Chapter 6
Since Thea had been the painter, she could remember taking every stroke with the paintbrush that summer.
Margaret Kilkenny had given her the greatest gift ever.
A job painting a mural of the view from the inn as if the walls were the ocean wrapped around the island.
Thea hadn’t actually gotten paid for the mural, but just the idea that her work had been featured in fancy travel magazines, seen by some of the most upper crust of society, and would always be part of the island’s history, tickled her.
The job had given her confidence that her work was more than just doodles. It was actually art.
Unfortunately, her parents had never seen it that way, and even Crissy, who tried to be on her side, never really understood it.
When she’d had money, Crissy and her ex would buy expensive art from galleries who jack up the prices, but they had never hung any of Thea’s work in their big, beautiful house on the ocean.
Heaven forbid it not fit her modern decor.
Thea’s landscapes had been her escape, but no one wanted a no-named artist—except for Ryan Mathers.
Now she needed to paint a new one.
“Are you sure you don’t mind that I’m using your front porch?” she asked the inn owner again.
“Are you kidding me?” Margaret shook her head and started walking her to the front. “The guests will love asking me about the pretty painter on the front porch and if she’s a local artist. Then I get to brag about your mural.”
Luckily, in addition to owning the inn, Margaret was Thea’s landlord. When Thea started looking for a place, it had been Margaret who had a two-story home that she was willing to rent out to Thea to use for her gift shop. It was perfect, because she could also live upstairs.
“Wish it would translate into sales,” Thea muttered. But then she remembered her first sale the day before. “Oh! Guess who just bought my painting?”
“Don’t tell me it’s Ryan Mathers?” Margaret said before Thea had a chance to tell her.
“How’d you know?” Thea said.
“Your sister already beat you to it.” Margaret opened the sliding doors and pushed a table and chair farther down the long covered porch. “He’s very handsome.”
“Have you seen Cece?” Thea still couldn’t believe the famous player had lived right in her own backyard.
“Of course!” Margaret whistled. “She came by here the other day. It’s been way too long. Ryan was always a great kid. Makes me so happy to see how well things turned out for them.”
Thea knew Cece had raised her son on her own. She also remembered her being a teacher during the school year and taking the maid position at the inn so her son could have the time of his life during the summer. What a wonderful and dedicated mother.
That’s when she felt it.
That tug she wished had left her years ago. That tug that she had ignored throughout her twenties and thirties. The tug of wanting her own child. A son or daughter to spoil and give them a summer of swimming and surfing and sunbathing.
She laughed pathetically to herself. She wouldn’t even have her niece or nephew to hang around with soon.
They were growing up so fast and basically adults.
They certainly didn’t want to play in the sand at the beach with her anymore.
They barely even came out of their rooms when she came over to visit.
She didn’t think people had to have children. Margaret, for example, seemed perfectly content without children. She and her husband had the inn and that worked for them. She had met plenty of happy women and men who chose not to marry or have children. And they lived happy and fulfilled lives.
She just never wanted to be one of them. She had always wanted the whole fairy tale, though she’d never admit it out loud.
She wanted to be that woman who went against tradition, because relationships just didn’t work for her.
All she ever seemed to attract were men like Johnny.
She didn’t want to be with a man who didn’t work at their relationship.
She didn’t want to be with a man who broke promises and lied.
She also didn’t want to have a boyfriend she didn’t trust.
And she didn’t trust Johnny.
She’d never meant to look at his phone. It happened to be sitting between them on the couch when the image of the woman had flashed on the screen.
Before she had even registered what she’d seen, his immediate reaction was to pick up the phone and swipe the image away.
The quick movement had instantly triggered her curiosity.
Her initial thought was that it was her own phone going off when the ding from the text rang out. That’s why she had looked down.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Are you looking at my phone now?” he countered, speaking hard. Anger deepened the lines between his eyes. She hadn’t even registered the woman’s naked body until after the image disappeared.
“Was she naked?” She pointed at his phone in his hand.
“Who?” he said to her.
“The picture on your phone.” She pointed again, as though he didn’t know what she was talking about. She still wasn’t connecting things.
“I don’t like you looking at my phone.” He narrowed his eyes at her as though she had taken his phone out of his hand and went through each and every text. He was acting guilty.
“Who is she?” she asked.
“What?” Johnny got up from the couch and stuffed his phone into his back pocket.
Ten years. Ten years she had let little things go, but his reaction, the nude woman, and no explanation was too much.
“What’s going on, Johnny?” she asked.
“Nothing’s going on.” But he didn’t look at her. In fact, he avoided her altogether.
“So, you’re not going to tell me who the naked woman is?” She sat there, dumbfounded. This was actually her reality. Could she really wait around any longer for a man who kept secrets from her?
She picked up her own phone and walked to where she hung her purse. She lifted it off the hook.
“Are you seriously leaving because you don’t want me to hand over my phone to you?”
She didn’t even know where his anger had come from. Why was he acting so defensive? “Give me a call when you want to talk to me about that photo.”
And she’d left.
What had she seen? And who had she seen? Whoever had sent the picture had the contact name Brad. Unless Brad was a C cup, she had a sick feeling that all these years were worse than a waste, but a deficit too deep to recover from.
The curse of the Manus daughters.
Crissy had a felon ex-husband, and now Thea had a liar ex…
whatever she called Johnny. Maybe he wasn’t even her boyfriend after all this time.
She’d never officially had the conversation with him.
He had told her he loved her. In all different kinds of ways.
But had he ever sat her down and talked about his feelings?
Or had she pushed him to say things to make her stay around? Just enough of a promise. Just enough of a feeling.
Goodness, was she an idiot.
All those springs she had waited for him to come back from Florida and back to her.
All those summers she had wished for things to move farther in their relationship before he had the urge to leave again.
All those falls of praying he’d ask her to come with him.
All those disappointed winters she waited around for him to return to the island, hoping things would be different the next year. Only to have nothing change. Ever.
What. A. Joke.
If her friend or sister had been in her exact shoes, she’d be telling her to ditch the guy. Run for the hills. Yet she stayed. And for what? To be humiliated and treated like an idiot? She knew what it meant when someone sent a naked photo.
It meant they didn’t have a serious relationship.
She put the blank canvas on the easel Margaret had set up, wishing she had been on the island when it had been a retreat for the early revolutionary artists in the American Modernism art, who’d come to the island to escape the busy cities.
They’d retreat to the “beautiful island in the sea.” All kinds of famous artists, painters, actors, and musicians stayed at the inn, its views some of the most iconic and beautiful in all of Isabel Island.
Today, she saw it differently than the last time she’d painted it ten years ago, when the world had seemed too far out to catch. Now, she felt the weight of it crushing on her rib cage.
She started with the ferry port and sketched out Seashore and Center Lane with her shop, the restaurant down the street, and the white picket fence along the sidewalk in front of the few houses in between the shops.
She dotted out the flowers that hung over the sides of Mrs. Duffy’s window boxes, and made sure to get Mr. Lee’s dog, who lay on its side on the front porch.
She focused on her shop, painting what she saw, not what she wanted to see.
She loved her gift shop. Yes, she loved painting, but what she really liked most was creating.
She enjoyed making the stickers, and the T-shirts, and the surfboards.
She didn’t want to just paint landscapes.
She wanted to paint landscapes on a surfboard or a sweatshirt.
She didn’t want to focus on one medium, but all of them.
She had always wanted to capture the beauty of the island through drawings, or paintings, or photographs, or even sketches. She loved the ocean’s beauty. Her muse.
Not pizza, or the rush of selling to full lines, or making money. It was the feeling she got when someone saw the beauty she saw.
She wondered if Ryan Mathers saw that beauty. Or had he just bought the painting because he was buying everything that day? He seemed to have no problem spending thousands of dollars in one go. What was a little painting to him?
Apparently, five hundred dollars’ worth.
Thea’s thoughts swept back to that morning when she’d seen him at the beach. She hadn’t seen him until after she’d started getting out of the water, but she’d felt a bit silly in the presence of the handsome celebrity.