Stargazey Point

by Shelley Noble

  Abbie groaned.

  “Did something happen? Millie was worried when you went straight upstairs last night that Cab had made improper advances.” She snorted. “That Millie, you have to love her.”

  Distracted, Abbie said, “She didn’t, really?”

  “Like I said.”

  “Well, of course he didn’t. At first he thought I was a real estate developer. Of all the dumb things.”

  “Well, don’t take it personally. We have them buzzing around our heads all the time, especially lately, now that the beach is beginning to renew itself. A few of the people around here have been burned pretty badly by some less than honest speculators.”

  “Cab showed me Silas’s barbecue place.”

  “Silas was just one of several. Damn fool.” Marnie laughed. “Though people in glass houses . . .”

  “You haven’t sold Crispin House, have you?”

  “Not yet, and don’t you dare say a word, but I don’t see how we can keep hold of it.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Don’t know. I’d buy a smaller house nearby, except that we won’t be able to afford it. Once Crispin House is sold, the prices will shoot up, and the others won’t be able to survive.”

  “Cab’s carousel?”

  “He told you about the carousel? He’s usually a little circumspect about what he’s doing. People tend to make fun of him.”

  “He didn’t tell me. He showed me.”

  Marnie’s eyes widened. “Did he, now.”

  “He showed me, and I freaked out and ran away.”

  Marnie frowned.

  Before she could ask what happened, Abbie said, “What will he do if he has to sell the carousel?”

  Marnie nodded. “I don’t know. He may have enough money to move it somewhere else. Not much solace in that when he gave up a successful career and a wedding on the horizon for this.”

  “Would you still sell if you didn’t have to?” Abbie paused. “I’m sorry, but I was looking for you yesterday and I overheard you and Millie talking about the taxes.”

  “No, of course not. It’s a pain in my butt, and the acreage has dwindled down to a precious few. But we’re all getting on. The taxes are skyrocketing, and it’s getting too hard to keep up with the chores. We had hoped to leave the property to Celeste. After that she can sell if she wants to. We won’t care. But this is the only home Millie has ever known. Beau is comfortable here.” Marnie straightened. “But that’s not what we should discuss at the moment. Why do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t want to. Not exactly. It’s beautiful, and you three have been so kind. But I’m an imposition and a strain on the household.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve brought the old place and its old occupants to life in a few days. You must see that. I think Stargazey can be good for you, too. Now tell me the real reason, if it isn’t too painful.”

  Abbie looked up. Marnie had surprised her, and she owed her an explanation.

  “I—years ago—I met a man.”

  Marnie smiled.

  “It’s not what you think,” Abbie added hastily. “Well, it is. But it’s more.”

  “I wasn’t smiling about that. Years ago I met a man too, but that was years ago. So how did you meet this man?”

  Abbie told her about Guatemala, and how later she left her job at the television station to work on Werner’s documentaries. The stories they’d brought to viewers, the sense of accomplishment, the excitement of new places, getting to know new people with lives so different and yet not different, from her own.

  She actually found herself speaking with enthusiasm of some of their projects. And suddenly she was at the end, and the words stuck in her throat.

  “I learned so much from him. But Werner was not just a great filmmaker; he loved people and he was driven to tell their stories. Some were heart wrenching, some were beautiful or amazing. Then he changed. He just got angry at what the world was doing to them. He became more . . . callous and more cause oriented. He didn’t just want to reveal the plights, the lives, the fears—he went after the bad guys.” She stopped, wondering how she could put what she didn’t understand into words.

  “And you thought he was wrong?”

  “No. It’s like he outdistanced me. I wanted to do good stuff, but I didn’t have his vision or his fire.”

  “It sounds like he stopped caring so much about the people he was documenting.”

  “Not exactly, but his interest shifted; he lost touch with the individual.” Her hand closed over her mouth as if she could keep such traitorous thoughts at bay. “It wasn’t wrong, what he was doing. He was a genius.” Her voice broke. She gripped her fingers in her lap. “And then . . .”

  She took a breath.

  “He went after a mining company that was strip-mining a plateau above a small village. There were spies and company security people everywhere. So a skeleton crew clandestinely filmed the mining practices while I took the rest of the crew to cover human interest stories in the village.

  “On the last day, the whole crew was in the village. There had been several small mud slides because of the flooding of the lodes, and Werner wanted to take some footage from the village perspective.

  “I should have seen what was coming. That we were bound to be caught. Cause the village trouble . . .

  “I’d made friends with the women and some of the children. One of the boys tended his grandfather’s donkey. He liked to parade that donkey in front of the camera, and the cameraman would pretend to film him.

  “He’d just left us. He turned, smiling, to wave good-bye; the earth began shaking, and the whole mountain side fell.” Abbie stopped to drag in a breath. “It took everything in its path, the schoolhouse, the children, huts, the boy, his donkey. It covered everything, dragging them down the hill and burying them alive. It was over in seconds.

  “And the—the boy and donkey—I could see the boy’s arm sticking out of the mud, his fingers stretched wide—like he was reaching for help.

  “I ran along the edge of the slide, screaming for someone to help me, but everyone had panicked. I tried to crawl across the mud to get to the boy, but it just kept sucking me under, and I couldn’t reach him. The donkey was still alive, but buried in mud up to his neck.

  “Its eye rolled toward me, panicked, crazed, but there was nothing I could do. People were screaming and running, and I could hear Werner’s voice yelling to the cameraman to keep filming as I started to dig for the boy.

  “Then something whizzed past my head, and the donkey collapsed. An old man of the village had shot him. My ears rang, but I kept digging for the boy, digging until my fingernails broke and my skin bled. But the mud filled in as fast as I could scoop it out. His little fingers began to curl. I couldn’t reach him.

  “I was hardly aware of what was happening around me, but jeeps had roared into the village. The security police jumped out, herded people away. They broke the cameras, confiscated our computers. The villagers dragged me into the bushes, and we watched them take Werner and several other members of the crew away. I wanted to go with them, but they held me back. They probably saved my life.

  “I never saw Werner again. He died in their jail. I know they killed him.”

  Marnie’s hand covered hers. “I’m so sorry.”

  Abbie shook her head, flinging tears. “I should have gone with him. He didn’t have to die. And all for nothing. Only a fifteen-second video that was taken with somebody’s phone. It showed up on YouTube the next day. And all you could hear was me, yelling. ‘Werner, goddamn it; stop filming and help me.’

  “Those were my last words to him. After all the good he had done. But in that second, I knew that he cared more about the film than he did about the people, or about me.”

  And there it was. Abbie had wanted more than Werner could give.

  T
hey sat, silent, while tears rolled down Abbie’s cheeks

  After a few minutes, Marnie pulled a white handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to Abbie. “So what will you do?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping to figure it out while I was here.”

  “Hmm,” Marnie said, frowning. “Might take more than three days, and we could use some help around here.”

  Abbie managed a wobbly smile. “Like manual labor for the soul?”

  “Well, I could use another hand with these beans. But I was thinking Millie would love to have someone to conspire with about Beau’s birthday party. She loves surprises. Does it every year. Beau knows it’s coming, but he always acts surprised and pleased anyway. What?”

  “The party,” Abbie said, suddenly remembering Millie’s plans for opening the ballroom.

  “She’s not still planning a huge bash?”

  “I’m afraid so. She took me to the ballroom when you were out Monday night.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “And she was talking about caterers and hiring an orchestra. And I feel like a traitor for telling on her. But I don’t know how serious she was.”

  “You never know with Millie. Three-quarters of the time she acts like someone out of a Tennessee Williams play; then when you least expect it, she comes on like Shirley MacLaine.”

  “In Steel Magnolias?”

  Marnie grinned. “Only worse.” She grew serious. “Give us a try; stay another week. Then if you still want to leave, I’ll have Cabot drive you to the airport.”

  Abbie shuddered.

  “But not until you go back and face that carousel. Now let’s pick some beans.” Marnie pulled Abbie off the bench.

  Somewhere between the second and third row of beans, Abbie had an idea. “Marnie?”

  “Hmmm,” came the reply from the next row over.

  “Millie said Beau used to spend all his time in that old gazebo I saw at the end of the lawn.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought maybe . . . what do you think if I tried to fix it up for his birthday?”

  Marnie’s head appeared above the teepees of green plants. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s put these beans in the kitchen, and we’ll take a look.”

  A few minutes later, Abbie and Marnie stood on the grass looking at the old gazebo.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Abbie said.

  “Well, it isn’t a bad idea either. What it is . . . is a big idea.”

  Maybe too big, Abbie thought as she looked at the gazebo. Yesterday she’d looked at it with the joy of discovery; today, she regarded it with a realistic eye. It was still standing, but that was about all. At least two sections of railing were missing. Several pieces of trim had broken away from the eaves. The whole structure needed serious scraping and repainting. Patches of shingles were either loose or had torn completely away from the pitched roof. At its peak, a spire had broken off, leaving jagged splinters jutting skyward from its base . . .

  Abbie swayed, forced her mind from the image those splinters evoked. Made herself stare at them until they became just broken pieces of wood. She’d replace it first thing; she bet Cab would know where she could buy a new one. Which meant she’d have to face him sooner than later.

  “Having second thoughts?” Marnie asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “No. No. I’m not. I’m making plans.”

  “Good for you. Let’s take a closer look.” Marnie started toward the gazebo steps.

  Abbie followed close by while Marnie tested the steps, the floor, peered under broken benches, rattled loose railings.

  “Not bad, not bad at all.” Marnie brushed sand off her hands. “I don’t think I’ve been out here since I’ve been back. A shame, really. It’s lovely.”

  “It’s beautiful. And it must have been elegant in its day.”

  “It was. Too bad it’s been neglected. But you know how things are. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  And out of money, Abbie thought, but she kept the thought to herself. “I can do most of the work myself. I have a little experience. And I’ll pay for paint and whatever else I need.”

  Marnie turned, looking stern.

  “I have the money. It will be my birthday present to Beau.”

  “A rather extravagant present and a lengthy project. It might take several weeks to complete. And you’d need to enlist some help for the grunt work. Are you up for it?”

  Weeks. It would take weeks? Could she commit to staying that long?

  Only a few minutes before she’d been adamant about leaving that very day. What if she started feeling trapped like she did in every place she’d visited since returning from South America? What if she had to bail before it was finished? The gazebo would sit there, half finished, but still broken, a reminder that she’d left without doing what she’d promised.

  Half finished, still broken. Like me, thought Abbie.

  “Well?”

  One word. Yes or no.

  She could say no and be on a plane maybe even by this afternoon. And where would you go? Back to Chicago? Tell Celeste her family was in dire straits and Abbie had bailed on them? That after all their kindness, she’d left them to fight for their survival alone?

  “Yes. I’m up for it,” Abbie said.

  “Good, and if you tell Millie you’re doing it as a surprise for Beau’s birthday, she might be convinced to have a ‘garden’ party. She used to love the teas and soirees Momma used to give.”

  “I thought maybe we could ask Silas to make barbecue,” Abbie said. “Everyone could bring something, and we wouldn’t have to hire a caterer.”

  “Reeks of potluck. A word that isn’t in Millie’s vocabulary unless it’s at church and for a worthy cause.”

  “She said she might ask Penny to do the desserts. Maybe we could convince her that she would be helping the local businesses.”

  Marnie shook her head, and Abbie felt a stab of disappointment.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘we.’ ”

  Chapter 10

  Cab glanced at his watch. Almost three. He and Beau had finally gotten the engine up and running. As soon as the parts he’d ordered arrived they should have a working carousel.

  “Let’s knock off for the day,” he called to Beau who was meticulously scraping paint from the decorative panels that would be returned to the roof of the carousel when finished.

  “Suits me. It was a good day’s work,” Beau said. He pushed himself out of the straight-backed chair he used while painting and fingered the wood Cab knew was in Beau’s shirt pocket.

  “What are you working on?” Cab nodded toward the pocket, not expecting a definite answer. Beau never said outright what he was carving.

  “Somethin’ for Abbie,” Beau said and patted the pocket affectionately.

  For Abbie. Cab didn’t know whether to be charmed or worried. It was becoming pretty obvious to him that all three of the Crispins had taken a liking to her, and if she was about to leave them without a thank-you, they would be hurt.

  “But if she’s leaving,” Cab began.

  “If she leaves, I’ll send it to her when it’s finished.”

  They locked up and parted ways. Beau went down to the seawall where he would carve his mysterious gift for Abbie, and Cab walked home to grab a late lunch before coming back to put in a few more hours.

  He was halfway across the street heading toward Hadley’s when he changed his mind. Three o’clock. Chances were Bethanne and Sarah would both be over at the tea shop. Maybe they knew more about what was going on with Abbie than he or Beau did. And then he could decide if he should get involved or not.

  When he got to Flora’s, he didn’t go in but peered over the blue-checked half curtains to see inside. The Oakleys were sitting over by the wall, and he could have gone all spring wi
thout running into those two, but Bethanne was sitting practically under his nose. She looked up and motioned him in.

  “You practicing to be some kind of Peeping Tom?” asked a voice behind him.

  “Jeez,” Cab said, turning around to face Sarah. “You’re getting as bad as Ervina.”

  “Huh.”

  “Actually I came looking for you . . . and Bethanne.”

  “Just like a man, come sniffing around to find out what he could just ask outright. Come on in.” Sarah marched past him into the tea shop, a petit, wiry whirlwind.

  He nodded to the Oakleys before he sat down. Sarah ignored them completely.

  “How long have they been here?” Sarah whispered to Bethanne.

  Bethanne leaned across the table. “They were here when I came in, and I thought they were almost finished.”

  “When there’s a chance of gossip flowing? Maybe Penny will put hot sauce in their second pot of tea.” Sarah smiled at Penny who was carrying a second teapot over to the far table.

  “Shh,” Bethanne said but snorted a giggle.

  “And to what do we owe the honor of your visit, Cab?”

  “Feeling like a cup of tea.”

  “The hell you are,” Sarah said. “He wants to know what we know about Abbie Sinclair.”

  “Shh,” Cab said and frowned at Sarah before cutting his eyes toward the middle-aged couple. Not everyone’s favorite people, since Robert Oakley was the tax assessor.

  “You staying, Cab?” Penny asked when she stopped by their table.

  “For a bit. I’ll have a coffee.”

  “Just a coffee?”

  “Yeah, and whatever the ladies want.”

  Penny laughed. “High tea for three. And a coffee. You are so easy.” Shaking her head, she struck off toward the kitchen.

  When Cab turned back to the table, Sarah and Bethanne were grinning at him.

  “You never learn, do you?”

  “Hell, I can afford to buy you two highfalutin’ tea.”

  “You better watch yourself. You’re startin’ to sound just like one of those raving rednecks down at the Backwater.”

  “Yeah,” Cab said. “Like that’ll ever happen.”