Chapter 1
Galveston Island, Texas
May, 1968
"Hello, there. We're Tess and Abigail Cohen," I announced. I was bubbly and smiling and full of nervous excitement as we walked into the jewelry store on the corner.
"You should wait for Mom and Dad," my sister whispered from behind me.
I glanced at her to find that she was staring at me with wide eyes, looking intense, frightened. I wasn't scared, though. I was feeling empowered. I held my shoulders back and looked directly at the man at the end of the counter, the one I had been talking to when we came in. He was a large, older man, bald on top with dark hair that grew in a horseshoe pattern around the sides. The sparse hair he did have on the top of his head was long and it shot out in unruly wisps. I could see those hairs clearly because he had a bright light shining down on the work station in front of him.
He was slumped over, and I watched as his head came up. I figured he was looking at me, but it was hard to tell with the glasses he was wearing. They were regular wire-framed spectacles, but some sort of magnifying tool had been attached to both lenses, so I couldn't even see his eyes. I wasn't surprised to find a person wearing such a contraption, seeing as how he was a jeweler.
I waved at him, but he didn't wave back.
He was looking our way, but I couldn't see his eyes and he hadn't spoken. He stared at me, stone-faced. He was so unresponsive that I assumed he hadn't heard me.
"Hello," I repeated. "We're the Cohen sisters. Tess and Abigail."
"I don't have an order for Cohen," he said, finally, still stone-faced.
Abigail pinched me, and I stubbornly ignored her, refusing to be intimidated. I approached the backside of the U-shaped counter where the man was positioned, and my little sister followed me reluctantly.
"We don't have a jewelry order," I said, smiling at the man. "We're the Cohen sisters. We just pulled into town like three minutes ago. My parents are a few minutes behind us. Our dad wanted to stop at the service station and get gas for their trip back home. It took us almost three hours to get here, and we barely stopped. He said they wouldn't spend the night, but Mom might talk him into it, depending on how big the apartment is."
"That means we're sleeping on the floor," Abigail said from behind me.
"We don't know for sure if they're staying," I said to her.
"Excuse me, ladies, but none of this has anything to do with me," the man said. He used a loud, no-nonsense tone in an effort to get our attention. I was instantly flustered and defensive by his surly tone, and I stepped back, pointing upward.
"Upstairs," I said, trying to smile. "We're moving in upstairs. We're the Cohen sisters. My dad's the one who worked it all out with you. We're your new tenants for the summer."
The man let out a scoff, shaking his head as he went back to his work. "I'm not your landlord," he said. "I have nothing to do with you or your apartment."
He was grumpy, and I held my head high, trying to show Abigail that we could take this whole encounter with a grain of salt.
"We rented the apartment above the jewelry store on the corner of Bank Street and Twenty-third," I said, looking hopeful. "It was my understanding that there was a jewelry store on the first floor, right below us. I thought this was the right place."
"It probably is the right place," he said. "But it still has nothing to do with me. I don't know any of the tenants upstairs except Joan. I pay rent, same as you do. Your door's that way." (He pointed behind us and to his right.) "Between here and the hardware store."
And that was it.
He didn't introduce himself or say welcome to Galveston or anything. He just went back to his work, assuming we'd show ourselves out, which we did.
"I told you we should wait for Mom and Dad," was the first thing Abigail said when the door closed behind us.
I was unaffected by his grumpiness.
"So what if we went in the wrong door? I'm sure he gets that all the time. It didn't hurt him to tell us where to go."
I walked down the sidewalk in the direction the man had indicated, and I glanced over my shoulder at the sign for the jewelry store. It said McCain Jewelers, and I added Mister McCain to the list of people I didn't like very much in Galveston. He was the only person on it so far, but that wasn't saying much since he was the only person we had met.
I wasn't going to let that discourage me, though. Today was the first day of the rest of my life. I had never been to a city as far away as Galveston without my parents, and I had never lived on my own. Today, I was doing both of those things. But I was ready for this. My first apartment, and it was on a beautiful island. Life was good.
My parents would tell you this was a summer trip. They'd tell you that Abigail and I were just staying for the summer and that, come August, we'd be moving back home to Starks, Louisiana.
They were under the impression that we'd be moving back home because that had been the plan all along. Now that I was in Galveston, though, I couldn't promise that I would be able to stick to the original plan. I had dreamed of living on the beach since I was a little kid. It was like I felt homesick for the beach even though I'd barely ever been there.
I fell in love with Galveston Island before we ever even got on the ferry. I loved palm trees, and I wanted to get better at art and make paintings of coastal landscapes. I had already done my research, and I knew there was an abundance of beautiful Victorian architecture in Galveston. I wanted to become a famous painter, and this island was just the inspiration I needed.
I had whimsical dreams that didn’t quite line up with my parents' plan of me marrying Stephen Matthewson and buying the house next door to them. Both Stephen and the house next door to my parents were fine options in the long run, but I had wild oats to sew, and my parents knew it.
That was why they had offered to pay for this summer trip. This was an attempt to show me that we had beautiful beaches right here close to home. They set me up with a trip to Galveston to keep me from moving to California, but ultimately, they wanted me home, in Starks, Louisiana, population thirteen.
Okay, thirteen was an exaggeration, but it was a very small town. My graduating class had thirty-six students and Abigail's had thirty-four. She was twenty years old and I was twenty-two, and as far as my parents were concerned, we should both be married and having babies by now.
Abigail had her own version of Stephen Matthewson waiting for her at home, but his name was Bubba Landry. Neither of us were technically going out with these guys, but in a town as small as Starks, it was hard to avoid getting paired up with your most logical match. That had been the way things were since we were kids. Stephen was my logical match and Bubba was my sister's. We had gone out with them from time to time over the years, but neither of us had made any promises about settling down with them in the future.
Abigail was a lot more boy-crazy than I was. Since we were raised in such a small town, there wasn't much trouble we could get into. If one of us was more of a rebel, it would be me, but Abigail's weakness was that she loved to look at guys. She didn’t break many rules, but if she ever did, it would be on account of a man. One of the main reasons she went to college was to see what her options were other than Bubba.