by Dana Mentink
“Oh. That’s too bad. Maybe that kind of explains her, er, originality. Does she ever see her mother?”
“Not since she left Finny twenty years ago.” Ruth had to admit that when Dimple asked Ruth to assume the role of grandma to Dimple’s daughter, Cootchie, a lot a maternal feelings grew for Dimple, as well. Ruth knew she couldn’t fill the hole Dimple’s mother had left, but she liked to think she made an adequate stab as substitute mom. A lizard scuttled over the walkway under a clump of yellow lupine. She noticed a slightly bored expression on Candace’s face. “Are you enjoying your stay here?”
Candace twisted her long black hair into a rope and coiled it on top of her head, letting the breeze caress her neck. “I guess. To be honest, I’m a city girl. I’m from Miami, so this place is a tad slow for me.” She sighed, letting the hair fall around her face. “I think this life is a tad slow for me.”
“Do you travel with Ed often?”
“As little as possible. I can’t think of anything more boring than visiting mushroom growers and trucking companies all day. Sometimes I come if it’s a slow time at the office.”
“What do you do?”
“I work for a real estate company,” she said, and a spark kindled in her brown eyes. “I’m a receptionist now, but I’m working on getting my license. The man I work for specializes in finding getaways for celebrities. Private places where they have all the luxuries but away from the paparazzi and all that. He’s got some really big clients.” She rattled off a couple of names.
Ruth tried to cover her blank stare with an interested nod.
“You’ve never heard of any of them, have you?” Candace laughed ruefully. “I’m not surprised. It seems like this entire stretch of coast is stuck in some kind of time warp.”
“Not true. We have running water and the Internet.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. That probably sounded conde- scending. I really enjoy the coast; I guess I just need a faster pace.”
And a faster husband? “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you and your husband meet?” Ruth found one of the benefits to escaping a murderer a while back was that the experience seemed to remove some of her timidity. She didn’t feel the need to restrain her nosy parker tendencies as much since the trauma.
“My father introduced us—can you believe it?” She rolled her eyes. “Mom died when I was eleven, and Daddy believed in the shelter-in-place method of child rearing. He sent me to private schools and kept me away from pretty near anyone except a few family friends until I went off to college.”
She bent to pluck a mint leaf. “I went a little crazy with all the freedom. I guess it scared Daddy, because he cut off my tuition and brought me home. I am sure he considered finding me a nice room at the top of a lighthouse on some remote rocky island.” She laughed. “Anyway, one of his dear old chums had a son—a nice, responsible sort, good provider, honest, true, a solid fellow. That’s Ed. He seemed like a match made in heaven. To Daddy, anyway.”
She dropped the leaf and brushed off her hands. “I’m not being fair. Ed is a good man, and he loves me very much. I should remind myself of that more often.”
Ruth saw the wistfulness in the young woman’s eyes, and she wondered if Ed ever saw it there.
The tunnel door opened, and Dimple popped out holding a double handful of mocha-colored mush- rooms. “Ruth, would you mind cooking these up for us so Ed and Candace can have a taste?” She glanced at her guests. “Ruth is the best chef in Finny. She cooks lunch for us at least once a week if we’re lucky.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” Ruth said, taking the velvety bundle. “I’ll be right back.” She heard Ed asking Dimple for Hugh’s address as she headed for the kitchenette in the back of the office building.
As she heated the olive oil and sliced the mushrooms, she thought about what an unlikely pair Candace and Ed were. She was lovely, hip, and craved a fast lifestyle. He seemed more at home with fungus than females. As the oil reached the sizzling point, she slid in the chunks of shiitake and minced garlic. In went a hefty tablespoon of butter, and the mouthwatering aroma soon drove thoughts of the Honeysills out of her mind. She couldn’t resist taking a taste as she slid them onto paper plates and put the plates on a tray. Heaven. The mushrooms were meaty with a delectable smoky flavor.
Tray in hand, she marched back out to the poly- tunnel just as Ed and Dimple emerged, stepping from darkness to day. Candace settled onto a bench, and they joined her.
Dimple’s smile vanished as she looked over Ruth’s shoulder, and a bewildered look crossed her face. Ruth turned. There stood a well-manicured woman with perfectly coiffed hair.
“Everyone,” Dimple said with a quiver in her voice, “this is Meg Sooner. She’s my mother.”
Chapter Two
At the stroke of seven o’clock, both halves of the Finny marching band stepped off to begin the Fog Festival parade with a rousing march. However, due to a series of miscommunications and the thick blanket of fog, the brass and percussion sections started at the Save Mart, marching in a southern direction. At the other end of town, the drum major led the wind instru- ments and flag bearers northward from the town square after he tired of waiting for the missing brass and percussionists. The musical hordes met up at the Buns Up Bakery, where half the group about-faced to resume a more unified advance down Main Street.
Ruth and Cootchie sat in lawn chairs that Ruth had parked on the sidewalk just after sunup. Early birds get the best parade seating. Actually, she awoke well before the birds with a vague sense of unease. She tossed and turned for some time before medicating her anxiety with strong coffee and a fat cinnamon roll. Even after the cholesterol slam, she couldn’t shake the strange unsettled feeling as she kissed her sleeping husband and headed out.
The source of her unease didn’t hit her until she saw the fire engine rumbling down the street behind Lou Fennerman’s Cub Scout troop. The strobing lights, the plaintive wail of the siren. Today was Friday, March second, the five-year anniversary of Phillip’s death.
At first she had counted the loss in weeks and months. She remembered past springs with a vague sense that she was a different person with each passing year. After Phillip died, she felt as if she were aging in dog years, growing exponentially older with every change of the calendar. She was a stranger even to herself, drowning in a profound grief. Until God threw her a flotation device.
It came in the form of a wafty woman named Dimple Dent. Somehow Ruth had managed to keep everyone else out with polite refusals and business. Jack Denny found his way in briefly, the night he asked for her help finding the dog that was the only link to his bereaved son. But no one else. No one until Dimple fell into her life.
Imagine a bizarre, fluttery woman asking a stranger to help raise her child.
Imagine a forty-six-year-old stranger saying yes.
And then came Monk, another answer to a prayer she didn’t even know she’d prayed. Perhaps it was odd to house feelings of loss for a dead husband and love for a new one at the same time, but life was full of bittersweets. It had taken her many decades to learn that.
Now that Dimple’s mother was back, she wondered if it was time for more bitter. The woman had appeared out of nowhere to upset the precarious balance of her life. Ruth shook the thought away. Now was not the time for melodramatics.
The copper-haired Cootchie squealed when she saw her mother and flapped her little hand in a greeting. Dimple carried a tray laden with glistening white mushrooms of every size and shape and sported a felt fedora with Pistol Bang Mushroom Farm on the brim. She handed the parade goers samples of mushrooms in white paper cups. Most of the recipients gazed suspiciously at the tidbits.
Ruth laughed as Dimple kissed Cootchie and handed them both cups of satiny oyster mushrooms before continuing on her way. Only Dimple would think of passing out mushrooms like party favors. She had even gone so far as to suggest that Ruth pass around pouches of worms to advertise Phillip’s Worm Emporium.
Ruth had p
olitely declined.
“Bye-bye, Mommy!” Cootchie shouted.
Dimple blew her another kiss.
It was a short parade. The fire engine followed the Cub Scouts. The Daisy troop trailed behind the engine. Interspersed here and there were some locals on horseback and representatives from FLOP dressed in matching yellow slickers. Ruth would have to inquire about the significance of the rain gear. It seemed to her more appropriate for monsoon season than a fog celebration.
The pageant ended with towering librarian Ellen Foots leading a small brigade of tiny tots dressed as puffy gray clouds. Most of them carried a book in their chilled hands, and two carried a banner proclaiming “Reading Is for Everyone!”
Ellen peered out from underneath her wild maelstrom of dark hair and fixed her glance on Ruth. “You’d better get up nose. You’re supposed to be changed and ready for photos in thirty minutes.” She marched on by. The young children struggled to keep up.
“Okay, Cootchie. Looks like Nana’s not going to get out of this. Let’s find your mommy so I can keep my appointment with humiliation.”
Before they left, she turned and looked down the street at the departing parade. The thick blanket of fog swallowed up the sparkling costumes and cheerfully obnoxious music, sucking them into a clammy void. It was odd how the fog could absorb life, surround it and smother it as though it had never existed.
How strange that she had never noticed it before.
Fifteen minutes later, Ruth tugged vigorously at the silver tights riding up into uncharted territory. She waddled her way to the open field where most of the festival activities were grouped. She stopped for a minute to watch the Coastal Comet Acrobats juggle fruits from their perches on the shoulders of the less fortunate Comets. A voice of doom cut through the hubbub.
“Ruth, it’s about time.” Maude still wore her yellow slicker and rain hat. She looked like a homicidal Gorton’s Fisherman. “I’ve got a line of kids here waiting to have their picture taken with Mrs. Fog.” They had decided after several pointed comments from informal focus groups, notably the children enrolled at library story time, that Ruth would not pass for a Mr. Fog.
“I’m here, with my best cheesy smile,” she said, waving gamely to the children.
“Where’s your hat?” Maude demanded, stabbing a short finger at the top of Ruth’s head.
“If you mean that silver tinsel stuff, I can’t wear it because it tangles up in my hair.” She felt she had presented her case very well.
Apparently there was no room for a soldier’s opinion in this woman’s army. “Fortunately,” Maude said firmly, “I brought some extra. That first trailer over there is the festival headquarters. Go get some tinsel and I’ll put it on you. Hurry.”
Thinking how nice it would be to throw a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of Whist, Ruth trudged over to the long rows of trailers parked on the periphery ofthe field.
She yanked open the door and shoved her disks inside. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. The small trailer was crowded on one side with a full bed and on the other with a tiny sink and microwave. Several empty bottles of Perrier were lined up neatly on the top of the microwave.
“Well, I guess the festival staff have been enjoying themselves,” she murmured grumpily.
As she scanned the room looking for anything tinsel-like, she noticed a man’s athletic shoes standing neatly in the bottom of an open closet. They were the expensive kind, with cushions of air in the transparent heels and no visible laces.
“Who in the world would be wearing those?” She just managed to finish the sentence when she heard voices outside the door. They didn’t sound like Maude or Flo or Ellen or any of the other Finny Fog Festival soldiers.
“Oh!” Her hands flew to her mouth as it dawned on her that she was in the wrong trailer. In a moment of panic, she squeezed herself into the closet with the athletic shoes and pulled the door closed. A conversation floated through the gap, voices muffled but slightly familiar
“This is wrong, Bing. I shouldn’t be here.” The woman’s voice was deep and trembling.
“Just relax, hon.”
Ruth heard the sound of liquid pouring.
“Here,” the man said above the clinking of glasses. “We both know why you came.”
“We can’t see each other anymore,” the woman said quietly.
Ruth felt her calves cramp up, courtesy of her bent-over position. She tried to figure out where she’d heard the female voice before.
“How am I going to get out of this mess?”
From Ruth’s closet vantage point, she could see only the sandaled foot of a woman with shell pink toenails. A still-functioning lobe of her brain registered that the sandals were quite lovely, turquoise leather with tiny silver and black beads threaded onto the slender straps.
The voices continued to escalate. This is not my business, Ruth thought to herself. Normally she didn’t mind eavesdropping, but doing so from someone else’s closet was unforgivable. She stuck her fingers in her ears and tried to recite the Girl Scout pledge in her head.
On my honor, she thought frantically, I will try—
“We can’t do this,” the woman’s voice shrilled.
To serve God—
The volume got more intense until it eclipsed the pledge altogether.
My country and mankind—
“Why can’t you take no for an answer?” The shell pink toes stamped the floor.
—And to live by the Girl Scout law, she thought as loudly as she could.
Just then the door slammed.
As she attempted to silently stretch out her leg muscles, she could see a sliver of the window next to the front door. The top of a woman’s head disappeared down the front steps.
“Women,” the man muttered. Ruth knew now it was Bing.
The door slammed again, leaving her in silence.
After an eternity, Ruth extricated herself from the closet. Her knees were shaking, and she made her way from the trailer area as quickly as her voluminous fog costume would allow.
Cheeks burning, she reached the open field at the edge of the foggy activities. This time she felt grateful for the heavy mist that shrouded her from prying eyes until she could stop trembling.
Maude greeted her with a camera in her hand and outrage in her eyes. “Where in the world have you been? And where is your hat?”
“Er, I couldn’t find it.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Never mind, we’ll take the pictures without it.” She bustled the waiting crowd of three into a tidy line. “Are you catching something, Ruth? Your face is flushed.”
“Must be all the excitement.” Several yards away, a hot air balloon was fully inflated.
Thanks to Maude’s ruthless management, the children were all photographed in under an hour. By then, the Phineas Phogg balloon was aloft, floating upward with graceful ease, the rainbow stripes vivid against the blue sky. Ruth could see the propane flame strengthen as a man fired the burner. At first she thought it was Bing, but the hair color was wrong.
Ed Honeysill’s wide face peered over the side of the basket as he waved to the crowd gathered below. Then he straightened and shaded his eyes with his hands, taking in the view.
As they drifted farther aloft, three men below monitored the ropes anchoring the balloon to the ground.
Ruth craned her neck to watch until her sinews began to protest. Suddenly a terrific bang cut through the crowd noise.
A dark spot raced its way through the sky, trailed by a stream of light and smoke. It ripped into the side of the balloon and tore a hole in one of the bright green stripes before exiting out a red one.
The balloon rocked violently to one side and then the other before the nylon burst into flames. The men on the ground stood in dumb surprise, holding the ropes slack for a moment before they snapped into action, desperately trying to haul the balloon earthward. One of the two figures in the basket leaped, falling directly on top of the inflated jump hou
se and rolling off onto the grass.
Suddenly the burning side of the balloon disintegrated. The basket rocketed to one side. The second man flew out of the basket and flailed to the ground, landing with a thud at the edge of the clearing.
Ruth closed her mouth with a snap. “Call 911!” she yelled. She yanked the giant disks off her torso and started to run.
Maude struggled to dial and run at the same time.
They reached the spot and wheezed to a halt, panting and uncertain. The second man’s limbs were splayed out in a windmill fashion around his body. The back of his head lay exposed, like a shiny white mushroom emerging from the soil.
It became sickeningly clear that there was no life in Ed’s body, but Ruth forced herself to check for a pulse on the wrist closest to her.
Maude hung up the phone and looked at her. “Is he dead?”
She nodded, swallowing her revulsion. Maude nodded back. “Okay. We’ll keep people away until the authorities arrive.” Though Maude’s voice was steady, Ruth could feel a shock and horror radiating out of her that mirrored her own feelings.
A woman with stylish and familiar turquoise sandals came flying up to them. She stopped short when they moved closely together to prevent her from seeing beyond them.
“Candace,” Ruth said gently, “I think you’d better sit down.”
Chapter Three
Nate and Mary drove Jack to a hole-in-the-wall up the coast called Wings and Things. Not the classiest ambiance, but free nachos during the pre- lunch hours. He went with reluctance. It didn’t seem particularly important for the Finny police detective to celebrate his thirty-fifth birthday. The night before, the babysitter helped his almost-four-year-old son, Paul, bake a lopsided cake, decorated with sugar letters spelling out Happy Birthday addy since Paul had consumed one too many d’s.
Jack didn’t make much fuss about his birthday, maybe because his wife had died two days before his thirty-third. The sweater she intended to give him hung unworn in the closet next to his dress uniform. He remembered her holding it against herself when she didn’t know he was looking, checking it for size. For some reason, he couldn’t wear it or give it away. But sometimes, very late at night, he would smell the fabric, trying to catch the faintest whisper of her scent that had long ago evaporated.
