Duma Key

How to Draw a Picture (V)

Don’t be afraid to experiment; find your muse and let her lead you. As her talent grew stronger, Elizabeth’s muse became Noveen, the marvelous talking doll. Or so she thought. And by the time she discovered her mistake — by the time Noveen’s voice changed — it was too late. But at first it must have been wonderful. Finding one’s muse always is.

The cake, for instance.

Make it go on the floor, Noveen says. Make it go on the floor, Libbit!

And because she can, she does. She draws Nan Melda’s cake on the floor. Splattered on the floor! Ha! And Nan Melda standing over it, hands on hips, disgusted.

And was Elizabeth ashamed when it actually happened? Ashamed and a little frightened? I think she was.

I know she was. For children, meanness is usually funny only when it’s imagined.

Still, there were other games. Other experiments. Until finally, in ’27…

In Florida, all out-of-season hurricanes are called Alice. It’s a kind of joke. But the one that came screaming in off the Gulf in March of that year should have been named Hurricane Elizabeth.

The doll whispered to her in a voice that must have sounded like the wind in the palms at night. Or the retreating tide grating through the shells under Big Pink. Whispering as little Libbit lingered on the porch of sleep. Telling her how much fun it would be to paint a big storm. And more.

Noveen says There are secret things. Buried treasures a big storm will uncover. Things Daddy would like to find and look at.

And that turned the trick. Elizabeth cared only a little about painting a storm, but pleasing her Daddy? That idea was irresistible.

Because Daddy was angry that year. Mad at Adie, who wouldn’t go back to school even after her European Tour. Adie didn’t care about meeting the right people or going to the right deb balls. She was besotted with her Emery… who wasn’t the Right Sort at all, in Daddy’s view of things.

Daddy says He’s not our kind, he’s a Celluloid Collar, and Adie says He’s my kind, no matter what collar, and Daddy’s furious.

There were bitter arguments. Daddy mad at Adie and vicey-versey. Hannah and Maria mad at Adie for having a handsome boyfriend who was both Older and Below Her. The twins scared by all that mad. Libbit scared, too. Nan Melda declared over and over that if not for Tessie and Lo-Lo, she would have gone back to her people in Jacksonville long since.

Elizabeth drew these things, so I saw them.

The boil finally popped its top. Adie and her Unsuitable Young Man eloped off to Atlanta, where Emery had been promised work in the office of a competitor. Daddy was raging. The Big Meanies, home from the Braden School for the weekend, heard him on the telephone in his study, telling someone he’d have Emery Paulson brought back and horsewhipped within an inch of his life. He would have them both horsewhipped!

Then he says No, by God. Let it be what it is. She’s made her bed; let her sleep in it.

After that came the storm. The Alice.

Libbit felt it coming. She felt the wind begin to rise and blow out of simple charcoal strokes as black as death. The size of the actual storm when it arrived — the pelting rain, the freight-train shriek of the gale — frightened her badly, as if she had whistled for a dog and gotten a wolf.

But then the wind died and the sun came out and everyone was all right. Better than all right, because in the Alice’s aftermath, Adie and her Unsuitable Young Man were forgotten for a time. Elizabeth even heard Daddy humming as he and Mr. Shannington cleaned up the wreckage in the front yard, Daddy driving the little red tractor and Mr. Shannington throwing drowned palm-fronds and busted branches into the little trailer trundling along behind.

The doll whispered, the muse told its tale.

Elizabeth listened and painted the place off Hag’s Rock that very day, the one where Noveen whispered the buried treasure now lay exposed.

Libbit begs her Daddy to go look, begs him begs him begs him. Daddy says NO, Daddy says he’s too tired, too stiff from all that yardwork.

Nan Melda says Some time in the water might loosen you up, Mr. Eastlake.

Nan Melda says I’ll bring down a picnic lunch and the l’il girls.

And then Nan Melda says You know how she is now. If she say something’s out there, then maybe…

So they went downbeach by Hag’s Rock — Daddy in the swimsuit that no longer fit him, and Elizabeth, and the twins, and Nan Melda. Hannah and Maria were back in school, and Adie… but best not talk about her. Adie’s IN DUTCH. Nan Melda was carrying the red picnic basket. Inside was the lunch, sunhats for the girls, Elizabeth’s drawing things, Daddy’s spear-pistol, and a few harpoons for it.

Daddy puts on his flippers and wades into the caldo up to his knees and says This is cold! It better not take long, Libbit. Tell me where this fabulous treasure lies.

Libbit says I will, but do you promise I can have the china dolly?

Daddy says Any doll is yours — fair salvage.

The muse saw it and the girl painted it. So their future is set.