Beach Colors (23 page)

F
or the next week, Margaux threw herself into work. She knew she was setting up expectations. She’d rented a work space and worked every day. Just like a real job. Just like she was putting down roots. Just like she was going to stay.

She could see it in the looks Dottie and her mother exchanged. In the expressions of people she met on the street. The last time she’d gone into Oglethorpe’s Hardware, Roy had said, “It’s good to have you back home where you belong.”

And even though Margaux tried not to look ahead, she found herself wandering into images of the future. Images of Crescent Cove. Images of Nick Prescott. Then she would pull herself together and remind herself to keep her eye on the prize. And the prize was New York, Fashion Week,
Vogue
.

She didn’t see Nick or Connor, and she tried not to think about them. And yet she missed them both.

She focused solely on the design, ignoring all the extraneous things she’d had to worry about before: deadlines, cost bearing, competitive placement. She just drew and created, letting color and texture dictate her hand and mind.

Dyed and hand-painted swatches of fabric lay over every surface of the work space. Soon she would need a real workshop with equipment to dye large amounts of fabric.

Except that if the designs caught on and sold, they would get sent to a fabric designer and then to a professional manufacturer. And then a betraying thought would creep into her mind.
I want to do the fabric myself, not farm it out to another designer
. Not to depend on someone else’s interpretation no matter how creative and brilliant it might be.

But that was totally unfeasible. For one thing, it was too time-consuming, and too expensive. It would drive the prices into the hundreds or thousands of dollars just to make overhead. Which wouldn’t be bad if she had the clout to make it happen.

A few months ago she might have been able to pull it off, but now she would just have to swallow her ego, her pride, and hire on to another already established design house. Then maybe someday . . .

When she was busy, she stopped dwelling on what she’d lost. But at night when her mind was still firing on all circuits, panic would seize her, disbelief that only a few short weeks ago, she’d had everything she’d dreamed of. And now it was gone.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the money, the apartment, or the lifestyle that she missed. That loss was staggering but not nearly as bad as the career and momentum that had been destroyed. There was nothing she could do but push the bitterness aside and force herself back to her new enterprise, try to dream ahead and see her new designs taking Paris by storm. And at last she would go to sleep.

She lived on diner food and adrenaline. She and Linda cleared out the former dining room, which Linda had been using for storage, in order to create more space for the workshop. They carried boxes upstairs and took over one of the three spare bedrooms for storage.

A giant man in a black leather vest and shaved head came in to help with the heavy stuff.

“Hey, babe,” he said in a deep voice any actor would be proud of.

“This is Harlan. He’s the man with the muscle.” Linda winked at Margaux and led him into the dining room. A minute later Margaux heard scraping and grunting. She got up to see if they needed help, but when she looked into the dining room, Harlan had hoisted a heavy chest onto his back and was carrying it into the hall. Linda followed behind him, swishing a broom and humming a song from
Cinderella
.

They hung cotton cording across the ceiling and taped a plastic tarp on the floor so that drying fabric wouldn’t drip on the polished hardwood. They uncovered two unused bookcases which Margaux filled with neatly folded material.

When they were finished, Margaux stepped back and looked around the two rooms. Her mark was everywhere. And she had one thought.

This is what I want to do.

Fifteen

O
n the day of the flea market, Nick rose before dawn. It was still dark when he left his apartment. His eyes felt gritty and his muscles ached. It seemed like he’d been working forever.

The light was on at his mother’s house. He tapped on the door and waited. The security chain rattled, the lock clicked, and his mother opened the door.

“You’re up early,” he said, and gave her a kiss. The smell of baking suffused the kitchen. “More pies?”

“Muffins. I had some berries left over and I didn’t want them going to waste. They’ll be ready in a minute.”

“Thanks, but I have to get going. I just stopped to say hi because I saw the light.” She was already pouring him a cup of coffee.

“Really, Ma, I can’t stay.” He took the coffee. “What time are you coming?”

“Connor and I are going over a little before nine.”

“Do you think it’s a good idea to take him? There will be a lot of excitement and noise. He might wander off.”

She opened the oven door and took out a baking pan. “I have the first two-hour shift at the bakery table. Everyone will keep an eye on him. We can’t cosset him forever. He’ll be safe. There are some kid activities planned that he might enjoy.”

She put two muffins in a paper bag. “Eat these before they get cold.”

“I’ll try to come by on my break. If I get one. Maybe I can take him around the fair.”

“He’d like that. It’s time he started doing things. Even if it isn’t comfortable at first. He’ll get used to it. And maybe he’ll learn to like it.”

“How did I get such a smart mother?” He surprised her, and himself, by taking her into a hug and holding her there. “Do you need help getting things into the car?”

“No, you go on. Connor can help. And don’t worry.”

He felt better as he got into the cruiser. Dawn was just beginning to break, and the porch light created a nimbus around his mother’s small frame as she stood in the doorway.

St. Adelaide,
he thought as he drove away.

M
argaux stretched over the worktable and put the last hand-painted touches to the fabric she’d been working on for days. It was a silk chiffon of palest yellow and painted in free-form swirls, slashes, and sprays of aqua, ultramarine, rose, and coral. It had taken a lot of trial and effort before she got the tones perfect as well as colorfast. And it had turned out just as she’d imagined it.

The “Toreador Song” rang out from the foyer and a voice called out, “Mags, are you here?”

“Grace?” Margaux dropped her brush onto a rag and went out to the front room. Grace stood in the doorway, wearing khaki cargo shorts and button shirt.

“We’re here to steal you away to go to the flea market,” Grace said.

“Is it Saturday already?”

“Yes. So chop-chop.”

“Okay. I could use a break. Give me two minutes.”

Bri pushed Grace to the side and stepped into the studio. She was dressed in jeans and a white tailored shirt and looked like she’d just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad. She didn’t speak but gazed at the designs that hung across the opposite wall.

“What do you think?” Margaux asked, mentally crossing her fingers.

“Holy Versace. This ain’t your mother’s beachwear.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Good? They’re incredible.”

Margaux felt immense relief. She knew Bri would never flatter her. “But will they sell?”

“Shit yes.” Bri stepped over to the sketch of an A-line dress, cut on the bias and gored at the hem to fan out to a frothy hemline just below the knee. The tiny shoulder straps were finished with a row of deep folds that tumbled down the back. A range of color from light aqua to midnight blue combined in a swirl of muted colors that seemed to flow from one to the other.

“I get it. It’s the sea at dusk. And those drapery things that arc around the front and back”—Bri broke into a commentator’s voice—“reminiscent of the tide rolling in.” She settled back into her own voice. “And that little touch of what is it? Maroon? Brown?”

“Sienna,” said Margaux.

“Yeah, I don’t see it myself when I look at the water, but it works; like it anchors the whole picture somehow. But what about the fabric? You can’t tell me you found this pattern in a warehouse.”

Margaux smiled. “Come this way.” She went to the placket door at the back wall and slid it open to the dining room. They stepped into a hanging forest of silks, shantungs, tulle, and muslin whose blues, golds, and greens shimmered and billowed in the breeze from the windows she’d opened to speed up the drying process on her newest “Sunset” fabric.

“Wow,” said Grace.

“Amazing,” said Bri, wandering through the billowing fabric. “It’s like a seraglio in here.”

Margaux looked around. Her Sunset fabric lay draped over a row of dining chairs while the fabric paint dried. The last two yards were spread across the worktable and thumbtacked in place to keep it from shifting under the brush.

“You
have
been busy,” Grace said. “How long did this take?”

“Seems like forever.”

“How much longer before you have enough to make something?”

Margaux considered the folds of material. As soon as the Sunset fabric dried, it would be ready to cut. Normally she’d do muslin mock-ups and then the real thing, but there was no time. There was also no extra fabric if they made mistakes. “Soon.”

“Getting cold feet?”

“Just a bit. I still have a hell of a lot of work to do, so let’s get going before I change my mind.”

“And before it gets any more crowded. You want to lock these windows before we go?” Grace asked.

“No, I’ll come back later. It’s pretty safe around here and I want to dry that last batch of chiffon.”

They went outside.

“We’d better walk. We barely made it down Main Street on our way here and we probably got the last parking place in town.” Bri pointed across the street where a big yellow truck on monster wheels was parked next to Margaux’s blue sports coupe.

“That’s yours?” Margaux asked incredulously.

“Yeah, bought it secondhand. I know the tires look like overkill but on a rainy day on the north forty, they come in handy.”

“You have a north forty?”

“More like a north ten and a half. But enough for me.”

“Who would have ever thought.”

“Hey, I have plans for that house. You have to come see it. We’ll order takeout. My kitchen isn’t quite finished yet. The place is a mess, but it’s got great potential.”

They walked down Main Street where a line of cars inched toward the elementary school. Heat radiated from car hoods, exhaust fumes wavered in the air.

“I always forget what a big deal this is,” Grace said, fanning fumes from her face.

“They have this every year,” Bri said. “Do you think they’ll ever run out of stuff to sell?”

“They could subsist for several years on junk from our attic alone,” Margaux said. “Mom and I cleaned a bunch of stuff out for it this year. It didn’t even make a dent.”

“Oh boy.” Bri rubbed her hands together. “Just so you know, I’m looking for kitchen stuff. Antique or close to antique linens that are in good enough condition to be rejuvenated.” She hesitated. “And play stuff. For the girls. On the outside chance I get them before they’re forty.”

“How’s that coming?”

“Slow as sludge in the Yangtze. The paperwork is ridiculous. Just when I think I’m done, it seems to start all over again.”

“Why China?” Margaux asked as they waited for a minivan to pass so they could cross the street to the school.

“I couldn’t get two children in the States. Especially not with my history. China was my best bet. It’ll be worth it when they finally get here.”

They turned onto Pine Street where more cars were waiting to park. The field behind the school was a sea of tents and wooden stands. Trucks and cars were parked side by side, merchandise piled in their open trunks and spread on the grass in front of them. Here and there a trail of smoke cut through the air where souvlaki, hamburgers, clam rolls, and hot dogs were being sold. The sun beat down and people were already lined up at the lemonade and soda stands.

They stopped at the gym entrance.

“Inside or outside first?” asked Bri.

“Inside,” said Margaux. “I should say hi to Mom. And I know she’d like to see the two of you.”

“We see her all the time.”

Margaux stopped.

“Duh, we live in the same town,” Grace said.

“And Jude is in my reading group,” Brianna said.

“Oh,” Margaux said, feeling a twinge of jealousy.

“Well, I still need to say hello. Want to meet up later?”

“We’ll just mosey ahead of you and you can catch up,” Bri said. “Most of the good linens will be inside. If we get separated, meet at the Skilling’s Ice Cream cart in an hour.”

“Okay, keep your eyes open for garment racks, sewing forms, stuff that I might need.”

Margaux stopped at the Beach Auxiliary table, surprised when she saw who was manning the table with her mother. A man about five-eleven, in good shape, a suntanned face with crinkles around the eyes, receding hairline, and white silky hair. Even though she hadn’t seen him in years, Margaux recognized Roger Kyle.

He was selling a pair of ice tongs to a lady wearing a Mexican sombrero.

Roger and Margaux exchanged hellos.

“He’s phenomenal,” Jude said fondly. “He’s sold more stuff than I have and I know most of these people.”

Dottie waved from the coffee machine. Margaux’s stomach rumbled.

“I’ve got to catch up with Bri and Grace, but I have to peruse the bakery table before I go.”

She was deciding between a lemon bar and a pecan swirl when Connor’s head appeared over the edge of the table.

“Well, hello there. What are you up to?”

He thrust a pad of paper at her. She took it from him. It was a picture with a big yellow circle and a strip of yellow at the bottom of the page. “The beach,” she guessed. “It’s very beautiful.”

He said something. She leaned across the table to hear him better.

“It’s not finished yet.”

“Well, I know it’s going to be wonderful. You’ll have to show it to me when you’re done. Okay?”