Great Big Beautiful Life(32)

“On?” I ask.

“Whatever you want,” she says.

“What do you meditate on?” I ask.

“Usually, what I want for lunch.” Even the sparkle in her eye can’t distract from the obvious dodge. Margaret Ives has an answer locked and loaded to that question—and I’m not getting it. Not yet.

I wander around the workshop, studying the things she’s made and the things she’s working on at the tables. It’s cooler here, thanks to the shade of the roof and the ceiling fans, but not by much. The humidity holds the summer in the workshop’s walls, and the open windows bring in nothing but brackishness.

I gently run my fingers through one of her wind chimes, listening to the soft clatter and tinkle. There are more mosaics on the walls, like the one on the floor, though smaller and trapped in both resin and driftwood frames. Most are abstract or arranged in geometric patterns. Like someone took a Hilma af Klint painting, shattered it, and put the pieces back together with their rough, jagged edges.

“Those don’t do so hot with the tourists,” Margaret says, coming to stand at my shoulder. “They mostly want turtles and palm trees.”

“They’re also a great tool for helping desperate journalists track you down,” I remind her.

She chuckles, turning back to her tool-strewn tables. “You mind if I work while we talk?”

“Sure—are we recording today?” I traipse after her, dropping my bag on the far end of the surface and sinking onto the schoolhouse-style stool there, feeling like I’m back in art class freshman year.

She makes a gesture like, Be my guest, then pulls her goggles back into place. I notice then that it’s not just tiny, smooth pieces of sea glass arranged in front of her, but also full bottles, aluminum cans, and, down on the floor, buckets of sand-and-grime-coated trash, things she must’ve found on the beach or maybe floating in the marsh.

There’s a sink in the rear corner of the space, and on the countertop next to it, more bottles and cans are arranged on a drying rack as though freshly rinsed.

“Here.” Margaret holds a pair of goggles out to me and I put them on, then set up my phone and recorder between us. She pulls on some purple work gloves, drapes a towel over a green beer bottle, and cracks a hammer down against it.

I try not to jump at the sound, but even muffled by the terry cloth, it’s harsh.

“So where did we leave off?” Margaret asks.

“Well…” I flip through my notes.

Another harsh crash as the hammer comes down again. I’ve conducted full interviews while an interviewee was pounding away at a Peloton stationary bike class. I should be able to drown out the sounds of Margaret’s work and focus.

She opens the towel to rearrange the pieces, then flops it back into place and keeps breaking them down.

I debate bringing up the Ebner Hotel of it all, right then. But if there is something worth poking around there, I don’t want her to close off before we can get to it. This month is about building trust. “Lawrence had just bought his first newspaper. He’d gotten settled in San Francisco and sent for his sister, but she wouldn’t come.”

“Right, right,” she says.

“But we don’t have to pick up there,” I say. “I’m excited to hear more about you, whenever you’re ready.”

“This is about me, Alice,” she says pointedly. “I told you that.”

“All right, then.” I gesture for her to go on.

Three more taps of the hammer first. Clink. Clink. Clink. “Lawrence’s sister begged him to come home and make amends, to stop his quest for more. Instead, he decided it was time to start a new family, one of his own. He was around forty when he met Amelia Lowe. Of the San Francisco Lowes.” As she says this, she does a little eye roll, like she knows it’s pretentious to describe someone this way, but it simply can’t be helped.

I suppress a laugh.

“A railroad family,” she explains. “AKA rich. Anyway, Amelia’s father hated Lawrence. Hated.” She notices my expression. “You’re surprised.”

“A bit,” I admit. “Everything I read suggested it was a kind of…not an arranged marriage, but, you know, a business decision. Like things used to be back then.”

She lifts her eyes to mine, a smirk lurking on her lips. “That’s by design. See, Lawrence wanted to marry Amelia, and Amelia wanted out from under her domineering father. She saw an opportunity with Lawrence, but her father forbade them from seeing each other. So they eloped.”

Margaret punctuates the word with a hearty whack of her hammer. “Mr. Lowe was furious of course, but by then, Lawrence had acquired four more papers. And wouldn’t you know it, in the days following their elopement, each of his five papers ran its own story about the union of these two powerful families. It was sheer flattery, praising the Lowes, spreading gossip about business that hadn’t happened yet. It forced Lowe’s hand.”

She opens the towel, arranges the glass, replaces the towel, swings the hammer.

“Amelia was welcomed right back into the fold, and what’s more, Mr. Lowe and Lawrence went into business together. Everyone got what they wanted out of it.”

“And then your grandfather Gerald was born, right?” I say. “A few years after Amelia and Lawrence got married?”