“How did she die?”
“Heart,” she answered quickly. She frowned, looked over her shoulder toward the cottage and chewed her lip. “Too much digoxin. She took too much. I thought one day she’d do something wrong—I worried she’d fall off the porch. You know, she shouldn’t have lived by herself. Not anymore. Bang. She dropped dead.”
I asked, “Who found her, then?”
“Me. I found her. That’s right. You know”—she scratched her chin thoughtfully, wanting to change the subject—“seems like a yesterday Morgan was little, out there sailing around …”
We both looked out over the hedge to the sea, as if expecting to see the small boy and his boat. But the rash wind belted us and there was only the flap of the flag and the clang of the pole links. She threw her apron over her head. “But that’s me, talking about it when it’s none of my business! And all you wanted was the name of a cleaner!”
“If you have it. Or if I might just have Radiance’s number?”
“I have the number.” She turned and, elbows out, took off. She raised an arm. “Come in my house,” she ordered. I followed her in. “It’s cold outside.” She rubbed her arms briskly and kicked off her clogs. “Let me warm up some milk for that puss. Eh?”
The house, after the one I’d just been in, was a pleasant shock. Highly polished Mediterranean furniture and clean windows. Petit point embroideries of violets lined the walls in oval frames. A woman living alone. Mrs. Dellaverna’s house wasn’t dead on the water, but you could see a little chink of it, blue and white capped with wind. “Rest yourself,” she invited, pointing to a thronelike chair at the table.
I sank onto the plush cushions still covered in vinyl. Heavy, amber velvet drapes muffled any sound, and the miniature, expensive furniture gave the room a loungelike feel. There was smell of something wonderful bubbling on the stove. “What’s that, gravy?”
“Gravy? No, it’s sauce!” She paused in the doorway, catching me. “Ay! You look done in.” She eyed me suspiciously, coming back to the table with a recipe box.
“I have had a rough two days,” I admitted.
She frowned, placing a leathered hand gently on top of mine. “I’m gonna make you a cup of coffee.”
Sometimes a perfect stranger is just that—perfect. And so I told her my whole sorry saga. She didn’t bat an eye, just sat there stroking her flimsy mustache until I was done.
“It’s so crazy it’s got to be true. The whole house burned to the ground? Unbelievable!” She shook her head. “All your clothes and all your shoes?”
“Yup. Well. It’s not that tragic, really. After all, everyone’s alive. So it’s just me, really. I suppose it’s up to me now to start a new life.” When I got to the part about Enoch and his, uh, “diversion,” she grabbed her chest and the kitten flew out.
“Mama mia!” she cried dramatically and blessed herself. I almost laughed. She held out her hand and made me hand over my trousers. “I looked at you in these pants”—she held her fingertips against each other and shook them—“and I’m thinking, what’s she doing walking around like a vagabond?”
While I waited for the strong bitter coffee to percolate, she mended the pants on her machine in the bedroom, her knees bobbing up and down from the doorway, the kitten on the floor at her feet tackling a spool of emerald thread. “You gonna have a quick rest on the nice sofa while I finish these off,” she said, snapping the thread with her teeth.
“Oh, I shouldn’t. I have to go to Twillyweed. I’ll never wake up.”
“What time you want to leave?”
“I’m to be there at four.” I gave a lion’s yawn.
“Never you mind.” She led me to the sofa. “I’ll make sure you’re up by three. You can use my shower. Let’s see if I can fix these for you to wear by then. Hey! What’s about you stay here just for the night?”
I supposed she figured if Morgan Donovan trusted me, she could, too. I looked up hopefully.
“Eh. Then you can start up fresh in the morning. Let’s face it. You can’t sleep in a dump like that.” She gave a warning look. “But just for the one night, eh? This is not a pensione.”
“Are you sure?” I lowered my head and yawned again, sniffing with pleasure the percolating coffee and clean linen pillowcase she’d maneuvered beneath me.
“That’s what the neighbors are for.” She smiled, her little acorn eyes glittering with kindness. “Noola—she taught me that.” She went to the stove and stirred her sauce.
I gazed at the beautiful religious souvenirs from Rome on the bottom shelf of her fancy glass armadio, the cloisonné paraphernalia, the ornate gold clock under a glass dome, and I half listened as her voice became muffled and faraway. Enoch’s self-satisfied words echoed in my ears above the shush of the waves beating the shore. These are things that men do. It’s just … release, he’d explained. The last thing I saw before I fell off to sleep was Mrs. Dellaverna folding a copper-colored silky comforter over my shoulders then turning off my cell phone and tucking it into my purse.
Jenny Rose
She waited at the end of the drive for the school bus. At last it came, crunching to what Jenny Rose thought was an excessively rash halt. Anyone sitting unbelted would lurch! Determined to start on the right foot, she smiled hopefully up at the driver, who opened the door with a hefty lever and then sat there chewing gum, looking straight ahead, not signaling the little boy that he should move. Jenny Rose poked her head in the bus. There was no obvious head peeking back down the aisle. She stepped onto the bus.
“Hey!” the driver snapped. “No parents on the bus!”
“That’s good then ’cause I’m not a parent,” Jenny Rose sassed him and marched past. There were no other children. Jenny Rose had to walk to the rear until she reached him, his little arms around his blue knapsack, scrunched up tight as though he were waiting to be smacked.
Jenny Rose lowered her head very close to the child—good Lord, the air was thick as a closed-up car park! Why, it was suffocating! She whispered the start of a song to get Wendell to open his eyes and then gently took him up in her arms. He didn’t weigh a thing! Wendell stayed rigid and stiff, but he let himself be transported. Jenny Rose was thinking if the child left the school at 2:10 and it was now 2:40, he’d been driving around in this wretched air for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes! Intolerable! An agony of time for a child. And God knew how the other little mites had tortured him! She knew how vicious little kids could be. She’d been one herself. As she carried the boy still scrunched into sitting position past the driver she said, “What’s about opening a couple of windows in here, aye? The rear of the bus is claustrophobic! It’s awful.”
“Can’t do it, lady. One a them kids will stick their head out.”
Trying to be reasonable, Jenny Rose suggested, “Well, then, how about cracking a couple of them so the kids don’t suffocate!”
The driver yanked his lever so the door whipped open and the bus lurched and she practically lost her footing. “Go on. Move it.”
Jenny Rose muttered, “I thought we were on the same fuckin’ side here.”
“Wadja say?” The driver leaned toward her back in a threatening way.
Jenny Rose’s eyes flashed and she turned to him, her hand protectively cradling the back of Wendell’s head. “I’ll tell you what I’ll say if you don’t pay heed to the child’s good health! It’s criminal not to, I’ll have you know!”
“That’s it. Off the bus.”
“We’re going. Don’t worry.”
She put Wendell down and the bus took off before they were even clear of it, spattering mud onto Wendell’s hat and Jenny Rose’s rough-cut black hair. It was filthy weather again and difficult to see beyond the road. Wendell stood there, his bad eye veering off in an uncontrollable spasm. Jenny Rose, her foxy face clenched in a glare at the disappearing bus, whispered, “Wendell, do you know what a
poem is?”
As he didn’t answer she went on, forcing herself to walk slowly, “You make a word at the end of a sentence sound like a word at the end of another sentence.”
He walked beside her, his eyes on his shoes.
“Listen. It’s fun!
“There was an old man from the west
“He wore a pale plum-colored vest
“When they asked, ‘Does it fit?’
“He replied, ‘Not a bit.’
“That uneasy old man from the west.
“See? That’s from Aesop. It’s a poem.”
“Going home,” Wendell said.
“We’ll be there soon.” She hurried along beside him.
“The cat and the spoon,” replied Wendell.
“Oh,” Jenny Rose realized, catching up. “Huh! That’s very good!” He’d spoken! And not only that, he’d answered in rhyme. They walked along up the short, flat expanse of road. She picked a stick from the ground and swung it casually. “Darlin’, remember you gave me that nice scarf when I came to Twillyweed?”
He smiled. No teeth, but a smile. Then a nod.
“Well, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Do you remember where you got it?”
“Noola,” he said right away. “Boola boola.”
“Good rhyme!” Jenny Rose congratulated him, “You’ve got the idea, all right! Say. What about the pretty blue stones? Did Noola give them to you to hold?”
Wendell shifted his haversack but he didn’t answer. Oh, well, she thought. Two out of three.
Twillyweed, humped and dark up there in fog, loomed before them and they hiked on, abandoned but together, toward its jutting turrets. Wendell would twist his head to see if she was still smiling. She didn’t seem to mind him at all. The wind blew at their backs and the mist separated, the sun broke through just a crack, and the sea down the hill was a still shimmer of glass. “Tell you what,” Jenny Rose said, changing her mind. “It’s a fine, soft day—not a day to be inside. What do you say?” She crouched to his level. “We’ll take a walk to the shore before you’ve had your nap. Or we’ll bicycle for a treat! How’s that?”
Wendell jumped up and down in answer, and they took all their stuff to the porch then went to the garage for some bikes, of which there were many.
They pedaled along the coast road, carefree, she on a rusty old maroon Schwinn and Wendell on a squeaky bright red tricycle. Wendell, thrilled with the unexpected fun of it, head down, knees out, kept up. At Duffy’s Bait Shop he hopped off his tricycle, determined to go inside.
She pulled their bikes over to the side of the building and followed him in.
Leaning over the cash register and busily counting coins from a purse stood Malcolm McGlintock—Glinty—to Jenny Rose’s horror and delight. Even with his back to them he was slinky. She stopped dead in her tracks, but then, fueled with confidence by Wendell’s presence and resigning herself to Glinty’s taking one long look at her and scramming out of there—for what else did she deserve—she greeted him softly. “Hello,” she said, her cheeks darkening.
It was the girl! The one who’d got away! “Hey!” he cried out before he could stop himself. “It’s you!”
Jenny Rose’s heart took flight at the smile in his eyes. You couldn’t lie with your eyes.
“What’s up?” He smoothed over his delight with a touch of cool.
“Just following my boss here.” She indicated Wendell with a nudge of the head.
“Well, if it isn’t Wendell!” He veered to the side with a grimace.
“You two know each other then, do you?” Jenny Rose said.
“Oh, aye. We’re old chums.”
“He seems to like the place. What about you?”
“Readying to pay for a new mizzen. Just doing a jury rig.”
“What’s that?” Wendell pushed his way through Jenny Rose’s legs.
Surprised, Glinty glanced up at Jenny Rose. “Talking, you are now, is it?” he leaned over and said to Wendell. “Well, now. That’s fine. A jury rig is a sort of a temporary repair, mate.” He rose back up to the shopkeep and said, “Oh, and give me one of those cleats, will you? That’ll be it. What’s the damage?” He paid up, carefully doling out the bills with almost comical care, and the three of them walked from the store into the daylight. “So, little man”—Glinty crouched down to be on Wendell’s level—“what is it you’ve been up to?”
Wendell thought for a moment. “I can tell a rhyme,” he boasted.
“Really? Hmm. I’ve got a couple of them up the sleeve, meself.” He lifted his eyebrows at Jenny Rose. “Got a couple a good filthy ones, too.”
“Take hold of yourself!” She smacked him playfully.
“Say, how would you two like to go for a ride?”
“Yeah!” Wendell shouted. “Yes! Yes!” He arranged himself into an obedient little boy and looked pleadingly at Jenny Rose.
“What about that fog?” She eyed the distance, unconvinced.
“Aw, we’ll just stay close to the shore.”
“He’s supposed to be having a nap …” She wavered.
“He can have one on board.” Glinty looked in her eyes. “We can all have one.”
“Don’t be silly.” she retorted. “It’s hardly the weekend.”
He stared at her. She had the spookiest eyes. “You’re a wee sheedie, you are.”
“Oh? And what would that be?”
Disarmed, he smiled at her crookedly, “A faerie, you might be.”
“I should have guessed you’d be superstitious,” Jenny Rose sallied, pleased despite herself. “You’ve got to get us back in time for supper, though.”
Glinty rested his burden on the ground and looped up the length of a rope he always seemed to be holding. “We can manage that.” He watched her with his eyes like slits guarding against the sun.
“And no funny business,” she warned, still unsure.
He grinned and opened his hands beseechingly. “What do I look like, some sort of a monster?”
She hesitated a moment, just to tick him off and then smiled. “All right. We’d love to.”
“Here, mate.” Glinty handed Wendell a bag. “You’ll have to work for your pudding.” He scrounged around in his pocket and came up with a whistle. “Here you go, laddie. Keep this with you at all times, now. A whistle can save your life if you’re lost in a fog.” He slung his package romantically over his shoulder and started toward the dock. They hauled out their bikes. Jenny Rose whistled a tune and Glinty whistled, too. Wendell, his one good eye eager with trust and hero worship, cheerfully lugged Glinty’s brown paper bag in his backpack and pumped along squeaky as an engine at the rear. They went the beach way, passing the row of shabby, old-time cottages.
An unkempt hand wiped circles on a dirty pane, alert eyes observing their progress.
Claire
My new neighbor woke me up as she’d said she would, then gave me two wrung-out tea bags to soak my eyes. After that she pointed me to the shower, which was terrific. When I emerged, I saw that she’d lain out a shimmering blue-green sheath. I stared, uncomprehending, at the old- fashioned dress. Was she going out? I looked up and there she was, her hands clasped across her belly, her eyes twinkling. She spread her fingers wide and circumnavigated her middle. “You won’t believe it now, because look at my belly, but once a long a time ago, it fit me bellissima!”
I stared at her, still not getting it. Had she imagined it would suit me?
“It will make you look like a real jezebella!”
I was speechless. What was I to do? She’d gone to so much trouble.
She leaned so close I could smell yesterday’s broccoli rabe. “You’re going up to Twillyweed you better look like you got some bumpalena, eh? Like you’re somebody!”
I sat down on the bed. Already it seemed we were in c
ahoots. She removed the dress from the hanger and attacked me with it forthwith, roughly picking up my arms and negotiating it over my head. Don’t ever tangle with an Italian woman, I thought, stifling a laugh. I saw that the seams were beautifully sewn. All by hand. Simple but elegant.
She’d even lain out a pair of black tights and sturdy shoes. These were, however, flats, which, surprisingly, almost fit. A little snug for my gondolas, plain as they could be, but good. On closer inspection they turned out to be vintage Salvatore Ferragamos. When I stood up to see myself in the Venetian mirror, I feared I looked like the queen done up for tea—but I didn’t care, not really. The dress was nice and clean, had good lines, and at least was slenderizing. The hem reached below the knee, a flattering if dated style. I don’t know what I was worried about. Anything was an improvement. And it was heaven to be clean. Then I struggled into the tights. I knew this would be trouble because I’ve got these long pegs. However, due to the miracle of modern fabric, when I pulled hard enough, they just about reached my crotch. I couldn’t go bare-legged, I’d freeze. I gave them another good yank so they’d stay up. There. Not bad. I said, “I don’t suppose you have a shawl?”
“I got a thousand tablecloths,” she said, throwing open the sideboard, wild-eyed with relish. “Take your pick.”
“Hmm.” I knelt down and sorted through the neatly ironed, squeezed tight piles. They were white or ecru lace, but one was fringed antique gold, sort of velvety. I yanked it out and unfolded it. It was nice and soft. “May I borrow this?”
“Sure. They don’t like you, come back and we’ll have a bowl of macaroni and gravy.”
“I thought you called it sauce.”
“No. When I’m making it ready, she’s sauce. When she’s all dressed up with the meatballs, the braciole, the sausage, she’s gravy.” She gave me a nice smack. “What’s the matter? Don’t you know nothing?”
I threw the tablecloth around my shoulders and snuggled into it. It still looked like a tablecloth, but it was warm and a feeling of well-being overtook me. I looped the buttons Morgan had given me onto the small hoops I always wore in my ears and they hung perfectly. The truth was, they dressed my ears with the glitter of a new set of earrings and I admired myself in the bathroom mirror. There. Refreshed from sleep, I would have looked almost terrific if I didn’t have those two black eyes. I thought of my landlord seeing me now in a different light. For there was one thing of which I was sure, Morgan Donovan was not gay.
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