Luna-Sea

by Jessica Sherry

  “They didn’t report it.”

  “I know. Chris Kayne brushed it off. But, I just wondered if you’d seen any other cases.”

  “Vandals do like to spread their work around, but we haven’t had an incident in a few years,” he revealed. “What did it look like?”

  “A red heart that had been set on fire.”

  Kent shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Hearts aren’t typical icons in vandalism. Sounds more like a romantic gesture, an angry ex, perhaps?”

  “Maybe,” I returned, “but I think it would take a lot to render a girl that crazy. Don’t you?”

  Kent shrugged. “Depends on the woman.”

  I winced. Valerie Kent would be that type of angry. I pictured her with her taser, going after Jason Kent and shocking him helpless.

  “Is that all you wanted, Ms. Duffy?” Kent prodded.

  “No, that’s not it. Why didn’t you review the security footage from the party?” I prompted, nerves rising again. “You believed me, or at least I thought you did. Why not watch the footage just in case?”

  “There were no cameras outside and since no one had seen a redhead at the party, I didn’t think it would be helpful.”

  I pulled his expensive blue tie from my purse and dropped it on his desk. “So, it’s not because the footage shows you sneaking off with Lucy Monroe to the study?” The question spat out of me, my inner-woman roaring. “I can’t believe that the same man I saw the other night, racing to his wife’s side and practically sick with worry over her, is the same man I saw on that recording, making goo-goo eyes at Lucy Monroe and slipping off with her like a couple of horny teenagers.”

  “Now, wait just a minute,” he said, hand extended. “I love my wife-”

  “Right,” I bit back sarcastically, “aside from your reaction to her robbery, which was probably put on for show, the evidence proves otherwise. You were fighting at the party-”

  “We had a disagreement,” he corrected, “the same as any couple with a few years under their belts-”

  “Didn’t look like a run-of-the-mill spat.”

  Kent swallowed his anger with a deep breath. “Val wore a green dress,” he told me, “and she wanted me to wear a matching green tie. She laid it out for me. But, I didn’t want to look like a couple on their way to prom. So, I wore this blue tie instead. She got upset, and our arguing continued through the party until she gave up and went home. Like all women, Val overreacts. Me not wearing the tie turned in to me not respecting her opinion or not valuing her or some other nonsense. What it boils down to really, is that Val didn’t get her way and threw a tantrum the entire night because of it-”

  “That doesn’t justify your infidelity,” I returned, stinging from the “like all women” remark.

  “I’m not trying to justify it. There’s no excuse for what I’ve done. Our disagreement didn’t help matters, but it didn’t cause anything either,” Kent replied. “Such a stupid thing to fight about, but that seems to be all we do anymore. After twelve years of marriage all the niceties go out the window and all you’re left with is a stupid fight about a tie. I love my wife, Ms. Duffy. It just feels good not to love her sometimes. You’re a cop’s wife in training. You’ll see.”

  “Oh, I see. So every woman overreacts and every man, particularly a cop, has the propensity to cheat? I don’t think so. Sam would never cheat. He’s not a sleezebag, skirt chaser with an ego to stroke,” I countered, growing more irritated.

  He smirked as if he knew a secret that I didn’t, as if his experiences in marriage and my inexperience gave him Yoda-like understanding of how it all is and should be. But, he didn’t press the issue, probably because he knew I’d come across the desk and strangle him with his tie if he tried to insinuate that Sam could be so depraved.

  “My feelings for Val always reset back again. Her robbery was a reminder, and I haven’t been with Lucy since. My cheating days are over.”

  “That’s very reassuring,” I said, sarcasm dripping like a melting ice cream cone, “but I wonder if Valerie would be so convinced.”

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  If I valued sisterhood amongst women at all, I should. I scoffed. “I’ve got my nose in too many pots as it is, and yours stinks to high heaven. I don’t have plans to tell her, but if I’m ever asked, I will tell the truth.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief. I recalled my college boyfriend, who cheated on me relentlessly with this girl named Mia – a supposed study partner. Hearing about it would’ve been hard, but I wish someone had told me so I wouldn’t have made myself a fool for so long. Jason Kent’s the one who cheated, but I was left feeling guilty.

  “There were several people missing from the party at the time of my redhead’s disappearance,” I moved on. “Lucius Kayne, Ed Wakefield, his nephew, Ricky, your wife, and David Love had all left the building.”

  “And I’m sure there were several people who left the party even earlier,” Kent returned. “I’m not sure what that-”

  “The study at the back corner of the house is right next to where I was standing on the deck,” I explained, “right where the woman came out of the fog. You have to tell me what you saw.”

  “I didn’t see the woman,” he reported. “I saw you, heard your footsteps across the deck, and when we heard your screaming, we pulled ourselves together and rushed back to the party.”

  I sighed, and hung my head. I believed him, and abandoned any hope that this would lead to a redhead-sighting confirmation. Turns out, I’d found nothing and had jumped to the losers, weepers group after all.

  As if throwing me a bone, Kent added, “I believe you, though. I don’t know what happened to the redhead, and I certainly can’t devote manpower to it, but if you say she was there, then she was. Just a matter of proving it.”

  “Easier said, than done,” I returned, though I was thankful for his vote of confidence. “I appreciate you meeting with me, Mr. Kent. I should get back to the store. Is Sam around here or is he out catching bad guys?”

  “Sam?” Kent questioned, coming over to the door to let me out, though he certainly didn’t need to. “He’s not back from Fayetteville yet.”

  “Fayetteville?”

  “Left yesterday,” Kent reported, “saw him heading out of town myself, on his motorcycle.”

  “Motorcycle?”

  Kent laughed. “Maybe redheads and hearts aren’t where you should be focusing your attention.”

  I grimaced. “Sam and I don’t have secrets. It just slipped his mind to tell me, that’s all.”

  I stepped out of the precinct feeling more ridiculous than when I entered, if that were possible. I had hoped to find answers, but instead only further cemented the notion that I wasn’t playing with a full deck anymore. No one saw the redheaded woman but me. And what I did uncover, quite unintentionally, was that my boyfriend had skipped town without telling me – again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Triggerfish

  With its bright colors and patterns, the triggerfish is lovely enough for an aquarium. It earns the name by its two spines that sprout erect whenever threatened. The lower spine must disengage before the top, instigating its release, like a trigger. But, I suspect that’s not the only reason this fish’s name is so fitting. The triggerfish has a nasty attitude. When set off, it attacks. It bites swimmers who dare to venture too close to its territory. Triggerfish are the grouchy old men of the sea, stationing themselves on their porches and snapping at people who come too near their property, and sometimes for no reason at all (we have many of those in Tipee). I call them porch peevers because they have peeves about everything.

  Porch peevers aside, with the right trigger, any of us could snap.

  Lack of sleep had already made me punchy, but the news about Sam sideswiped me. I couldn’t think of anything else. Not the woman. Not the store. Just him, riding out of town on a motorcycle I didn’t know he owned, heading to a place I didn’t know he needed
to go, and doing who knows what while he’s there and once again not telling me. All this on the heels of abandoning me, mid-making-out. My overactive imagination didn’t even know where to start.

  “Just what’d ya expect to accomplish with this whole comic book party?” I’d just turned the corner to find Aunt Clara staring at my awesome poster, arms folded, scowling. She tapped her pink and purple wedges softly against the pavement, awaiting my answer.

  “Not in the mood to deal with you today,” I told her, going for my keys to unlock the door.

  “Must be the dumbest business move I’ve ever seen,” she chuckled, “apart from reopening this dinosaur in the first place.”

  I huffed and rolled my eyes. I fumbled with my key, and missed the lock.

  “You see, Delilah,” Clara cooed, “when you run a business, the general rule of thumb is to bring in more money than you put out. That’s called profit. But, you wouldn’t know anythin’ about that! How much have you sunk into this latest scheme?”

  “Please, leave me alone,” I said, halting my futile attempt to run inside and hide. Still, the numbers ran through my head. How much had I sunk into my Frankenstein plan?

  “And, look at this place,” Clara went on anyway. It was clear she’d already had her coffee this morning, while I was still sorely lacking. She waved a manicured hand over her head, Vanna-White-style, and cackled like a witch. “You have so much work yet to do, and one little party, even if you manage to squeeze outta few bucks, ain’t goin’ do the trick.”

  I turned to her and said, “Can’t you just leave me alone? I’ve got until the end of October, whether you like it or not. If you’re so sure I’m going to fail, then why taunt me?”

  “You know, after your little fallout with Candy,” Clara continued, smiling – always smiling. “I thought how dirty it was, that she played you like that. I mean, business is business. but, when it comes to matters of the heart, well, that’s hittin’ below the belt.”

  The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of how Candy had wronged me – how she purposefully kept Sam and I apart by lying to us – a move, I’m sure, had cost me doubly – fourteen years of happiness being with the right person and fourteen years of misery being with the wrong ones. Clara and Charlotte saw Candy admit that her only motive was jealousy. And even they had considered her actions fairly heinous.

  Not anymore, apparently. Clara continued, “But, the more I think about you, the more I understand it. You bring out the worst in people.”

  I thought about the full moon and the embedded eyes of the Peacock, how they’d brought out the worst in others only by shedding more light on the truth. My jaw clenched, but I spat out, “I’ve never done anything to her or to you!”

  “Let me tell you somethin’. When I started my business, we had nothin’. I worked three jobs just to raise the start-up money. I even moonlighted as a maid at the Peacock, if you can believe that. Me, a maid. We scrounged for every penny and customer we ever had. Wanna know why it was so hard?” she questioned. “When Charlotte and I started up, we went to the only man who could help us put our dream into motion-”

  “Great Uncle Joe,” I finished for her.

  “Joe Duffy turned us down,” she reported. “Wouldn’t invest one red cent, and because he wouldn’t do it, neither would any of our local banks. Why should they take a chance on us when our own rich uncle wouldn’t?”

  “I’m sorry,” I tried, “but I didn’t have anything-”

  “And here we are, fifteen years later,” she sang, “and he just hands over the keys to Beach Read like he’s givin’ you a hanky after you sneezed. Easy, peasy.”

  “How Joe Duffy does business has nothing to do with me,” I reiterated uselessly. She glared at me beneath the rim of her pink and purple fedora.

  A smile pressed on her lips, she said, “Maybe not, but don’t you see how easy it is to hate you?”

  “Hate me? Even after all you’ve done, I don’t hate you. You are such a royal bitch, Clara. I have just as much right to be here as you do,” I countered weakly. “Stop badgering me.”

  “I’ll stop when you do,” she replied. Our voices were steadily growing louder, and we were gathering attention. I suspected that’s exactly what Clara wanted. She was putting on a show. Down the sidewalk, Moira Kelley and one of her employees came out of the store to watch. Charlotte appeared at the door to their store, and across the street Jeff Travers was watching at the garage doors of the arcade.

  “You’re just prolongin’ the inevitable,” Clara kept on. “The only thing this place is good for is a wreckin’ ball, and gettin’ your boyfriend to change out a couple a’ lights ain’t goin’ matter.”

  “If none of it matters, then why give me the list in the first place?” I insisted.

  “Just drivin’ a few nails in your financial coffin,” she cooed, “and you’re just provin’ what the whole town already knows: that you’re nuttier than a Snickers bar and just as stupid, too.”

  Clara smiled, turned on her wedges, and headed toward her building. Once, she looked over her shoulder at me, dumbfounded and angry, and added, “Better get workin’ on your store, Delilah, or I’ll have to double them fines.” And then, she laughed.

  The volcano bubbling up inside me finally erupted. Anger and I are acquaintances, but not close, and the times I’ve let my anger get the better of me, I’ve made my biggest life-changing mistakes, including losing my teaching career. The right triggers can upset anyone, and Clara’s taunts rendered me brainless.

  “Wanna see some work? I’ll show you work, you arrogant diva!”

  I reached above my head, grabbed the flap of blue and white awning (my awning), and pulled until I dangled from it. The thick canvas fabric didn’t give way easily, in spite of its age and disrepair, but finally tore, with a loud, echoing rip. Had I the strength to match my rage, I would have torn down the whole thing – the metal frame, the Christmas lights I’d painstakingly wrapped around the bars, the covering. But, only the fabric gave in, and I shredded that to pieces.

  The loiterers grew, but I didn’t pay any attention. I ripped the material to strips, gathered the remains, and dumped them at Clara’s doorstep. “Here,” I spat at her. “Recycle this into your ugly shoes and hats. Might be an improvement.” Clara looked amused, but aghast. I swept by her, my mission accomplished, and added, “Now I understand why you and your sisters wear hats in the first place, to hide your horns.”

  And with trigger successfully cocked and released, I retreated to Beach Read.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Things Fall Apart

  While I love a good story, I’ve been known to throw back a few poems from time to time because they offer something different than novels. Stories focus on plots. Poems engage us with words. Henry’s brain can take a picture of a poem and recite it back verbatim. For me, it’s the haunting phrases that stick and echo long after the other words have faded away.

  “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” William Butler Yeats penned a great poem called The Second Coming that describes the dire state of the world before the Second Coming of Christ. Though the poem reflects the despair of the world, those lines summed up my life at the moment, and I was especially reminded of them when I saw the front page of The Tipee Island Gazette.

  Falling Apart? Next to his questioning headline, Clark published a picture of Beach Read, the metal frame of the overhang naked, tattered strings of the awning flapping in the breeze, and its heaped remains outside Clara’s door. In a fit of rage, Beach Read manager Delilah Duffy ripped down the store’s front awning in reaction to TIBA President, Clara Duffy-Saintly’s urgings to continue with the needed improvements to the building. Bystanders described the argument as “heated” and Ms. Duffy as “enraged.” The Beach Read profit deadline is looming, and sources report that she is no closer to meeting TIBA’s or Joe Duffy’s requirements to continue in business.

  Sam called once the day before
, and I didn’t get to the phone quick enough. He left a brief message saying he was just checking in, that he was very busy, and he’d call back. Nothing about Fayetteville. I returned the call minutes later to be greeted by voicemail. I didn’t call back after that, which was admittedly a pride thing. Boys don’t respect girls who call them all the time, nagging after them like lost puppies, I could hear my mother saying. Simultaneously, I shook my head. Weren’t we passed all that phone tag bullshit by now? For goodness sakes, he’d shot someone for me. Was hard-to-get the right strategy? Should there be any strategy at all? He’d told me he loved me, and I wanted so badly to believe it. But, I was a child of the world, fully aware that those words are tossed around as easily as yesterday’s gossip. And the only truth I knew right now was a difficult one: Sam had secrets.

  I spent the day caved up at Beach Read, only venturing out to take Willie on his walks. Three days until the Frankenstein Fright Night (the story made page two this time). I put the finishing touches on all the decorations, planned the night with Henry, and tried not to stew in the fresh anxieties the last couple of days had brought me. It was hard.

  Right before dinner, I took Willie on a short jaunt around the back of the alley. Upon returning, I noticed a trail of sand at my door, which spilled onto the dark wood floor. I huffed. Tourists had come and gone all day with no sales to show for their sandy leftovers.

  “You aren’t seeing the forest for the trees,” Henry called from the counter. I looked up.

  Black roses lined the countertops and adorned the tables. Dozens upon dozens.

  “Holy shit,” I sputtered out carelessly. “What’s this?”

  Henry shrugged. “Special delivery for you.”

  Mouth hanging open, I trudged into the store, passed the gorgeous, dark blooms, and found a single card attached to the only white rose in all the arrangements. Black roses for the party, the white rose is for you, the single brightest thing in my life. Love, Sam.