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“I think Eva just tried to be whatever she thought Matt wanted. But regardless, she’s very much the type that you and I were just talking about a bit ago. The corporate type. The kind of person who tries to climb the ladder and tries to fight and struggle for everything.”
“Maybe she’d be looking for someone a little more successful than Matt?” Jubilee suggested as she carefully pulled a particularly stubborn weed out while trying not to disturb the onions that were settled around it.
“Probably. Although, I don’t know that Matt isn’t successful in the eyes of the world. It’s not like he’s rich. He just has a good life, you know?”
Yeah. The kind of life that was the envy of so many people, that only came through hard work. It’s just most people didn’t see the hard work. They just saw the end result, horse rides on the beach, a cottage by the lake, a great family.
“You know, I guess maybe after talking to you, I’ve decided that I don’t really want to move to the Cities. Although, I don’t know if I even want to stay in my current job, even though it’s nice to be able to work from home.”
“What do you want to do?” Jubilee asked, curious.
“I always wanted to be an artist. You know, a starving artist. So that’s why I haven’t done that. I... I want to be able to eat too, you know?” Clara laughed. But Jubilee didn’t.
“I keep hearing about how Blueberry Beach is getting bigger and the spillover is coming here. People are showing up in Strawberry Sands, and I hear it’s getting busier every year. Maybe before things get super expensive, you could see about renting one of the empty storefronts on Main Street and set up a shop. You know, one of those quirky, touristy, cute shops tourists love. With overpriced artwork and an artsy vibe.”
“Overpriced? Are you saying my work isn’t worth anything?” Clara laughed, clearly teasing.
“You know what I mean.” They laughed.
“I sure do. The kind of place where normal people probably wouldn’t normally go, but they do on vacation, and they buy things not knowing what they’re worth. Or they just buy something because they want something to remind them of their vacation to hang in their living room.”
“Exactly. Something unique. Something that the rest of the world doesn’t have. You know, that wasn’t picked up at some big box store, and seventeen thousand people all have hanging over their mantle.”
“Yeah. That kind of art.”
“You should do it.”
“You almost make me feel like I could.”
“You won’t know until you try.”
Clara was quiet for a little bit, and as Jubilee looked over, she saw that she made her raised bed look like a work of art. Rows were perfectly aligned, the holes exactly spaced apart. Everything looking like it had been done with an artist’s eye.
“I think it’d be really good. And weren’t we just talking about you having all the siblings and family and friends that would rally around you if you fail?”
“I do. But I don’t fail on purpose. After all, I want my siblings to be proud of me, not picking me up off the ground crying because my latest venture didn’t work out.”
“Don’t they all know that you love being an artist? Don’t they all know this would be a dream of yours? Don’t you think they’d want you to reach for it?”
Clara sighed. “I’d like to think that. But don’t you think that there’s still people who would like to see me fail? Maybe not my siblings, but people who just get that kind of enjoyment when someone that they know tries something, maybe even something that they’re afraid to do, and they just kind of hope in their heart that it doesn’t work out because they want to be able to point and laugh a little. Maybe someone else’s calamity makes them feel better.”
“Are you going to allow people like that to hold you back?” Jubilee asked, wondering if that was part of her problem. After all, she stuck in her marriage for a long time, and maybe it was partly because she didn’t want to admit that it didn’t work out. She’d left her marriage and then lived with her mother-in-law, like she didn’t want to admit that it didn’t work out.
That was really for her girls, though.
“You know, you should do this before you have a husband and children who are depending on you. It would be a lot harder to do it then, wouldn’t it?”
“I’ll never get married.”
“Why?” Jubilee asked. Although now that she’d been married, now that it hadn’t worked out, she certainly wasn’t sure she wanted to do it again. After all, when she was doing something where the success depended not just on her, but on someone else, she understood now that she couldn’t make it work just because she wanted it to. She needed the person that she married to want to make it work too.
How did she know she was finding someone like that? She didn’t want to screw up her daughter’s lives any more.
Then why did she agree to go for a ride with Matt on the beach? If she wasn’t interested in anything, shouldn’t she be avoiding things like that?
She thought about that question the rest of the afternoon while Clara and she worked and considered it some more as she helped Lana with supper preparations.
Matt and Nora showed up for supper, and Eva came up the stairs as well. That gave Jubilee a chance to see what Clara said about Eva was accurate. Eva definitely had her eye on Matt.
