Chapter 9 Diane
Diane
The ocean is all silver and shadow, the air sticky with the threat of a squall, when I find myself again on Sara’s porch.
The invitation had been casual—“Drop by anytime, if you need a break from your head”—but the urgency in her voice left little doubt that she wanted company.
Or maybe I’m projecting, because I want it too.
Cassie is at the pool with her best friend, Amaya, the house is empty except for my failure to write, and the walls of the guest cottage feel suddenly too thin to contain all my thoughts.
I clutch my empty notebook against my ribcage and raise a tentative fist to the screen door.
Sara answers, her good hand steady on the frame, the other cradled close to her body like a bird she’s coaxing back to health.
She’s in a faded linen blouse and navy-blue pedal-pushers, her hair pinned up.
She smiles, wide, as if I’m the answer to a riddle she’s been dying to tell.
“You made it,” she says, as if I’d scaled Everest and not just walked the two hundred yards from my front door.
“I made it,” I echo, voice already two octaves too high. “You said anytime, so….”
She gestures me inside but then pauses. “No, wait—weather’s perfect, so let’s use the porch.
” She hooks her elbow through mine, gentle but directive, and leads me to the table set just shy of the sun’s reach.
The table is dressed in a cotton cloth, blue with tiny white anchors, and there are already two cups, a creamer shaped like a cow, and a glass pitcher of what appears to be hibiscus tea gone opaque with ice.
The centerpiece is a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies, the edges ragged and uneven in a way that assures me they are homemade.
“Sit, please.” She waits until I do, then lowers herself into the opposite chair with a sigh that sounds more relieved than exhausted. “I hope you don’t mind,” she says. “I’m not much of a caffeine drinker anymore. Doctor’s orders. But the cookies are legal.”
“They look amazing.” I am suddenly very aware of my own hands, how they hover indecisively over my lap. I try to relax my shoulders, but the sense of occasion has them fixed in place.
Sara notices, because of course she does. “You’re nervous. Is it the cookies, or the company?”
“Neither,” I say, wishing the porch chair wasn’t so squeaky. “I just…didn’t sleep well last night. Tossed and turned.”
She nods as she pours the tea with her left hand, slow and deliberate.
The pitcher shakes, but only a little. A single drop falls onto the cloth, where it beads and rolls toward the edge.
When she sets it down, her hand lingers on the rim, as if unsure whether to let go.
“I keep telling myself I can still manage this much. Some days it’s true. Some days it isn’t.”
“It’s a beautiful morning,” I offer, hoping to divert the conversation. “I mean, not that the other mornings aren’t beautiful, but there’s something about today…” My voice trails off as I wave a hand vaguely toward the ocean. “I don’t know.”
“You’re right. There’s a stillness to it today. Like the world is waiting for something wonderful.”
“I like that. The something wonderful part.”
“You would.” She sets her cup down, leans forward, voice conspiratorial. “I saw you come home last night. From the gallery.” She doesn’t say the word, but Nathan hovers like a drawn breath between us. “So, how was it?”
“It was good. Interesting.” I fiddle with the edge of the notebook, trying not to let my gaze stray too far from her face. “Nathan’s work is…different. Not what I expected.”
“Different how?”
I hesitate, trying to find the right phrase. “It’s intimate. Like…he’s teaching you to see the world as he does.” I recall the muted grays and whites of his canvas, as if recalling a dream. “They were somehow calming but also…full of emotion. It’s hard to explain.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were smitten.”
“Smitten? With what, the art?”
“Perhaps. Or the artist.”
I blink, trying to deflect with a sip of tea, but the heat catches me off guard and I cough a little into my napkin. Sara lets me recover, the silence filling with seagull chatter and the distant percussion of a hammer from some construction down the road.
Finally, I say, “Nathan? He’s… I don’t know. I mean, I barely know him.”
Sara nods, her gaze falling back to the sea. "Just an observation, dear. Sometimes, we don't need to know someone very long for them to make an impression."
I notice a faint smile tug at the corner of her mouth as she watches me. It's a knowing smirk, one that only comes with wisdom and experience. I find myself blushing, suddenly feeling like a teenager. “I guess you’re right,” I say. It’s not really an admission, but it’s not a denial either.
Sara chuckles. “Honey, life’s too short not to appreciate the good impressions. Whether it’s a piece of art, or a piece of ass.” She winks and takes a hearty sip of her tea, pinky finger extended in a way that somehow manages to maintain her elegance.
The teasing bluntness of her comment seems out of character, a sharp contrast to the woman who has always been so composed and gentle around me.
Yet, the flash of humor in her eyes seems earnest, and I can’t help but laugh.
The sound tumbles out of me, the tension of the encounter breaking away like a wave.
"Is that so?" I ask, recovering my composure.
“Well, it’s not something I’d put on a bumper sticker, but yes, that’s my personal belief.
” She reaches for a cookie, breaking it in half with a careful, two-handed maneuver.
The cinnamon aroma is so intense I can almost taste it from across the table.
“Let me guess, you’re a little scared of having your heart touched again, aren’t you? ”
I take another sip of tea to hide my surprise. It’s like Sara has read me better than any book she’s ever picked up. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just nervous about how to proceed. Honestly, I’m a bit rusty.”
“Want to know a secret?” she says, lowering her voice. “Nathan is probably scared, too. And nervous. Men are always afraid they’ll break those they care about most. Or that they’ll be broken by them.”
I think of the way Nathan held the wineglass at the opening, pinched at the stem like it might shatter. The way he kept his hands busy, always moving. “He seems…” I struggle for the word. “Untamed. Not in a bad way. Just—like he’s still running from something. Or someone.”
Sara’s smile grows soft, maternal. “Aren’t we all?”
The sounds of the coast fill in. Wind rattles the window panes, and I can smell the first notes of coming rain, that sharp mineral edge that always precedes a change in weather.
“You could write about him,” Sara says. “That’s what you do, right? Convert the messiness into something permanent.”
I flip open the notebook, exposing a page so white it aches. “Lately, I just stare at the blank page. Or worse, fill it with things I can’t use.”
Sara studies me, and I know she’s assembling some great theory, the kind that only ever emerges in late-night kitchens or sunlit porches. “Maybe you need to stop trying to write about the future and just be in the damn present.”
“That’s the thing,” I say. “I don’t think I’ve ever been good at that. Even as a kid, I was always jumping three steps ahead.”
Sara laughs, and this time it’s all throat, no hesitation. “Then you need practice. Start small. Write about the next ten seconds.” She raps the table for emphasis, causing the spoons in the chime above to jostle in sympathy.
“Ten seconds?”
“Yes.”
I fumble for a pen, find one tucked into the spiral of the notebook, and touch nib to page.
Sara’s smile is wicked. “No metaphors, no cleverness. Just what happens.”
I want to argue. My whole brain is a tangle of cleverness and metaphor, but I force myself to follow the rules.
I write: Sara blinks. Her left eye goes first, then the right. She sips tea, then sets the cup down, missing the saucer by half an inch. The tablecloth is blue, with anchors.
I read it aloud, and Sara beams, as if I’ve just solved a particularly difficult math problem.
“See? That’s all it is. Watch. Record. React. If you do that enough, the future will take care of itself.”
I chew on this, then try again. This time, I write: I’m on a porch with a woman I admire. My hands are shaking, and I pretend they aren’t. All around us, the wind keeps changing its mind. Somewhere, someone is hammering nails into something that will outlast both of us.
I don’t read this one out loud, but Sara must sense the difference in me, because she reaches across and, with a touch so light it’s almost imaginary, pats my wrist.
“Better,” she says. “Now eat a cookie before I make you write a poem.”
For the next hour, we talk about everything but Nathan.
She gives me the lowdown on Judy and her book club, about her late husband’s stubbornness, about the battle she’s fighting with her own body and the bargains she makes each morning to just keep going.
She tells me about the time a hurricane turned this whole stretch of coast into a saltwater lake, and how she can’t sleep if the house is too quiet.
Eventually, when the cookies are half gone and the tea is mostly ice, she leans back and folds her arms, satisfied.
“I’m glad you came,” she says.
“Me too. This has been…enlightening.”
When I leave, she insists on walking me to the edge of the yard, her arm looped through mine. At the end of the shell path, she pauses and faces me, her expression serious.
“Diane,” she says, “all jokes aside, don’t let fear keep you from the things you want. Not for one more day. You deserve to live out loud. To draw attention, make noise. To love fiercely, without apology.”
I want to promise her, but the words stick. All I can do is nod and hope it’s enough.
I walk back to the cottage, notebook heavier now with a few honest sentences. Above me, the clouds have thickened, dark and threatening, but I can still see the faintest line of blue, stubborn and bright, waiting for its moment to break through.