beaming from the red and rising sun just as it had always done from the chair across from her.

There was no answer, of course.

Or perhaps there was.

And smiling inwardly at the possibility, Nina Bannister rose, made her way inside, and got ready for the day ahead.

Her blue Vespa sputtered its way through the middle of Bay St. Lucy while she thought alternately about the scrabble of palm fronds and storefronts, bakeries and balconies, hotels and hand-painted signs saying “Apartment for Rent, Ocean Frontage, Winter Rates now Applicable”—and Tom Broussard.

She remembered him as an impossible student, all the worse for his brilliance, all the more frustrating to deal with because of an inbred certainty of his own mental superiority.

Which did, of course, exist.

But all the same––

Then the shouting matches in class, the trips together to the principal, the even louder shouting matches in the hall, the forced study sessions—all of these things had given way to a feeling of immense relief when he did finally graduate and was once and for all out of her life.

Except he wasn’t.

The impossible young man had, frustratingly, learned something from her.

And wanted to keep in touch.

Occasionally one of her good students wanted to keep in touch, and did, to her great pleasure. A Christmas card now and again, or even a surprise visit to her classroom.

But Tom Broussard came to her mainly in rumors and back page newspaper articles labeled “Police Blotter.”

A time in the military.

Then out of the military. Not quite a dishonorable discharge but not exactly an
 
honorable one either.
 
A separation labeled, in bureaucratese, something meaning essentially “Let’s just call it quits and never see each other again.”

Then some years on the off-shore rigs, as young coastal boys such as Tom always were bound by custom and heritage to do.

A stint in jail.

Rumors of dark drug connections.

How had she always been kept abreast of these things?

Had he written her?

Or had he just made sure the right newspapers arrived?

It was too hard to remember now; suffice to say, there had been some bond welded fast by those unendurable encounters, so that he now wanted her always in mind of what he had been, as opposed to just how bad he could really be.

And then he was in New York.

Despite herself she thought of
Death of a Salesman
and Uncle Ben.

“And when I came out of the jungle I was twenty one.
 
And, by God, I WAS RICH!”

And he was.

Perhaps a bit older than twenty one…

…but a best selling author.

And now he was
 
living here again, back in Bay St. Lucy.

May God protect us
, she thought, weaving the small motorcycle––which, she noticed, was precisely the same shade of blue as Macy Peterson’s scarf had been, and the sky should have been if the sun and elements were doing their job and not lazing about behind this oyster non-color thing that covered them every now and then in advance of storms—

––into the three-vehicle parking lot that fronted
Elementals:
 
From the Sea and the Earth
––

––Margot Gavin’s shop, beneath her bed and breakfast.

Taking off her helmet and hanging it by the chin strap to the handlebars as she propped down the kickstand, she looked up and noted Margot Gavin, puttering about in the vases section, and waving to her.

“You’re just in time, Nina.
 
I was about to actually do some work. Now you’ve saved me.
 
We can go back in the garden, and I can smoke another cigarette.”

Margot took two long strides toward the garden which, because she was almost six feet tall, meant that she had already halved the distance. Nina followed, still marveling at the kind of clothes Margot could wear, and wear successfully. At the present she had on a baggy sweater which, with its vertical red strips and horizontal white gashes and stars, looked less like a garment and more like a vast tent that some sultan had disassembled and was carrying over the shoulder.

“Look at the clay pots there by the door. Nice, aren’t they?”

Nina looked, nodded, agreed, said so, and inquired about the potter.

“Sarah Fielding.”

“I don’t think I know her.”

“New. Moved down last month from Vermont.
 
I met her two weeks ago at some social or charity sale or bake sale or something. When I found out what she did, I asked her to throw some pots for me.
 
And she has.”

“They’re very nice.”

Of course everything in Margot’s vine-enshrouded shop––all of the landscapes, seascapes, portraits, pots, knick knacks, local art, exotic art—was very nice.
 
That was not surprising
, Nina mused, given the woman’s background; but how the most hideous possibilities could result in the most magical realities—the monstrosity of a sweater was only the latest such miracle—never ceased to amaze her.

They walked to the center of the fifteen-foot square, palm-fronded fountain-splashing garden, and sat themselves, each feeling quite civilized, in black, wrought iron chairs, the table rocking slightly on paving stones still glistening from the early morning dew.

It was all perfectly delightful and would have been Eden itself had not the scents pouring in from nearby bakeries, sea air, candy shops, and lush undergrowth, been invaded by the odor of Margot’s cigarette.

“Have you had coffee this morning, Nina?”

“Two cups.”

“Then you’re only beginning.
 
Sit for a few minutes; I’ll make us a fresh pot.”

“You really feel no need to be inside your store?”

“None at all.
 
Actually, I shouldn’t have opened the store at all this morning.”

“Why not?”

“A perfectly ghastly night.
 
I’m trying to get it out of my mind.”

“What happened?”

Margot threw back her head, scrunched her face aground the cigarette, which she seemed on the point of inhaling, and blew out a cloud of gray, swirling smoke toward the colorless sky the way a fire truck belches a stream of water at a blaze.

The smoke, Nina could not help noticing, was the exact color of Margot’s steel gray, short cut hair.

“I took one of my new boarders out for dinner.”

Nina was silent for a time.

Finally she said, quietly:

“I warned you about that. You know you find your boarders extremely boring.”

Margot nodded, her face as deeply and exquisitely wrinkled as a Kandinsky painting or a Stravinsky symphony, or, for that matter, any work of art whose creator’s name ended in “insky.”

Margot’s face was, in short—and Nina had noted this from the moment she first saw the woman over a year ago—a work of modern art itself. As equally impossible to comprehend as to forget, and probably not even conceivable to a century that had not experienced two devastating wars.

“Why did I not listen to you?”

“I don’t know.
 
You’re so intelligent otherwise.
 
Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.
 
Yes.
 
I don’t know.
 
It’s all so wretched.”

“This wasn’t a man that you took out, was it?”

“Oh heavens no.
 
I’m not that stupid.
 
No, it was a woman who moved in yesterday.
 
She’ll be staying two weeks. Her name is ‘Wilson.’ A widow from Wisconsin or Vermont or Arizona. One of those places, you know.”

“States.
 
Yes, I know.
 
There are lots of them.
 
Now, why don’t you get us some coffee?
 
It will make you feel better.”

“No, it won’t.
 
Some gin though…”

“Too early.”

“Why do people always say that? It has such a dampening effect on the day, when one hears it.”

“Coffee.”

“All right.”

Margot rose, disappeared into the shop, and fidgeted around in the small kitchen area by the back wall, which had somehow been magically hidden away between a display of cookbooks and a table covered with children’s games.

When she returned, she carried on one upward turned palm, as though the entire apparatus was weightless, a shining chrome platter––cups, sugar bowl filled with sweetener packets, creamer, and spoons all laid out upon it.

“This will do us both good,” said Nina, savoring the steam scent rising as her cup filled.

“I doubt that.”

“All right.
 
It will do me good.
 
You may be a little beyond help right now.
 
So where did you take her?”

“Out to eat.”

“Where?”

“A restaurant.”

“One surprise after another.
 
And what was so bad about it?”

Margot thought for a while, stubbed out her cigarette, took a sip of coffee—and then seemed to become aware of something on her skin. She began frantically, with one overly large palm, trying to brush from her sweater sleeves a substance which seemed to be burning her, but which Nina could not see.

“What is it?” cried Nina, alarmed.

“Get it…get it off me!
 
Get it off me!”

“Margot, what is it?”

“It’s all over me!
 
It’s on my skin!
 
Nina, it’s all over me!
 
Get it off!
 
Get it off!”

“Margot what is it?”

“It’s boredom!
 
There’s boredom all over me!
 
Get it off!
 
Get it off!”

Nina sat back, wondering whether it was a good thing or a very bad thing that, somehow, gradually and against all odds, that this woman had become—should she say it?

Yes, no denying it.

Her best friend.

She waited.

Finally, the paroxysm or spasm over, Margot sank back into her chair, which tottered metallically as she did so.

“That bad, huh?” asked Nina.

Margot whispered, seemingly to herself.

“I’ll never get it off.
 
Never.
 
It’s all over me.
 
Like the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands.”

She leaned forward, stared intently at Nina, and hissed:

“I’m covered in boredom; and I’ll never get it off me”

“Yes you will.”

“No.
 
She’s poisoned me.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It was worse. She had to tell me about her late husband and what he had done for a living––”

“Which was?”

“I didn’t listen.”

“See, that may be a reason, Margot, why conversations tend to bore you.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m just throwing it out as a suggestion.”

“Perhaps you have a point.
 
At any rate, though, the person has children, who had to be talked about.
 
And pets at home that someone is caring for––”

“Back in Arizona or Vermont?”

“Rhode Island, perhaps.
 
Is there a Rhode Island?”

“I don’t know, Margot. I taught English, not geography.”

“Oh.
 
I thought you might know.”

“No. But anyway, Margot. You did a nice thing.
 
The woman—what’s her name?”

“Wilson.
 
She’s staying two weeks, as I said.
 
Then she’s going to New Orleans.
 
She kept telling me, ‘I’ve never been to New Orleans!
 
I’ve never been to New Orleans!’
 
As though I cared.”

“But you did care, Margot. Good for you!
 
This poor Mrs. Wilson is completely on her own, and you took her out and listened to her.
 
She’s never been to New Orleans.
 
All right.
 
She needed to tell somebody that, and you were there for her. Now you won’t have to hear it again, nor will you ever have to try to socialize with any more of your boarders for a while, or at least until you’re feeling sociable.”

“Thank God. Good, then. This has been quite therapeutic.
 
Thank you, Nina.”

“Not at all.

She paused to listen to the cathedral bells chime the hour, then play the first notes of a hymn whose melody she knew, but could not place.
 
Music sifted down through the garden just as the aroma from Margot’s herb garden
 
rose up from the leaves and out over the town.
 
Bay St. Lucy
, she thought:
 
don’t ever change
.

“There is this one thing, Margot, that I’m going to have to beg of you.”

“What, Nina?”

“Promise me that you’ll realize you are no longer the Managing Director of the Chicago Art Institute.
 
You came here because that job was killing you, and you were developing ulcers.”