The Sea Grape Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

by Naomi Whittingham; the sale of three of her pieces; then the invitation to move into Penny’s flat after her boyfriend had left in a rant (according to Penny), breaking the teapot he’d given her. She’d talked Sarah into moving in and buying a new teapot.
    â€œI’m going to miss you, you know,” Penny said over the rim of her cup. “Are you taking your mobile?”
    â€œThey said it wouldn’t work there. I’ll email you, anyway. Roper said he was on the Internet, although I can’t imagine the Internet in the middle of the jungle, can you?”
    â€œIt’s not the jungle, Sarah. You said yourself it was a fishing village in the northeastern corner of the island. I looked it up. Gorgeous scenery, the article said.” Penny snapped a biscotto in two. “It’s quite romantic, you know, running off to Jamaica with some man you’ve only met once.”
    â€œI’m not running off. Naomi said he has a perfectly nice girlfriend and I have nothing to worry about.”
    â€œWhatever it is, I think it’s a super idea. You’ve needed a great adventure for a long time, and it’s not like you’re going to disappear into the mountains or anything.”
    â€œHard to disappear with this hair in Jamaica, I imagine,” Sarah said with a sigh.
    â€œWhat’s his name again—the man you’re staying with?”
    â€œRoper—that’s how he signs his paintings. Everybody calls him that. Naomi’s visited him and says his home is quite comfortable, maids and whatnot. She thought it was a good idea that I go. She said something about wanting to see me explore new vistas .” In fact, Naomi had been so enthusiastic about the trip to Jamaica that Sarah had known instantly that the gallery owner did indeed hate the new acrylic series she was planning.
    â€œ Eggs in dirt! ” Naomi had shrieked the month before when she heard the name of the series.
    The art diva’s reaction hadn’t lessened Sarah’s desire to create five paintings of five white eggs. The larger ends of the eggs were to be buried in dark brown earth, shiny lumps cradling the shells. Her goal was to paint the first one as soon as she got finished with her Mermaid in the Cathedral series, the last of the twelve disciple-mermaids near completion.
    Before Naomi’s outburst, Sarah had been mulling what the new eggs-in-dirt series should be called. It had to be a name signifying fertility and the unity of all life—the idea of baby chicks taking the place of grass. Both eggs and dirt would have to be safe and contained, of course. Otherwise the viewer would think about the crushing of eggs and the resulting slimy yolks. And like all her other paintings, each piece would be small, exactly four inches by four inches.
    Sarah painted nothing but miniature canvases. They had become part of her personal style and no one had questioned her choice in the last eight years, not since her father had died.
    â€œWhy not try it even once?” he’d suggested while he was driving her to her job one day. “Try sketching, just take a big sheet of paper and let things flow, as they say nowadays.”
    The very thought of a large piece of paper always resulted in a knot in Sarah’s stomach, the way it had when she was forced to do it in art school, and she’d ignored her father’s advice. The unfettering of self that came with painting large, the unveiling to others, left her far too vulnerable. Her paintings remained small, the ornate frames more than double the size.
    The subject of an eggs-in-dirt series hadn’t been raised with her mother, who’d never been particularly interested in her work.
    â€œHello, my dear,” she’d always say, pressing her cheek to her daughter’s, when Sarah paid her monthly visit. Arthritis-­bowed spine pushing through the back of the sweater set, her mother usually launched into