Designs in the Sand

By J Cooper

Architect Joy Carlisle welcomes the change of scenery as she drives from Atlanta to Floridas Panhandle to remodel an old beach house. Shes just discovered that her fianc, Alan, is having an affair with his legal assistant, and Joy wants to put as much space between them as possible.

Upon arriving at the beach house, Joy becomes absorbed in the white sandy beaches, the beautiful gulf water, the flavor of the old south, and the caring community. She also becomes attracted to Rowe Cutter, the brother of the owner of the beach house. Hard-working and morally upstanding, Rowe owns both a fishing enterprise and a construction business and is considered the areas most eligible bachelor.

But Alan, who treats Joy as more of a possession than a loving companion, is not ready to accept that their relationship is over; he wont give up without a fight. While working hard to prove herself in her chosen profession, Joy must also look deep inside herself for answers to the quandary in her personal life. Will she honor her commitment to Alan, or will she follow her heart with Rowe?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450210959

J Cooper

Julia Cooper is a Senior Research Fellow for the Nafferton Ecological Farming Group (NEFG) in the School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (AFRD) at Newcastle University, UK.

Book preview

Chapter 1 

The road to paradise stretched out flat in front of her like a long straight gray ironed ribbon. This is paradise, she thought. She rode with the top down and didn’t care what happened to her hair. Blond strands danced and tangled around her face in the convertible wind that roared over the windshield then dived like a back curling undertow, thrashing her with turbulence from every direction.

Joy Carlisle reveled in the feel of it. Her golden locks became entangled on the sides of her sunglasses covering her blue eyes, almost blocking her eyesight. She didn’t even care if the sun exposed more tiny freckles on her nose, and made her sweat. She just drove a little faster so the moisture evaporated and cooled on her face and ran in streaks down her neck and between her breasts into her pale green sundress. Her shoulders were artificially tan and bare except for the sundress straps, which were just wide enough to catch the wind and flap against her skin…This is where I belong, Joy sighed.

In the middle of the summer in the south, any air not freshened by a sea breeze smells and breathes like it has been burnt in an oven. The stone and brick baked air of Atlanta smelled that way when she left it earlier that morning. It had been way too long since she felt the wind and sun in her hair, and it had grown limp and dull from nothing but the fluorescent office lights and office air, boxed on all sides by walls.

Of course, she knew, deep down, she was thrilled with this job because it meant she was getting away from Alan, her fiancé. She had tried to break it off with him several times, but Alan would not hear of it. He was proud, and she was his. At least, that’s the way Alan saw it. It had taken years to learn how abusive and spiteful he could be. Finding out he was having an affair with his legal assistant was the last straw. Joy had had enough of his two-faced jealousy. That’s it, Joy thought, he’s always accusing me of having an affair, when all the while it has been him. I wonder just how long this has been going on. No, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care, she thought."

Joy had left the office a little early that afternoon, because it was her birthday, and she had gotten the promotion to project manager. She decided to give herself a little gift and surprise Alan. They were scheduled to meet at 5:30 pm at the Blue Moon, between their places of work, and have drinks and dinner, as they did several nights a week.

Instead of going out to eat at the same old place, and saying the same old things, she would stop by the little bistro on her street, pick up supplies for the two of them, then go by Alan’s office. She felt as giddy as a school girl, just planning her little caper. She would kidnap Alan a little early, and they could walk to the park and have a relaxed and romantic picnic.

It had been years, since they had had a romantic, spur of the moment date. She also stopped by the corner bottle shop and bought a bottle of Champaign to go with the cheese, crackers, fruit and sandwiches she had purchased. I will just have my own celebration, with Champaign no less, she thought.

Alan had not called her all day to wish her Happy Birthday and that’s just not the proper thing to do in the south. The ‘Birthday Gift Phone Race’ had always been a tradition in her family and all the other families she knew growing up. Each member of the family would race to call the birthday person early in the morning to see who could be the first with the birthday wishes. The caller would exclaim Birthday Gift, when the phone was answered, entitling the well-wisher a gift from the birthday recipient. Not only was it a tradition, they kept score!

She had told Alan about this tradition, over and over, and how much it meant to her, especially now, with her Dad gone. She missed his calls the most of all. But, Alan never remembered. He would always say, Sorry Babe, when he would see how disappointed she was.

They had such a fight over this last year; she thought surely he will remember this year. At the very least, he would call her during the day and wish her Happy Birthday, even though he wouldn’t be the first to call. But, as usual, he didn’t call at all. Oh well, she would say every year, maybe next year. She always accepted his excuses for being so absent minded and forgetful.

After all, he had such an important job, and was under so much stress all of the time, he didn’t have time to think about personal things. She had heard that, over and over. One thing about Alan, he was not romantic, leaving Joy to feel like she was missing a big part of a relationship.

When she walked into Alan’s office suites, his secretary was not at her desk. In fact, no one was in sight. The lights had been turned off and it looked like they had left for the day. In Atlanta in the concrete jungle, lights are a must in every office because of the tall shadows cast across the landscape causing the look of dawn or dusk in broad daylight.

She turned to leave when she heard Alan’s voice. It was muffled, but she was sure it was Alan. She walked towards his office and could see the light coming through the bottom of the door. She heard the voice again, and Joy was certain it was Alan, but the voice sounded strained and breathless. It scared her. The first thought on her mind was that he had been left alone in the offices and was having a heart attack. She had been worried about that since Alan had put on a few pounds.

Joy rushed to his door and turned the handle. It wasn’t locked. She eased the door open and softly called, Alan? He was not at his desk. She didn’t see him anyplace, so she walked through his office towards his ‘break room’ as he called it. Each manager on Alan’s level had their own suite of offices that included an adjoining large bathroom with steam shower, and of course a mirrored dressing room with a couch.

The door to the room was ajar, and she could still hear sounds, so she eased the door all the way open. She stood in the doorway facing the sofa in Alan’s dressing room.

There on the couch was Alan and Jennifer, sweet Jennifer. She had been so gracious so many nights to work overtime with Alan. He had bragged about her numerous times – how efficient she was, and sweet and kind.

Towels and clothes were strewn on the floor. Both Alan and Jennifer were nude, and so involved with their activity, they didn’t even know Joy was standing there, watching, seeing the faulty dreams of her future with Alan going down the drain. She felt sick to her stomach. She just backed out of the office and left in so much shock, she wondered if she was dreaming.

She was so glad she had the Florida project, which would get her out of town for at least a week, and this time away from Alan. Maybe with a little time he would believe her and realize they were just not meant to be together, today proved that for sure. One of his cruel jokes to her was that he would keep her until something better came alone. Of course, at first she thought he was kidding. Well, she said, I guess he thinks he has something better now, because he certainly does not have me.

In her apartment, she left her ring on the dresser with a note: Alan, I’m leaving for the job in Florida, and will be gone a week or so. Please take your belongings and do not be here when I return. I’m sorry, but it is never going to work between us. Joy.

She kept thinking she should have done more. She should have walked in and screamed at him, thrown something, hit him, done something. But, her parents had always taught her to walk away and rise above it. Her Dad once told her to ‘show her class, not her ass.’ She thought about that many times, and how this advice had come in handy over the years. Her father’s voice kept her out of trouble and this was the greatest test of her self control. Self-control is what I will have, from this day forwards – no one will ever take that from me again!

This new assignment was going to be good for her health, not to mention the financial benefits. Joy was one of the few female architects in the Atlanta firm, and to be awarded the job of remodeling a beach house was beyond her wildest expectations. She had been looking forward to this trip for weeks.

The pure physical pleasures of the drive kept her mind at bay long enough that she lost track of where she was. She was somewhere between where she started and where she was going, far enough from the beginning and the end to have temporarily lost sight of them both. Suspended in sun- drenched timeless in-between, she was temporarily disconnected from schedule or location.

She knew she was in Florida, somewhere between Tallahassee and the Gulf of Mexico, headed roughly southwest toward the early afternoon sun. Glancing down at the sketch of a map lying on the seat beside her, anchored against the wind by her purse, she realized she had not even looked at her directions. Not that the map told her much, anyway. She remembered she was to go south on hwy 319 from Tallahassee, then east on 98, and she should end up in Alligator Point somewhere along the way. That shouldn’t be hard to find. She pretty much knew her way around here, but things did look a little different than she remembered. Oh well, if she ran into the gulf, she would know she had gone too far.

The road was uninterrupted by turns or notable landmarks. It wouldn’t hurt to stay lost for a while, she thought. There aren’t that many roads in this area.

Growing up in Tallahassee, she had probably ridden every road that led into the panhandle with her father when she was a young girl. That was almost twenty years ago, when she would accompany him on his business trips, most of which usually lasted no more than a warm sunny afternoon.

Inhaling the fresh salt air, Joy remembered how much she loved this part of Florida. It was still what she considered an undiscovered country, mostly uninhabited except for those born to it, who hadn’t moved away. It was the old Florida, silent and tranquil, tree dense with magnolias and pines, bathed in a high gentle bright light and cleaned with breezes that came fresh from the west across the gulf. The thick hanging moss waved over the lush wild tropical undergrowth peeking through dappled sunlight.

Its inhabitants were quiet solitary folks who were intent on their own errands and purposes. Like their Scottish-Irish ancestors, they carried their rural silence and unbending independence with them. They were people who worked hard, cherished the land and needed no other man to survive. A neighbor closer than a mile was too close.

There are those who go and those who stay, she had once been told. She had always known which one she was, but it occurred to her that the last time she answered that question was a very long time ago. It was funny, she thought, how you can answer important questions so easily when you are young and sure of yourself at the time. You answer them and go on, maybe never to ask them again. She suddenly realized how dangerous that could be. She imagined herself waking up at fifty and realizing that most of her major decisions of her life had been made by a twenty-four year old.

Joy was a true Southern Belle and a part of her felt at home here, a part she had almost forgotten. For a long time, this yielded to the other part of her, the part that moved away for brighter lights and better opportunities. For the first time since she could remember, she wondered which was really better.

She had been blessed with notable physical attributes-a pretty face, and long thick hair that glowed with platinum streaks when she spent time in the sun. Her body was well endowed with curves in the right places and was the envy of most of the woman she met. That often presented her a cold shoulder from the insecure ones. She had always had more than her share of male suitors. She also knew her physical assets were one of the reasons she was hired by her firm. Although she was smart, she knew she could get ahead on her own merit, but was not above taking advantage of physical assets. She could play the blond role as easily as the next one, but longed for the opportunity to prove herself intellectually, and knew this assignment was a good chance to do that.

Joy suddenly was catapulted back to reality with a loud thump, and she felt the car begin to shake. Oh no, a flat tire, she thought. The steering wheel felt like it had a mind of its own as she struggled to pull the car off the road in the edge of a palmetto thicket. Lordy, she thought, I hope there are no snakes out here. She knew if there were any in the world, they would surely be in the plants. Rattlesnakes and water moccasins grow healthy and large in the south and are certainly not shy.

There was not a vehicle in sight, she had not seen one for the past twenty minutes. As she got out of the car, she looked down at her sun dress, and stacked sandals and realized changing a tire in these clothes is not the ideal situation, but it had to be done. She popped the trunk open and was struggling to remove the spare tire. My it’s hot! She exclaimed. Sweat was beginning to roll down her neck as she fought with the tire. Obviously it was winning. The heat and the heavy rubber had conspired against her today. She was intent on not letting it get the best of her when she heard a voice behind her.

Ma’am, let me help you with that. Joy almost jumped out of her skin. She had not heard a vehicle drive up, and here she was on this deserted stretch of road, with a disabled vehicle and a strange man standing beside her.

Joy stepped back, and a tall lanky man, probably in his early forties, dressed in a red and blue plaid shirt with jeans and boots, reached in the trunk with a muscled arm, grabbed the tire and swung it out on the ground in one motion. He was certainly strong, she thought. He can probably strangle me just as quickly. She took another step back.

Shore is hot out here, ain’t it? With that he reached back in and pulled out her jack and tire tool, rolled the tire around to the passenger’s side of the car in the palmettos and proceeded to release the flat from its hold. Had there been a snake in there, it would have been afraid of this man, she was sure of that.

Joy stepped aside, trying to stay at least an arm’s length from him, just in case he decided to do more with the tire tool than change the tire. She looked back at the truck he had pulled up behind her. It was an old beat up green International, probably early seventies model with a camper cover over the bed. It had several beer cans lying across the dash with one sitting upright, she was sure it was the current selection.

She could see a gun rack through the window, and it was filled with at least three rifles and a shotgun, with a rebel flag hung on the antenna. She could hear Willie Nelson belting out Whiskey River through the open windows.

As she watched him change the tire, she remembered she still had her little 9mm pistol under the seat. She walked nonchalantly around to the driver’s side, opened the door and sat down under the steering wheel. As casually as she could, she bent over, and ran her hand under the seat as far as she could reach, but felt no gun. Darn! She thought. It must have slid back further than I can reach. She sat up, opened the door, all the while keeping one eye on the stranger. She stepped out of the car, slowly bent over, trying not to look obvious, and ran her left hand a little further under the seat, hoping to retrieve some kind of protection, just in case she needed it. She was still struggling to locate it when she caught a glimpse of him walking around the back of the car towards her, wiping his hands on an old handkerchief he must have had in his pocket.

Are you alright, Miss? The man looked her up and down.

I’m fine. Thank you," She could tell her voice was a little shaken. She smiled at him, trying to relate her sincere gratitude, hoping he would not sense her fear.

How much do I owe you for changing my tire? She asked, trapped between the driver’s door and the steering wheel. She had backed away from him as far as she could go. He had a distinct odor of fish about him.

He walked a little closer to her, invading her space just a bit, and smiled a beautiful snaggled tooth grin, and said, Awe shucks, Mam, you don’t owe me nothin. Changen that there tare fur you was my pleasure. We don’t get meny perty women thru these here parts often, and it’s a real treat for me, just to look at you.

Joy didn’t know what to do next. She thought of the movie Deliverance, and wondered if he had his buddies in the back of the truck. Where is that pistol when I need it? She thought.

It is a tradition in the south that everyone learns to shoot, and many of the girls especially were experts in pistol shooting. Southern Belles may look soft, but they are tough as nails and are dead eye shots when it comes to protecting themselves. Their Daddies make sure of that. Most all carry a pistol; sometimes they have a couple of them, one for their vehicle and one for their purse. If a southern girl doesn’t carry a gun, then she has either moved here from the north or their families just haven’t learned the ways of the south yet.

This man stood within a couple of feet of her now, and she didn’t know what he was going to do next. Okay, she thought, he is either going to kill me or kiss me, she wasn’t sure which, and wasn’t prepared for either one.

Joy smiled nervously, Are you from around here? Well, of course he is, she thought. He looks like he just came out of the swamps. That was a dumb question.

Yes Mam, he said. Me and my brothers works down at them there docks fur Rowe Cutter. We’s fishermen. They call me Bo. My real names Boudreaux Kershaw, with that he reached out his greasy hand to her. When he mentioned the Cutters, she felt a little more relaxed. I may just make it after all, she thought. Pleased to meet you Mr. Kershaw, she shook his hand out of courtesy and wondered if she would ever get off the smell of fish.

She believed his story about being a fisherman; she got another whiff of him as the wind gave her a soft puff of the pungent odor. Thank you so much for changing my tire. I work for the Cutters, also. In fact, I’m going to find Mr. Cutter right now. She thought if they had a kinship, maybe he would back away and nobody would get hurt.

Mam, Rowe, he’s taking some time off this week, but he don’t go nowhere when he’s off, cept home and out on that their sailboat of hisen. That’s whur you’ll find him, home or on the water.

Okay, thank you Mr. Kershaw … Bo. I’ll find him. With that, Bo turned around and hauled his lanky frame up in his truck, turned Willie up with ‘On the Road Again’ streaming out the windows and sped off down the road. As he pulled off, she saw a bumper sticker on the back of the truck—I break for possums. Joy laughed and said to herself, I’ll just bet you do.

As she pulled back onto the road, she felt a sudden gentle barrage of the tiniest rain drops from a cloud over her head pelt her face with spray, almost like mist, as if it came from a spritzer bottle. Smiling, she resisted the urge to brush the drops away; instead she let the wind blow them into cool nothing. It sure felt good after standing in the hot sun.

She looked up at the cloud and smiled as it slipped behind her headed inland. Almost daily, in the middle of the afternoon, when the head – bowing heat was boiling, summer showers rolled across the state. The sky darkening rain would drench the steaming ground for just a few minutes, and then it was gone. The sun returned unabated. But, its breath – squeezing grip would be broken long enough so that the earth and all the thankful things on it had a chance to recover and breathe.

Ahead of her on the road, she could see the small rising vapors of the drops that had hit the hot asphalt and evaporated on contact, not enough to darken the pavement, but enough to clean and freshen the air which now felt moist against her skin.

In the low sky ahead of her, other clouds already darkening on the bottoms were forming in rows, preparing to move out on schedule to deliver their watery relief.

Just as she was about to get lost in the sky, the alarm on her watch brought her back to earth. She had set it by calculation when she passed through the last town. Luckily, she remembered to reset it after the flat tire episode, and it was timed to go off a few minutes before she had to make a turn, at least according to her understanding of the directions.

She stayed focused on the road ahead, looking for signs that would tell her where to turn. Joy sat more upright in her seat and raised the sun visor to break the wind and keep her hair out of her eyes.

The only landmarks of any kind were occasional billboards, their faces old and faded as they had been weathering all these years, since she might have passed them with her father. All the free orange juice you can drink, twenty-four miles to go, See the world’s largest alligator, See actual Indian villages, see real Indians. She doubted that the places the signs advertised existed anymore, and the alligator was long gone, if it ever was there at all. Certainly, there was no more free orange juice in the state. The last of that had disappeared when she was a child.

The old billboards were from sunny days long gone by and for the travelers of another generation. She was surprised that the billboards were still standing and readable. She speculated that it was due to some blind luck of their position in relation to sun angle and prevailing winds. What happened, she wondered to the sign owners? Were they still living, content enough with what they once offered, that they felt it didn’t need changing? Were they just gone with no one to come behind them-no one to take their place? Was there no one who cared one way or the other, that the useless signs still occupied space in the right- of-way?

Joy’s mind flashed back to a memory she had when she was a child, around ten or twelve years old. She and her father had stopped at one of the many fruit stands that lined the roads when the fruits were in season.

On this day, she and her father were both cooling down with a refreshing glass of the free orange juice as her Dad was discussing something or other with the other tourists who had stopped by also. He certainly had the gift of gab, and she loved to hear him talk.

They watched as an old multi-colored jalopy pulled up to the fruit stand. The old beat up truck must have been an old forties/fifties model of what once was a Ford, Chevy and GMC combined. It looked homemade and had nothing but a flat bed on the back that was loaded down with at least a dozen kids, several looked alike, must have been at least three sets of twins. They had made the trip to the fruit stands just for the free orange juice.

As the kids jumped out of the truck, their busy hands were grabbing oranges, grapefruit, apples, lemons, and they were sticking them in every conceivable opening available to them – the pockets of their torn and faded well-worn blue jeans, down their shirts, in their over-alls. None of them were wearing any shoes and all needed a bath. These kids acted as if they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, or if they would even get another meal. They were starving.

Joy remembered standing there in amazement as the stand owners were trying to recover some of their fruit for their own financial reasons. There were so many hungry hands; the stand was almost cleared out in a split second. The adults were trying desperately to get the flying fruit back to the proper baskets, as the kids were pulling away, and actually beginning to eat the fruit. Mayhem was about to take place shortly.

Joy remembered her Dad stepping up to the owner and telling him in almost a whisper, Feed these children all they want. I will pay for it. She watched their Mother, hardly looking older than the oldest of the children, herself, and holding a baby who was only dressed in a diaper. Tears welted up in the Mother’s eyes as she smiled a sheepish smile at Joy’s father, half embarrassed and half thankful. The children cleaned out the stand, stuffing as much of the goodies in their pockets and over-alls as possible.

The old man with her who must have been the grandfather to all those children, looking embarrassed, told the stand owners, Sorry they cleaned you out, can’t fill up our young ens, these days.

Joy smiled to herself remembering her Dad and how proud she was of him that day. He was such a generous man. She knew he didn’t have much money, but would empty his pockets to feed anyone. He was the type of man who would give the shirt off his back if someone needed it. God, she missed him, she thought. There are so few men like my Dad, if any, left in this old world, she whispered to herself trying to swallow the lump in her throat. If I ever find one, I will not let him get away. A tear escaped her eye as she drove on down the highway remembering her Dad.

Within a few minutes of her estimation, an intersection appeared in the distance. She approached it, and concluded that it resembled the one shown on her map. It irritated her slightly that neither the map nor the road itself had any road numbers. Evidently, she would just have to make her best guess, aware she was near the end of her journey. She was eager to get what she had to do done and have the rest of the afternoon to spend as she had planned.

She had the distinct impression she was driving on a private road, on private land, and looked each way for signs of inhabitants. There were none. The land was so well tended she halfway expected to see the farmer, maybe the same man who had made the road, riding his tractor out under the trees. It was quiet and the sounds her tires made on the road were louder to her than they had been on the highway. The sounds were loud the way they are when you are an intruder – or an unexpected visitor in a place that doesn’t expect you.

She followed the road until it came to a stop at a large metal gate. It was not a utilitarian farmer pasture gate, but a much more substantial black wrought iron gate, the kind that guards entry to wealthy estates. The map showed the gate, which was good, and it showed the numbers for a combination lock, one of which was hanging across the front of the two gate doors that the lock secured together.

She stepped out of her car and punched in the numbers, hoping she was in the right place because there was no real room to turn around. She didn’t look forward to backing up for a mile just to get out of there. Presumably, the road and gate were for those who belonged there, to enter and exit only, not for those who might just be cruising by on a casual drive. That of course implied that you had no business there, unless you had some business there.

She locked the gate behind her, easing her car along an unpaved road made of shell and gravel. The road made its white meandering way through the green grass and lead to a little rise where the pines thinned and the grass began yielding to the claims of the taller, paler green stalks of sea oats and the coarser, broader blades of saw grass and Palmetto.

She slowed to a stop for a minute, and stepped out of her car, just to take it all in. She drew a deep breath from the breezes that brushed her face. The sands were almost pure white, washed with small placid waves, pale green and full of foam. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes were drawn out to the great expanse of the water. She was always surprised and delighted in the way the green faded into blues, in the distance, and turned to a hazy slate along the horizon where the water and the air converged. Although the waves were not strong enough to fill the air with their noise, they mixed with the vast unhindered wind moving shoreward. Together they made the beach sound, which like fire to the eyes, is one of the earth’s great sensory spells.

For Joy, the ambience drove words from her mind and induced the yielding relaxation that follows the waves as they were leaving, like the feeling that comes from good love making. There was no other place in the world she wanted to be. How is it possible, she thought, that I could choose to live anywhere but a place like this?

The road split to a point on the rise where she had stopped. To the south, running parallel with the beach, it ambled along the fronts of eight or ten houses spaced comfortably apart, each with its own separate grounds and beach. The houses were of various ages and design, each of them much more expensive than she would be able to afford for quite some time.

She got back into her seat, looked at her map and turned left. The instructions were finally clear. ‘Next-to-last house on right. Get keys from neighbor in gray house next door. Judge Thomas Niles.’

She eased down the road and pulled up in front of the gray house. She got out, walked up on the porch and looked for a doorbell. There wasn’t one, but there was a large ships bell hanging on the wall with a weathered wooden gavel tied to the cord hanging beside it. She gave the bell two hard taps with the gavel. She always wondered what it would be like to bang something with a gavel, particularly a real one, which she had no doubt this one was. It felt pretty good. She was almost hoping no one would come to the door right away so she could do it again. However, shortly, the inner door opened and behind the screen a tall white-haired man appeared. Surely, he was a Judge, she thought. He must be at least seventy.

Hi, my name is Joy Carlisle, she offered with a friendly smile and a polite demeanor. I am an architect from Atlanta. I believe Dr. Cutter told you I was coming.

The Judge’s face, expressionless and stern at first from years of practice, turned a few wrinkles upward and produced a reasonable courteous smile.

Judge Tom Niles, retired,