My sweatshirt and sneakers indicated (falsely) that I might be inclined to exercise, and I forced myself to run from
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Quarry Landing along the length of the waterfront to the gate outside the plant. The plant’s parking area would be a natural place to stretch after a jog, and the dock where the Sea Hunter was berthed was the perfect spot to cool down. My smooth and athletic gait soon dissolved into what could be best described as a hurried limp. My unconditioned body refused the ruse midway up Main Street. Still, I pushed on, gasping for oxygen, while my messenger bag slapped my hindquarters like a jockey spurring on a crippled horse with every jarring footfall.
Feeling as if I had managed to pound my hips clear up to my shoulder blades, I finally saw the gate. Using it as the finish line, I slowed my pace and checked my wristwatch as I broke the invisible tape. Five minutes before seven o’clock—
perfect. I could be stretching in the parking area in time to see Blaine Hamilton’s arrival for his meeting with Ginny Turner.
Then I might need to prowl around in search of a restroom, perhaps in the neighborhood of Ginny Turner’s office, where I might accidentally overhear something of interest.
The only wrench in my plan was around the corner in the parking lot. There in midlot was Lincoln’s pickup truck, along with Lincoln’s brother, George, who sat on the open tailgate.
George was darker-complexioned than his brother, not nearly as attractive, and perhaps a few years older, if the slight pot-belly and depth of crow’s feet were true indications. Strange, I thought, that the only other time I had seen George was in this identical spot—hanging around the back of the truck in the plant parking lot. A second vehicle was parked against the building in a spot designated for Ginny Turner. George’s press l i p k n o t
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ence would hinder my surveillance somewhat, as well as post-pone my casing of his brother’s boat. The best I could hope for was that George intended to leave in the next five minutes.
Stretching and pacing as if I were a real jogger, I caught my breath enough to consider approaching the truck to speak casually to George. But before I could open my mouth, George sprang from the tailgate to his feet, pumped a fist up and down, and bellowed, “Ortiz!” Startled, I took two steps back and watched this relatively large man complete a very immature victory dance around the tailgate of the truck. He was actually strutting, bobbing, and weaving in sheer delight as he chanted, “You the man. You the man. You the man . . .”
Although he was ruining my game plan, his antics were brightening up an otherwise dank day. When he settled back on the tailgate, he acknowledged my presence. He removed the earpiece that was attached to a transistor radio dwarfed by his hand. He smiled warmly. The personal twinkle I found ir-resistible in his brother must be genetic, I thought, and I returned his smile. “Getting a little exercise, Miss Bunker?”
“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t realize how out of shape I’ve become. What are you doing here this time of night?” I hoped I didn’t sound accusatory.
“Listening to a Red Sox game.”
“Why here in the parking lot?”
“It’s the best reception in town.”
“Why don’t you watch the game on TV?” I hoped he didn’t feel like he was being interrogated.
“We don’t get TV reception offshore, so I always listen to games on AM radio. I enjoy it more this way. Are you a fan?”
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“No.”
“We’ll have to do something about that!”
“Is Lincoln aboard the Sea Hunter?” I couldn’t believe I’d asked. I needed to practice some self-restraint.
“No. He’s probably at home.”
“Oh, well, of course. Well, I was just wondering because of his truck being here. And I was just here stretching and cooling off and happened to see his truck and thought he might be around. I’m not looking for him or anything.” Now I was nervous and sounding like a cross between a teenager with a crush and a cop looking for a suspect. I needed to shut up.
“I can see how you might assume he’d be here, even if you didn’t really care.” George had a nice way of teasing, I thought. “But this isn’t actually his truck. Not his alone, anyway. He and Quin bought it together to use for boat business.
We call it ‘the boat truck,’ and it’s driven by all of us, even Eddie and Alex.”
That was good to know. The object of my lust needn’t necessarily head up the suspect list. With multiple drivers, the odds were against Lincoln having been behind the wheel at Dow’s.
A black Mercedes I recognized as Blaine Hamilton’s pulled into the lot and parked close to the building. Placing the miniature speaker back in his ear, George said, “I’ll tell Lincoln you were asking for him.”
I wasn’t asking for him, was I? Blaine Hamilton was heading up the stairs and through the door. I had to do something. Bouncing slightly on the balls of my feet, I asked, “Is s l i p k n o t
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there a ladies’ room up there?” I pointed toward the top floor of the plant.
“No, that goes to Mrs. Turner’s office.” As he twisted the volume knob on the radio, I could tell I was beginning to annoy George; he wanted to follow the ball game. “The only restrooms are down by the processing area, and that’s all locked up for the night. I guess you’ll have to run home,”
George said, dismissing me.
“I don’t think I can make it home,” I said with some urgency. I crossed my feet, pressed my thighs together, and squirmed a bit. Forcing a look of anguish, I said, “It’s an emergency! I’ll go up and ask for a key.”
“If it’s that urgent, go aboard the Sea Hunter. That would be quicker.”
“Great! Thanks, George,” I said, and sprinted down the pier toward Lincoln’s boat. Too easy, I thought. Like taking candy from a baby. When I turned to back down the ladder onto the deck, I noticed George coming along behind me.
Damn. Wouldn’t you know George would be a gentleman.
“Through the main door. It’s the next door on your left,”
George called from the dock above.
Standing in the closet-size room into which were squeezed a marine toilet, shower stall, and tiny sink with vanity, I realized I had no time to search, with Mr. Manners waiting outside. Pulling the cell phone from my bag, I placed it in the corner of the floor, where it could not easily be seen by someone sitting on the head. The old “retrieving the forgotten item when nobody’s home” trick was so basic, it was ridiculous. But as much as I hated to part with the phone, it was my best ploy
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to get back aboard and search for evidence like Dow’s black book. Besides, this was Green Haven, Maine. It might work.
I remained standing in the Sea Hunter’s tiny bathroom until enough time had elapsed to allow me to have emptied my bladder and washed my hands, had I actually needed to do so.
Although the head was far from spotless, in comparison to where I had spent my entire workday, it was immaculate.
Catching a glimpse of my reflection in the small round mirror mounted on the inside of the door, I jumped in fright. My face had a number of dark smudges, including what looked like running mascara but was a product of tears through soot. On top of my head, clinging to where my hair parted, was what looked like a wad of chewing gum that I knew to be a blob of hard grease. The closeness of this confined space reminded me of the Desperado’s bilge. I smelled like Homeless Joe, the shopping-cart-pushing hobo who wandered all of Dade County. I hoped that George would forgo the description of my present appearance when remembering me to his brother.
I thanked George and left him on the dock holding his transistor up at different angles to the sky and adjusting both earpiece and tuning knob. He was so preoccupied with the Red Sox that he probably would not have noticed if I had scooted up an
d pressed an ear to Ginny’s office door. But rather than push my luck, I hurried home, anxious to get out of the foul-smelling clothes and into a hot shower.
I’d never anticipated that my new life would be glamorous in any way. I’d known that by accepting my present job, I would be starting below the bottom rung of a ladder I had not yet developed a desire to climb. But today’s job-related activ-s l i p k n o t
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ities had been a catalyst for major disillusionment. I trudged up the hill toward my tiny apartment. The lingering smell of scorched popcorn was actually welcoming after the stink of the bilge. At least that hadn’t changed—I still couldn’t cook.
No sooner had I latched the door behind me than there was a single firm knock. Before I could say “Come in,” the door opened, and in came Henry Vickerson, toting a lovely paisley satchel. “Hi, Mr. V.,” I said, amazingly cheerfully, given my tolerance level at this point.
“Oh my Gawd! You look like you’ve been hauled through a knothole! And you stink! Where have you been?” he asked as he opened a window for some air.
“Work. Tough day.” I was more discouraged than I let on.
I was virtually at the brink of tears.
“Oh, you poor dear. The missus sent me up to invite you for dinner—mussels au gratin—sure looks good. Oh, and to deliver this.” He held out the pretty satchel for me to take.
“We found it hung outside the door. Thought it was for us.
We read the card. Sorry.” He pulled an envelope from his breast pocket and handed that over, too.
“That’s all right.Thanks.” I wondered how they’d thought it might have been for them when my name was clearly written on the envelope.
“Get cleaned up and come on over. We’ll have a drinky-poo while we wait.” He left without waiting for an answer. I suspected he and Alice had already had a drinky-poo or two.
A fitting end to a totally miserable day, I thought: cheesy mussels and the company of two very kind but toasted old folks who couldn’t mind their own business.
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Roses? Roses! I reached deep into the satchel and carefully pulled out the flowers. What on earth? God, I prayed they were from Lincoln. Laying the dozen plump red roses on my table, I reached back into the bag and retrieved a bottle of chardonnay. I could barely breathe. Had I ever received roses before? Not that I could recall, and knowing now how it felt, I was certain it had never happened before. And wine, too! This was too much. Please let them be from Lincoln, I thought. I couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer. My hands were shaking as I slipped the card from its envelope. The outside of the card was the most gorgeous watercolor of Green Haven’s waterfront. The inside was nearly filled with neat printing in black ink. I read and shivered with excitement.
“They are not long, the days ofwine and roses; Out ofa misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream.”
Jane,
I am looking forward to getting to know you. Thanks for accepting my invitation to the star show. Should we meet in the Clearing on top ofSpruce Hill? Seven? As promised, I’ll bring dinner and hope to hold you responsible for dessert.
Fondly, Lincoln
Dessert? I read the card over and over and hoped I was not misinterpreting. Oh my God! How long had it been since a man had asked me for “dessert”?
11
hurrying in and out of the steamy shower, being sure not to pass by the partially drawn shade in my various stages of stripping and dressing, I suddenly suffered a minor anxiety attack with the realization that my date was under twenty-four hours away. Before joining the landlords for their latest epi-curean experiment, I thought it prudent to write a short to-do list for tomorrow. I had always adhered to a strict policy of not letting my personal life interfere with work. Come to think of it, this had been less than challenging as of late. I vowed that I wouldn’t let the anticipation of getting together with Lincoln distract me from my job.
A bit ambitious, I thought as I put down the pen, grabbed the chardonnay, and headed to dinner. The paperwork required before submitting today’s surveys would eat up the best part of tomorrow, and I had a lot of other things to accomplish. I hoped to get aboard the Sea Hunter, if I could find the boat unoccupied before she headed offshore for another cod trip; I assumed this would occur shortly after my date. The Duster needed gas, and I needed directions to Spruce Hill and a new outfit. Considering the last two items
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on my list “work-related” was a stretch, but the roses and poetry had softened me from my usual rigidity to something somewhat more malleable.
Alice’s timing was perfect. She and I entered her living area from opposite ends, as if on cue. Now that I was armed with the chardonnay and a mood made absolutely buoyant by fond anticipation for tomorrow’s romantic interlude, I was sure to find my landlords’ quirks, obsessions, and strange habits far less bothersome this evening. Alice was fresh from the dispensary with her nightly battery of pills and seemed delighted to have my rapt attention as she tucked medications one at a time into the center of her bowled tongue. After washing each pill down with a swig of an iced tawny-colored liquid I suspected was Scotch, she was careful to show me her empty tongue. I resisted the temptation to praise her.
While Alice rattled on in graphic detail about her past twenty-four hours of health issues, Henry rearranged the boats competing in the fireplace mantel’s regatta, making room at the rear for a new trinket. Alice paused before taking her last pill to proclaim the genius of her current doctor. The accolades were more than glowing, and I wondered, after witnessing the breadth of chemicals he had prescribed, what had become of Hippocrates’ theory of natural healing. Nice, though, that Alice Vickerson revered doctors so. Such a con-trast to my mother, who had a general distrust of the entire medical profession. I had warned her that her rejection of doctors would someday come back to haunt her. In my opinion, I had been correct. Perhaps doctors could not have saved her—then she could have gone to her grave saying, “I told s l i p k n o t
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you so.” As the Vickersons bickered about something in the margins of my consciousness, I recalled the only time my mother had taken me to a doctor. As she’d stormed out of his office, dragging me along by a wrist, she’d shouted something about a hypocritic oath. Humiliated, I’d vowed at the age of seven to remain healthy. So far I had.
As Henry handed me a glass of wine, I realized that he and Alice were waiting for my reply to something I had tuned out.
“I am sorry. I guess I am tired. What were we talking about?”
I asked.
“That hideous ball of rust he’s placed on my mantel!” Alice snapped down the cover of her pill separator. “I say he should throw it onto the beach where he found it and hope the tide is charitable enough to take it back. What do you think?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“It is a relic,” Henry said in a tone that implied I should have known.
“A relic of what?” I asked at the risk of exposing my ignorance.
“See!” Alice shouted.
“It is a relic. That’s all that matters,” Henry defended the ball of rust. “Possibly Native American.”
“But it’s rusty! Where was the Indians’ foundry?”
“A relic is an object of religious veneration.” Henry pushed his glasses up snug against the bridge of his nose. “A trace of an earlier culture—it is a keepsake to be held dear.”
“Have you been reading the dictionary again?” Alice asked.
I began to laugh. Alice quickly joined me, and Henry
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came along reluctantly after summarizing with “Women.” A closer inspection of Henry’s relic led to more hilarity when I commented on the threaded hole in its center. Although the piece was an interesting item, and somewhat m
ysterious in that I couldn’t decipher from what type of equipment it had fallen, it really wasn’t that old; in fact, it was hardly rusty at all.
Before I knew it, we were eating dinner and successfully avoiding the topic of my date, which they should not have known about but did in some detail. I held a mussel the color of a Cheez Doodle on my fork and admired it. Not caring much for the taste, I complimented the eye appeal of the dish. “This is really pretty, Mrs. V. Thanks for feeding me again.”
“Yes,” agreed Henry. “This certainly is a bright meal, sweetheart. The cheese, carrots, and squash are all the same color. Very nice indeed. And so . . . orange.”
I started to laugh once more. This time Henry roared, and Alice clucked a couple of times after pledging to serve the dish again on Halloween. We all struggled to clean our plates.
Henry was the first to put down his fork in concession.
“Ahhh . . .” He rubbed his belly until he had our attention.
“What’s for . . . dessert?” He winked at his wife, and they both laughed harder than ever as I sat and blushed.
When they pulled themselves together, Alice wiped a tear from her cheek, cocked her head to one side, and shrugged in what I considered a slight apology. “Well, Jane,” she said softly, “love makes the world go ’round.”
“Money makes the world go ’round!” Henry corrected.
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