Page 44 of Camino Ghosts

One advantage to teaching creative writing was the avoidance of final exams. If Mercer so chose, and she always did, she could require one last short story of, say, 3,000 words to be turned in before December 1. After then, she had little to do but read the damned things and give grades. On December 2, she and Thomas left Oxford for a month’s holiday at the beach. She was still determined to paint the cottage and save the $20,000, but her husband seemed to be hedging.

Thomas really couldn’t see himself on a ladder, on the wrong end of a paintbrush, in the sun, for a month. He’d had little experience with contract labor, if that’s what it was called, and had been scheming of ways to avoid the work. He had yet to find the Russian submarine, but there were some records at the Naval Institute in Annapolis that might need to be reviewed. His article had gotten off to a slow start and things had not picked up.

Thankfully, the rains set in as soon as they arrived on Camino Island, and painting was out of the question. The cottage had not been decorated for Christmas in many years, and Mercer insisted they put up a tree, a few lights, and some garlands. They hosted Myra, Leigh, Bruce, and Noelle for a long dinner party, and two nights later went to one at the fine home of Amy Slater. They visited the bookstore every day and drank lattes as they read Mercer’s final batch of stories from her students.

When the skies cleared, she announced it was time to start painting the cottage. She dragged Thomas to the hardware store and spent two hours choosing the right color. “Why not just keep it white?” he asked more than once, and when he finally got the hard frown he shut up and found some rat traps to study. She eventually settled on “chalk blue,” which, in his opinion, looked very white, but he let it pass. She bought six gallons from stock and ordered six more. The salesman said two coats would be needed because of the salt air, and Thomas wondered how often he had used that line to sell more paint. But again, he bit his tongue and began hauling supplies to the car: paint, brushes, rollers, roller pans, extension poles, sandpaper, a sander, caulk, caulking gun, scrapers, drop cloths, and two stepladders. He had never used such tools and materials and doubted his wife had either.

The bill for their first load was almost $3,000, and Thomas asked himself, again, if it was really cheaper to do it themselves.

The following morning they woke early to clear skies and temps in the fifties. Perfect for painting, according to Mercer, who finally admitted that her only experience with a brush was touching up a crappy apartment she once had in Chapel Hill. Now, though, she had somehow become an expert. She decided they would start on the front side facing the street and away from the morning sun. Thomas just grunted and began fetching supplies.

8.

The island was decorated for Christmas and the cooler temperatures helped the holiday spirit. When the weatherman in Jacksonville predicted a slight chance of flurries in two days, the entire island went wild and braced for a blizzard. Grocery stores were packed with frantic people afraid they might miss a meal. A retired couple from Minnesota unpacked their old snowblower, called a reporter from The Register, and got themselves on the front page.

Bay Books hosted an afternoon party each Christmas Eve, with plenty of drinks and food for all ages. Santa was there taking requests, posing for photos, and worrying about hustling off to get ready for his big night. The kids were giddy as they grabbed one book after another for their mothers to buy. Bruce, Noelle, and the staff wore festive sweaters and elf caps and worked the crowd. With snow on the way and the first white Christmas in history virtually guaranteed, the customers were bundled in layers suitable for skiing in Vermont.

Were they really in Florida?

The highlight was a 4:00 p.m. reading upstairs in the café where the autographing parties took place. Bruce shoved all the tables to the walls and packed in two hundred chairs. Three local writers and two high school students read original holiday stories.

Mercer, the best known of the bunch and the crowd’s favorite, read a story she had been writing for many years. It was called “Almost a White Christmas,” and she promised it was true. In the story, she spent each summer on the island with her beloved grandmother, Tessa, who lived there year-round, and alone, except when Mercer was visiting. For various reasons, her childhood was not always pleasant, and when she was in school she dreamed of the next summer with Tessa. Without a doubt her happiest moments as a kid were on the beach with her grandmother. One Christmas, her mother was ill and hospitalized and the house was quite gloomy. Mercer and her sister prevailed upon their father to drive them to Camino Island for the holidays. Tessa welcomed them warmly and they immediately began decorating a tree and going through the usual rituals. Two days before Christmas, the weather turned cold and windy, and, suddenly, there was a chance of snow, something Tessa, a longtime resident, had never experienced on the island.

“Just like now,” Mercer said, teasing her audience. Now in Santa Rosa it was forty-five degrees and windy, with the chance of snow fading quickly, but no one believed it.

Back to her story. On Christmas Eve, Tessa took the girls to church for the early evening service. When they came out, they looked to the dark sky and saw no snow. At bedtime, they read stories, opened gifts, and even put out cookies and milk for Santa. Early Christmas morning, they peeked out the window, praying for a blanket of snow, but saw none.

Over pancakes and sausage, Tessa said that, according to the old-timers on the island, a measurable snowfall happened about once every fifty years, and there had never been a white Christmas. The girls were disappointed, but they lived in Memphis and were accustomed to mild winters. After breakfast, they bundled up and followed Tessa down the boardwalk to the beach. She had to check on turtle eggs. When they arrived, they saw something unusual. The ocean was at high tide with strong winds pushing the waves onto the beach. Long ridges of thick, white foam from the surf covered the sand and blew into the first row of dunes. The wind whipped the foam into small clouds and swirls as it covered the beach. The girls squealed as they kicked the foam and tried in vain to grab it. As far as they could see in both directions, the beach was covered with foam.

Tessa stopped, spread her arms, and said, “Look, girls, it’s almost a white Christmas after all.”

The turtle eggs would have to wait. They hustled back to the cottage where Tessa got her camera.

Thomas handed Mercer an enlarged black and white photo of her and her sister knee-deep in what appeared to be snow. She showed it to the audience and said, “Christmas Day 1997. Believe it or not, that’s our beach just down the road.”

The audience admired the photo and passed it around. Bruce cracked, “How long did the snow last?”

“About two hours,” Mercer said and everyone laughed.

She said, “Now, I have proof that there was a big snowstorm here many years ago. In fact, a young girl who lived in this area back then is still with us and she told me the snow was almost up to her knees.”

She paused and looked around. It was obvious no one believed her. She motioned for Lovely to leave her seat in the front row and join her at the front. Mercer said, “Folks, this is Lovely Jackson, who lives in The Docks. Some of you know her because she published a book about her life ten years ago. She has a story for you.”

Lovely smiled and looked around calmly as if she appeared onstage every night. “Thank you, Mercer, for inviting me, and thank you, Bruce Cable, for hosting this fine party.” She spoke slowly, eloquently, with every syllable getting its due. She looked from face to face, carefully making eye contact with everyone. She smiled at Diane, seated in the third row.

“I was born on Dark Isle in 1940, so that means I’m eighty years old, probably the oldest person in the room. When I was about five, a big storm blew over the island. It was wintertime and, as you know, it occasionally gets cold here. We didn’t have radios, never heard of televisions in 1945. There was no electricity on my island. So, we had never heard of a weather forecast, we simply didn’t worry about the weather. We just took things as they came. Late one afternoon, it was really cold, and it started snowing. My parents, who were about thirty years old, had never seen snow. We were all excited, same way we are now, just waiting for it to start, but this snow was serious. It got heavier and heavier, the snowflakes bigger and bigger. Soon the ground was covered and it began to pile up. We were very poor and never wore shoes, so we had no choice but to go inside where our parents and grandparents were tending the fireplace and making dinner. My grandfather was named Odell Jackson, and he told us the story of his first and only snow. It happened when he was about fifteen years old, so somewhere around 1890. It snowed just enough to cover the ground, and the next morning the sun was out. The snow melted fast. He didn’t like snow, none of my people did, because they were descendants of African slaves and there is no snow over there.”

The crowd sat silent and absorbed every word. Mercer was amazed at Lovely’s presence and poise. It was doubtful she had ever spoken to such a large audience, yet she was at ease, unruffled, and completely unintimidated.

She continued, “The next morning when we got up and looked out the window we were amazed at the snow. It had stopped falling and the sky was clear, but everything was covered in a beautiful white layer, like a big thick cloud had settled on the island. We stepped outside. It was still very cold. As I said, I was a little girl, only five years old, so the snow was almost up to my knees. It was probably the biggest snow ever around here.”

She smiled at Mercer, nodded to the audience, and said, “Thank you for listening to my story. And thank you for inviting me here. May you have a Merry Christmas.”

An eager ten-year-old boy raised his hand and Lovely smiled at him. “Did Santa Claus come that year?” he asked.

Lovely chuckled and flashed a broad smile. “Well, we didn’t have a Santa Claus over there on Dark Isle. Though it’s not too far from here, it was a different world. It was settled by former slaves, most of them from the plantations of Georgia. They had learned the English language and some of them were Christians, so we had a little Christmas ceremony each year in our chapel. But, as I said, we were very poor and didn’t give gifts and things like that.”

The children looked at each other in disbelief. Mercer stepped forward and said, “If you want to know the rest of Lovely’s story, I suggest you read her book. It’s a fascinating history of her life on her island.”

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