When thirty-two-year-old woodworker and designer Jacqueline Callaghan arrives in the small village of Sycamore on a windswept island, she has just sold her apartment in the city, lost her job, left her boyfriend, and buried her grandmother. She’s ready to begin a new life in her grandmother’s old cottage in this picturesque village of lush gardens and wild waterfront. Jackie opens her own studio and gallery and finds that life is perfect — except for the bills. In a desperate attempt to save the life she now loves, Jackie organizes a studio tour, rallying together the island’s many artists and crafts people, in hopes of bringing more visitors to the island. The idea is popular, but Jackie is almost defeated. How to persuade these fiercely independent artists to work together without disrupting the delicate balance of their daily lives? The whole village falls into chaos as artistic personalities clash and long-hidden skeletons come out of the closet. Secret trysts, nude portraits, love and inconsolable broken hearts, mistaken death, and resurrection slowly unravel Jackie’s carefully crafted tour plans.

Village of Sycamore

A NovelBy Maria Rihte

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Maria Rihte
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-9546-4

Contents

1 Coming Home...................................12 Bankers and Bills.............................153 The Birth of an Idea..........................324 Herding Cats..................................425 Tea, Ice and Muffins..........................596 The Meeting...................................767 You Can't Go Home.............................998 Sponsors......................................1079 Something Brewing.............................12610 One Dark Night...............................13411 Signs and Signs..............................14712 Recovery and Restoration.....................16513 Lazarus......................................17414 Oil and Water................................19015 The City.....................................21016 Brochure!....................................23917 In The News..................................26118 Hot Thomas...................................27819 Signs of Things to Come......................29320 Show Time....................................30521 Hot Thomas, Again............................31922 Hot Sales....................................33223 Closing Time.................................34524 Tour, Day Two................................35825 Done.........................................37326 Rose Calls It................................381

Chapter One

Coming Home

We are all forced to go through a doubtful period or two in our lives, when we try anxiously to find an answer to our own uncertainties; what if I would have, what if I had or maybe had not, should have, ought to, and all those other self analyzing questions that haunt our existence like ghosts that hover above our sad bent heads. These often repeated questions don't help at all, but they make the extra drink or the extra piece of chocolate seem so right for the occasion.

Those were the exact feelings of Jacqueline Callaghan when she stepped into her late grandmother's cottage on a cold windswept, sparsely populated island. Doubtful, miserable, guilty, uncertain but, perhaps, slightly optimistic in a very tentative, reserved kind of way.

'I'm trying to like my mother, but I'm failing miserably,' thought Jackie as she dropped her bag onto the dusty floor. It fell heavily, bending the old, creaky floorboards. A dense cloud of dust rose into the air and it made Jackie sneeze. She waved her hands in front of her, trying to clear the air.

'I can hear her voice right now,' she thought anxiously. "'Why would you go back to that tiny house which I left as a young girl for a better life in the city?'" Her mother's sharp voice echoed in her mind as she coughed out the last stubborn particles of old dirt.

'Well beats me,' Jackie said to herself, more cheerfully than she felt. She wiped off the gritty dust, which covered her face and draped her eyelashes, while trying to shake off the guilty feeling and her mother's words clinging to her skin like the dust-unwanted but nevertheless present.

It took awhile for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. She stood in the ray of light coming in from the wide open front door, listening to the chirping birds in the garden and watching the specks of dust dance in the bright midday light. The shapes of the furniture slowly took form. It was an old house, an old room, filled with old furniture. The house smelled of must and forgotten ground coffee beans.

Jackie could see a yellowing lace cloth on the three-legged table; in the middle sat a vase of plastic flowers. The chairs still had the fabric arm covers and the sofa had a set of crocheted pillows placed neatly against the armrests. It all looked so familiar, bringing back memories from long gone summers when the most important thing on her mind had been to get to the table on time for lunch, and then run out again as soon possible without seeming to be completely without manners. She could almost feel the sun, the soaking wet bathing suit and the itching mosquito bites on her legs. The memory made her scratch her calves. She hated the mosquitoes with a passion. Her friend Jill called them the last living remnants of the vampire empire.

Jackie began walking toward the kitchen, fighting back the increasing sense of panic. She remembered her mother's sharp voice, engaged in normal conversation with the neighbour, penetrating the walls and travelling upstairs to the room where Jackie sat by her school desk.

'That girl has a mind of her own. What can I do?' Her mother would say without waiting for the polite dismissive response from the confused neighbour. 'When she has something on her mind, she'll fight for it. She never thinks of anybody else except herself.'

Jackie shrugged her shoulders. The guilt left her for a moment, soon replaced by a slight resentment. She opened the door to the kitchen. The hinges cried with a deep shriek and orange rust flakes rubbed off onto the floor of the narrow hallway. Bright light flooded the room from the big windows that looked onto the garden. The uneven wooden floor groaned as Jackie walked into the middle of the kitchen. It looked just like it had every summer of her life when she had visited her grandmother during her holidays. Jackie felt grief take hold of her as her eyes wandered around, taking in all those objects from her childhood: the tea kettle, dented pots and pans and the Formica table with a wobbly leg that had been evened out with a folded piece of cardboard stuck under it, waiting to be fixed someday when there would be more time. She opened the cupboard; there were all the lovely teacups in blue landscape pattern with sheep and girls in beautiful dresses. She had always loved the one with a girl swinging, the hem of her skirt flying high. She remembered trying to create the same romantic atmosphere by dressing up in her grandmother's old underskirts and how the pub owner's son had laughed when he had seen her patterned underwear peaking through the layers of elegant lace. They ended up in a big fight-a far cry from romantic.

She started looking for that one particular cup when she heard the front door open.

'Hello!' A strong woman's voice called. 'Anybody home?' The voice continued while its owner and her heavy footsteps approached the kitchen. Where else could a person be if there was nobody in the garden, and the car was parked in front of the house? It was part of the island's customs: one light knock on the open front door was enough to let yourself in. No separate invitation needed. The footsteps seemed to follow an old familiar pattern.

'Over here in the kitchen,' Jackie answered tentatively, her words echoing in the room. She stood facing the door and waited for the owner of the voice to enter.

A big, robust, cheerful woman walked, or rather stomped, into the kitchen. Her hugeness was not created by her being overweight; she simply was a very, very big person. She had a lovely broad face and the presence of a man. Her hands were large and adorned with many gold rings that seemed to be several sizes too small. Her voice was loud and warm and without effort filled the air. It was the kind of voice you hear in 1940s films when there is a scene in a school room. The busty headmistress stomps into the classroom wearing a dress with the buttons on the front stretched to their utmost limit and the happy voices of the children die down, and yes, you could hear a pin drop.

Right now it was so quiet that you could truly have heard a pin drop as Jackie stared curiously at her first visitor and waited for her to say something.

'Let me look at you,' the woman cried enthusiastically, surprising Jackie with her familiarity. 'We had been wondering when you would be coming back, because as you know, once an islander, always an islander.' The woman continued speaking with a loud voice and suddenly grabbed Jackie by her shoulders to have a better look.

'Oh?' Jackie mumbled, unable to move in the firm grip of those hands.

'Yes, yes ... nothing stays private here, darling.' The woman moved a bit closer to Jackie and stared seriously into her eyes. 'And I mean nothing.' She leaned back again and then added, 'A good thing to keep in mind.' She gave a knowing look, pursing her lips and raising her bushy eyebrows.

Jackie stared; what should she say? She was about to mumble something in the line of-'oh, thank you'-when the woman exclaimed loudly: 'So you have come back then.' She clasped her hands together tightly and began walking around the kitchen. Her weight made the old floor creak sadly with each step she took.

'You got tired of that bustling city life and wanted peace of mind and a more economical place to live.' The woman stated and winked, looking over her gold rimmed glasses.

'I guess,' Jackie said tentatively and stared at the strange woman in her kitchen.

'Yes that's what we all came here for.' The woman continued: 'All of a sudden the whole island filled up with people who wanted to stretch a penny a bit further.'

Jackie's eyes were glued to this woman who was opening and closing her grandmother's cupboard doors looking for something.

'Have we met?' Jackie finally had to ask, because, as much as she tried, she could not remember meeting this woman before.

'No, not really, but I have heard a great deal about you and your mother,' answered the woman, as she took two teacups from the cupboard while exclaiming cheerfully, 'There you are!' She walked to the sink and turned on the taps. The water gurgled in the pipes before shooting forcefully out of the faucet. The woman let the water run for awhile, till the colour of it was not so horrifyingly rusty. 'Tea?' She asked as she rolled up her sleeves and revealed two thick forearms.

'Uh ... tea ... yes, why not,' Jackie mumbled absentmindedly. 'My mother?' She fixed her eyes on the woman. 'You knew her then?' A surprised disbelief showed in her voice.

'No, goodness no.' She laughed loudly. 'I'm a newcomer here. I have lived in this village only for ten years now, but I have heard many stories about her.' The woman chatted cheerfully while she washed the cups in the sink, splashing the water generously over the sink and onto the counter.

'Stories ...?' Jackie stared at her. She knew no stories of her mother whatsoever. Her mother had done nothing in her whole entire life that could be called a story. As far as Jackie knew, her mother was the epitome of correctness and had no connections to stories, gossip or fantasy. Her mother believed in accuracy, facts and a certain place in the much valued social hierarchy.

'Oh, yes.' The woman sighed loudly. 'Your mother was the wild one, if there is any truth to the stories I have heard in the pub. Very wild indeed. Your grandmother apparently went grey overnight when your mother crashed the car into the tree just outside the gate over there.' She nodded quickly toward the dust streaked window.

Jackie stretched her neck to look out the kitchen window. A big old oak tree stood there by the fence stretching its majestic branches over the little cottage. Jackie stared at the tree for a long time trying to digest what she had just heard. It was as if her whole life had been turned upside down. Her mother a wild girl? It just didn't sound right. It didn't sound like her mother at all.

'Now really, you can't be serious,' she finally uttered in profound shock. 'My mother a wild girl? You must be joking. She considered a skirt without pleats vulgar.'

The woman let out a deep, rippling laugh. 'You Callaghan girls always had a strange sense of humour, but pleated skirts, now that's funny.' The woman filled up the kettle and began the search for teabags. 'Now where an earth did she keep her teabags?' The strange woman opened the doors of almost all the cupboards until finally she cried out. 'Ah, found them.' She straightened up slowly, leaning with her big hands on her knees and cursed her weak back. 'What would you like? Earl Grey. Though you probably have no milk in the house ... let me see ... or strawberry, chamomile ... good for your nerves, by the way ... or ... green tea?' She looked at Jackie. 'What would it be?'

'I think I need something stronger than tea,' Jackie mumbled scratching her head and darting her eyes between the strange woman in her kitchen and the big oak tree outside. 'But considering I just sold my apartment in the city, left my boyfriend, lost my job, had my thirty-second birthday, and buried my grandmother, I probably should go for chamomile.'

* * *

The next morning, when Jackie woke up she could not immediately remember where she was. She had slept peacefully in the guest bedroom, papered a long time ago with floral wallpaper. Thousands of tiny blue and pink flowers danced on the walls and on the ceiling. The air had a hint of old lavender with musty undertones, and the thick quilted floral blanket was heavy and slightly damp. She had forgotten how wet the island air was. She sat up in her bed stretching her hands over her head and letting her eyes slowly wander around the room. The cool morning air was fresh, and she could hear the seagulls in the far distance.

'Not bad,' she said to herself. 'Could be worse, much worse in fact.' She fell back onto the bed and stared at the slightly slanted flowered ceiling, slowly collecting her sleepy thoughts.

Her grandmother's house was in a quiet corner in a small village just off the busy main street. She could not hear the waves of the sea, but she smelled the salt in the air. She still remembered the shortcut to the beach through the neighbour's yard and she wondered if the mean dog was still alive. Probably not. Last time she had been to the cottage was many years ago as a teenager. After that her grandmother had bought an apartment on the mainland because island life in the winter had been too hard for her old bones. After a bridge had been built to replace the old ferry, it had become easier to visit the cottage even during the winter, but by then her grandmother was too ill and only went to the cottage for a few weeks in July.

Jackie could hear a neighbour trying to start a lawnmower. On the third try the machine did spring to life and the neighbour began noisily cutting the grass. 'It was a comforting sound in a strange way,' Jackie thought, just as the smell of cut grass drifted into the room through the slightly open window.

She had missed the island, she realized now. She had missed it without even knowing. Her grandmother had left the cottage to Jackie in her will, much to Jackie's mother's dismay. Her mother had wanted to sell the 'nasty piece of useless mould,' but Jackie had decided by then to move into the cottage and start her own business. What was there for her to lose? She had nothing to hold onto in the city. She had no job since the design company she had worked for had gone bankrupt. Her boyfriend was not much of a boyfriend, and she had inherited a beautiful cottage on an island which was becoming a very trendy summer tourist area with its vast sandy beaches and gentle rolling hills. 'Why not? Why not leave it all behind and start a new life?' She had asked her astonished and utterly shocked mother, who for once, was left without an answer.

Jackie smiled sleepily in her bed and turned around to look at the clock on the nightstand. It was early yet. The lace curtains were moving in the breeze and the lawnmower was coughing its way through the weeds on the neighbour's yard.

Her grandmother had always said that her heart belonged to the island, no matter how long she had been away on the mainland. She had also said, looking at Jackie with her kind green eyes, that Jackie was an islander as well, though she might not have realized it yet. Jackie remembered most fondly the many conversations they had over a cup of tea. Jackie's grandmother had always asked her about her life, the ups and downs and about the nice level ground. It had been a well-known fact that Jackie's mother was more interested in the ups of Jackie's life, things that would be easy to talk about in cafes while drinking a frothy latte macchiato. So Jackie bared her soul to her grandmother. From her mother, for practical reasons, she withheld everything.

She lay in the bed with the pink and blue flowers around her for a while longer before going downstairs to make a cup of coffee and begin her new islander's life. There was no food in the house, but she thought she would walk to the local store later on. In the cupboard she found a jar of hardened sugar and was able to scrape some off with the side of a spoon to sweeten her coffee.

She walked into the garden and sat down on a bench by the flowerbeds. The garden had grown wild during the absence of her grandmother. The flowers bloomed together with the weeds and hardy vines. The rosebush resembled a knobby tree and the lamb's ear had grown roots everywhere in the garden.

As a child Jackie had helped her grandmother weed the flowerbeds, and together they had planted a summer vegetable garden. She had loved those two months that she spent with her grandmother. She had taught Jackie how to paint, first with watercolours, and then later on with oils. They used to sit together on the old bench under a tree in the garden and paint flowers.

It was purely through her grandmother's influence and financial help that Jackie had gone to art school. The fact that her choice had made her mother furious had proved to the two of them that their choice was the right one.

'Betsy dear, Jackie is very talented,' her grandmother had said to Jackie's mother, who had snapped back icily, 'My name is Belinda, mother, not Betsy. B-e-l-i-n-d-a.' She had spelled slowly, while licking her lips angrily.

The cold mossy ground under Jackie's bare feet brought her back to the present. Unexpectedly she heard the gate open. The old hinges cried loudly making the neighbour's dog bark. A small older woman walked briskly in carrying a basket in the crook of her arm. She noticed Jackie in the garden and hollered cheerfully, 'Good morning. Wonderful day isn't it?'

'Yes it is,' Jackie answered, and then suddenly became aware of her clothes. 'I really have to buy a decent pair of pyjamas, or at least a robe,' she mumbled as she pulled the hem of her shrunken T-shirt down as much as she could. Holding onto her shirt she walked to the woman who was waiting for her on the front steps of the house.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Village of Sycamoreby Maria Rihte Copyright © 2009 by Maria Rihte. Excerpted by permission.
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