A Month at the Shore

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Wrong then. Wrong now.

  With a wrenching effort, she forced a smile. "I forgot that you had to go somewhere," she confessed. "This can wait, Marilyn. I'll stay."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Absolutely." She felt a nipping through her sock and looked down to see the calico wrapping its front paws around her ankle. Her melancholy smile turned more cheery.

  "Monster. You're hungry, aren't you—or is it that you just want to play?" Scooping the calico up with both hands, she nuzzled it nose to nose and then carried the young cat out of the office.

  Chapter 2

  "Dad! It's for you!" Tyler slapped the phone down and tore up the stairs, taking them two at a time, tripping near the top and recovering with a thump.

  "Tyler, walk!" Wendy yelled up after him. "How many times do I have to tell you? And pull up those pants!"

  There was, of course, no response from her son other than the slamming of his bedroom door to drown out the sounds of the new video game that he wasn't supposed to be playing until his homework was done. Sighing, Wendy brought in the overlooked newspaper, its underside damp from lying on the wet coco mat, and scanned the headlines before laying it alongside her husband's supper plate.

  She was relieved to see that they were no longer frontpage news in the Providence Journal. A new mess at City Hall, another empty mill burned to the ground, a groundbreaking ceremony for a new hotel—these were the stories currently on people's minds.

  "Thank God," she muttered. "Maybe they'll leave us alone from now on."

  After a glance at the upturned phone on the hall table, she walked over to the door of the basement stairs and called down. "Jim, did you hear Tyler?"

  Her husband answered from the musty bowels of their tiny house, "Yeah, get that, would you?"

  Jim was good at ping-ponging the minor irritants of life back to her to field. After all, he was the one who had to handle all the big stuff—like winning an eighty-seven-million-dollar lottery. Wendy shook her head, unable, still, to come to terms with their new wealth. It had come so suddenly on the heels of their old poverty.

  She picked up the phone and said, "I'm sorry; Jim can't come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?"

  There was a short pause, and then a cheerful voice answered, "Wendy, hi, it's me."

  "Hey, Dave. What's up?"

  Her brother was the reason that Wendy had met and married Jim in the first place. Dave and Jim had worked together in a motorcycle shop one summer, had hit it off, and had been pals ever since. Why not? They were two of a kind: fun-loving, optimistic, impulsive, and eerily flippant about money. Which was fine if, like Dave, you happened not to be the marrying kind and didn't need a certain amount of it to feed and clothe a family.

  "So what's Jim up to? Has he spent all your winnings yet?"

  Wendy let out a wary laugh. "He's trying. He's down in the basement with the contractor and the plumber, working on the estimate for the addition."

  "It's gonna look great." There was another pause, and then Dave went on. "So. Here's the thing," he said sheepishly. "I've got a lee-tle problem with my cash flow this week. Just until my next paycheck."

  No surprise there. Dave Ferro routinely had a leetle problem with his cash flow. That next paycheck was the elusive brass ring in the merry-go-round of his life.

  "How much do you need?"

  "Just the rent. Seven hundred."

  "I'll have to bring it up with Jim."

  "You know he'll say yes."

  Wendy did know. "Stop by after supper, then; I'll write you a check."

  "I'm keeping track, Wendy; so help me God I am. I'll pay back every cent the minute one of my ships comes in."

  He had a whole fleet of them wandering around out there: Lotto, BigBucks, Powerball, a screenplay that he hoped Bruce Willis would option, and at least one patent that was apparently actually pending. Wendy wanted desperately for one of her brother's ships to sail back fully loaded—not because they couldn't afford to help him out, but because she couldn't bear the guilt for helping to corrupt him.

  "I sure hope that that doohickey you invented for the motorcycle catches someone's eye," she said. It was a warning shot across his bow, but he never even heard it.

  "Don't worry; it will. I may even go straight to the top and shop it to Harley one of these days. I mean, c'mon. Who wouldn't want a clamp-on fire extinguisher for his bike?"

  Someone who didn't expect his motorcycle to catch on fire, that's who; but her brother sounded so hopeful that Wendy couldn't point out the obvious to him. Besides, he'd managed to set his own bike on fire, so maybe it was a more common event than she realized.

  They hung up and Wendy went down to see what there could be in a twenty-by-twenty-four-foot basement that could hypnotize three grown men for nearly two hours. She found them gathered in front of the furnace, looking like detectives at a homicide scene.

  "The furnace should go. It's iffy whether it'll be able to heat the addition," the plumber was telling Jim. "Not to mention, today's burners are a lot more efficient." He checked the tag hanging from one of the galvanized pipes. "Although, actually, this one's not doing too bad."

  "Yeah, but everything else will be new—copper pipes, baseboards, expansion tank," the contractor chimed in. "So why stop here?"

  She saw her husband nod calmly and say, "I agree. By the time you're done with this project, what I want to see is basically a brand-new house."

  From behind him she blurted, "Good grief, Jim, the furnace is only five years old. You're just throwing money down a hole!"

  Jim turned and grinned as he threw his arm around her. "That's my girl; a tightfisted Yankee through and through." With a quick, soft kiss to her temple, he murmured, "Don't worry, honey. There'll still be money for your curtains and couches."

  "But shouldn't we at least wait to see if this one's up to the—"

  "Nope. We want new."

  It wasn't true. Wendy had no great love for new. She liked old. Old and soft and worn, which was exactly what their little house on the edge of Providence's fashionable east side still was. It had been built by her great-grandfather, and her parents had somehow managed to squeeze themselves and five children into its two and a half tiny bedrooms, and they had all somehow managed to keep clean and presentable with the aid of only one bathroom. It was her family's house, her house, abrim with memories she had no desire either to demolish or to plaster over.

  All she had asked for, all she had wanted, was one more room and another bath; but her husband was determined to give her a castle.

  One with a brand-new furnace. He looked so happy to be able to afford it all that Wendy found herself saying, "Maybe we'll be able to trade this one in or something."

  "Nah. Not worth it." He waved it out of his castle-to-be. "Pete, you take it," he told the contractor. "Give it to someone who could use one."

  It was a gesture that was typically Jim: impulsive, generous, oddly unnerving. He was such a loose cannon. He'd done the same thing with their refrigerator a few years earlier, after she had made the mistake of wondering aloud whether it wasn't cycling on and off too often. The next day it was gone and a new one in its place, courtesy of their overburdened Discover Card.

  Their neighbors still had the old Kenmore, and it ran fine.

  "Uh-oh. You have that look," Jim said as he followed her up the stairs behind the two men. "That if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it look."

  "I just think we need to sit down another couple of times with our—you know," she whispered over her shoulder to him. "The financial planner."

  "Why? So he can slap us on a budget and make us miserable? The hell with that. I say, spend it before everyone else does."

  "Shh!" she warned. He was so indiscreet.

  Ignoring her, he went on to say, "Which reminds me: remember that express cruiser I was slobbering over last January at the boat show? I stopped in to look at one at Nathan's Marine yesterday. Man, that is one sweet vessel. Cherry interior, leather seats, air
... It'll do thirty knots and get us to Newport in no time flat, and the sound system will be good enough to drown out the noise on the way. Unless maybe we wanted to dock the boat in Newport. Yeah, maybe we should do that ...."

  Wendy wasn't listening as he rambled on, mostly because for the past few weeks he was always rambling on. He wanted too many things, too much stuff. It was like listening to a dog bark on and on; if it was your dog, pretty soon you hardly heard it anymore.

  Pete and the plumber left, and Wendy was able, at last, to serve supper. She still cooked most nights, just as she still worked in the bookstore on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. She found that she had a desperate need to soldier on in her routine until she absorbed the enormity of what had happened to them. Quite simply, it hadn't sunk in yet.

  "New recipe," she announced as she set a platter of sliced meat loaf in front of her husband. "It has portobello mushrooms in it just for you, rich man," she teased.

  She had put out cloth place mats, too, today, instead of the laminated. And the larger-sized paper napkins instead of the lunch-sized. If Wendy had had her druthers, that's how she would have approached their new wealth: in tiptoe steps instead of a flying leap.

  "Meat loaf?" Jim blinked at the platter. "This is the best we can do? Meat loaf?"

  Tyler was also looking askance at the meat, but for different reasons. "It looks lumpier than regular. What are those dark things in it?"

  "Those are the mushrooms. People say they taste like steak. Try a slice."

  She may as well have been feeding her son deep-fried tarantulas.

  "Why can't we just have hamburgers like everyone else?" the boy muttered as he slid the spatula under an end piece. He took a tentative bite. His nose scrunched up and the corners of his lips, like two thumbs, turned down in rejection. "It doesn't taste like steak; it tastes like soot," he said flatly. "If these mushrooms are so expensive, why didn't you just buy steak?"

  Sighing, Wendy said, "To torture you, honey; why else?"

  "You know, Wen, he has a point. Why didn't you just buy a steak? Why go to all the trouble with some fancy recipe? Beef is beef. We can get mad cow disease either way."

  "Very funny, mister. Eat." But she was hurt, and she let it show.

  Instantly remorseful, Jim said, "C'mon, hon; you know I was only kidding."

  Her husband had an arsenal of half-smiles that were very effective in smoothing the raised prickles on her skin. He used one of those smiles on her now as he raised a huge forkful of meat loaf to his mouth, chewed, considered, swallowed, and said, "I'd rather have this than filet mignon any old day."

  Tyler pretended to stick his finger down his throat.

  Wendy wasn't sure if her son was reacting to Jim's lie, the meat loaf, or both; all she knew was that, as usual, she was outnumbered. Father and son routinely took sides against her. It could be an interesting challenge at times; but this wasn't one of them.

  "Listen," she said, only half in irony, "I don't like being rich any more than the next guy. But you won that money, and we're stuck with it, and until I get used to it, you're going to have to humor me. Now shut up—both of you—and eat your supper."

  Tyler laughed at her twisted logic, but her husband found little humor in it. For Jim, there was nothing complicated about the issue: if you won a lot of money, then you could spend a lot of money.

  They ate more quietly than usual. The phone rang, and Wendy, newly annoyed, said, "Let the machine answer."

  "I'd better get it," Jim said, demurring. "It might be George. You're the one who's so hell-bent on this financial-planning shit," he added as he crossed the kitchen.

  She watched his face, trying to gauge the depth of his exasperation with her. He was unhappy, no doubt about it. She could see it in the way he leaned against the refrigerator as he lifted the phone to his ear, studiously ignoring her.

  "Jim here. Go," he said as he stared over the dotted-swiss curtains into the yard. Anywhere but at his wife.

  The woman at the other end was loud enough for Wendy to realize that she didn't know the voice. The caller was cheerful, too, obviously falling all over herself with congratulations. It was a tone they'd all got used to in the past few weeks.

  "Yeah, thanks; it was a shock, you bet." Jim had a bemused look on his face; plainly, he did not recognize the caller.

  The woman spoke at some length, with Jim answering in confused monosyllables. Wendy stopped eating her portobello meat loaf and laid down her fork, more curious than confused. Taking advantage of her distraction, Tyler put down his fork as well and asked to be excused.

  "Yeah, okay," Wendy said, not taking her eyes off her husband.

  Well into the woman's monologue, Jim looked at Wendy and winked. Then he said, "You know—Caroline, is it?—I really do think you have the wrong guy."

  The woman went on a little while longer, until Jim finally interrupted. "Caroline, look, I'm sorry, but I'm just not the one you're looking for. Try one of the other eight. Hey, you just might get lucky."

  He winced, apparently because she'd slammed down the phone. With a shrug and one of his half-smiles, he took his place at the table again.

  "What," asked Wendy, "was that all about?"

  "Another long-lost lover," he said.

  She saw merriment in his eyes and was immediately reassured. "Oh, great. When was this one from?"

  "Seven, eight years ago. She was a little vague."

  "Does she have your child?"

  "She has my twins."

  "Wow. Gutsier than the others."

  "What has she got to lose? What have any of them got to lose?" He thought about it a minute, then shook his head, looking almost sympathetic. "You know, this meat loaf's not half bad," he said, squirting a blanket of ketchup over it.

  Chapter 3

  Zina set the cat carrier on the rag rug and crouched down for a better look at the ball of fur huddled in the back of the box.

  She said softly, "It's okay, sweetie. You'll be safe here. You can stay as long as you like, and you can sleep wherever you want. Just make yourself at home. Hey, now?"

  She opened the door to the carrier and then stepped back. It would have been a minor miracle if the abused animal had felt secure enough to come out without being dragged; but Zina had managed minor miracles before. She walked the half-dozen steps to the kitchen area of her duplex apartment, then popped open a can of liver-flavored cat food, the smelliest choice in her cupboard. She set down a dish of it in plain view and upwind of the frightened cat, who had purposely had her breakfast held back.

  After adding a bowl of water and a litter box to the array, Zina curled up on the homemade slipcover of her sofa, and there she sat without moving for the next fifteen minutes, watching and waiting. She was good at that—watching and waiting. She had been doing it for a dozen years.

  A whiskered muzzle appeared at the door of the carrier. The cat poked her pink-and-black-spotted nose a little farther out, caught a glimpse of Zina, and promptly backed up into the carrier.

  Zina smiled sympathetically; it was going to be a long wait. "No hurry, sweetie. I can sit here all night."

  As it turned out, she couldn't. A shave-and-a-haircut knock on the door told her that Zack had decided to stop by. Zina stepped lightly around the carrier and got the door for her brother, who was holding an old wood chair in his arms.

  "One glued chair, returned to owner," he said, lifting it up for her inspection. "This thing's a piece of junk, by the way. If you put it on the curb, no one would bother to take it home, even in this neighborhood."

  "I know; I really should replace them."

  "Except that you're too busy spending every cent you make on cat food and adoption ads," Zack said on his way to the dining area. He slid the chair under the small round table, opposite its mate. "I saw your last ad; get any nibbles?"

  "Three calls so far. But no one's actually made it to the shelter," Zina admitted.

  Zack pulled out the other chair and sat down gingerly in it. "T
his one's wobbly, too," he said in disgust.

  "Not when I sit on it."

  "You weigh two pounds. Look, about those ads, here's a tip. 'This cat needs a loving home' isn't going to cut it with most people. You should be pitching it as 'Your home needs a loving cat.' Tell people that their lives will be twice as satisfying with your cat. Tell them that your cat will fill a need they didn't even know they had. Tell them—"

  "But this shouldn't be about the people; it should be about the cat."

  The pitying look she knew so well settled over the rugged lines of her brother's face. "God, you're naive, Zina. All right," he conceded, "if you're determined to stick with your approach, then at least pour it on. Don't make people feel guilty for not adopting your cat; make 'em feel damn guilty."

  Her laugh was indulgent and affectionate. "Oh, you're such an expert."

  He nodded absently, but his focus was on her furniture. "Zee, I'll buy you a set of chairs for your birthday. Just go to Cabot's or Pennsylvania House—hell, go to Pier I!—and pick something out. Anything. I'm begging you."

  Ignoring his offer, she said, "You should be in sales instead of in cabinetmaking. Why don't you write the ads for me? Please, please?"

  "Nothing doing. I don't like cats," Zack said gruffly.

  "Yes you do."

  "No. I don't. If I were going to like anything, it'd be a dog," he said, getting up to check out the wobble.

  "Then why not adopt a dog? The main shelter has lots of them, too many of them."

  "Not gonna happen. Dogs don't live long enough." He rocked the chair seat gently back and forth and saw that both spindles had come unglued from their supports. "You get attached, and then all of a sudden they're—"

  "Gone." She added with a sudden catch in her throat, "I know."

  "Oh, Christ, I'm sorry, Zina," he said, looking up from the chair at her.