Off Season

by Jean Stone

  Rita made small doodles on her order pad but looked neither at Jill nor at Ben. “I said she’s eighteen now and can probably do just about everything legal except drink or vote.”

  “Rita!” Jill blurted out. “I thought you were my friend!”

  She stopped doodling, tucked the pencil over her ear, and folded her arms. “I also told her that the law expects one should pay one’s own way. Then I reminded her that once we close the tavern for the season, she—like most of us—will have a hard time finding work. That seemed to shut her up on the subject.” She plucked her pencil, again with indifference, and poised it over the pad. “So what’ll it be tonight?”

  Jill looked to Ben. But he seemed lost in the menu as if he were making a monumental decision, as if he didn’t know the menu by heart. “I’ll have the turkey and cranberry sauce on wheat toast,” he said without looking up.

  Jill’s eyes met Rita’s, who seemed not to notice Ben’s remoteness. Jill shook her head. “I’ll have the same.”

  Rita nodded. “Two gobblers,” she scribbled. “Chowder?”

  “No,” Jill replied, but Ben just handed Rita the menu as if he’d not heard.

  “So,” Rita asked, “how long are you home for this time?” The question seemed more dutiful—a “How are you” or a “Have a nice day”—than caring. Without making eye contact, Rita took their menus.

  “A couple of weeks,” Jill replied. “I’m going to do a story on Cranberry Day.”

  One of their “traditions,” when Rita and Jill were young, had been to bicycle out to Gay Head on the second Tuesday of October for the annual Wampanoag festival, the celebration of Thanksgiving for a fruitful cranberry harvest. Once they had even tried to pretend they were Indians.

  “My great-great-grandmother was a descendent of Chief Chippewausett,” Jill had told a tribal leader when she and Rita were about eleven. To her knowledge there had never been anyone with such a name, let alone one of her ancestors. But the tribal leader was kind and invited Jill and “Little Red” (the name they gave Rita) to join them in the encampment for the storytelling around a large bonfire.

  So now when Jill mentioned Cranberry Day, she expected more than a nod and a remark of “that’s nice” from her faithful Indian companion, Little Red. It didn’t come.

  She took a sip of water. Had the whole island gone insane while she’d been away? “I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay, too, Rita.”

  “What about tomorrow?” Rita asked suddenly. “Are you working?”

  Jill frowned. “Yes. For a while. I have to do the voice-overs for the piece on Vermont I’m finishing.”

  “Can you do lunch?” Her voice had moved from flatly indifferent to openly needy.

  Jill knew she should say no: she’d been gone so long and had too much work to do, and if she ever wanted to make it on her own, she’d have to get down to serious business. That, of course, was the workaholic Jill thinking, the one who’d struggled on her own with two small children rather than remain a trophy wife for Richard McPhearson, her first husband, the cad. But the workaholic Jill was definitely the “old” Jill. And the “new” Jill was trying to be a more complete, better-balanced woman. Part—a big part—of her new life was a commitment to be there for those she loved. Rita included.

  “Sounds great,” she said.

  Rita nodded. “Call me here when you’re ready.” Then she went off toward the kitchen, the disconnected waitress, to put in the order.

  Jill looked at Ben, who merely smiled that fake smile again. If there had not been so many others in the tavern, she might have run screaming from the room.

  “I’m sorry,” Ben said as they walked the three blocks toward North Water Street and home. “I had planned to give you a nice welcome home. A romantic dinner. A memorable evening.” He linked his arm through hers, wondering how or when he would find the courage to tell her what had happened, to prepare her for what was ahead.

  He hadn’t thought he needed to rehearse what he would say. This was Jill, for God’s sake. His wife, his second chance at a soul mate. Surely she would see the hideousness of it all, surely she would believe him.…

  Jill put her hand on his and stopped walking. “What’s going on, Ben? First you, then Rita. You’re both acting so strange.”

  His palms began to sweat. Could Rita know?

  Oh, God, did everyone already know?

  “Ben?” Jill moved her hand up to his cheek.

  He touched her fingers and drew them to his mouth. He kissed them. “I love you,” he said.

  She didn’t move. He knew that she knew there was more, that he was holding on to something.

  He cleared his throat. “Something’s happened.” She stiffened. Quickly, he added, “Everyone’s okay. Don’t worry. No one is sick or anything.”

  She relaxed a little, but still she did not speak.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with Rita, but I don’t think it has anything to do with me. There’s no way she could know.”

  A few leaves stirred in the breeze. Ben looked up at the lamppost. He thought of simpler times, when lamplighters lit the town at night, when men were not …

  “Know what, Ben?” Jill interrupted. “What is it Rita doesn’t know?”

  He’d rather be home, safe inside, but he had started it here. And he had to finish it now.

  “Shit,” he said, feeling sick. He rubbed his stomach. “While you were gone, I was arrested.” His eyes dropped to the ground so he couldn’t see her face or sense her anger.

  But instead of being angry, Jill laughed. “You were arrested?”

  He closed his hand over hers again. “Yes, I was.”

  In the quiet that followed, the night air grew silent.

  “Ben?” Jill asked, her voice no longer laughing but disconnected and worried.

  “Ben?” Her tone changed to firm.

  He sucked in a short breath. “It’s all a mistake. Ashenbach is behind it.”

  “What mistake, Ben.” It was not a question this time, but a sentence with words that clearly needed answering.

  Ben looked around to assure himself that no one was nearby. “Dave Ashenbach’s granddaughter. Mindy. I’ve mentioned her to you.”

  “The little girl who helps out at the museum?”

  The acid in his throat might have dissipated if she hadn’t called Mindy the little girl. Tears—tears?—formed in his eyes. “God, Jill, I didn’t do it. She said I touched her, but I didn’t do it.”

  Jill must have heard him wrong. “She said what?”

  It took a few heartbeats—hers—before Ben answered.

  “She said I touched her breast, Jill. The charge is ‘indecent assault and battery on a child under age fourteen.’ What it really means is child molestation.”

  She pulled her hands from his. “This is a joke, right?”

  He stared at her with glazed, pained eyes that said it was no joke.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. Suddenly her hands chilled. She put them in her pockets.

  Ben put his arm around her. “Let’s go home, honey. We can have some coffee and I’ll explain everything.”

  Chapter 5

  “How much is my grandfather paying you?” Mindy asked the straight-haired woman who’d showed up on their doorstep in the morning and said her name was Dr. Laura Reynolds, and that she’d come to talk.

  The woman didn’t smile. “Perhaps we should sit outside on the swing. It’s such a nice day,” she said.

  “No,” Mindy replied. “I’m fine right here in my room.” It was safe there upstairs, she wanted to say, but did not. From there she could see Menemsha House. She could see everyone who came and went, though she’d seen no one since the day before yesterday when Sheriff Talbot went up the hill then came back down a few minutes later.

  She had seen Sheriff Talbot, but she had not seen Ben. Grandpa had said Ben was in jail where he belonged.

  She picked at the edge of her bedspread and pretended not to notice that the woman made
herself at home in the rocking chair beside the window.

  “Your grandfather is very worried about you, Mindy. He has hired me to help you sort out what happened with Mr. Niles.”

  Mindy looked at the woman. She knew what she was. She was a shrink like in the Frasier reruns. “So how much is he paying you?”

  The woman’s smile was pretty even though she wore only pink lipstick and no other makeup. Still, compared to Mindy’s mother, she was plain Jane. Plain Dr. Laura Reynolds, transported from Boston by the old Volvo that sat in their dirt and clamshell driveway now and by the Woods Hole ferry that brought everything to the island, unwanted guests included.

  “Does it bother you that your grandfather is paying me?”

  Mindy got up and went to the windowsill where her stuffed animals sat—Bowser the dog, Marlin the whale, Iggy the iguana—all gifts from her mother sent at one time or another. Raggedy Ann, of course, was long gone to the trash. “I don’t care what he does with his money.” She rearranged the animals, then went back to the bed.

  “Was this the first time, Mindy?” Dr. Reynolds asked. “Was this the first time that Mr. Niles—or any man—touched you inappropriately?”

  Inappropriately. There was that word she’d heard so often from the health teacher and the school nurse. They said it when they talked about those movies of rape and assault and when men took out their penises and put them in inappropriate places.

  But sometimes they used the word, like now, when it just had to do with hands for touching or lips for kissing.

  Mindy knew about all this, but she wished they didn’t have to talk about it. It only made her more upset that Ben must really hate her now.

  “The first thing we should do is find a different lawyer,” Jill said to Ben as they sat alone, pretending to have breakfast. She had made french toast—thick, golden slices dusted with lacy powdered sugar and served with a dollop of the beach plum jelly she had taught Amy to make last year. Jill had taken a few bites, Ben a few more, and the rest sat untouched, interest having been diverted elsewhere.

  It had been the same way last night. After Ben told her what had happened, as best as he could remember from the time he’d been handcuffed, Jill had moved about in robotic, everything’s-okay movements, brewing coffee, setting out a plate of small trifle cakes that she kept in the freezer for special occasions like coming home.

  They had talked most of the night, and Ben told her his decisions.

  No, he did not want to tell Carol Ann or Amy. It was bad enough John knew.

  No, they should tell no one—not Charlie, not Rita. No one. This way they would not place on their family and friends a burden of feeling as if they had to believe him.

  And no, he would not talk to Mindy. It would only cause more trouble.

  They would wait, Ben said. They would see.

  Jill had not agreed with anything except the part about waiting and seeing, because surely this would be over soon. Surely someone would come to his or her senses and end this insanity.

  They had talked most of the night and the cakes, like the french toast now, had gone mostly untouched.

  “If I fire Rick, who else is there?” Ben asked. “I can’t exactly shop around. ‘Excuse me. I’ve been arrested for child molestation. Can you recommend a good attorney?’ ”

  His sarcasm must have been due to stress and anger. Sarcasm was not in Ben’s nature. None of this was in his nature.

  “What about Rick?” Jill asked, trying to be supportive without sounding like a nag. “Doesn’t he know someone more … specialized?”

  “Criminal lawyers aren’t exactly in abundance here. People come here for the low crime rate, remember? We’re on an island. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

  “Well, Boston, then,” Jill said, pushing her fork into the now-limp bread, dragging angry tracks through the white dust. “I can call one of my old producers at the station. He’s been in the city a long time. Maybe he knows someone.” Before she’d become famous, she’d been a struggling grunt reporter, a newly divorced single mother of two, working the streets, paying her dues. Maybe there was someone who still cared about that.

  “That’s just what we need,” Ben said with defeat, “for the media to find out that Jill McPhearson now has a husband who …”

  Jill stood and moved to the kitchen window. She looked past the back porch, out onto the yard. It was withered with autumn, blossoms turned brown, leaves already brittle. She rubbed her forearms, trying to make sense of it all. She knew who the girl was: she’d seen her a few times when Ben was rebuilding Menemsha House. She was a small, wiry child who was not shy but always seemed to be alone. Alone, apparently, with an overactive imagination.

  “Don’t you have to be at the studio soon?” Ben asked.

  Jill gazed across the harbor toward Chappaquiddick on the opposite shore. She wondered how soon the press would pounce on the story.

  Like the woman at Logan who’d asked about breast cancer, the rumors would be a blizzard of untruths. And where would the public sympathy gravitate? Toward their once-beloved Jill? Doubtful. She had, after all, walked out on a Cinderella story, which was how Addie had spun it.

  She felt Ben’s arms come from behind and slide around her waist. “We’ll get through this, honey. Right now I don’t know how, but I’ll get it straightened out. I won’t let this ruin our lives—or your career.”

  Her career. As if that mattered.

  • • •

  Jill made damn sure she was busy most of the day. She drove to the studio in Oak Bluffs, got the video feed from the freelancer in Boston, cut her audio with the help of Jimmy O’Neill, audio master and island transplant from the road tours of rock stars, and arranged for interviews at Cranberry Day next week. All she needed now was to find someone to shoot and edit, because the freelancer from Boston had said no.

  Juggling her production nearly single-handedly was often just short of impossible, but today it seemed easier than returning Addie’s call.

  At three-fifteen she was sitting at the old Shaker desk that Ben had restored for her when the telephone rang. She hesitated, then decided not to answer it. It was probably Addie.

  After four rings, the answering machine kicked on. “Vineyard Productions,” she heard her voice say. “Leave a message. Thanks.”

  Beep.

  “What the hell time do you eat lunch, anyway?” The voice was not Addie’s but Rita’s.

  Jill grabbed the receiver. “Rita,” she said quickly. “It’s me. I’m here.”

  “And I’m here,” Rita replied, “starving to death.”

  “Oh, Rita, I’m so sorry. I got busy—” She could not confess that she’d not given their lunch a second thought because of … no, she could not tell Rita that. Ben would not let her place the “burden” on others. “Is it too late?” she asked. “I can be at the tavern by three-thirty.”

  “Forget lunch,” Rita said. “But it’s a beautiful day. Can you meet me at the lighthouse? I’ve got one whopper of a problem, and you’re the only one who can help.”

  Jill hung up the phone and wondered how Rita could have a problem bigger than her own, and what in God’s name was going to happen next.

  “I’m pregnant,” Rita said as she plunked down beside Jill on the rocks by the pier—the special place they’d come since they’d been kids to share their innermost secrets and fears. She took a deep swig of water and handed the bottle to Jill, who at first was too stunned to absorb what Rita had said.

  Then it sank in.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No joke,” Rita said. “I’m preggo, knocked up, in the single family way.” She picked up a small stone and skipped it across the water. “Again.”

  “Oh, my God, Rita,” Jill said, taking her own swig from the bottle with the kind of untamed gusto she’d had at seventeen when the illicit bottle had held rum and Coke. She looked out at a few sailboats that lazed in the autumn afternoon, as if the sunshine would not soon turn to dark, as if th
e water would not soon become winter-icy and snow-coated. It was not always comforting to know that change happened, even when some things in life remained exactly the same, like Rita and the harbor and the sunshine and the tides. “Well,” she repeated, “this certainly is news.”

  Could she say this was wonderful, great news? That at least Rita wasn’t being held emotional hostage by an imaginative ten-year-old with a vengeful grandfather? That compared to Jill’s life right now, Rita was blessed?

  No, she couldn’t say that. Besides, Rita did not look blessed, not even close: her fingernails were bitten ragged and low.

  “I thought it was the big, scary change,” Rita said. “I thought menopause was making me fat.”

  “You’re not fat, Rita,” Jill said, because that was what best friends did for each other.

  Rita laughed. “I’m only a couple of months now. But I’m so short that soon I’ll pop out like the Pillsbury doughboy at Thanksgiving dinner.” She paused, picked up another shell, and skipped it across the water. “At least, that’s how I was with Kyle.”

  Her son’s name hung in the air, then drifted on the salt breeze, a memory gone by.

  “Rita.” Jill rested a hand on her friend’s arm, which was covered by the long sleeve of an oversized red-and-black-flannel shirt. “What are you going to do?”

  Rita shrugged. “Well, I’m forty-six. I guess I’ll have an abortion.” She tucked her red curls behind her ears and did not look at Jill. “I had two, you know.” She shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t know. You were long gone to the big city by then.” She cleared her throat. “One was in seventy-eight, one in seventy-nine. They were both summer things. With tourists, like I shouldn’t have known better. Anyway, I had the abortions, and they didn’t matter.”

  The air grew silent again as Jill listened to her best friend’s confession, her best friend’s pain. Then she put her arm around Rita’s shoulders. “I know you, Rita, and I know that they mattered.”

  Rita lowered her head, and a tear slid from her eyes. “But I was smart after that,” she said, with a short laugh. “I went on the Pill. Until a couple of years ago. After Kyle died, well, I guess I lost interest in most everything. Life. Living. Sex.”