Page 41 of The Magic of Sea Glass
“Okay, we’ll do something simple in white with pale blue accents. I’ll get working on that first.” She picked up her coffee and took a long sip, needing the caffeine, right as Brody walked in. “Oh, perfect. You’re just the person I want to see.”
“That’s what they all say,” Brody teased. He winked at her.
Lauren tried to stifle the flutter of happiness at his light response and turned back to Stephanie. “Why don’t we plan to get together again in a day or so to go over the samples for all the preliminaries? Then, once that’s done, we can get into placement and production.” She closed her laptop. “I have enough to get started and Brody’s here because I’m planning some upgrades to the inn that I’d like to get done before the wedding.”
“Oh, that sounds great.” Stephanie rose from her seat and picked up her sunglasses. “I’ve got to run anyway so I can get to my dance lesson with Mitchell. I hope I can keep up since I’m still recovering from last night.” She gave Brody a playful slap on the bicep.
“Glad to see you’re up and about,” Brody said to her, amusement in his tone.
“No thanks to you, bringing out all the wine when you know it’s my favorite.” Stephanie gave him a teasing squint before slipping her sunglasses back on. She turned to Lauren. “Keep your thumb on this one. Don’t let him out of your sight.” She waved goodbye and headed down the hallway, leaving Lauren and Brody in the dining room.
“So, what upgrades did you want to talk to me about?” he asked.
“I need your connections around town. I’m on a budget and in a race for time, and I want to get some work done here at the inn.” Lauren gestured to the chair where Stephanie had been. “Have a seat and I’ll tell you all about it.”
He lowered himself into the chair and took off his baseball cap, turning it around backward and then putting it back on. Lauren noticed the way the sun had etched faint lines at the edges of his eyes. With the gold scruff on his face and the slight tan on his skin, he was undeniably handsome. She wondered what it would be like to put her hands on his face and drink in his stare. Suddenly aware of her shallow breathing, she cleared her throat and turned back to her computer, guilt over the moment flooding her. What would Mason think if he could hear her thoughts? A plume of emotion swelled inside her, and she felt lightheaded.
“Oh, I forgot to give you this.” Brody reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Sliding his fist across the table, he dropped the object between the two of them: a piece of yellow sea glass. “I found it in the bucket on my counter after I got back home last night. I thought you might like it.”
Lauren took it and held the bright piece between her fingers. “Thank you,” she managed.
“I saw it right away, when I was on the beach about a year or so ago, because yellow isn’t a common color.”
Lauren had done enough springtime weddings to know that the color yellow represented happiness.Find your own peace and be happy. Brody’s words from the other night floated through her mind like a gentle summer breeze, giving her a shiver. She wasn’t ready. She still didn’t know how to be happy while mourning Mason. Moving forward would mean she was leaving Mason behind, and he didn’t deserve that. She promised him she would spend her whole life with him and, while they hadn’t said their vows, she’d already said “yes.”
“It’s funny how Mary thinks sea glass is good luck,” she said, still fixated on the small piece in her hand. “I don’t think I believe it. It’s just a piece of glass.”
Brody leaned on the table with his forearms and clasped his hands. “When I was a kid, I found a handful of four-leaf clovers one day. I ran straight home to show everyone. My father was the first to greet me. He put me on his lap and told me, ‘There’s really no such thing as good luck. You make your own luck.’”
“Do you think he was right?”
Brody nodded. “Yep.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I can’t imagine that there’s some big plan to our lives. It seems like things happen as a result of our choices.”
“I agree.” She couldn’t imagine any sort of plan that would involve subjecting her to what she’d been through. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find purpose in the tragedy. There just wasn’t any. But just in case she was wrong and there was something somewhere that could give her some luck, she set the piece of sea glass next to her computer for safekeeping.
ELEVEN
Winter, 1959
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
“What’s all this?” Joseph asked Penelope after his shift at the docks, when he came into the small room in the little rented shack that he’d found for the two of them after they’d gotten married. It was a couple blocks from the beach, drafty and cold, and the ceiling leaked, but it was theirs.
Penelope sat in the center of the floor, surrounded by shells and pieces of sea glass. “I’m making jewelry,” she said. “I haven’t made any in a couple years and I thought I should get back to it.” She remembered the last time she made bracelets with her mother—that summer seemed so long ago now, although her love for Phillip hadn’t faded one bit. For the first few months, she grieved for the loss of their love and wondered why she’d been put in that position—falling head over heels for the man of her dreams, only to have it ripped away from her. She wondered where the bracelet was that she’d given Phillip. Certainly, he’d discarded it.
Joseph sat down beside her and picked up a piece of blue sea glass, turning it over in his palm. “You put a little hole in it.”
“Yes, so I can thread the fishing line through it.”
He set it back down with the other blue pieces she’d sorted by color. “You make them with fishing line?”
“I think it’s the most appropriate way to fasten the pieces together, since fishing line is such a heavily used item here in the islands of the Outer Banks.”
“True.” His gaze followed her hands as she strung together a grouping of clear sea glass pieces. “How do you make one of these from scratch?”
She placed the string aside and picked up a piece of glass, dropping it in a basin of water on the floor next to her. “I have to put some turpentine on the end of the file to get it started,” she said, unscrewing the cap of the bottle, the pungent smell filling the room. She dipped her file into it. “Then I turn the file in circles, pressing against the glass like this.” She began twisting the file until she’d created a little hole in the stone. When she’d finally made some progress, she plucked it from the water and held it between her fingers to let Joseph view it.
He leaned back on his hands. “I’ve seen your collections of shells, but I didn’t know you were planning to make these.”
