Twanged

by Carol Higgins Clark

  “Kit said she’s in the cottage here.”

  Luke veered to the right and pulled the car up to the front door. “Should I honk?” he asked his daughter.

  “No, Dad. Please. They only do that in the movies. Here comes Kit anyway.”

  Dressed in a bathing suit cover-up, her blond hair wet and combed back, Kit hurried down the steps of a wraparound porch. “Hi, everybody,” she called.

  As Nora, Luke, and Regan got out of the car, a horn blared behind them, making them all jump.

  “I thought they did that only in the movies,” Luke remarked, his eyes crinkling. They turned as a huge bus with wheels the size of circular picnic tables crunched through the open gates. Still honking, it rumbled past them and swerved around the circular driveway, swiping the Rolls-Royce parked in front of the castle.

  The front door of the castle flew open and a middle-aged man came running out.

  “Welcome, welcome!” he shrieked, then stopped, obviously taking in the altered state of his Rolls. It did not deter his exuberance. “No need to worry about the dent!” he yelled to the bus driver. “No need at all. That’s how auto body shops make a living.”

  “That’s Chappy, the thumbtack king,” Kit said. “The word’s out that he’s so happy Brigid is staying here, he’s on the verge of a stroke.”

  “If I had a Rolls and someone smashed into it, I’d have the stroke,” Luke commented. “He must sell a hell of a lot of thumbtacks.”

  He may be crazy, Regan thought, but at least this place looks as if it will give Brigid plenty of privacy. She turned to her mother. “Would you like to meet the Lord of the Manor?”

  Nora nodded. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  As they all walked across the sprawling property, Brigid emerged from the bus and almost stepped into the arms of the ecstatic Chappy.

  “Brigid, Brigid, Brigid!” he cried. “A hundred thousand welcomes, as you Irish say. I’d like to say ‘a million welcomes.’ At the very least!”

  Regan could see the startled look on Brigid’s face, but then Brigid smiled warmly. “Now that’s a lot of welcomes, Mr. Tinka.”

  “Chappy,” he interrupted, his voice rising with every syllable. “I INSIST you call me CHAPPY.”

  “All right. All right,” Brigid said hastily. “Chappy it is.” She took a deep breath and appreciatively sniffed the air. “When we lived in Brooklyn, we were near the water. By God, I love the scent of the sea.”

  “Brooklyn!” Chappy exclaimed. “I keep forgetting that you weren’t nurtured on the Emerald Isle. With all the talk of the fiddle, I see you in my mind as Irish.”

  Regan decided to try to rescue Brigid. “How about another welcome?” she asked.

  Brigid turned. “Regan! Kit! It’s so good to see you.” As she hugged them she murmured, “What’s with this guy?”

  “Very hospitable.” Regan grinned.

  “And so forgiving,” Kit whispered. “Did you see what the bus did to his car?”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Brigid muttered as she looked at the Rolls. “It’s a wonder he didn’t boot us out of here.”

  Regan managed to introduce Brigid to Nora and Luke before Chappy jumped in. It didn’t take him more than an instant to realize that Nora was Nora Regan Reilly and very much on the A-list in the Hamptons. “Oh, how my Bettina will thrill to meet you,” he said. “Oh my, what a happy day.” He pointed at the three young women. “You all know each other?” he asked with what sounded like a hint of anxiety.

  “Sure do,” Brigid said. “Kit’s in your group house here, and Regan is a friend of mine who’ll be staying with me.” She turned and winked at Regan. “We plan to have fun this week.”

  Regan had warned Brigid not to say anything about her acting as a bodyguard. When someone invites you to be their houseguest, it might be considered insulting to show up with your own security force. What would Miss Manners say about that one? Probably better to keep your mouth shut.

  “Hello, Mr. Tinka,” Kit said. “We haven’t met yet. This is my first weekend at the house.”

  “Good good good,” Chappy replied distractedly. He seemed to Regan like the human version of a washing machine on the spin cycle. His hands fluttered and he looked from side to side. “Mr. Reilly,” he said, “Mrs. Reilly . . . are you staying at the Chappy Compound, too?”

  Luke’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “No,” he blurted. Then, in a calmer voice, he said, “We have a house in Bridgehampton.” He turned to Nora. “As a matter of fact, the Washburns will be there soon. We’d better get going.”

  Chappy jumped in. “Do come back tonight. I’m having a little cocktail party. Just a small group I’ve thrown together. We’ll have drinks on the deck. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres. A little buffet. You must come back. . . .”

  “We’d love to,” Nora said. “But we have house-guests coming.”

  “Bring them along,” Chappy insisted.

  Brigid’s band members finally emerged from the bus. In unison all three reached up and tilted their cowboy hats, for all the world reminding Regan of “Bonanza” reruns. Adam, Little Joe, and Hoss tilted their hats the same way, she thought. Clad in blue jeans and cowboy boots, Brigid’s band members walked the walk of country musicians.

  Brigid did the honors. “Everybody, I’d like you to meet Teddy, Hank, and Kieran.”

  Regan had trained herself to try to get names straight the first time she was introduced to anyone. These three would be easy to remember. Teddy was clearly the youngest. He couldn’t have been more than twenty and had reddish brown hair, freckles, a baby face, and a long, skinny frame. The other two looked to be in their late twenties or early thirties. Hank was stocky, curly dark blond hair, basset hound-brown eyes, and a handlebar mustache. Kieran had dark hair, twinkling blue eyes, and a warm smile. He was, Regan thought, what they termed in country music magazines a hunk-a-billy.

  “And here comes Kieran’s girlfriend, Pammy,” Brigid said.

  “It figures,” Kit murmured to Regan.

  Regan smiled. Had Brigid’s tone been a bit less warm? she wondered. Interesting.

  Pammy, a petite baby-doll type, clad in blue jeans and a halter top, threw back her waist-length, honey-colored hair as she looked around and smiled at everyone. “Kieran and I have been looking forward to being here and meeting you all,” she said in a singsongy voice. She grabbed his arm and stroked it lovingly. “Right, honey?”

  “Right, baby,” he said quickly.

  Regan thought he looked embarrassed.

  Chappy’s hands started fluttering. “Indeed, indeed. Welcome one and all. Welcome . . .”

  Here we go again, Regan thought.

  “. . . Why doesn’t everyone get settled, then?” Chappy continued. “I’ll get my assistant to help you with your bags. Duke!” Chappy bellowed. “DUKE!”

  Regan refrained from putting her fingers in her ears. But his bellowing worked. From inside the house, someone yelled. “Yo!”

  “Yo,” Nora murmured to Regan. “Is that butler talk?”

  Regan smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  “GET OUT HERE!” Chappy hollered, and then he spun back around to his guests. “Yes . . . uh . . . yes . . . After everyone enjoys a bit of relaxation, perhaps a little swim, we all can meet for cocktails at six P.M. How does that sound?”

  Regan turned to Nora. “Will you come back?”

  “If Louisa and Herbert are willing . . .”

  Regan turned to Chappy. “They’ll be back.”

  “Wonderful!” he cried. “The start of a beautiful week! Wonderful!”

  The bus driver sheepishly appeared from around the back of his vehicle as the group started to break up.

  “This here is Rudy,” Brigid said with a smile.

  Forget a hundred thousand welcomes. Not even one measly “hello” came from Chappy for this newcomer. “Are you staying here?” he sniffed.

  “Nah,” Rudy said with a wave of his hand. He was small and slight with graying hair. “Som
eone is picking me up. I’ll be back Friday night so we can hit the road after the concert. Where do you want me to stick the bus?”

  That’s a loaded question, Regan thought.

  “Oh yes yes! Around the side of the house. Over there!” Chappy pointed as Rudy lit up a cigarette.

  Upstairs, her tanned body clad in a leopard leotard, her teased, bleached blond hair pulled up in a scrunchie, Bettina stared out the window in horror as she did her bends and stretches. Her white toy poodle, Tootsie, yapped at her heels.

  That tour bus looks like it escaped from Ringling Brothers, she thought grouchily. But she couldn’t even complain about it, since Chappy had begrudgingly allowed Peace Man to set up camp in his RV on the side of the house for the summer season.

  “We have our own on-site guru,” Bettina had said. “Don’t you think that looks impressive?”

  Reluctantly Chappy had agreed and Bettina had been pleased. But a tour bus! Next thing you know, Bettina thought, we’ll have an ice cream truck parked outside. Or a yellow-umbrella hot dog stand.

  It was so hard to get things just right. To do things the way they should be done. To give the right impression to the right people.

  But Bettina kept trying.

  She was working hard to fit in, but it wasn’t easy being a new wife in Southampton after all these years. She was certainly glad that she and Chappy had gotten back together. Her in-between husband was so broke, he couldn’t afford a night out at Chucky Cheese’s. There was no way she could endure that lifestyle until death did them part.

  After her final stretch, Bettina grabbed her oversized T-shirt and walked out of the room, Tootsie following close behind.

  “Mama has to get ready for our party tonight,” she said, smiling down at her dog. She passed a portrait of Chappy’s mother and stuck her tongue out at it. “I’ve got your son and your jewelry, you old bat.”

  6

  SATURDAY, JUNE 28

  SAG HARBOR

  In the greenhouse in the backyard of his cottage in Sag Harbor, retired master fiddle-maker Ernie Enders sat hunched over his workbench. He was surrounded by his prized tomatoes, but they did little to distract him. Thanks to the hounding of Chappy Tinka, Ernie had emerged from his retirement. Tinka had driven past Ernie’s music shop many times over the years but had never darkened its doorstep. Now that Ernie had closed those doors for good, Chappy tracked him down at his home and begged him for his help.

  “A masterpiece he wants,” Ernie grumbled. “A masterpiece. In no time at all, I’m supposed to create a masterpiece. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Disgraceful.”

  Ernie looked up from the plywood mold with the golden maple sides and squinted at the blown-up pictures of the model fiddle propped up in front of him. “How am I supposed to make a fiddle look old in less than a week?!” he shouted. “How?”

  He looked back down at his work in progress and sighed. These rich people want what they want when they want and it’s always right now, he thought. I’m sick to my stomach. Sick sick sick. I haven’t built a fiddle since retiring seven years ago and now I’m told to do it in a rush. And he wants me to carve this CT on the side just like it is in the picture.

  Gingerly he picked up the unfinished hunk of wood and held it up to the pictures. Pictures taken off a television set. Ridiculous. I guess I shouldn’t complain, Ernie thought as he studied the pictures. He’s paying me a lot of money. Then again, he should. Ernie compared the stain on the fiddle to the one in the picture.

  The door of the greenhouse opened and he turned to see Pearl, his wife of fifty years, wearing a house-dress over her skinny frame and carrying a tray of lemonade and ginger snaps. “You must eat something to keep up your strength,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  “Slow. Real slow. Tinka wants it to be exactly like the one in the picture. But how can I do that? I need to hold the original and examine it.”

  “Drink up, Ernie. It’s hot in here.” Pearl poured him a glass of the lemonade and placed the tray on his workbench. “Ernie, don’t worry. You were the best in the business. Do you want me to pack your wool socks for the trip?”

  “Ach,” he said. “Why not?”

  Having lived in the charming village of Sag Harbor their whole lives, they’d become increasingly distressed by how crowded the Hamptons now got during the summer. Especially Ernie.

  “Too much too much too much,” he complained to Pearl.

  This year they’d planned to dodge the tourists by getting out of town for six weeks. On Wednesday they were leaving for their grandniece’s wedding in Pennsylvania. After that they’d drive west.

  “Some places it might get cold, you know. Maybe it is a good idea to bring your wool socks. They’re a little heavier and I know how you get when your feet are cold. Nothing worse than having cold feet.” Pearl sat down and started at him.

  “The only person we have to worry about getting cold feet is the groom,” Ernie grumbled. He turned to Pearl. “Pearl, you know I can’t work with you staring like that.”

  “I feel lonesome inside. I have no one to argue with. I’m not used to you working.”

  “With what I make on this we can take a trip to Florida this winter.” He turned back to the fiddle.

  “Two trips in one year. You’re the last of the big spenders.” Pearl laughed and got up. She leaned over to give Ernie a kiss on his bald head. Startled, he jerked and knocked the pitcher of lemonade all over the freshly stained wood.

  “Pearl!”

  “I’m sorry, Ernie. I’ll run and get some paper towels!”

  Ernie picked up the damp wood and shook his head. “More delays,” he said to himself. Talking to himself was a habit he’d picked up in childhood, and it had only gotten worse when he started his solitary business of building fiddles. “More delays. I’m going to have to strip and revarnish.” Ah nuts, he thought. I just hope that Chappy Tinka doesn’t show up and start bugging me again. What a pest!

  7

  When Nora and Luke pulled into the driveway of their Bridgehampton home, they found Louisa and Herbert Washburn sitting on the front steps waiting for them.

  Louisa jumped up as if she had just won Lotto. “We made wonderful time getting out here!” she exulted.

  Ten minutes later they were accepting cool glasses of Chardonnay from Luke and plopping themselves onto a couch in the rear “living space” that ran the length of Luke and Nora’s airy home. Pine floors, white couches and chairs, a blond wood dining room table off the open kitchen area, and large windows that overlooked an expansive grassy yard complete with a pool and large trees bordering the property—all combined to give a feeling of elegant simplicity.

  “I’ve heard of that thumbtack family you know, hnnnnnn,” Louisa said. It never took long for a new acquaintance of Louisa’s to realize that many of her statements were punctuated with a nasal exhale and, if someone was close enough, a grab and shake of their elbow. As a result, many a drink had been spilled at cocktail parties.

  Louisa turned to Herbert, a nondescript man whose expression was like Switzerland—always neutral. After forty years of marriage he didn’t seem to notice Louisa’s grunts and grabs anymore. A vague look in his watery blue eyes often made people wonder if the lights were on but nobody was home. “Lambie,” she said.

  “Yes, dear.” Herbert was thin and mostly bald, a gray band of hair forming a horseshoe from ear to ear. He was a head shorter than Louisa, who was often seen affectionately smoothing out his little wisps on top.

  “Years ago. Didn’t we meet Hilda Tinka, this chap Chappy’s mother?” she asked, stricken by a sudden urge to attend to her own hair. Someone had once told her she looked good in an upsweep: then and there it had become her permanent hairdo. Right now she strained to tuck in any stray dyed brown strands that had managed to escape from the bun. Between shampoo days her maintenance consisted of sticking in more and more pins, to the point where she couldn’t make it through an airport X-ray machine without setting off the buzzer. But she was an attractive
woman with soft features and warm brown eyes. “Didn’t we?” she continued. “Hnnnnnn?”

  Herbert scrunched up his mouth and blew out. His eyes remained in a fixed stare in the direction of the coffee table. Finally he answered thoughtfully, “Could be.”

  “That’s what I thought. Hnnnn.” She turned to Luke and Nora. “I’m going to have to research that. I’ve put the information from all my datebooks for the past twenty-five years on my laptop computer. My life is in there. Names, places, parties, numbers.”

  “Half the people in it are dead,” Herbert remarked.

  “Lambie, not half!” Louisa said, grabbing his bony knee and giving it a good jiggle. “Nora, I’m the Queen of the Internet. It’s where I do all my research. I’ll teach you all about it this week.”

  Week, Nora thought. She didn’t dare look at Luke. She had told him they were staying for three days at the most. In reply she managed to croak, “That would be very interesting.”

  “Tonight should be interesting,” Louisa pronounced. “I love to get a feel for other people’s homes.”

  You don’t say, Nora thought. “Well, you won’t be disappointed in this place,” she said politely. “Not only did Chappy Tinka build himself a castle, but he’s also going to renovate the servants’ quarters and build a small theatre for his personal use.”

  Luke sipped his wine. “Like the Mouseketeers.”

  Louisa laughed. “Summer stock! How glorious!” she said, gesturing grandly with her free hand. “For my article on the Hamptons I’ll have to include a little section on Chappy Tinka and his wife. Here is someone building a theatre in his own backyard! That’s a long way from the days when people came out here and found nothing but a quiet farming place where people fished for excitement. I’ll write about how the reasons people come out here have changed. Some people like the Hollywood feel out here, others don’t.” She paused slightly, emitting an exceptionally charged hnnnnn. “Tonight provides me with a wonderful opportunity to do some background research for my article, doesn’t it, Lambie?”