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Show THE UPSTAIRS PEOPLE-51 That day she finished a tray. And the next day, another. The shells were more beautiful than the ones the Agency man brought. She remembered, for once, to put glue underneath them so they would stay in their boxes. And she began to care about their names. "Moonshell," she would say, and trace the perfect concentric whorls, hold it up to the light to see the faint patterns of pale gold and gray. "Boatshell," and she would set the l i t t le shell rocking on her palm, then prod under the tiny shelf with her tongue, tasting the salt. Schilly and John took her to the beach again, this time leaving her high on the shoreline, out of the reach of the incoming waves. She thought she saw the giant mantis again, but this time it seemed benevolent, like a strange enormous angel. They asked her again, and again, until it was a routine, and she became better at moving around on the sand, began gathering shells in a net bag they had given her. They would check the tide schedule in the newspaper together the night before so they could catch the low tide in plenty of time to gather the best shells. Sometimes she fixed dinner for them and they admired her neatly labelled trays. Mostly she spent the evenings upstairs with them. They told her stories about sharks and whales, giant clams, sea elephants, and said she really must help herself to their garden, that the lettuce would grow bitter if it weren't picked in time and the snow peas would be tender soon. The Agency man came by again. She invited him in, as always, lowered her head in the old way preparatory to confessing another failure, teasing him, then she spun around her chair and lifted the completed trays up to him, smiling triumphantly. He smiled and nodded, but there was a sudden sadness in his gray-green eyes, and he didn't say anything. She was surprised at how disappointed she |
