The Peacock, and its many acres of land, including a gorgeous, though unused, lighthouse, was owned by the Kayne family, and they were known for two things: being rich and being geniuses. Lucius Kayne, the forty-five year old patriarch, was better known for being a cutthroat lawyer than the owner of an inn, the latter a title he inherited from wife, Miranda, who had died six years ago from cancer. It was common knowledge in Tipee that if you got in trouble, Kayne could get you out of it (though no one gave me that advice when I was in trouble. Go figure).
Tonight’s party was in honor of Chris Kayne, Lucius’ only son who held the distinction of being “Tipee Island’s Bill Gates” even though Chris’ specialty wasn’t computers, but science. He held two Harvard degrees in biology and chemistry. He was twenty years old.
Rachel had declared any boy over eighteen with a job eligible for her consideration, and Chris had excellent prospects. “I’m goin’ to catch that boy’s eye if I have to snag it with a fishin’ hook,” she’d decided. When her pregnant twin Raina refused to go with her, Rachel insisted, “that danged baby bump’s made you nothin’ but a lump on a log!” before turning to me. I was officially Rachel’s wingman, whatever that meant.
The last thing I wanted tonight (or any night lately) was a party, a fact made clear when instead of entering the lobby, I detoured to the mermaid fountain.
“What are you doin’?” Rachel insisted.
“Check it out,” I urged, pointing up to the mermaid’s chest. “She’s had a makeover recently.”
Rachel huffed, but complied. She met me around the front of the mermaid and we both stood ogling her like middle school boys seeing concrete breasts for the first time. Across her chest, the mermaid donned a drippy, asymmetrical red heart, and judging by the black burn marks, she’d been set on fire. The marks were faded from stringent cleaning, evident by the scrub marks and Comet leftovers sprinkled on her arms.
“How can you set a fountain on fire?” Rachel asked.
“The water only reaches up to her fins. Theoretically, you could douse her with an accelerant, like lighter fluid, and she’d burn for a few minutes.”
“Weird,” Rachel decided. “Can we please get to the party now?”
I could have stayed with the mermaid all night, speculating over her angry wounds and imagining stories around them. A jilted lover? A disgruntled employee? A serial vandal?
“Come on!” Rachel ordered. “I ain’t got much time. He’s leavin’ for Cambridge soon. Can’t compete with those European girls, with their long legs and fancy accents.”
I chuckled. “Are you kidding me?” I returned, glancing at Rachel’s long legs (made longer by a short dress and high heels). “You’re beautiful and you’ve got an accent, too. Besides, European women don’t shave their legs and armpits.”
Rachel’s eyes widened. “That true?”
I shrugged unsure, but the suggestion was enough for Rachel, who grinned more confidently as we strutted into the lobby.
The party was lavish and lovely. As if ordered for the occasion, moonlight draped the huge banquet room through a wall of windows and skylights. Gorgeous hand-blown chandeliers dotted the ceiling with sea hues. A long bar occupied the left, dark woods and leather, leading toward a hallway. A stone fireplace held up the far right wall facing the ocean. And, even though it was still warm, a blaze gave the room an inviting feel. Round tables filled up the spaces in between, and even these were dressed for the occasion. Golden, sand-hued linens, even sashed around the chairs, formed the background to elegant, gold-rimmed place settings and tall, fluted glasses. In the center, tea lights in seashells and brass lanterns finished off the elegant look.
I noted the multiple forks at each table setting, and cringed.
My own fancy experiences were limited to rare encounters with my maternal grandparents, who I had affectionately labeled as “cleanse the pallet” people. On our visits to Baltimore, and much to my father’s chagrin, they insisted on dinners at restaurants that offered many courses. As a child, I remember being surprised and delighted when a glass bowl of sherbet was set before me after I’d picked through a salad.
“Dessert already?” I cooed to my mother.
“To cleanse the pallet,” the waiter corrected me.
This was a cleanse-the-pallet type of party, with anomalies.
I wasn’t the socialite Rachel had hoped for, so she abandoned me for her young friends. I enjoyed a quiet meal at a table with other guests just as socially inept as myself.
Lucius Kayne delivered a brief, but eloquent toast to his son, and all his great accomplishments, ending with, “Your mother would be so proud of you.” And when all the formalities were complete, the party continued with its meshing and drinking and laughing and networking.
I ended up perched at the bar alone. I rubbed at my nagging heels, letting my shoes dangle from my toes. My social faux pas didn’t matter. No one was paying any attention. I wished to go home, to see Sam, to cuddle up with Willie and finish reading Three Bedrooms, One Corpse. Instead, I people-watched, making a game with myself. Aside from my foot rubbing, what other lapses in social graces could I find? A young man hanging out in Rachel’s group had a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. Several young ladies wore tight tube dresses, little more than bathing suit covers, and one had an undone hem. A gruff fellow near the pianist wore a suit at least two sizes too small, and his bulky frame made him look like the Hulk, mid-transformation. Several gentlemen wore jeans with their suit coats and ties. Even Chris Kayne donned Converses with his suit pants. I spied one older lady licking the rim of her margarita glass like it was a Popsicle. I continued massaging my feet, realizing that for the most part, these weren’t cleanse-the-pallet types.
Rachel continued to laugh with her small group of friends, and when she glanced my way, I motioned for her to bust-a-move. She held her hands out, helplessly, and shrugged. The Kaynes were hard to corner.
The tall, dark, handsome Lucius Kayne worked the crowd like a seasoned politician, smile fixed.
Chris was not as seasoned, but just as charming. He was preppy handsome, with a mischievous grin and relaxed manner. He loosened his silk tie, and kept one hand in his pocket. His suit jacket was weighed down by a phone on one side and a tattered notebook on the other, the ends sticking out like a white Mohawk. The phone, he pulled out continuously, checking it between each lull in conversation (and sometimes mid-sentence). I thought that kind of rude, but like the Converses, his guests accepted it as part of his charm.
I huffed and turned back to the bar, bored. The bartender grinned. He was decked out in a white vest over his tuxedo shirt, a gold pocket watch chain dropping across his belly, and a bright red bow tie.
“These parties can be so droll,” he noted, “a flock of hens trying to peck their way to the roosters. May I get you something to ease the agony?”
His nametag said Hugh Huntley, and he had a lovely British accent. His sheet white hair and pale blue eyes gave him an angelic look. “A Long Island Iced Tea, easy on the spirits? I’d like to be conversational, not falling over.”
“Wise,” he returned. He started working the drink, and asked, “How do you know the Kaynes?”
“I don’t,” I returned. “I’m here with my hopeful cousin.” I pointed to Rachel – still no closer to the prize – and Hugh Huntley smirked.
“The Kaynes attract many such hopes,” Huntley returned. He placed my drink down on a coaster, just as the elder Kayne made a beeline to the bar. I half-wondered if he’d heard us talking about him to step to us so quickly.
“The Sauvignon Blanc is warm,” Kayne told Mr. Huntley, the gap between his eyebrows closing together in a stitch.
“Warm, sir?” Huntley repeated.
“Did I stutter? Warm. The wine should be stored at fifty-five degrees and served chilled.” Kayne’s words were soft, but severe and Huntley’s genial expression vanished.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I will attend to the matter.”
Huntl
ey nodded, and headed toward the kitchen. Kayne sighed, turned, eyed me with annoyance, and reapplying his smile, went back to his guests. I had no idea about the wine, but he left me chilled.
“This is impossible!” Rachel announced, barreling over to me. The crowd seemed to be expanding. Rachel was bumped into the bar, further instigating her anger.
“I can’t even get close ‘nuff to smell his two-hundred-dollar cologne, let alone talk to ‘em,” Rachel fumed. “That slutty Lena Britt keeps gettin’ in my way, flashing her boobs at ‘em.” Rachel leaned over and whispered to me. “They’re fake, ya know. I saw the scar in gym class.”
I grabbed a couple of toothpicks from Mr. Huntley’s side of the bar, and said, “Maybe if we aim just right, we can pop them.” Rachel’s anger fizzled, and she laughed. She snatched the toothpicks from my hand, and pretended to aim them like darts at her big-breasted friend across the room.
“Not a bad idea,” Rachel grinned. “We could take out half the competition like that.”
Rachel was right. Big boobs were hanging out everywhere, pushed up and presented, like invitations. Our laughter turned to giggles. I sucked down half my tea, and almost let it come out my nose when Rachel said, “Well, if a tidal wave comes, we’ll all be safe. Just grab on to the nearest boob flotation device.”
We fell into laughter, and I considered, with chagrin, that the peacock wasn’t the only bird with plumages. The entire party seemed to be a strut-your-stuff showdown. Boobs. Bad jokes. Relentless flirting and tiresome schmoozing. Everyone had drinks and agendas. Me included.
Chapter Four
Moon Effects
People have long believed that the full moon brings out the crazies. Hospital waiting rooms are crowded. Emergency workers are busier. Crazy people emerge from padded rooms, intermixing with vampires, werewolves, and whatever else the moon conjures. At least, that’s what people think. Truth is, studies and even studies of studies don’t support these lunar perceptions. The moon doesn’t bring out the worst in people. Maybe, like the peacock’s hundred eyes, the full moon just gives us more light to see what has been there all along.
Though Rachel’s company made the party more enjoyable, my only agenda was to leave it. The warm effects of the alcohol and Rachel’s humor melted my tensions, but that wouldn’t last. I could never be relaxed in a room like this, filled with people, most of them strangers, some of them enemies, and all of them with ulterior motives. I was about to pull Rachel along toward the front door, her goal accomplished or not, but as soon as there was a lapse in conversation, she filled it.
“Holy juvenile delinquent,” Rachel sputtered out, staring at the entrance to the lobby. A scruffy-haired young man, who reminded me strangely of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo, stood looking awkward and irritated. He wore a black jacket (clearly borrowed based on the dangling sleeves) over his black t-shirt, jeans, and dirty boots. “Thought he was in jail.”
“Friend of yours?” I prodded, taking another long sip of my drink.
Rachel shrugged. “That slimy bastard played a mean trick on me in school. Held my skirt up with a pencil as I walked clear down the hallway. Whole school saw my derrière and that jerk started callin’ me sweet cheeks.”
I chuckled a little, only because Rachel did, too, though I’m sure it wasn’t funny when it happened. “How embarrassing!”
“He got kicked out anyway,” she went on, “so I didn’t have to suffer him for long. Stupid boy nearly burned down the whole school.”
“How’d he do that?”
“Not sure,” she replied. “Started a fire in the chemistry lab, mixin’ the wrong chemicals together. I thought that was kinda funny, too. What would Ricky Wakefield be doin’ in the science lab after school? He barely made it to regular class. Wonder how he got invited.”
“He and Chris Kayne must be around the same age,” I reasoned.
Rachel grimaced. “Chris Kayne would never be friends with Ricky Wakefield.” Ricky Wakefield circled the room, without a word to anyone, and then left through the lobby.
Rachel continued, “Shame about Mrs. Love, the lady whose classroom he destroyed in the fire.” She pointed to a middle-aged man in the corner of the room, near the front windows. “That’s her husband over there stewin’ in the corner. She went in to Shawsburg Memorial Hospital for back surgery ‘bout two years ago. Never came out. Lost one of the few teachers at that danged school who actually taught anything.”
I shook my head, recalling my own teaching days, and how much I missed it. Coming to Tipee and starting a new life I thought would help me forget my old one. Truth was that it only made me miss it more.
“I don’t wanna talk about those scrubs anymore,” Rachel decided, taking a very liberal sip of my drink before I snatched it away from her. “Better get my girls in order.” She shoved her average breasts up – doing no good other than to make me laugh like crazy. She stood from her barstool and flicked her hips, bumping my leg. My dangling shoe dropped. Before I could reach it, someone kicked it like a hockey puck and sent it sliding into the crowd. My black high heel shoe disappeared into a sea of legs.
“Oh, Delilah, honey,” Rachel said, “please don’t embarrass me. Get it ‘fore anyone sees.” She shoved me off the barstool.
I edged though the crowd, belting out “excuse me’s” that mostly went unnoticed, until I hit a brick wall of suited shoulders. On the other side of the barricade, I spied my shoe, coming to a full stop at a set of blue Converses. If I could just reach in and grab it, I’d be set. No such luck. Mr. Converses got to it first.
I followed the legs upward. Chris Kayne held my shoe in his hand curiously. The crowd, which so easily ignored my whimpering “excuse me’s” now parted like the Red Sea. I reached for my shoe, but he pulled it back.
My desperation turned to irritation, particularly when he said, “How very Cinderella of you. Miss?” The suits and Lena Britt laughed, as if they suspected I sent my shoe careening over here on purpose (since I didn’t have big boobs to present, I suppose). I winced.
“Miss Not Interested.” The critical onlookers raised crooked eyebrows at me, now that I had unwittingly stolen Chris Kayne’s attention, and if looks could kill, I would have been dead about a dozen times over. I forced a nervous grin. “Well, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop this whole party, but I didn’t expect that when it happened, I’d have to go chasing after it. May I have my shoe, please?”
Chris Kayne handed me the shoe slowly, amused, and let me brace myself with his outstretched arm, as I hurriedly slipped it back on. His stare made me nervous, and when I get nervous, my mouth becomes like the Energizer Bunny.
“Did you know that that expression – waiting for the other shoe to drop – comes from the late 1800s, early 1900s and became common in large cities where people were crammed into cheap apartments? Noises carried from floor to floor, so when one shoe fell, everyone below heard it and waited for the other shoe to drop. Figuratively, it’s supposed to indicate that something undesirable is about to happen. I meant it strictly in the literal sense, as I’m sure nothing bad could ever happen at such a lovely party.”
Chris Kayne laughed. “Your renegade shoe reminds me of the saying, ‘If a woman rebels against high-heeled shoes, she should take care to do it in a very smart hat’.”
A grin stretched across my face. “Hate to disappoint you or George Bernard Shaw, but hats and shoes are really my aunts’ department.” I nodded over to my aunts and their flashy pinned hats as they cornered Lucius Kayne.
“You’re a Duffy?” he asked.
“Guilty.”
“Chris Kayne.” He poked his hand out, and I shook it.
“I know. I’ve been told you are to Tipee what the meow is to the cat.”
Chris chuckled. “Surely, it’s the Duffys who hold that distinction, but I’m rather embarrassed to say that I don’t remember you-”
“Delilah Duffy. I’m new to the island, technically,” I explained, as he followed me back to the bar,
much to the dismay of his circle, who disbanded like disappointed playmates. “My father is Chuck Duffy, Charlie’s eldest son. I grew up in Wilmington, moved back here a few months ago to reopen my Great Aunt’s bookstore.”
Chris’ eyes lit up. “Beach Read? You reopened Beach Read?”
I nodded, a little taken back by his excitement. He put his hand on my shoulder to hold me still, and smiled.
“I have two favorite places on this island, Miss Duffy,” he said, “Beach Read is one of them. Laura Duffy single-handedly saved me from many a boring summer. If I wasn’t in my lab or out collecting samples, I was at Beach Read.”
I gave him a curious look. “Lab? Samples?”
He shrugged. “Yes, my nerdy reputation has been solidified in Tipee for a long time.”
I chuckled. He dropped his hand, and stuck them both in his pockets. I moved closer toward the bar.
Chris went on, “Laura Duffy introduced me to my two favorite books.”
We neared Rachel’s perch, where she straightened her back and widened her smile like a kid on Christmas morning when she eyed what I’d brought for her. I felt a bit like Santa Claus, especially considering the overfull pressure in my stomach from eating too many shrimp.
“Frankenstein,” Chris continued, “and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
“Both dark experiments gone wrong.” I grinned.
“What can I say? I’m a sucker for science, both the real and fictional kinds.”
I smiled, and then remembered the mermaid fountain outside. “What dark arts ruined your gorgeous fountain?”
Chris sighed. “I’m surprised you noticed. We’ve had people cleaning that up for a couple days now.”
“Do the police have any leads?”
“Didn’t alert them,” Chris returned. “The police have more important matters to attend to.”
Luna-Sea Page 2
