Cry for the Strangers

word is ‘seems.’ How bad are things, really? Are you going to be able to open the gallery before you run out of money?”

“It looks like it, but I’m not sure how we’ve managed.”

“You want me to tell you? By working steadily along, dealing with whatever has happened. Actually, everything has gone pretty much according to plan, hasn’t it?”

“Well, I’d hoped to have the gallery open by now—”

“Hoped,” Brad pounced. “But what had you planned on?”

Glen grinned sheepishly. “Actually, if you get right down to it, I’m a little bit ahead of schedule. I allowed a lot of time for clumsiness.”

“So what’s really gotten to you is the attitude you’ve run into, or more accurately, what you think you’ve run into.”

“Oh, come on, Brad, be fair,” Elaine cried. “You know damned well what Clark’s Harbor is like for strangers. You can read it all over the place. And you heard as well as I did what those people were saying about Glen the first day we were in town.”

“They were talking?” Glen said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Elaine looked away, wishing she hadn’t spoken so quickly.

“Well, that’s something new,” he went on. “When I’m around that’s like everyone’s been struck dumb. What were they saying?”

“Oh, just the typical small town stuff about artists,” Elaine said, forcing a lightness she didn’t feel into her voice. But Rebecca would not let the subject drop.

“It must have been more than that,” she said gently. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have remembered it.”

“Well, the gist of the conversation — if you can call it that, since it was mostly just backbiting — was that no one in town seems to be glad you’re here,” Elaine told them. “But I’m glad you’re here,” she went on, “for the same reasons you’re glad we’re coming. Maybe we can take the curse off the place for each other.” Elaine caught herself and glanced from one face to the other. “Sorry about that I’m beginning to sound like Miriam Shelling, aren’t I?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rebecca said. “Suddenly, with some people around and a couple of glasses of wine, I think I’m beginning to see some reason again. But an hour ago I wasn’t Is there any more wine in that bottle?”

Glen poured them each another round, then went out to find another log for the fireplace.

“I really am glad you’re going to be here,” Rebecca said while he was gone. “I had no idea how dependent I’d become on people till we moved up here and all of a sudden there wasn’t anyone to talk to. Sometimes I’ve thought I was going out of my mind, and I think Glen’s felt the same way. We’ve been holding on for so long now, telling each other it’s going to get better. But until tonight I didn’t believe it. Now I do.” She grinned suddenly. “I hope I don’t get to be a nuisance — I suspect I’ll be running up and down the beach every five minutes at first, just making sure you’re really there.”

“You’d better be,” Elaine replied. “If you’re not I’ll have to do all the running, just to find out how to survive without electricity.”

“Why don’t you talk to Whalen about putting some in?” Glen said, returning in time to hear the last “It shouldn’t cost much from where you are — the main line runs out almost as far as your house.”

“Not worth it,” Brad said. “And even if it were I doubt Whalen would go for it For some reason he seems to be rooted in the past. He made a big deal out of telling us the old Indian story about the Sands of Death.”

“That’s not so funny, considering what happened last night,” Elaine pointed out.

“Except that Mrs. Shelling killed herself,” Brad said. “No one else was involved, and she certainly wasn’t buried on the beach in the style of the story Whalen told us.”

No, but the dog was, Elaine thought suddenly. She said nothing, standing up instead: sending Brad a signal that it was time for them to leave.

A few minutes later they started the long walk back down the beach.

Glen and Rebecca watched them go until they were only shadows in the moonlight Then they closed the cabin door and put their arms around each other.

“Things are going to get better now, aren’t they?” Rebecca whispered.

“Yes, honey, I think they are,” Glen said softly. He didn’t tell Rebecca about the strange feeling he had gotten while he was out getting the log: the strange feeling of being watched….

11

“Well, that’s that,” Elaine said as she closed the last suitcase and snapped the latches into place. She began her final inspection of the room, pulling each of the drawers open, then moved on into the bathroom. “Damn,” Brad heard her say.

“The hair dryer?” he called.

“What else?” Elaine replied, returning to the room with the offending object in her hand. She stared glumly at the suitcase on the bed, mentally rearranging it so that the cumbersome dryer would fit “Maybe I’ll just throw it on the back seat,” she speculated. She tossed the hair dryer onto the bed and dropped heavily into one of the chairs, glancing around the room as if she expected some other item she had overlooked to appear suddenly from her new vantage point.

“You were right,” she said suddenly. “This is a nice room. In a way I hate to leave it.”

“We’ll be back.”

“Yes, but not here.” She sighed and got to her feet, reaching for the coat Brad was holding. “Do I need this today?” She looked doubtfully out the window; the sun was shining brightly and the harbor lay softly blue below her.

“It’s a bit snappy out,” Brad said. He picked up the dryer. “What about it? The back seat?”

Elaine scowled at him playfully and reopened the suitcase.

“As if you didn’t know.” She quickly reorganized the suitcase, mostly a matter of stuffing several of Brad’s shirts further into a corner, and crammed the dryer in. It was a struggle but the suitcase closed.

“How come the dryer always winds up ruining my clothes?”

“Yours are cheaper, and besides, you don’t care how you look,” Elaine teased. “Come on, let’s get it over with.”

Each of them picked up two suitcases and they left the room, its door standing open, to make their way down stairs. Merle Glind looked up when he saw them coming but didn’t offer to help them with the luggage.

“Checking out?” he inquired.

“No, actually we’re just moving our luggage around,” Brad replied, but the sarcasm was lost on the little innkeeper. He set the luggage down and tossed the key onto the desk. Glind picked it up and examined it carefully, then pulled their bill from a bin on his desk, matched the room number to the number on the bill, and began adding it up. Brad suppressed a smile as he noted that their bill had been the only one in the bin, and wondered what Glind would have done if the numbers had failed to match. He handed Glind a credit card, which was inspected minutely, then signed the voucher when it was presented to him. He wasn’t surprised when Glind carefully compared the signature on the voucher with the one on the back of the card. Finally Glind returned the plastic card and smiled brightly.

“Hear you folks rented the old Baron house,” he said.

“That’s right,” Brad said neutrally as he slipped his credit card back into his wallet.

“Not much of a house,” Merle remarked. “No electricity. I wouldn’t be surprised if the roof leaks.”

“Well, we’ll be living mostly on the first floor anyway, so I don’t expect a few leaks will bother us.”

Merle stared hard at Brad, then decided he was being kidded. He chuckled self-consciously. “I suppose you folks know what you’re doing,” he said, “but if I were you, I’d think twice, then think twice again before I moved out there.”