Tales From Sea Glass Inn (8 page)

Jenny said good night and left her parents to
unpack and rest after their long cross-country flight. They looked as perky as
ever, while she dragged herself up another flight of stairs leading to her new
room. They had always been energized by travel and new places and unfamiliar
people. Jenny was the opposite. Her day had been filled with nudges out of her
comfort zone. Her parents’ arrival, her spat with Helen. Most of all, the
sensation of closeness she’d felt when she and Helen had talked outside the
auditorium. She’d been drawn into Helen’s life, and she had been both
disappointed and relieved when Mel and her parents had broken the spell.

Jenny opened the door to the rose-colored
room and saw what Mel had done to make the place welcoming. Her belongings had
been packed and moved here while she was still at the center with her parents.
Mel had turned down the bedcovers and had put some bottled water and snacks on
a small mahogany table. Jenny stripped down to her underwear and fell onto the
bed, pulling the quilt up to her chin. She was thirsty, but even the thought of
uncapping a bottle of water seemed to be too much effort.

But there was Helen. Downstairs right now
with Mel, preparing breakfast for the small army of volunteers. Jenny was
tempted to go see her and to offer some help, just to be around her again.
Common sense warred with temptation. Tired as she was, Jenny was about to give
in and make the long trek downstairs when someone tapped at her door. Her first
instinct was to feign sleep in case it was one of her parents, wanting her to
go for a midnight jog or go swim with the whales or something insanely active.
But neither of them would have knocked politely and waited for her to answer.
The door would be open by now.

“Come in,” she called, pulling herself to a
sitting position against the headboard.

It was Helen, with her cheeks flushed from
the heat of the oven and smears of flour and some sort of orange-y batter on
her navy sweatshirt. Much too beautiful to be alone with Jenny in Jenny’s room
in the middle of the night. Jenny didn’t have enough self-control for this.

“I thought you might like some tea.” Helen
came over to the bed and set a small tray on the bed stand. “Chamomile, to help
your mind stop circling and let you sleep. And a piece of pumpkin bread in case
you’re hungry.”

Say
thank you and good night.
Instead, Jenny patted the mattress next to
her hip. See? No self-control. “Thank you for this. Why don’t you sit with me
for a few minutes. You look like you could use some rest, too.”

“I’m all right,” Helen said, but she sat on
the bed with a groan. “Great. Now I’ll never get up.”

“Fine with me.”

“Stop.” Helen laughed and swatted at Jenny’s
covered legs. She lay down crosswise on the bed, her rib cage draped over
Jenny’s calves, and propped her head on her hand. “You’re tempting enough,
saying things like that,” she said.

Jenny had been worried about her own response
to Helen, afraid to get too close after a lifetime of moving and with more of
the same in the foreseeable future. She hadn’t stopped to consider whether
Helen might feel the same attraction to her, but Helen’s words and the
deepening red on her neck hinted at her feelings. Jenny cleared her throat,
acutely aware of Helen’s breasts and side where they rested on her lower legs.

“Your parents certainly jumped right in to
help tonight,” Helen said.

Jenny was glad to have a change in topic.
Talking about her parents was the mental equivalent of a cold shower. “They
always do, no matter what the cause. They seem to have unlimited energy and
drive.”

A trait Jenny didn’t share. She had strength
and endurance when it came to her work, but her parents were on another level
entirely. The evening with them had been a whirlwind as she showed them around
and put them to work helping Helen clean pens. Soon her dad had wanted to try
something new, and he had ended the night in the wash area, sudsing and
scrubbing the oil from the fragile feathers. Her mom had likewise wanted to be
part of every aspect of Jenny’s operation, and she had volunteered to examine
and treat the recuperating wounded animals and birds in the ICU area of the
center. Jenny had been glad for capable extra help, of course, but the
difference between being with them and sitting here with Helen was astronomical.
Helen stirred her up but centered her at the same time.

“Always looking to do more,” Helen said. “Did
they expect the same from you when you were small?”

“Not at first.” Jenny remembered long,
boring, dusty days when she would have done anything to get parental attention.
Once they turned it on her full force, she had longed to return to her days of
invisibility. Somewhere in the middle would have been nice. “When I was a
little kid, I was…let’s say unsupervised. Once I was old enough to help at the
clinics and was planning my own future, I became more of an object of interest
to them.”

“They must be very proud of what you do. It’s
incredible, how many lives and communities you’ve saved.” Helen plucked at the
quilt where it lay over Jenny’s knees.

Jenny swallowed, distracted by the buffered
but electric touch of Helen’s restless fingers. “I guess, in a way. But I
guarantee they won’t be here long before I get The Talk again.”

Helen’s hand stilled. “The sex talk?” she
asked with laughter in her voice. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”

Jenny laughed too and jostled Helen with her
legs. “No, silly. The
Don’t
you think it’s time you gave up this hobby and went to real medical school?
talk. Although I’m too old for that one, too.”

“You’re not serious, are you?”

Jenny nodded. “Completely. They believe I’m
in a phase. I’ll eventually go to med school and we’ll travel the globe as a
happy family.”

“Insane. You’re a natural with animals, and
you’re doing important work. I’d expect you to go the other way if you were planning
to make a change. Maybe settle somewhere and have pets of your own. A family. A
community. Something you haven’t allowed yourself to have before.”

“Never,” Jenny said with emphasis. The
single-word answer was her knee-jerk reaction whenever anyone asked her the
question about settling down, but it wasn’t the whole story. And Helen wasn’t
just anyone. She deserved more of an explanation. “I used to imagine having a
real home with a yard for animals and friends who lived close enough to see
whenever I wanted. I sort of had the life I’d dreamed of in vet school, but it
was a transition time for all of us, between college and career. Everyone was
looking toward the future, and I didn’t feel settled like I’d expected.”

“I understand why you couldn’t find the home
of your dreams when you were young and living with your parents, and even
during vet school. But you have options now.”

Helen shifted her weight on Jenny’s shins.
Their skin wasn’t touching anywhere, but Jenny felt Helen’s movements as
friction when the cotton sheets rubbed against her bare legs. The exquisite
pressure from Helen’s body made Jenny want to stay here forever, but she
couldn’t let her body and heart make the decisions, could she? “Movement is
what I know. I can’t let myself feel dissatisfied or second-guess the choices
I’ve made. If I do, then the pain of saying good-bye is too hard to bear. I
learned that lesson early.”

“Out of necessity. To protect your heart when
you were a child. Do you still need those defenses?”

“Do you?” Jenny rubbed her leg against
Helen’s back as she spoke, using the contact to let Helen know she wasn’t
trying to insult her with the words. “You told me you kept yourself at a
distance from the people here until the spill. Everyone has some armor in
place, to protect themselves from being hurt by other people or the
circumstances of life.”

“True, but I’m changing. I came here
believing I didn’t need anyone else’s help or support. I’ve realized I need the
people around me, and they need me, too. The oil might have drowned my
business, but I’ll start over again somewhere else, somehow. And next time I
won’t be so stubborn about opening myself up to friendships and connections.”

“Somewhere else. Exactly.” Jenny focused on
the one thing Helen had said that seemed similar to Jenny’s own life, although
in her heart she was convinced Helen belonged right where she was. “It’s not
this town or these specific people. It’s the way you feel about them. I’m not
even sure a house or piece of land would make me as happy as I imagined when I
was little. I was lonely then and thought a home was what I needed. I just
pictured home as a building. Now I see home as something else entirely.” What
was her definition now? A person? Helen? “It can mean a community full of
friends, like Cannon Beach, and I can take them with me wherever I go, reaching
out to them from wherever I happen to be. I could work more on making lasting
friendships, but I’m born to travel, I guess. It must be in my genes.”

“I was forced to move around, looking for a home,”
Helen said. “I’m tired of it.”

“Me, too, sometimes,” Jenny admitted in a
barely audible voice. Helen crawled up the bed and curled up beside her. Jenny
wasn’t immune to the arousal she felt when Helen got so close, but the
awareness of their divergent futures was enough to keep her feelings in check.
She wrapped an arm around Helen’s waist and pulled her close, taking comfort in
this one moment they were able to share.

*

Jenny had been lonely before. Playing
hopscotch by herself on a dusty lane while her parents treated sick children in
their clinic. Getting in bed alone on every first night in every new city or
village. She thought she was familiar with every facet and nuance of
loneliness.

And then she woke up without Helen.

Jenny was up before the sun, but Helen had
already slipped away. She lay quietly for a moment, letting the sensation of
being without Helen wash through her like a tsunami. Somehow she knew there was
a good chance she would feel this way every morning for the rest of her life. She’d
gone to bed as a whole person holding another person in her arms. She woke with
a missing piece.

At the same time, she felt better rested and
more alive than she had for months. She’d slept soundly and with a sense of
peace she hadn’t known before. Nothing in her reaction to Helen was
straightforward. Everything was full of contradictions. Their night had been
chaste, but she now felt closer to Helen than anyone else. She had shared with
her. Shared the doubts she rarely voiced, and the dreams she never allowed to
flourish.

She got out of bed and went through her
normal morning routine. Speed shower, put hair in a ponytail, and find the
cleanest clothes in the pile on the floor. Within ten minutes of waking up, she
was on her way downstairs. She considered stopping by her parents’ room, but as
early as she’d gotten up and as quickly as she’d gotten ready, she was certain
they had beaten her downstairs.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” her dad said when
she came into the kitchen. He was sitting at the small breakfast nook with her
mom, Mel, and Danny. “We were going to come get you if you didn’t wake up
soon.”

Jenny took a deep breath while she put last
night’s tea tray in the sink and rinsed her cup. The backyard was still in
shadow, but she saw Pam’s figure moving past the windows of her art studio. Pam
spent a lot of time in there when she wasn’t at the rescue center, but Jenny
had overheard enough to know Pam wasn’t actually painting right now. This oil
spill was affecting everyone in its path. Eventually, though, life would find
its balance again. Pam would paint, Mel would have a full house of paying
guests, and Helen would somehow find a way to run her own business and make it
a success. And Jenny? She would move to the next place that needed her. If she’d
learned anything from living in one crisis after the other, it was not to
believe in the temporary reality a disaster created. She’d fallen for it this
time, but soon enough she’d be back to her routine. Her parents—even though
they drove her crazy at times—understood her lifestyle more than anyone else.

“I haven’t slept through the night in ages,”
Jenny said as she poured a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar. Might as
well keep the peace. “I guess I stayed in bed longer than expected.”

“You look rested,” Mel said with a subtle
wink. “I guess the bonus features of your new room agreed with you.”

Jenny couldn’t hide her answering grin. Mel
must have noticed Helen going into her room and not coming out until morning.
Jenny still felt Helen’s absence like a wound, but the memory of holding her
made her smile. “Yeah,” she said. “The bed was very comfortable.”

“I’ll bet it was.”

“What room were you in?” Danny asked, looking
back and forth between the two laughing women. “Did you get a new mattress,
Mom?”

“We’re going to miss you when you go back to
school, Danny,” Jenny said, changing the subject. “You’ve been a great help at
the center.”

“Are you in college?” Lars asked. “What are
you studying?”

“What school?” Eve chimed in.

Jenny rolled her eyes. She recognized the
eagerness in their voices. They were asking simple questions, but they could
become serious medical-profession recruiters at any moment. She sometimes
wondered if they got a commission every time they talked a student into
pursuing a medical degree.

“I’m on scholarship at Oregon State
University.” Danny smeared grape jelly on a thick slice of toast made from
homemade bread and passed the jar to Jenny. “I haven’t picked a major yet.”

“I think he’d be a brilliant professor,” Mel
said, elbowing him in the side. “Maybe literature?”

“Yeah, right,” Danny said with a laugh. He
looked at Jenny. “Can you see me in a tweed blazer with elbow patches?”

“You probably can wear whatever you want. I
don’t think there’s a required uniform,” Jenny joked. She took a bite of her
toast. Crunchy outside and soft in the middle. Flecks of whole grains and
chopped walnuts gave it good texture and complemented the sweet jam. She’d bet
anything Helen had made the bread. Was there anything she couldn’t make? Money
out of thin air, Jenny supposed. She sighed and tried to get her mind off Helen
and back on to the conversation going on around her.