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I looked at her sharply, but she was quick to add, "Nothing wrong with that. They're always causing trouble. We wouldn't have so many reasons to run away and go back to places of comfort if it wasn't for them."
I smiled at her. "Yeah, I suppose that’s true."
I reached for some mangoes, checking for ripeness, when my phone started ringing. I groaned to myself. Why hadn't I turned the ringer is off? Better yet, why hadn't I left the damn thing at home?
Evelyn looked at me curiously. "Are you going to answer that?" She asked, and once again, I had to bite my lip to hold back a laugh. Residents in Hanalei were shameless about getting in your business, and for once in my life, I liked it.
I picked my phone out of my bag and checked the caller ID. It was Marcus. I hit the decline button and shook my head at Evelyn, "No, nobody important," I told her with a smile as I went about picking fruit, and she guided me to the best ones she had.
By the time I headed home, it was late in the afternoon. I had an armload of goodies between all of my art supplies, fruit, and other items I'd picked up along the way. I dumped it all on the kitchen table, looking at my bounty with satisfaction. Nothing like a little retail therapy to make a girl feel better.
I put away all the food, except for the fruit and then started digging through my art supplies, trying to figure out where the best light was and that's when my eyes fell on the porch.
For a moment, I contemplated not sitting out there. I would be out in the open and while I didn't care if most people saw me, Iknew Cooper would see me and I didn't feel like dealing with him today. I hadn't sorted out how I felt about last night or the things he said to me, and frankly, I didn't want to. But then I felt that familiar twinge of anger that had gotten me going this morning. I had every right to be out on that porch and I wasn't required to answer any of his questions, so he would just have to get over it.
With that determination in mind, I gathered up my art supplies and hauled them out to the small table on the porch.
The beach was filled with people, but because of the porch's positioning, I had relative privacy except for Cooper's porch, which was right next to mine.
I pushed that thought out of my head and began working. My parents had a beautiful wooden bowl that I pulled out of the cabinet and positioned the fruit in it carefully. I set it down on the old wrought-iron table, where my parents used to sit and have their morning coffee. The memory made me smile. I think they could've sat out here all day, people watching, enjoying the waves coming in, and enjoying the silence of one another.
That was something I really wanted for myself—the ability to just be silent with someone. Marcus always felt the need to fill in the silence and he could not stand being still. I should've seen that as the red flag it was...
Haley—get that man out of your head and focus on your art.
I tried to do a rough sketch with a pencil on canvas of the bowl of fruit, but it wasn't coming out the way I liked it. I sat back and sighed, frustrated. It had been a long time since I'd worked at this, so understandably, my first attempt wasn’t going to be a masterpiece, I reminded myself.
I let my eyes wander to the water and my heart rate picked up when I saw a familiar figure out on his board. He appeared to be with a client, and I watched them unabashedly.
Cooper was patient and instructive—like he'd always been, and I smiled.
He was too far away to see his facial features clearly, but seeing his form out there was strangely comforting and I had a flashback to the night before, when I realized he felt like home.
I ripped my gaze from the water. This was supposed to be my time—not the time to ruminate over past loves or failed relationships. I needed to figure out how to clear my head. I stared at the blank canvas again, and then I decisively pushed away the bowl of fruit and started sketching something else, though I wasn’t sure where I was going with it.
I sketched the shoreline and the clouds in the background. Then I started applying some paint.
My hands took over, and I quickly covered the canvas, blending and shading, my eyes going to the shoreline, trying to capture the right colors and shadows. I didn't know how long I sat there, but it was long enough for my knees to cramp from being in the same position for too long. I didn't stop until I saw my phone light up. While I’d turned the ringer off, I'd seen it light up a few times and Marcus's name appeared on the screen.
When it lit up again, I took it as a sign to take a break. I set my brush down and put in the passcode for my phone, quickly deleting the voicemails Marcus had left—there was no point in listening to them. But then I saw I had missed a call from a different number I didn't recognize and they had left a message. It was probably just spam, but something compelled me to click on the voicemail and listen to it.
"Miss Ellis. This is Clark Rivas from Celebrity Times. We understand you had quite an eventful day last weekend and we'd like to have a sit down to talk about it. We would make it worth your while..." I was about to delete the message when I registered the figure the man had offered and my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. I should've deleted the message, but something held me back. If it were anybody else, I’m sure they would jump at the chance to make $100,000 for an hour of theirtime, but there was no way I could do something like that. I detested being in the public eye, and this would put me out there front and center, spilling my secrets. No, I wanted to move on.
I set the phone down and glanced at my painting, letting out a gasp. I'd been so engrossed in the moment as I was creating that I hadn't registered what I’d painted on the canvas.
While I'd managed to capture the beautiful waves, I decided I would probably never get them just right. I did a decent job of getting the afternoon sun to hang just right in my canvas sky, but smack in the middle of that canvas was Cooper on his board, looking pensive. His face was turned away, but his muscles were sweaty and gleaming in the afternoon light.
"Well, I'll be damned," I murmured to myself.
I’d subconsciously painted the one person I was trying to avoid, but at the same time, it felt great to paint again. That paintbrush in my fingers, the smell of the paint, and the afternoon breeze caressing my bare shoulders made for the most relaxing and enchanted afternoon I’d had in a very long time.
I felt more a part of the island and less a part of the mess I’d left behind in California, and I wanted to keep feeling that way. So I picked up my phone one last time and fired off a text to Tess.
Me: Hey, I'm going to shut down this phone for a while. It's driving me nuts, but I'm okay. Call the landline if you want to talk.
Tess was quick to respond with a thumbs-up emoji and a "talk later, promise."
Later, when I spoke with Tess, she was concerned until I explained, "If I'm going to truly get away from the mess at home, then I need to cut off communication. It's time to focus on what's right in front of me and figure out where I go from here... not what I should've done or what I others want me to do in the future. I'm really sick of that word, should."
