“Of course, darling,” Bitsy said, mustering a reassuring smile.
“Thanks for the save, Mitch,” Becca said with a shy smile of her own.
“No problem. That’s what neighbors are for.”
“He told me he still cared about me. That he thought about me a lot and missed me.”
“So you’ve been seeing him?” Bitsy asked her pointedly.
Becca lowered her eyes. “Maybe a little,” she admitted, scuffing at the floorboards with her big toe. She had a dancer’s feet, knobby and calloused. “We went for a walk on the town beach together the other night.”
“Was this the night before last?” Mitch asked her curiously.
“Well, yeah. It was raining. We walked and talked for hours in the rain. It was nice. He was very sweet.”
“What time did you meet him there, Becca?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Because it might be important.”
“Midnight. I met him at midnight. You were in bed asleep, Mother.”
“This morning, too, I imagine.” Bitsy was not pleased that Becca had been slipping out on her this way.
“I’m an adult, Mother.”
“You absolutely are.”
Clearly, they had boundary issues, which were of no concern to Mitch. What did interest him was that Becca Peck was apparently walking on the beach with Dodge at the time of Tito’s death. This being the case, where was Martine? Who could vouch for her?
“I-I thought it would be different this time,” Becca said haltingly. “I thought he would be different. I was wrong, Mitch. And by the time I realized it, it was too late to stop.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Becca.”
“No, I need to. I just can’t imagine what you must have thought when you walked in on us. What you… must be thinking of me right this very minute.”
“I’m thinking that you got played. It can happen to anyone. Believe me, you’re not alone. Not by a long shot.”
“I’d like to repay you somehow.”
“You don’t have to do that either.”
“Can I make you lunch one day? I’m a decent cook, if you don’t mind vegetarian.”
“It’s true, she is,” Bitsy chimed in encouragingly. “She’s taught me all sorts of inventive ways to use my zucchinis.”
“Sounds great.”
Becca padded back inside now, leaving them alone there on the veranda. They rocked back and forth in silence for a long moment.
“What are the chances she’ll stay clean?”
“Not good,” Bitsy answered flatly. “You have to like the person who you see in the mirror every day, and Becca doesn’t. She needs to feel good about herself again. Find something she can care about. For years, it was dance. But she’s stopped dancing and she hasn’t come up with anything to take its place. That’s what she needs in her life right now-not a degrading affair with a man who preys upon her own sense of worthlessness. She tells herself Dodge treats her that way because she deserves to be treated that way. It isn’t so, Mitch. She’ssweet and she’s lovely and she’s never been a harm to anyone in this world but herself.” Bitsy trailed off, fanning herself with her hat. “Something you’ll learn when you have children of your own-and I sincerely hope you will, because you’ll make a wonderful father-is that you can’t protect them from their own mistakes. All you can do is love them.”
“Why do you think I’d make a good father?”
“I believe the word I used was ‘wonderful.’ ”
“Well, why do you?”
“Because you care about other people. A lot of couples who have children don’t. Too darned many.”
“Tell me about Martine.”
“What do you want to know about her?”
“Well, she must at least be aware that Dodge chases after young girls.”
“Of course she is.”
“How can she tolerate it?”
“Mitch, the most important thing to remember about Martine Crockett is that she’s a crushed flower.”
Mitch glanced at her curiously. “A crushed what?”
“That’s an old Miss Porter’s expression. I guess no one uses it anymore. It means that she’s, well, she was a great beauty who married unwisely. And has paid dearly for it ever since with a life of regret, resentment, and muted desperation. It means…” Bitsy hesitated briefly, her chest rising and falling, round cheeks reddening. “It means that she’s Dorset’s town tramp. Has been for a good twenty years. And I can never forgive her for that, Mitch. Not because I give a good goddamned whose husband she’s sleeping with-and, believe me, I can think of a dozen without even breaking a sweat-but because she was that poor girl’s mother and she let it happen. Instead of protecting Esme from that awful beast, she was out chasing after her own selfish pleasures. And when she was presented with the horrible truth, when Esme told her what Dodge was doing to her, she simply chose not to believe it. And look what happened to her beautiful little girl, Mitch. Look what happened to my girl. Myb-beautiful, sweet-” Bitsy broke off with a sudden choked sob and went barreling into the house with her hands over her face, her straw hat falling from her head and fluttering to the veranda floor.
She didn’t want Mitch to see her cry. Crying was something that was done behind closed doors. Bitsy was very old-fashioned.
Mitch picked up her hat and hung it from a hook outside the door, then trudged home by way of the lighthouse on the island’s narrow, rocky strip of beach, his hands in his pockets and a hollow, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Quirt was taking a nap in the shade under the butterfly bush by the front door. Clemmie was nowhere to be seen.
There were several more phone messages from news outlets wanting to talk to him about Tito’s death. These he ignored. There were also three messages from Dodge. “Mitch we need to talk… Mitch, I really don’t want to leave things this way… Mitch, please call me. Mitch…”
These Mitch carefully erased. He did not call Dodge Crockett back.
C. C. Willoughby and Co. was situated smack-dab in the center of the quaint little main drag of quaint little Sussex, a highly desirable shoreline commuter town sandwiched in between Greenwich and Cos Cob. At latest count, a hefty 38 percent of the homes in Sussex were valued at more than $1 million apiece. Pristine white colonial mansions, immaculate green lawns and shiny new silver Lexus SUVs abounded. No handyman specials, no weeds, no clunkers. It occurred to Mitch, as he tootled his way slowly through town in his old Studey, that he had entered a world apart, a world where virtually no one was not rich, blond, slender, and stylish. At least Dorset had a few middle-class working stiffs who were misshapen, dark, and shlumpy.
Well, at least it had him.
Most of the shops were located in vintage brick row buildings. The parking out front was on the diagonal, just like in that Connecticut village in Bringing Up Baby, the one where Cary Grant andKatharine Hepburn stopped to buy meat for Baby. There was a movie theater that played foreign films for mature audiences, a barbershop, dry cleaner, a coffee shop called The Beanery. There were chic boutiques selling things like really expensive baby clothing and kitchenware.
And there was C. C. Willoughby and Co., which had started out in the space where the village hardware store had once been and had proven to be such a success that it had spread not only upstairs but to the buildings on either side of it. C. C. Willoughby was the rarest phenomenon in the book business-an independent bookstore that made money. Book lovers didn’t just come to C. C. Willoughby to shop, they came to spend the whole day. And they came from all over the state of Connecticut. This made it a must-stop for best-selling authors on tour. Most of the big names, from Tom Brokaw to Toni Morrison to Abby Kaminsky, author of the Codfather Trilogy, held signings there on their way from New York to Boston.
Mitch couldn’t even get near the place on this particular July afternoon. People were lined up by the hundreds to get in the door and meet Abby. Many of these people in line were chi
ldren wearing pointy Carleton Carp fish-head costumes. As he drove by them in search of a parking space, it dawned on Mitch that they looked disturbingly like a legion of very short Ku Klux Klansmen in town for a rally.
He wondered if anyone else had every noticed this before.
He ended up parking in a municipal lot three blocks away and strolling back. He entered through the bustling cafe, which was connected to the gift shop, where high-end stationery, soaps, and scented candles were sold. The herbal scents filled the entire bookstore. Mitch had always thought a bookstore should smell like, well, books. Not like lavender. Still, he admired C.C. Willoughby. He admired anyone who could turn a profit selling books. Most of the vast downstairs was reserved for current hardcover fiction and nonfiction. Abby was signing copies of her new novel upstairs, where the children’s books were. The line of kids and their parents waiting to meet her snaked all the way down the stairs and out the front door.
Mitch squeezed past them and tried to get to her by way of an adjoining room. But the doorway was intentionally blocked. All he could manage was a peek of her seated there at a table, greeting her fans one by one and signing copies of The Codfather of Sole. Abby was a chubby little blond in a cream-colored linen suit. Flanking her were Chrissie Huberman and Abby’s escort, a six-foot-four inch slab of granite who favored the goatee and shaved head look. Mitch supposed it was intended to make him look menacing, and as far as he was concerned it worked.
There was no way Mitch could approach her now. None.
So he waited outside on a bench across the street, nursing an iced cappuccino from the cafe while he tried to keep his mind off of the horrifying image of Dodge and his own teenaged daughter in bed together. He could not do it. The image would not fade away.
A half hour later, Abby finally emerged out front with Chrissie. The two women chatted for a minute as Abby signed books for a few more grateful young readers. Meanwhile, her escort made his way over to a black town car parked two doors down, unlocked it, and waited there for her, holding a rear door open. Mitch was on his feet now, inching his way steadily closer. Abby and Chrissie exchanged a hug, then Chrissie went back inside and Abby started toward the car. As soon as she’d climbed in the escort slammed her door shut and got in behind the wheel.
This was when Mitch yanked open her door, jumped in beside her and said, “Abby, we need to talk.”
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing!” she objected angrily.
“I’m sorry, but this was the only-”
“Back off, Mr. Stalker Nut!”
“I’m not a stalker, I’m-”
“Yo, who is this guy, Abby?” her escort demanded, twisting around in the front seat and seizing Mitch by the collar of his rumpled button-down.
“Wait, I know him…” Abby shook a manicured finger at Mitch now. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper. You’re-”
“Mitch Berger,” he gasped.
“Right,” she exclaimed. “And you’re all mixed up in this Tito Molina mess with Chrissie… Let him go, Frankie.” Frankie complied. “I know who this man is, although I don’t have the slightest idea what he wants. What do you want, Mitch?”
“It’s about Jeff,” Mitch said, straightening his collar. “I’m a friend of his.”
Abby’s face fell. “Oh, I see.”
Abby Kaminsky was a little bitty thing, barely five feet tall. And there were two things Mitch knew about her right away. One was that she was someone who had been told that she was adorable for as long as she could remember. The other was that she was someone who had always fought her weight. For some reason, Abby reminded Mitch of Muriel Bloom, the teacher who he’d been madly in love with when he was in the fifth grade. Something about her heart-shaped face, milky complexion, and startled blue eyes. Abby wore her frosted blond hair in a smartly styled bob. Her makeup, lipstick, and nail polish all came together in a way that indicated a professional had supervised her entire look-right down to the linen suit she wore, which accentuated her generous curves rather than fighting with them.
On the seat next to her were a box of Cocoa Pebbles kids’ cereal and a water bottle. She reached for the water bottle, her eyes studying Mitch carefully. “Look, I have to be in Boston. I don’t have time for this-whatever this is.”
“It’ll only take a few minutes,” Mitch promised. “Have you eaten lunch? I happen to know they make a superior BLT at The Beanery.”
“God, cookie, you know the way right to my heart.”
The Beanery was narrow and dark. The floors were of well-worn wood, as were the high-backed booths, which had several generations of initials carved into them. Since it was after two o’clock, no one else was in there eating lunch. They took the booth next to the front window. Frankie stayed outside, leaning against the town car with his big arms crossed, glowering at Mitch.
“Don’t mind him, Mitch,” Abby said, hanging her linen jacket on a coat hook by the door. She wore a sleeveless white silk camisoleunderneath. Her bare arms were round but well toned, as if she’d been going to the gym regularly. “He’s just very protective. And we had a brief, a-a thing, so he gets all hormonal.”
“You’re not with him any longer?” Mitch asked, recalling how enraged Jeff had been over their affair.
“I don’t stay with anyone for very long. Listen, I have to go wash my patties. I’ve just spent the past hour shaking hands with my you-know-whos. Do you have any idea where those fingers of theirs have been? In their mouths, in their noses, in their… God, it’s too horrible to even think about.” She paused, looking Mitch up and down. “I’m going to take you on faith. Order me a BLT and a chocolate shake.”
He ordered the same for both of them from the elderly waitress as Frankie continued to glare at him through the window.
“That was so terrible about Tito,” Abby said when she returned to their booth, sliding in across from him. “It must feel weird knowing you were the last person on earth to speak to him before he jumped.”
“Actually, that may not be what happened. He may have been murdered.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” she demanded breathlessly, her big blue eyes widening. “Please tell me it wasn’t you, Mitch. You’ve just jumped into my town car. You’re notorious. You’re desperate. You’ve got the wounded teddy bear thing going on. Already I have a mad crush on you.”
“It wasn’t me,” Mitch said.
“Oh, thank God.”
The waitress returned now with their shakes, fussing over Abby, who she obviously recognized.
Mitch tasted his. It was frosty and good. “But until they do know how Tito died, I won’t get over this. I need to know if I could have saved him.”
“Mitch, I wouldn’t blame myself, I were you. Tito Molina didn’t know up from down. That was one hurtin’ puppy.”
Mitch gazed at her curiously. “You sound as if you knew him.”
“I did.” She took a gulp of her shake, the tip of her pink tongue flicking at the residue on her upper lip. “We had a brief, a-a thing.”
“Really, when was this?”
“Before I left on my tour. Would you believe I’ve been on the road for over six weeks? I’ve hit twenty-three cities in forty-nine days, not that I’m counting or anything. My face is breaking out for the first time since the Reagan years. I have no life and no one to talk to except for Frankie, who is not exactly Mr. David Halberstam, in case you didn’t notice. These past few nights have been the first nights I’ve slept in my own actual bed since, like, Memorial Day. When I woke up my first morning home, I didn’t recognize my own room. I couldn’t even remember what city I was in. That’s when you know you’ve been on tour too long. And already I’m back on the road again, two nights in Boston and…” She trailed off, suddenly realizing that she hadn’t answered Mitch’s question. “Chrissie brought me by Tito’s hotel for breakfast one morning. He was in New York to meet with some British playwright, and the studio was hoping he’d agree to be the voice of Carleton for the film versi
on of The Codfather. He ended up passing, but he wanted to hear my thoughts about the character before he committed.”
Mitch nodded. The first Carleton movie was a state-of-the-art animated production that had been two years in the making. It was going to be its studio’s big Christmas release. Freddie Prinze Jr. was providing the voice of Carleton.
“I thought he was very sweet,” Abby went on. “And after Crissie took off, I found myself upstairs in his hotel room, naked. Scout’s honor, I boinked Tito Molina-little Abigail Kaminsky from Margate, New Jersey, thunder thighs and all. Honestly, I was so nervous I felt just like I do when I’m at the gynecologist’s office. My little hands and feet were all clammy, and I couldn’t stop shaking. But he was very gentle and considerate.”
The waitress arrived with their sandwiches now. “Miss Kaminsky, my granddaughter ab-so-tootly loves your books,” she said as she set down their plates. “Could I get your autograph?”
“You ab-so-tootly can!” Abby responded sweetly, scribbling her name on a napkin and handing it to her. “Tell her I said hi!”
“Oh, I will.” The waitress scurried off, thrilled.
They dove hungrily into their sandwiches, two chubby people who prized their eats.
“You sure do know your sandwiches, Mitch,” Abby proclaimed after several bites, licking mayonnaise from her manicured fingers. “This is the best BLT I’ve ever had. What’s the secret?”
“The tomatoes are right off of the vine, I think. Makes all the difference.” Mitch sipped his shake distractedly, his mind racing. Could Abby somehow be a player in this? “How long were you and Tito an item?”
“We weren’t,” she said flatly. “It wasn’t that kind of a deal at all. It was strictly a one-shot matinee. The proverbial quickie. Besides, like I told you, I don’t stay involved with anyone for long.”
“Not even Jeff?”
Abby reddened instantly. “Jeffrey Wachtell broke my poor heart into a million pieces. I gained twenty pounds after we split up. I couldn’t write a single word. I couldn’t leave the house. All I could do was eat and cry. I cried and I cried. I still cry myself to sleep every night. Look at me, Mitch-I’m rich, I’m famous, I’m buffed to within an inch of my life. Believe me, this is as fantastically cute as I’m ever going to look. And I can’t remember the last time I went out on an actual date.” She shot a brief, disdainful glance out the window at Frankie, who appeared to have fallen asleep on his feet, rather like a barnyard animal. “What’s wrong with me anyway? Am I that disgusting?”
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