Tales From Sea Glass Inn (2 page)

Mel pulled away. Her throat was pink and her
eyes looked hungry, but she pointed toward the back door. “Go paint
or…something. Walk the dog, watch the sunrise. If you don’t, we’ll be trying to
pass off frozen pizza as a gourmet breakfast and our reputation will plummet.”

Pam grinned. If it weren’t for hungry guests,
she and Mel would be back in their bedroom already. Or maybe right here on the
kitchen floor…

“Later,” Mel said, as if reading Pam’s mind.

“Most definitely.” Pam waggled her eyebrows
and made Mel laugh. “Come on, Piper. We’ve been banished.”

Pam’s small brown-and-white spaniel jumped
off her bed in the corner of the kitchen and trotted to the door, her entire
back half wagging in anticipation of a morning seagull chase. Pam gave Mel one
more quick kiss—heroically resisting the urge to press her against the kitchen
counter—and went outside. She and Piper navigated the path through the backyard
without needing more than the predawn glimmer. The summer air felt warm and
damp against her skin, but Pam shivered with anticipation. She and Mel would
have the entire afternoon together. They could wander through the town of
Cannon Beach or explore a new trail in Ecola State Park. Or maybe just lock
their bedroom door and stay inside all day.

Pam inhaled deeply and coughed the exhale.
She wrinkled her nose at the putrid hint in the air. Had something washed
ashore during the night? “Just a quick walk today, Piper,” she said, reaching
down to scratch the dog between the ears. Pam would keep a close eye on her
this morning, and then later, when the sun was up, she’d come out here alone
and do whatever cleanup was needed on the beach. Their property only extended
to the beach access cliff, but Pam considered all of Cannon Beach to be her
responsibility as much as anyone else’s.

She hesitated at the top of the staircase
leading to the beach and Piper scampered down, a few steps ahead of her. Pam
couldn’t count how many mornings she’d begun this same way, with a walk on the
beach. She’d never tire of it, even if she had a hundred lifetimes. She heard
the relentless waves and felt each one crash and ebb inside her. The air reeked
today, but normally the fresh taste of salt tingled in her nose and throat, and
the familiar memory was enough to make the faint hint of something rotten fade
into the background for a moment.

The beach was still bathed in darkness, and
Pam could barely see more than an outline of Haystack Rock. The ocean glowed an
iridescent black, except for the occasional whitecap peeking through the
early-morning gloom. Pam shivered. She’d been on the beach in the deep dark of
moonless nights before and she’d never felt anything but at home and welcome
there. Why was today different?

She heard a faint whine and walked down a few
steps before she saw Piper standing on the lowest stair. Her white fur stood in
stark relief against the backdrop of glistening black sand, and Pam spun around
and looked over her shoulder. A bright half-moon hung in the east, high enough
to illuminate Piper. Pam turned around again and fought down a wave of nausea
as she realized what she was seeing.

The beach was
black
. Not shadowed, not reflecting the
night. Black.

“Piper, come.” The dog immediately followed
her command and ran to Pam’s side, leaving smudged footprints on the wooden
steps. Pam knelt when Piper reached her and picked up one of her paws. It was
coated with a thick sludge, and when Pam held her trembling hand in front of
her face, her mind finally registered what she had been seeing all along.

Oil.

Pam told Piper to stay and she walked the
rest of the way to the beach by herself. Everything was covered in a thick coat
of oil, as far as she could see in either direction along the beach. Even the
sea in front of her. A thick rope of terror coiled around her heart as she
fought for breath. The smell—what was it? Animals? Birds? How many were trapped
out here? How would they ever clean this off the sand?

A flash of white—startling movement against
the still shadows—caught her attention. The flailing motion broke her out of
her frozen state and she ran up the steps, grabbing Piper on the way. She raced
across the backyard with her dog clutched to her chest and slammed open the
back door.

“Mel. The beach. Oil.” She spoke between gasps.
When had she started crying? “A bird. I need to save it.”

Mel swiveled away from the pan of cinnamon
rolls and stared at her with an expression as horrified as the one Pam felt
must be on her own face. A long moment passed as if Mel was processing the
information and the bedraggled and oily state of Pam and Piper, but then she
snapped into action.

“The dog crate is in our closet downstairs,”
Mel said. She took Piper from Pam and cradled her against her white shirt with
one arm while she reached for the phone with the other. “Take some of the
towels from the bathroom.”

Pam heard the distinctive beeps of Mel
dialing 9-1-1 as she flew down the stairs. By the time she had wrestled the
rarely used crate out of the back of the closet, stuffed a few towels in it,
and run back upstairs, Mel had hung up the phone. Pam paused and looked at Mel
hopefully. It couldn’t be as bad as she’d first thought. A barrel of oil, and
no more, had crashed ashore in the night, just below the inn. The damage was
limited.

Mel shook her head silently in answer to
Pam’s unspoken hope, and rested her cheek against Piper’s head. Tears rolled
down and onto the dog’s fur.

“What’s wrong?” Jack, one of their guests,
stood in the kitchen doorway still wearing his robe. His partner Trevor was
behind him, in jeans but barefoot. “Did something happen?”

“An oil spill,” Mel said in a choked voice.
“The beach is covered for miles.”

“What can we do?” Trevor asked, resting his
hand on Jack’s shoulder.

“Can you help me empty out some cardboard
boxes in the garage?” Mel asked. “They’ve already opened the convention center
as a refuge. We can take birds and animals there, but we’ll need…”

Pam left Mel and the guests to gather more
boxes and she retraced her steps to the beach. She waded through the oily sand
that threatened to suck her light sneakers right off her feet, staring into the
darkness for some sign of the bird she’d seen. The entire beach was still, too
still, and she nearly stepped on the seagull before it feebly lurched to its
feet and fell over again.

Pam knelt in the muck and opened the door to
the crate. She gathered the struggling bird as gently as she could, folding its
wings and nestling it on a pile of towels before she closed it in. She stood up
and lifted the heavy burden while thick globs of oil plopped off the crate’s
bottom and the knees of her pants. The smell of Mel and the kitchen, the warmth
of the inn and the promise of an afternoon of idleness, and the rejuvenating
joy of a morning walk on the beach receded from her world like they’d been
sucked down a drain. The sun was beginning to reveal the shore’s secrets now,
and Pam saw flashes of movement here and there as creatures struggled to move,
to survive.

She had one bird, and Mel was collecting
boxes for more. But how would they ever save them all? Would her world ever
heal from this?

Jenny Colbert pushed a loose strand of unwashed
hair behind her ear and squinted against the harsh fluorescent lights as she
counted the makeshift animal pens filling the vast convention hall. She had
arrived at Cannon Beach two days ago, refreshed after a two-week stay in Puerto
Vallarta and clean after a long shower in her temporary Los Angeles apartment.
She hadn’t showered, eaten, or stopped to catch her breath since.

A woman holding a clipboard came over to her.
She was wearing cutoff jeans that showed her slender, athletic calves and an
inside-out faded yellow T-shirt. She looked as weary and grubby as Jenny felt.
Jenny forced her tired mind—usually quick to remember details—to recall her
name. Pam? Yes. Pamela Whitford. An artist of some sort, and one of the owners
of the Sea Glass Inn where Jenny would be staying while she was here. Not that
she’d be spending much time in her room there, away from this
convention-center-turned-wildlife-hospital.

“Hey, Jenny,” Pam said. Her shaky voice and
red eyes were proof she’d been crying not long ago. She cleared her throat and
blinked a few times before continuing with a more composed tone. “The entrance
hall is almost filled with the donations we’ve been getting all night. Home
Depot has sent three truckloads of plywood, trash bags, and plastic tubs for
the washroom. The local paper brought stacks of old newsprint, and they
published the list of items we need, so people have been stopping by with
things like blankets and gloves. Workers from the PetSmart in Tillamook are
having a drive to collect crates and dog runs, and they’ll start bringing what
they’ve got so far to us tomorrow morning. My friend Tia has set up a phone
line, and we’re getting calls from people all over the Northwest who want to
volunteer.”

Jenny watched Pam tick off each item on her
clipboard as she shared the information. Jenny had been doing this work long
enough—traveling to cities after disasters and helping the animals and birds
involved—that she could easily spot the few key people she’d need as
cornerstones on her team. Pam and Melinda Andrews had been immediate choices,
and Jenny’s instincts had been spot-on. The two hadn’t paused since Jenny had
walked into their damaged town and started directing the rescue efforts.
Mel—Pam’s partner and owner of the Sea Glass Inn—was in charge of the main room
where the birds would live until they were able to return to the beaches. Pam
was in charge of what Jenny thought of as the infrastructure. Crates and pens,
workers, tables and chairs. All the equipment they’d be using over the next few
weeks. She was organized and persuasive, relentless in her desperate desire to
take care of her home after the disastrous oil spill. She’d already plowed
through Jenny’s hastily written list of necessities.

“Thanks, Pam,” Jenny said when Pam seemed to
run out of things to say. She put her hand on Pam’s shoulder and gave her a
squeeze. Years of living a nomadic lifestyle had helped Jenny hone her talent
for bonding quickly with strangers, even though those relationships she made
never turned into anything deeper than an occasional postcard that found its
way to her next temporary home. The friendships she formed were transitory, but
important. They helped her assess people and connect with them during a crisis,
when the most vital action was forming a team to handle the problem at hand.
She cherished the shared sense of purpose she felt, for a short time, at least,
with the people whose lives had been affected by a disaster, the people who
were willing to devote their time and energy to help her heal the local
wildlife. Once the danger was over, she would pack up her scarce belongings and
move on.

Letting go of relationships when it was time
for her to leave was as necessary in her chosen profession as forging them
immediately upon arrival. Still, despite her parents’ warnings about getting
too close to people she’d eventually leave, and her own self-protective
instincts, Jenny occasionally met people like Pam and Mel who made her wonder
what it would be like to know them better. To just hang out with them on a
normal day, without a life-or-death mission attached to their friendship. She
didn’t let her thoughts linger there too long, though. She gave Pam another pat
on the shoulder and dropped her hand to her side. “You’ve done an amazing job
so far. Try to take a little break. Get something to eat or some sleep, if you
can.”

Pam nodded before she walked away, but Jenny
doubted she’d take her advice. Pam wasn’t any more likely than she was to stop
right now, to sit and put her feet up and sip some tea. Those small normal acts
didn’t belong in this damaged world. Jenny sighed. Someday Pam and Mel would
sit in their backyard, on the top step of the stairs leading to the ocean, and
relax with a glass of wine or morning cup of coffee. Someday. But not now.

Jenny froze in place when she saw another
woman intercept Pam before she got to the large bank of doors leading into the
foyer. She was a stranger to Jenny—a new volunteer? She was dressed simply in
jeans and a long-sleeved, light green sweater, with her tawny hair pulled back
in a ponytail and a basket over one arm.

Jenny had a million-item list in her head:
Make sure the people from the water company were installing the right number of
spigots at the proper height. Double-check the charts for in-processing the
oil-covered avian patients. Greet each volunteer and start collecting their
names and skills before she assigned them to jobs.

Later, though. She’d cross every item off the
list before she allowed herself to take even a small catnap, but for the next
few seconds she’d let herself stand idle while she watched the interchange
between Pam and the woman who was giving her a hug and handing her something wrapped
in paper. After exchanging a few words with Pam, she moved on to the next
volunteer and repeated the same gestures. A hug, a short chat. Handing over a
wrapped bundle from her basket.

Jenny needed to get on with her own work.
She’d delegated volunteer training and recruitment to Pam and Tia. But Jenny
ignored her carefully structured system for once and walked across the
cavernous room toward the newcomer. She was surprised by her own movement, and
even more so by her fervent wish that she’d been able to shower and change in
the recent past. Since when did she care how she looked, especially when there
was more important work to be done?

“Are you here to volunteer?” she asked. The
woman spun around to face her, looking startled at the words. She looked as
clean and rested as Jenny felt bedraggled and weary. Just standing next to her
was refreshing, and Jenny felt some of the stress she had been carrying inside
since her arrival dissipate, only to be replaced by a new kind of tension.
Attraction. Jenny allowed her energy to be buoyed by the feeling, but she
wouldn’t let herself linger here any longer than she had when imagining a
lasting friendship with Pam and Mel. “Tia is in the lobby, and she’ll assign
you to a work station.”