The Night Mark(70)

Dolly shook her head again. “Chief won’t like it.”

Faye wrote on the board, “Chief says it’s fine as long as I change when we have company.”

That was a lie but a plausible one. Carrick seemed the sort who would merely roll his eyes at the sight of her weeding the garden and beating rugs out in trousers.

“Is this a Northern fashion?” Dolly asked, and Faye remembered that she was supposed to be from Boston or thereabouts.

“Yes,” Faye lied. “The newest style.”

“You been there?” Dolly asked.

Faye wrote, “New York.”

Dolly looked mightily impressed.

“I want to go,” Dolly wrote back. “More than anything.”

Faye wrote, “It’s a cool town” then quickly erased the word cool and replaced it with wonderful. She wasn’t sure if cool meant cool yet or still only referred to temperature.

“If they’re doing it in New York City, then I guess I can make you some.”

“I promise,” Faye wrote, “pants for women is the style of the future.”

Faye pledged on her honor that Dolly would not get into any trouble with the Chief for sewing her two pairs of work pants. She also offered to do all Dolly’s chores for a week as payment. Dolly wasn’t persuaded.

“I do my own work,” she wrote. “But you let me do your room any way I like.”

That was all? Dolly wanted to redecorate Faye’s room?

“Any way you like,” Faye wrote back. “I’ll help. You give the orders and I’ll follow them.”

The deal was done, and they shook hands on it. Dolly read Faye’s promise, nodded her head and pulled her measuring tape out of her skirt pocket. When Dolly measured her waist, she gave Faye a look.

“What?” Faye wrote on the slate.

“You gained an inch. Eat less.”

“Not my fault you’re such a good cook,” Faye wrote. Dolly only smiled and got back to work.

Five minutes later Dolly was tracing a pattern onto brown paper, and fifteen minutes after that Faye heard the sewing machine running, Dolly’s foot working the treadle with gusto. Dolly warned Faye the only suitable material she had now was a sturdy oatmeal-colored linen she’d used to make her father some work shirts. It wasn’t the most fashionable fabric in the world, but Faye didn’t care about fashion. She just wanted to work without having heat stroke.

While Dolly sewed, Faye cleaned. Dolly warned her the lighthouse inspector could show up without any notice and so they should always be ready for an inspection. The house must be as shipshape as the light itself. Also, it was a rule that the lighthouse keeper’s family must always show hospitality to any visitors who stopped by. If anyone, from a prince to a pauper, wanted to tour the light, well, they toured the light and had a picnic lunch after. So Faye dusted the furniture, polished the brass, took sheets and towels off the clothesline and folded them with geometric precision.

Thanks to all the cleaning, Faye now knew every inch of the house as if it were her own. If Carrick needed a pencil, Faye could tell him there were half a dozen black #2 Ticonderogas in the junk drawer. If Dolly wanted her to fetch the wooden clothespins, they were in a coffee can in the pantry. If Faye had a craving for chocolate some night, she knew where to find the cocoa and the milk, the saucepan and the mugs. She’d simply have to learn to live without marshmallows. For a free beach house, she’d made that sacrifice. Faye admired the tidiness of the little house. Everything had its place, and every place had its thing. The more hours that passed, the more time she spent working and the more nights she spent with Carrick up in the lighthouse, the more Faye would have her place here, too. She’d fit right in like a book on the shelf, like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, third shelf down, two books to the right. Faye went straight to the back of the book. Carrick was right. Oz wasn’t a dream at all in the book. Oz was real. As real as Bride Island.

And apparently the Emerald City was getting a paint job. Faye slid the book back onto the shelf as Dolly walked through the living room and up the stairs with a paint can in her hand and a paint-stained tarp draped over her shoulder like a mink stole.

Faye followed her upstairs and found her not in her sewing room but in Faye’s room.

“What are you doing?” Faye asked, mouthing the words carefully and eyeing the can and the tarp.

Dolly mimed the act of painting the wall, and there was a look of “obviously” in both her answer and her expression. Then she held up a pair of pants, waving them like a flag to prove she’d earned her redecorating spree. Faye took the linen pants from Dolly and turned them over in her hands. They looked like they’d fit. She ran down to the bathroom, stripped out of her skirt and slid them on. They were loose around the waist, but Dolly had fitted the trousers with a drawstring. Faye cinched the waist and rolled the bottom cuffs up. In her plain white cotton blouse and these pants, Faye looked like she belonged on the cover of an L.L. Bean catalog, the fun-in-the-sun summer edition. All she needed was a big floppy hat, and she’d look ready for a trip to the Hamptons.

In her new and fabulously comfortable pants, Faye returned to her bedroom. Dolly gave her an appraising stare while Faye turned a circle. Dolly nodded her approval.

“They fit good,” Dolly wrote.

“Do I look good?” Faye replied.