Tales From Sea Glass Inn (5 page)

“Oh, sorry, Helen, I didn’t see you there,”
he said. “Is breakfast ready? Whatever you and Mom were baking smelled
awesome.”

“There’s quiche and banana bread on the
table.” Helen smiled at him, and then turned her attention to Jenny. “Are you
coming? You really should eat something before you get back to work.”

“In a minute,” Jenny said, hoping Helen would
stay with her instead of disappearing into the inn. She breathed a silent thank
you when Helen sat on the bench next to her as if in response to Jenny’s
unvoiced request.

Helen was silent for a few moments,
apparently unaware of the turmoil she was causing in Jenny’s mind. The two of
them had worked together for days, but they hadn’t yet been alone together
outside the center. Jenny had been trying to keep her perspective clear, seeing
Helen as merely one of her volunteers. An attractive and tempting one, to be
sure, but in reality no different from the hundreds of other people Jenny
worked with at every job site. Sitting here, close enough for their thighs to
touch, was something altogether new. Jenny felt them connected to each other
and held apart from the rescue effort. This was one of those moments they might
share if there was no spill, no need to rush back to the center, if Jenny was
just a regular member of this community. Sitting on a bench together and
watching the ocean waves—so normal, yet so out of reach. Jenny tucked her hands
under her legs to keep from touching Helen, who looked beautiful with her
cheeks slightly reddened from working in the kitchen. The scent of vanilla
seemed to enrobe the two of them in a homey and safe bubble.

“Danny is right, you know.” Helen finally
spoke, in a quiet voice and as if choosing her words with care. “You’re doing
something amazing here. With the birds and animals, of course—their care is the
most important—but for the community, too. You’re healing this town, in a way.
People would suffer if their businesses had to close because the beach stayed
toxic. But it’s even more than the money. It’s this community. The people here
are close and care about this place, but you come here as a stranger and work
alongside us like you belong. You seem very selfless.”

Jenny shrugged again, as conscious of her
need to deflect Helen’s praise as she’d been when Danny had thanked her. “I
appreciate the way everyone has made me feel like part of the community. This
is a special place with very generous people who give more of themselves than I
do. Look at what you’ve done here. When you aren’t working at the center,
you’re feeding the volunteers. I’ve chosen to live as a nomad, but I sort of
envy the way you belong.”

Helen gave a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t
know about belonging.” She stared out toward the ocean, but Jenny wondered what
she was really seeing. “I was so excited when I found the perfect spot for my
bakery, but before renting, I should have asked how many people had tried and
failed to run a successful business in that very spot. When I first got here,
everyone was very polite and friendly, but I used to wonder if they were
secretly making bets about how long I’d last. I’m certainly not the first
person to come to the ocean with big dreams and little business sense.”

Helen looked at Jenny again, her intense gaze
direct and almost sharp. “And to be even more honest, I wasn’t planning on
volunteering when I walked into the center. I’d spent the day trying to figure
out how to get out of my lease because of the spill. When I worry, I bake, so I
ended up with several dozen croissants. I thought I’d drop them off and get the
hell out of there.”

Jenny laughed. She kept her hands under her
thighs but used her shoulder to bump Helen’s softly. Instead of moving away
again, she leaned into Helen and felt her respond in kind. She meant the
gesture to reassure Helen, but Jenny felt more electric and recharged from
their contact than she ever did after a good meal or decent sleep. “Whatever
your initial motivation, you jumped right in with everyone else. Like it or
not, you’re as much a part of this town as anyone who’s been here for decades.”

Helen shook her head with a rueful
expression. “I always thought a community was where other people lived,
something out of reach for me. I never expected to have one of my own, and now
I probably won’t…Well, never mind.”

Jenny wanted to question Helen. Find out what
was going on behind her troubled expression and offer comfort. But she wasn’t
here to get involved more than necessary. Her attraction to Helen was obvious
to her, but she couldn’t even imagine a way to act on it. She couldn’t picture
a future that didn’t have her leaving town and Helen staying. Her parents had
always warned her about attachment because they never knew where their next
assignment would be or when they’d need to pack up and leave. Jenny had become
very good at being on her own, making friends quickly and letting them go just
as fast, and she used the skills her parents taught her in the career she’d
chosen. Most people had a few friends they knew for years, her mom had told
her. She said Jenny was lucky to have hundreds of friendships, even if they
only lasted a brief time.

The argument hadn’t made much sense to
five-year-old Jenny, but she’d taken it to heart and lived by it for years.
Sitting here next to Helen, wanting to wrap those loose tendrils of Helen’s
dark gold hair around her fingers, somehow the argument seemed as foolish and
hurtful as it had when she was a child.

She stood and held out her hand to Helen. “I
always thought community meant a place where I’d visit for a while and then
leave. It’s the way I grew up.” She tugged Helen to a standing position. “Right
now, this community needs us, and we can’t let it down. First, though, I want
to have some of this banana bread Danny’s been raving about.”

*

Helen kneaded a large mound of soft dough on
the marble countertop in her bakery’s kitchen. Over the past five days, she
hadn’t been open for business more than three hours each morning, and even then
she’d had a limited supply of pastries for sale. She’d been baking more than
she had when she was in culinary school, though, as she helped Mel feed
practically an entire town of volunteers every day.

The slow beach cleanup and the continuing
flow of birds into the rescue center were clear signs that this summer wouldn’t
be the heavy tourist season she’d been hoping for. She’d had dreams of selling
dozens of muffins and cupcakes every day—enough to support her through the long
winter months when customers would be sparse. Instead, she was giving away more
than she put in her display cases.

Helen punched the dough with a tight fist and
felt a mist of flour puff into her face. She braced her hands against the edge
of the counter and stood quietly, her head bowed while she struggled for
control. No need to punish the dough for her foul mood. She had a pile of bills
in her office and itemized lists of her projected expenses. She’d written
dozens of budgets, trying to find a way to keep her business going without a
significant summer income, but she felt trapped in a maze with no possible way
out. So what did she do? She left her bakery door shut while she made another
large tray of food for the center’s volunteers. Foolish.

Helen heard a rapid series of knocks on the
front door and she pushed past the blue plaid curtain that separated the
kitchen from the sales floor. Not that the word
sales
seemed appropriate since the large
display cases held only a few dozen cookies and some chocolate cupcakes. She
sighed when she saw Tia standing next to the closed sign and waving at her. Not
a hungry horde wanting to buy her scraps for exorbitant prices, but someone who
was probably looking for more donated snacks. Given the way Tia talked and
Helen’s apparent inability to say no, Tia would most likely leave the store
with full boxes. Leaving Helen with empty display cases and a similarly empty cash
register.

She unlocked the door with a resigned click.
The cookies and cupcakes had been made this morning, anyway, and Helen wouldn’t
have kept them much longer—they might as well be put to good use.

Tia came through the door in midconversation.
“And I said I’d bring something from my favorite bakery for our snack. You
don’t think it’s wrong of us to meet, do you? I don’t want to be disrespectful,
but I also believe it’s important to maintain a sense of normalcy. Not to let
this tragedy destroy the life we’ve built here. Right?”

Helen was too busy wondering how she had
become Tia’s favorite bakery, when the woman had never been here before, to
grasp the full meaning of her words. “What meeting?”

“Our book club, at the Beachcomber,” Tia
said. She wandered over to the sparse display cases and peered inside. “You
should join. Most of the locals are members. We meet at seven on the first
Thursday of every month.”

Helen, ashamed of the scanty offerings in her
cases, was happy to keep off the subject of baked goods. She was flattered by
Tia’s reference to her as a local, even though Tia hadn’t seemed to consider
her one until after the oil spill. “I have to volunteer tonight, but maybe I’ll
come next month,” she said. If she still owned the bakery and was in town, she
added silently.

“Please do.” Tia frowned and tapped a long,
red-painted nail on the glass. “We were thinking of canceling because of the
spill, but Jocelyn and I decided to go ahead with the meeting. Were we wrong to
plan something fun during a tragedy? Jocelyn said we should continue to
function as a community, that the meeting would give all of us a chance to get
together and talk. To share our pain. What do you think, dear?”

Helen had been in the bookstore twice since
arriving in Cannon Beach, but she easily recalled the owner, Jocelyn. She and
Helen had spoken for a few minutes, and then Jocelyn had moved around her store
gathering an armload of exactly right books for Helen. New books by her
favorite mystery authors, two titles Helen never would have chosen for herself
but ended up adoring, and a book of poetry. She had devoured the books and had
gone back for more, and this time Jocelyn had a stack waiting behind the
counter with her name on it.

“I think you two are right,” she said.
“Everyone is working hard, and the days have been long and sad. You’ll probably
end up comforting each other and talking about the spill more than books, but
that’s how it should be.” Comforting each other and gathering together in a
familiar and beloved routine. Helen understood the appeal even though she
wouldn’t accept Tia’s offer to join them. She’d be the outsider.

“Should I go with the muffins or the
cookies?” Tia asked, interrupting Helen’s reverie. “They both look delicious.”

Helen was still thinking about the book club,
and she took a moment to switch gears mentally. “I have some sand dollars in
the back room,” she said. “I’ll go get a couple dozen for you.”

“Wonderful!” Tia smiled with a remarkable
amount of energy and enthusiasm, given that she’d been working as volunteer
coordinator nearly nonstop for the past two weeks. She seemed indefatigable,
and Helen envied her ability to keep moving and talking without rest. Helen
wasn’t as resilient these days, but Tia had the advantage of being a permanent
fixture at Cannon Beach—not a newbie baker who wouldn’t last the season. Helen
would never be as openly extroverted as Tia, no matter what her situation, but
she certainly had reason to lack Tia’s verve.

Helen layered the soft pastries in a pale
pink to-go box. She’d been making a similar dessert since culinary school, but
after naming her bakery the Sand Dollar, she’d changed the shape of them. The
disks of flaky, buttery Napoleon pastry were filled with different flavors of
cream. Grooves and notches were piped on top in vanilla icing to give them the
look of sand dollars. The ones she had made today were stuffed with an
almond-flavored pastry cream mixed with fresh raspberry coulis. She’d been
planning to stop by some local restaurants on the way to the center and try to
sell her signature pastries at a discount, willing to take the loss if it meant
she could earn some paying customers. A lucrative account supplying desserts to
a five-star restaurant would have been great. Instead, she’d donate her
pastries to the local book club.

“These are beautiful,” Tia said as she peered
inside the box. “They’ll remind us of what we’ve lost on our beaches, and what
we’ll find again under the layers of disgusting oil. How much do I owe you,
dear?”

Helen quoted a price that would barely let
her break even given the cost of ingredients. She wasn’t sure why she was
undervaluing the high-end and time-consuming confections. Was she trying to buy
her way into the community, or was she doing this as a way to support the
people involved in the cleanup effort? Maybe a little of both. Unfortunately,
every step she took to belong to this community was another step away from
financial success and the chance to really make this her home.

“Nonsense,” Tia said, putting double the
amount Helen had asked for on the counter. “I’ll see you at the rescue center
later on this evening. And remember, if you need a break, come by Jocelyn’s.”

Tia had already pushed out of the door
without pausing for breath or to say good-bye, as if she was carrying on a day-long
conversation, and Helen happened to be part of it for a few minutes. Helen took
the cash off the counter and gratefully put it in the starving cash register,
then she closed and locked the door behind Tia. The streets were empty and she
wouldn’t have any more paying customers tonight. She might as well go to the
center and start her shift early. She boxed up the remaining items from her
case and set her dough in a cool spot to rise overnight for tomorrow’s loaves
of bread. Although she specialized in sweet pastries, she had planned from the
start to offer some sourdoughs and whole grain breads as well. The more she
diversified, the more likely she was to make some cash. Besides, her pastries
were indulgences, but fresh breads were staples. She needed to cater to the
families living here year-round as much as to the occasional tourist who would
come to their oil-covered beach.