Page 29 of Starry Tides
Still, she had no friends. But Helena was too distracted by the windfall of her beautiful new life to notice she was lonely.
It wasn’t till her phone rang midafternoon on August 15ththat everything crashed around her. The caller ID read: Elliott. And although she knew better than to answer it, although she knew he could bring her nothing but pain and sorrow, she could do nothing but pick it up.
“Helena, hey.” Elliott’s voice yanked Helena back through time.
She sat down at the stool she kept near her easel, twirling her paintbrush. “Hey there.” She hoped she sounded light and easy.
“How are you?” Elliott asked.
“I’m good, actually.” Helena was surprised to feel how true that was.
“That’s wonderful to hear. Actually, I’m reaching out because. Well, it’s a funny thing.” He laughed. “Meg’s on social media all the time. She’s obsessive about it. And she showed me some artwork? Something that maybe you did? We visited your site and checked out your other content. It’s really pretty good, Helena. I mean, you’re onto something there.”
Helena felt crushed between two worlds: annoyance and joy that he’d noticed, that he’d been impressed. She hated that she still felt that way when it came to him. It was a hard habit to break.
“It’s been a crazy time,” Helena said finally, her voice sweeter than she wanted it to be. “I just started posting online, trying to find more followers, and it all sprang from there.”
“The modern world,” Elliott said.
“Yes.” Helena blinked toward the ocean.
“From the looks of things online, you’ve moved?” Elliott offered.
Helena considered Elliott’s renewed interest in her life after so many years of silence strange. She’d literally beenin Orangeburg, a ten-minute drive from anything, including Elliott, and he hadn’t bothered to check in. He hadn’t even sent flowers when her parents died.
“I’m up north, yeah,” she said, although she remembered that she’d mentioned Nantucket numerous times in her posts. If he wanted to, he could probably find her. A shiver went down her spine.
“It’s beautiful,” Elliott said. “I’m pretty jealous. I mean, you got out of Orangeburg.”
“I did.” Helena was feeling uneasy. She got to her feet and entered the house, where she sat in the shadows and waited for Elliott to get to the point. “What’s this about, Elliott?”
Elliott laughed. “Well, I mean. I wanted to know how you are, I guess. I didn’t like thinking that you ran out of Orangeburg—your home—because I told you about the baby.”
Helena rolled her eyes into the back of her head. “I’ve always wanted to leave. You know that.”
“I do!” He said. “I do. But the thing is.” And here, he seemed to build intensity, pausing for emotional weight. “You remember all those years we were married? You weren’t bringing in very much money. You remember, I guess. I mean, I set you up with a few art clients. A few dealers. But it was always my money. Remember? My money paying our bills. And now, it’s all you. Ten thousand dollars for a single painting. I saw that’s what one of them on your sight costs. And how many hours do you spend on a painting like that? Six? Eight?”
Helena’s palms were sweaty. Her gut twisted, telling her to hang up on him.
But another, sick part of her was curious. Where was he taking this conversation?
“It’s been remarkable how much people like them,” Helena said. “From what I read, I could ask for a whole lot more.”
“The thing is, I was let go from my job earlier this summer,” Elliott continued. “It came as a total shock, especially given all that I’ve done for them. You remember how much I worked.”
Helena searched herself for any pity for Elliott and found none. Zilch.
She also understood he was reaching out because he wanted something from her. He thought, for some insane reason, that she would be willing to give him anything of what she’d earned. She felt sick with this fact, sick with the idea that he still thought he could manipulate her so long after he’d cheated on her and left her for one of their friends.
“I think I’d better be going,” Helena said. “It was nice talking with you.”
“Wait, Helena,” Elliott snarled, his tone entirely different now. “You know you owe me. You know I gave everything to you while we were together. You’d be nothing without me.”
But before he could finish his diatribe, Helena hung up on him and blocked his number. Her hands were shaking. She let out a cry and threw her phone across the living room.
A few hours later,Helena was out walking. It had been a long time since she’d left the house for this long, a long time since she’d let herself go and go without any destination in mind. She’d felt out of her mind with grief and anger, and she’d packed a little bag of water and snacks and her phone and stepped out onto the beach.
Now, sweat ran in snakes down her back and steamed her neck. She stopped on a beach she didn’t recognize to drink the rest of her water and put her feet in the ocean. When she looked at her phone, she realized that she’d already walked more thantwo miles from her house. It felt surreal and stupid. But she’d been so angry with Elliott, so enraged at the nerve of that guy.
