“This is stupid.”
The silence seethed between them for a few seconds.
“Mitch didn’t dump me.”
“But he left.”
“I said I’d wait for him.”
“And you didn’t. Which is fine; no one expected you to. No one ever expected him to come back. The smart people get away from this place.”
“And the losers stick around.”
“It sure seems that way.”
Vicky sipped her iced tea. Someone hit a home run. The room erupted. Red Sox Nation. Cindy was a Yankees fan.
“I don’t know why he hasn’t called me,” Vicky said.
Mitchell Stone had been back on-island for more than a month—apparently with a kid in tow.
“Mike could ask him about you. He’s working at the same jobsite.”
“Banging nails for Pat Folger.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. It’s just…it seems like a long way to go to wind up back at square one again. He worked for Pat, summers in high school. He could have been a GC by now.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to be a general contractor. He told Mike he’s ‘retired.’”
“At age thirty-four? From what?”
“I don’t know. The military?”
They sat quietly and watched the halftime guys talking, making their points, earning their salaries.
“I’ve been seeing Mitch everywhere the last few weeks,” Vicky said. “I mean—not him. But I’ll see some guy and he’s got Mitch’s walk, or he’s wearing that corduroy vest with the jeans and the work boots, or maybe he turns and I catch a glimpse of his profile, and I call out or grab his arm, and it’s some stranger looking at me like I’m crazy. Maybe I am crazy.”
Cindy reached over and took her hand. “He’s back living at the Quidnet house. Drive out and see him.”
“No thanks.”
“Vicky—”
“If he wants to see me, he will.”
The conversation wound down. They had covered the usual topics—Cindy’s tyrannical father auditing her entire life when she asked for money to help pay for Katie’s Montessori school tuition. “Didn’t you mention going out to dinner with Mike last week? That seems awfully extravagant for a woman who can’t even pay for her own daughter’s education.” And Cindy mentioned Katie’s most recent wisecrack, countering her mom’s refusal to buy her a Mounds bar (“You’ve had enough sugar today”) at the grocery with “Mary Poppins says a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”
As for Vicky, school had begun, and two weeks in she was already half out of her art supplies, forget about getting more Blick watercolors, much less the Sennelier tubes she preferred, and she only had two talented students, anyway. The rest of them took art class as a free period, and half her students couldn’t speak English, so lectures on atmospheric perspective seemed exquisitely futile. It was easier to let them doodle and gossip and dance to their Spotify playlists.
Cindy asked about Eli, and the news was good. The second stint in rehab had worked, and though their family had never been particularly observant, Eli had hooked up with a WASP girl named Taylor Pierce who had converted to Judaism, and, like most converted shiksas (at least according to Vicky’s dad), had become almost comically fanatical, dragging Eli along with her to Torah studies at the island’s only shul. He had recited the Haggadah at Passover. “He’s even learning to blow the shofar!” Vicky had laughed. It made sense. The Teshuva had a lot in common with Eli’s AA rituals of repentance. And she enjoyed the Rosh Hashanah dinner. “Taylor cooks a mean brisket.”
The restaurant banged and clattered around them. Three guys at the bar were laughing way too loud. A waitress dropped a tray of dishes, and five people jumped in to help clean up.
There was nothing left to talk about but the serious stuff. Vicky set her fork down on her plate. “The guys were back again last night.”
“After you took their pictures?”
“Well, they threw my phone into the lily pond. I guess they didn’t realize I’d uploaded the photographs to the cloud.”
“That was stupid of them. They could go to jail for that.”
“Yeah, well…they didn’t actually steal the phone. There were no witnesses. And the last thing I want is more trouble from those guys.”
“Speaking of whom, I called Monica Terwilliger and sent her the photos. She checked them out.”
“Isn’t that against the rules? She’s not even a real cop.”
“Forensics has access to all the databases. And she’s worried about you.”
“That’s not the point. She could lose her job.”
Cindy stared her down. “Chief Kennis would never fire someone for helping a friend.”
“Okay. That’s great. That’s really nice of her. I have to thank her for this. She was such a bitch in high school.”
“Yeah, well…the extra forty pounds seem to have mellowed her out a little.”
Vicky sat forward. “So who are they?”
“The tall one is Jimmy Steckler. Moved here two years ago from Fall River. He signs on to the odd offshore fishing crew in the summer, drove a loader at Marine Home Center until he got fired. No steady income, but he caretakes a house in Tom Nevers. Lives there in the winter. Barely scraping by. The bald kid, Cody Carr, is his roommate. He does handyman work in the winter, drives a cab in the summer. Again—how does this guy make ends meet? The one with the lazy eye is Kip Boynton. He’s got a real estate license but no sales in the last eighteen months. Lives in low-income housing—in Norquarta, off Miacomet Road. He had a family when he got the house, but the wife left and took the kid with her. Now here’s the good part. The house in Tom Nevers is owned by Ramon Cruz, who runs the Tres Vatos gang. He’s a big-time drug dealer, but very clever, supposedly, covering his tracks and laundering his money and all that. Plus there’s a lot worse guys than him running around. Another bunch called Malditos Azteca.”
“We have two drug gangs on Nantucket?”
“Wake up, Vicky. There may be more. These are just the ones Monica knows about. Anyway, Ramon keeps everyone in line. He settles the disputes and keeps things quiet. He uses Anglo boys to do the street work. I guess he figures racist cops won’t profile them.”
“Guys like Jimmy and Cody and Kip.”
“Yeah.”
Vicky nodded. “He’s probably right.”
“But that makes them a lot more dangerous than they look. Ramon likes to play the kindly old padrone, but Monica told me he’s a killer, Vicky. Seriously. They had an informer in Tres Vatos a few years ago, and they found him overdosed, floating in the harbor. It was ruled ‘death by misadventure,’ but everyone knows Ramon had him killed. Other people have just…disappeared. Don’t be one of them.”
“Okay, you’re scaring me now.”
Cindy raised her hands, palms out. “I’m just the messenger. The point is, what Monica was saying basically was just, you know—stay out of their way. It’s like…rattlesnakes. They leave you alone if you don’t bother them.”
“Plus, they have that rattle to warn you away.”
Cindy glanced over Vicky’s shoulder and her face pulled tight. She stared down at her empty plate. “Speaking of which…”
Jimmy, Cody, and Kip had pushed past a waitress and two guys heading for the restroom to stand over their table. Speak of the devil—or in this case his incubi.
Jimmy smiled, baring nicotine-stained teeth and the gap of a missing molar. “Ladies.”
Cindy gritted her teeth. “Shit.”
Vicky glared up at him. “What the hell do you want?”
“Nothing, nothing, relax. I just need a quick word. First off, sorry about your cell phone. You should get the waterproof model next time.”
“Get lost.”
He grinned. “Hard t
o do on the Rock. When you know every little shortcut and everyone’s address.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a warning.”
“A friendly warning,” Cody chimed in.
Kip: “You have no idea what you’re fuckin’ with here.”
Cody: “Nosy little girls get hurt in this town.”
Jimmy: “They wind up in the harbor, and it ain’t for the turkey plunge.”
Kip snorted. “Bitch, you called the cops on us!”
“That was fucked up,” Cody agreed.
Vicky started to stand. “I’m getting the manager.”
Jimmy pushed her back down. “No, you’re not. You’re not doing shit until I say so. You can get yourself into big trouble, calling the cops around here. You never know which cop you gonna get. Know what I mean?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“The cop who showed up was a friend of mine, so no harm, no foul, far as that goes. But it could have been a fucked-up situation.”
“Yeah,” Kip said. “Night in jail, court date, boldface name in the paper. Probation problems, you name it.”
“Like going back to jail where you belong,” Vicky said.
“We don’t belong in jail,” Cody said. “We did our time. Paid our debt to society!”
“But you’re forgetting the interest,” Vicky said. Cindy shot her a look that translated as For God’s sake, shut up. “Like your maxed-out credit cards,” Vicky went on. “Tough to pay down.”
“Fuck is she talking about?” Kip snapped.
Jimmy ignored him. “Don’t call the cops on me again, bitch.”
Vicky stared up at him. “Don’t do drug deals under my window.”
“She has to make it up to us, Jimmy,” Cody whined. “Like you said. Like you told us.”
“Yeah. We can think of something for you to do. Prove your contrition, like they say in court. You’re getting old, but you’re still hot. And experience counts. We’ll even let your friend here pitch in.”
Cindy felt tears coming. She stared down hard at her empty plate.
Vicky spoke. Her voice was impossibly steady. “Get away from us.”
“Gonna call the cops? Like I said, that’ll just make things worse.”
“Enough.”
The voice came from behind them.
Cindy said, “Oh, my God.”
It was him.
“Mitch?”
“Hey, Vicky.”
“Cindy says you’ve been on-island for a month. You couldn’t call me?”
“Thanks, Cindy.”
She looked up into his cold brown eyes. But Vicky answered for her. “Don’t look at Cindy—this is Nantucket, remember? Everyone knows everything about everybody.”
He shrugged. “It’s been a little crazy. I kind of adopted a runaway kid, driving across the country, and we’ve been getting him into school, signing him up with a doctor, getting him some new clothes, fixing up his room at the house. Shit like that.”
“You adopted a kid?”
“Well, Susie and I are trying out the guardianship thing for a while. See what happens.”
“It’s—how did you—is he…? Are you doing okay?”
Mitch shrugged. “So far, so good.”
“Hey, buddy,” Jimmy said. “This is a private conversation. You should take off before you get hurt.”
Mitch turned to Cody. “Call 911.”
“Don’t do shit,” Jimmy said and grabbed Mitch’s wrist. Mitch stepped aside, covered the guy’s fingers with his left hand, and rolled his right hand over the wrist, curling around it like a snake. That forced the guy to his knees as Mitch kept the wrist locked with a light grip, moved beside his hapless opponent, pushed against the elbow, and corkscrewed him facedown onto the floor. Apparent effort and exertion, nil. Total elapsed time, two and half seconds.
Mitch released him, and he lurched forward as if he’d been kicked, moaning and clutching at his arm.
Mitch addressed the others. “Time to go.”
They pushed their way past a table of customers rising to leave and a pair of waitresses, almost knocking over a tray of drinks. The tall one scrambled to his feet and stumbled after them.
Vicky ignored the retreat. “What the hell did you just do?”
“Nikyo wrist lock. It’s easy. I can teach you if you want.”
“But can you teach me your gusto for using it?”
Mitch smiled. “This from the girl who pushed Jenny Little down the Atheneum steps because she said she kissed me.”
“She bragged about it!”
“She lied.”
Vicky lifted one eyebrow in her old sardonic interrogation. “You never looked at another girl back then?”
“Never. Then or now or any time in between.”
“So you’ve been celibate since high school.”
“More or less. Emotionally celibate.”
“How did that work out?”
“Surprisingly well.”
“I got married.”
“I know. I follow you on Facebook. It got complicated. Then you got divorced. Now you list yourself as single again.”
“Just like Jenny.”
“Not quite. You didn’t join the LGBT community.”
“It’s LGBTQ now. Actually it’s LGBTQQIAAP.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. What’s the rest of it stand for?”
Vicky squinted, thinking. “Hmmm…the whole thing is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual. And some people still feel left out.”
“Like who?”
“Trigendered. Aporagendered. Don’t ask.”
“I won’t.”
They studied each other for a few seconds, a quiet bubble in the hubbub of the crowded restaurant.
“So you’ve been saving yourself for me?” Vicky asked, finally.
“It turns out. None of the other women passed the test.”
“The test?”
“It was real simple. Would I leave the woman I was seeing with no notice and no suitcase if I got a call from you?”
“And no one passed?”
“No one even came close.”
Another measured silence. A waiter brushed past Mitch with a line of burger-laden plates on his arm.
“I may have to change my status back to ‘complicated.’”
“Your status was always complicated.”
“And you always knew the right thing to say.”
“But only to you.”
“So, you’re back in Quidnet?”
“We’d never sell.”
“Same number?”
“You remember it?”
“I use it as my bank card pin number.”
That tricked him into a smile. “I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be. Flattery is fake.”
“How about—surprised and pleased?”
“That’s a good start.”
There wasn’t much left to say, standing up, drawing attention, blocking the waiters.
“So you’ll call?”
“Maybe I’ll just wait until we run into each other again.”
“Please don’t.”
“Hi, Mitch,” Cindy said. “Long time no see.”
“Hey, Cindy.”
“I was starting to feel invisible over here.”
“Sorry. Just think of it as—eclipsed. Which isn’t all bad. Even the sun gets eclipsed, and by the moon, which, when you think about it, is very comforting for the little guy. There was a total eclipse when we were thirteen years old. I remember thinking—‘Go moon!’ It didn’t last, but you take what you can get.”
“Welcome home, Mitch.”
Vicky added, “See
, you can talk to other people.”
Mitch smiled. “I’m working on it.” He tipped his head. “Ladies.”
With a final lingering smile, he faded back and eased between the tables away from them, past the bar, through the vestibule, and out the door. Vicky kept staring after him across the tables to the entrance. Did she hope he was coming back in? Cindy could see it—that final smile had gone through her friend like a skewer through a cube of steak. She was ready for the grill. After all this time, she still was ready.
Cindy said, “The return of the prodigal townie.”
“Didn’t the prodigal son squander his inheritance and return home to a forgiving father?”
“I guess.”
“Mitch got nothing, and his father’s dead.”
“But he returned. That’s the only part people remember.”
“True.”
“Be careful, though, Vicks. There’s something about that guy. He’s dangerous.”
“To Jimmy Steckler. Not to me.”
“I guess his time in the military wasn’t wasted.”
“He didn’t need the military. Remember back in high school, when he caught Ham Tyler spray-painting the Star of David on my locker? He dismantled that little turd, just leveled him.”
“I heard about that. Ham never pressed charges, though.”
“That would have meant admitting that the local weirdo cleaned his clock for him.”
“The local weirdo.”
“Yeah.”
“He turned out okay, for a weirdo. Kind of a hunk, actually.”
“Yeah.”
They paid their check and left. Lunch had left Cindy feeling restless and sad. She sat in her car and tracked the scuttling emotion until she could crush it under her thumb like a bug on a windowsill. She was jealous of Vicky. That was it. Not because of Mitchell Stone; she didn’t care about him one way or the other. It was the thing between them that she missed, the fraught electricity of their conversation, the look in Vicky’s eyes as he walked away. For some reason, she recalled the travel poster the teacher had tacked up in her social studies classroom—some sugar-white Greek village perched on a cliff above the Aegean. Sitting bored and miserable while Mr. Felber droned on about pre–Civil War agrarian economies, she had longed to climb into that picture somehow and wander off under that resonant blue sky, away from everything, down some sunlit twisting lane to the music of goat bells.
Nantucket Penny Page 4
