NINETEEN

Prayer at the chapel became a crimson ribbon woven through the top of Elle’s June days, tied neatly around afternoons of painting in her studio.

This particular morning she’d felt restless, unable to focus, prayer more difficult than usual. Miss Anna prayed out loud with her Bible open so Elle hitched to her spiritual wagon. The woman prayed a lot for faith, the ability to trust and give up her unbelief.

Elle considered her own loyalties. Who do I trust most, God or Daddy?

First response? Daddy, of course. He loved her, cared for her. He’d raised her. Worked his whole life to provide for her. But at the end of the day, he was still a weak, flawed man.

God, on the other hand, Elle thought, loved her beyond expression, beyond understanding. At least that’s what the Good Book said. So, if she had to choose, even with her weak faith, she’d have to choose the unseen God.

The idea? Trust God over man. Trust Him over herself.

The notion lingered with her all day. Elle paused from working around the studio, preparing for Huckleberry to come by for an art lesson.

“Lord, give me the kind of faith that believes wholeheartedly.”

“Elle, you here?” Footsteps resonated from the studio stairs.

She grabbed the hair tie lying by the sink and opened the door to Huckleberry. “Come on in, Huck.”

Dang, if the boy didn’t look like his namesake, Huckleberry Finn. Plaid shirt, buckle overalls, cuffed pant legs up to his shins, flip-flops. All he needed was a piece of straw dangling from between his teeth.

She motioned for him to enter. “Ready to paint?”

He popped his hands together. “Where’s my easel?” Coming around the work table, he stood in front of the only white canvas Elle had set up.

“We’re going to paint this together.” She tapped the picture taped to a second easel. It was an old picture Granddaddy Garvey had taken of Factory Creek at sunset during the seventies. Granddaddy had captured orange and red rays bouncing off the dark water. And up in the top left corner, a small paddle boat sat alone in the marsh grass.

The image always evoked an emotion from Elle, as if she understood the boat drifting, waiting to fulfill its calling, even at sunset.

Huckleberry squinted at the picture. “An itsy boat? Can I add some trash, ’cause I can tell you, Elle, the creeks are becoming more and more polluted.”

She cupped her hand over his mouth. “We are painting it exactly as we see it.”

“No trash?” he asked through her fingers.

She dropped her hand, wiping it against her apron. “No trash.

I’m trying to get you to expand your horizons.”

“Why don’t we paint in tandem, you know, then compare our expressions?” He picked up the palette knife.

Elle took it away from him. “Don’t make me regret doing this.”

“Testy.” He dug his hands into his big pockets, trying to frown.

“Okay, let’s mix some paint, then talk about how we want to approach the painting.”

Trying to get Huckleberry to settle down and paint the original picture was like trying to bridle a fly and train it to fetch. But after an hour of forcing him to focus and start over (thank goodness for the fluidity of oils), she sat back and watched him recreate a beautiful scene, emotion and all. He had incredible talent, and if he applied himself, he could have the impact he so desperately wanted.

When his session ended, they set up a future date before he left, then Elle cleaned the brushes and palette, thinking she needed to run over to Mama and Daddy’s to do laundry. The dirty clothes pile was beginning to merge with the clean. Her cell phone rang as she started sorting whites and colors.

“I hear you’re painting.” Darcy Campbell, owner of downtown’s Wild Heart Gallery, was on the other end.

“A vicious rumor, Darcy.”

“Huckleberry told me. He was in trying to peddle his smelly art. I tell you, Elle, I’d support his cause if he could present it in a socially ingratiating fashion. Last time he came in, the place reeked of dead fish for two days.”

“When was he there? He just left my place.”

“Yeah, he said you’re helping him paint.”

“Trying.” Elle dumped her whites into a Wal-Mart bag. “He’s really talented, Darcy, but so fascinated with garbage.”

Darcy’s chuckle spilled into Elle’s ear. “No kidding. So, was he right? Are you painting?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. Great. I’m featuring you for the Summer Art Walk and don’t go letting any of the other galleries talk you into showing with them. You’re exclusive with me for September. Can you be ready?”

“Ready? No, I can’t be ready.” Darcy’s Charles Street gallery was the best gallery in the lowcountry. Located in an 1886 home, it had elaborate cast-plaster moldings, ceiling medallions, stone fireplaces in every room, and jib doors opening to the verandahs. She maintained its rustic, cultured atmosphere and often showed work by New York and London artists. Names. Not wannabes.

“Then get ready. Nothing like a little pressure to motivate you creative types. I want to help launch your career, Elle.”

“Darcy, I have no career. I’m dabbling, not painting-painting.”

“Well, stop dabbling and get serious.”

Sigh. The woman kidded not. Darcy took the business side of running a gallery extremely seriously and Elle had learned a lot from her. Darcy also had the marketing acumen and art-world connections to give an artist a leg up toward New York or London, Paris, or LA.

“Darcy, please hear me. I appreciate you, but I have nothing to show. I am barely painting. Most of this is just for me. Therapy. Worship, if you will. I’m not good enough to have people pay ten dollars, let alone hundreds.”

A car door slammed on Darcy’s side of the call. Keys jingled. “You forget I’ve seen some of your early work. I’ve always admired your use of color and ability to capture the emotion of a scene.”

“You flatter me, but no.” Elle snapped open a second Wal-Mart bag to start bagging her jeans and tops.

“I’m not flattering you. I’m tired of watching you play at art.”

The AC unit kicked on, shoving aside the warm air for cool. The afternoon sun heated the studio through the glass.

“Darcy, I appreciate you, I do, but give me a year or two.”

“Do you really want to waste another year? If you’re pushing Huckleberry to be the artist and the man he’s called to be, then I’m doing the same to you. Feel my finger in your back?”

Elle dropped the laundry-filled Wal-Mart bag and walked over to her paintings. She liked Feathers. And Girls in the Grass. There was the unfinished Downtown Beaufort, and oh, a painting from last fall when Hurricane Howard went over them and she hunkered down with Caroline at her place.

Then Heath’s voice haunted her. God is wiser than Dr. Petit . . .

“Five paintings.”

“Six.”

“Maybe.”

“Now I can tell you Sir Lloyd Parcel will be showing too.”

“Darcy, Sir Lloyd Parcel? You can’t hang my work in the same gallery as his, let alone the same county, the same state, the same country.”

“Simmer down. Ruby Barnett is coming down to do the review. This will help her ease into your work. It’s a brilliant plan. I’m featuring Lloyd and you in my ArtNews ad.”

“Ruby Barnett? Dang, Darcy, are you trying to destroy me before I even get started? She’s one of the toughest art critics.”

“All the more to have her view your work now. Elle, I heard Angela boxed you out, and while I’m not a religious person, looking at what’s happened to you the last few months makes me think the Divine is trying to get your attention.”

A needlelike chill raced down Elle’s arm. “Perhaps, maybe, we’ll see. But Darcy, let this first show be the hometown girl with her homegrown paintings. Give me a chance to see if I’m any good. No press, please.”

“Sure, whatever you say.” Darcy didn’t mean one hollow word. “You won’t regret this.”

Elle pressed End. She already regretted it.

In the den, Kelly paced, listening to NBC’s “Saturday Night Dance Party” while her fourteen-year-old sister played Monopoly with their sixteen-year-old brother.

“Hal, you landed on my hotels.” Christie held her palm under Hal’s nose. “You owe me a million bucks.”

Hal slapped her palm. “There.”

“Cheater. Give me the money. Kelly, tell him to play fair.”

“Hal. And Christie, he doesn’t owe you a million bucks. Tell him how much he owes. Fair and square.”

Another week without a letter from Chet. She felt ill just thinking about it. Was he hurt? Dead? In prison? No longer in love with her?

Surely his mama would call if he was missing in action or killed. Kelly pressed her hand against her growing middle. At times, fear dwelt there as much as their child. She feared the worst. Not death, but that he no longer loved her. By this time next month, their secret would be known. She’d let out her skirt waist as far as it could go.

“Kelly, I declare you’re making me nervous with all that pacing,” Mama said without looking up from her knitting. “Why don’t you call Rose or Shirley, see if they want to go downtown. Get a malt or something.”

“Sure, Mama.”

Kelly phoned Rose, who was “dying to get out of the house” and promised to call Shirley. “Meet you at Harry’s in fifteen.”

Upstairs, Kelly changed her blouse and shoes, then combed her hair and found the Johnny Jeep hat she’d worn on her first date with Chet. When she turned to go, Mama stood in the doorway.

“Oh, you scared me.” Kelly exhaled, thrusting her hand over her heart. “What are you doing sneaking around a girl’s room?”

Mama eased the door closed, her eyes on Kelly’s middle. “We should talk about it now before your daddy sees.”

Heath scrubbed cereal from yesterday’s bowls before loading them in the dishwasher, staring out the kitchen window toward the grove of oak and pine in the lot next to Elle’s, pondering the lives of Kelly Carrington and Chet McCord.

Kelly being pregnant surprised him, but he knew it happened to a lot of women. Had Chet married her before they consummated their love or was it a night of passion before he shipped out? He’d have to decide, but he liked the complication the pregnancy created. Especially since he’d left Chet flying over the artic North Pacific with his engine freezing up.

Last bowl in the dishwasher. Heath loaded the detergent and pressed Start. The machine’s low hum was the only noise in the quiet house. He’d enrolled Tracey-Love in a day school this week, and he missed her little-girl sounds—singing softly, playing with her dolls—and the way she set her hand on his knee before asking, “C-can you put on a movie?”

But the interaction with other children seemed to be boosting her little confidence.

Meanwhile, he used the alone time—ten to three—to write and research. He’d spent today researching the Aleutian Islands, the Warhawk P-40, North Pacific war history, and war babies. The further he dug into history, the more he wrote, the more the story gripped him.

Leaning against the sink, he gazed at the heat waves rolling across the yard and found it hard to imagine Chet suffering in icy Alaska. He’d have to dig around his boyhood memories of New York winters, playing outside with Mark until they couldn’t feel the tips of their toes, to write a true experience for the southern flyer.

Suddenly Elle emerged from the heat waves, dressed casually and free-looking in baggy brown shorts and a white tank top. She carried a metal box by its handle, striding for her car, her arms and legs moving in graceful synchronization.

Art in motion. More and more, his fictional heroine Kelly mirrored the real-life woman of Elle Garvey.

Watching her drive away, Heath thought of their little encounters the past two weeks—Elle wandering over as he sat out on the screened porch, or grabbing a quick dinner out with Tracey-Love.

A couple of times as he walked out to the van to go pick up Tracey-Love, Elle threw open her window and yelled down at him, “Afternoon, McCord.”

“Afternoon, Garvey.”

The other night she told him a story about her friend Caroline, a K-Mart blue light she’d wired to her old Mustang, a dark night, and a Beaufort County deputy. Had him doubled over.

He wondered where she was off to this afternoon?

The tip of Ava’s waiting letter caught his eye. Making sure his hands were dry, Heath reached for the envelope. If he ever thought he’d want more than friendship with Elle, or anyone like her, he’d have to read this letter.

Turning it over, he flicked at the small tear, then returned the letter to its perch on the windowsill behind the lock. Not today. Leaving the kitchen, Heath flipped off the light.

Sitting on the tarp-covered floor of Julianne’s salon, her wood palette next to her, Elle painted a marsh scene over fresh drywall. Despite initial doubts, she conceded Julianne’s success. The shop remodel had gone quickly, though the subject of her boyfriend-investor remained taboo.

Concentrating on painting the last blade of grass in the shade, Elle jerked around when her cell beckoned with an out-of-area tone.

Oh, let it ring. Then an odd, pinging thought. What if it’s Jeremiah? She reached back for the phone lying on the edge of the tarp. “Helloooo.”

Oops, she’d swiped the side of Julianne’s new beige cabinets with paint. She psssted at Jules to wipe it off. Not surprisingly, Julianne muttered a few blue words before and after Elle’s name.

“Is this Elle?” Crisp, pristine, foreign.

“Yes, it is.”

“This is Mitzy Canon of 821 Gallery in Manhattan.”

Elle held the phone away from he ear, reviewing the number, but the screen read PRIVATE. “Excuse me, I thought you said Mitzy Canon.”

“Listen, I’m pressed for time, but a friend suggested I review your work.”

Her heart pumped blood so fast her arms went limp. “Did Darcy Campbell call you?”

“I’m speaking of Heath McCord, married to the reporter who died, Ava. What a tragedy. She was beautiful. Can you send me a résumé and samples of your work? There’s a possibility of featuring you as a debut artist in our spring show.”

“T-this spring?”

Mitzy rattled off her personal e-mail so quickly Elle’s only writing implement was her paint brush, her only writing surface Julianne’s wall.

mcprivate@821gallery.com.

“How soon would you like—”

“Yesterday.” End of conversation.

Elle closed her phone, trying to comprehend what had happened. Mitzy Canon? Heath knew the artist maker?

“Who was that?” Julianne gathered up the paint-stained paper towels, the cabinet wiped clean. “Elle, you look green. Is everything okay?”

“I just agreed to send Mitzy Canon—the Mitzy Canon—samples of my work. Oh my gosh.” She rose off the floor. “And I harassed Darcy Campbell for inviting Ruby Barnett to write reviews during the Summer Art Walk.”

Julianne mashed the dirty towels on top of the over-stuffed trash can. “Mitzy Canon? The artist maker woman?”

“Yes, the Mitzy Canon.” Elle’s voice echoed down the salon and back. “Somehow Heath knows her, and because of him or something, she called for samples of my work.”

Julianne’s eyes popped wide. “Go Heath.”

“I don’t know, Jules, why would I—”

“Uh-uh, no you don’t, Elle. You’re not backing out.” Julianne gripped her shoulders. “You are strong and brave about everything, it seems, but this. Forget college and the cranky professor. Go for it.”

Elle made a face. “She said with no risk to herself.”

Julianne went back to unloading boxes. “It can’t hurt to send them, right? You already think you stink. What’s one more opinion?”

“What a comforting notion, Jules.” Elle smacked back down to the floor, facing her mural. “It’s enough to believe I stink, why not have the top voice in American art agree with me?”

Elle dipped her brush in the marsh grass paint. Heath, what’d you do to me? Leaning back for her phone, she autodialed him.

“Did you talk to Mitzy Canon? Why? Um-hmm . . . thank me?

Heath, I was just being a good neighbor . . . like I’m not going to go with you to the ER . . . You took me to dinner.” She chewed the tip of her thumbnail. “I’m not sure I want Mitzy . . . right . . . I know . . . got to start somewhere, sometime. But this is Mitzy Canon, top of the food chain . . . I do know my own work and talent, Heath. I live in my skin . . . um-hum . . . Okay, okay, don’t get testy. I’ll send her something. Dinner?” Elle checked the salon’s new wall clock. “About an hour? Want to go to Luther’s? Okay . . . bye.”