“I agree,” Juliet said. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll show you what our website looks like.”
“Oh, really? You work fast.”
“I probably belong on the far end of some personality spectrum,” Juliet joked.
Beth sank deeper into her chair and brought up her mission statement on the screen. She emailed it to Ryder and to Juliet. Then she took a deep breath, told herself to shake it off, and brought up the ocean album she’d created for the website. It had pictures of sea creatures swimming in blissful innocence with their babes by their sides, interspersed with photos of whales, seals, and dolphins choked with plastic. With each photo she’d attached a quote by someone significant: Herman Melville, of course, and also Jacques Cousteau, JFK, Wendy Schmidt, Shakespeare, E. E. Cummings, and Rachel Carson. She reviewed it and emailed it to Juliet.
“Okay,” Juliet said. “Here’s what I’ve got so far. Subject to change.”
Beth turned her chair around and scooted next to Juliet. “Oh, Juliet, this is gorgeous.”
The home page of the website was a luminescent splash of azure. The words Ocean Matters were at the top, in a dark blue, slightly curly font that Beth didn’t recognize but that fit the image perfectly.
“The mission statement,” Juliet said, moving the cursor to an image of what had to be the absolutely cutest baby seal in the universe. Beneath the little creature were the words, in indigo, Click here for mission statement.
“I love that,” Beth said, “but do we really need the words ‘click here’?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think we need them. People are fairly click-savvy now.”
“Okay, we’ll stick with ‘mission statement.’ Now let’s go to the members of the board of directors.” Juliet set the cursor over a glowing image of coral. “I wanted to use something native to Nantucket, so I tried a whale, then decided that someone was bound to be insulted by the very possibility that someone thought they were compared to a whale. Certainly couldn’t use a shark.”
“I like the coral. It’s a living thing, and this is fabulous.”
“Great. Now, your photo album. That’s fabulous, Beth. Eye-catching, and words to think about.”
Juliet moved the cursor to the words Photo Album over a pure white angel-wing shell, its raised radiating lines matching, the joined pair appearing delicate and almost unreal.
“This is to sign up for the newsletter,” Juliet said, moving the cursor to a photo of seagulls flying over the water.
“That’s funny,” Beth said. “Seagulls are so insanely noisy.”
Finally, Juliet showed an icon of a group of mussels, their inner shells beautifully iridescent, above the words: Click here to become a member.
“Let’s leave ‘click here’ with this icon,” Beth suggested.
“Done,” Juliet said.
“This is amazing,” Beth said. “How did you accomplish so much so fast?”
“Eh,” Juliet joked, “I’m a genius. Also, I haven’t had much sleep.”
“Oh, you should go take a nap,” Beth said. “I have to start calling the people I know about becoming board members.”
“I don’t need a nap,” Juliet said. “Let me see your list of potential participants. I might be able to help.”
“Thanks, Juliet!” Beth scooted to her computer, found the list of possible supporters, and emailed it to Juliet.
The two women sat side by side, discussing each name, omitting some, adding others.
“You should be the one to call them,” Juliet said. “You’re better with people than I am.”
Beth started to disagree, to say she couldn’t possibly be better at anything than Juliet, but she gave it a moment’s thought and decided Juliet was right.
“If you think that’s the way to go,” Beth said, “that’s fine with me. I suppose you are a bit more introverted than I am.”
Juliet laughed. “That’s an understatement. Give me a computer and a difficult task and I’m in blissful isolation for hours, days. Theo got all the personality in our family.”
Beth smiled. “He is charismatic.”
“Oh, my God,” Juliet said. “You do like Theo!”
“I have always liked Theo.”
“I guess I never noticed because you were two years behind me in school.”
“You never noticed because Theo was always completely surrounded by a million other girls,” Beth said.
“Well, there was that. But I’ll tell you a secret, Beth. I think Theo likes you.”
“Likes me?”
“More than that. But I’m his sister. He’ll kill me if I say anything more.”
“We wouldn’t want that to happen.” Beth’s heart was a helium balloon floating to the sky. “Anyway,” she said, bringing them back on task and feeling rather impressed with herself for doing it, “let’s go over the names again and decide who should be invited to join the board first.”
“Great,” Juliet said.
They worked together for another hour, talking easily, deciding with some discussion but no arguments, and Beth began to wonder if they could become friends.
And what would Theo think if they did?
twenty-three
The June day notched up the serious summer heat. Tom and Dave had installed the window in his mom’s bathroom. Now they were tearing out the layers of old wallpaper so they could repair the plaster and hang new paper. Theo had a huge bulky bunch of old wallpaper in his arms and was carrying it down to dump into the trash barrels when Mack drove into the driveway.
“Hey!” Theo said, nodding a hello. He stuffed the load of paper into an already full barrel.
“Hi, Theo.” Mack climbed out of his truck and walked over to him. “I need to talk to you a minute.”
“Sure,” Theo said, but his guts turned to ice.
“You’ve been helping out the guys almost every day, I hear,” Mack said.
Theo couldn’t speak. What could he say? I’m a lazy useless bastard and don’t have a job on this island where all the businesses are desperate to hire?
“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Mack continued. “I’d like to put you on the payroll for the summer. I need a good worker and you could learn on the job. Is this a possibility?”