Crab Outta Luck

by Ellis Quinn

  “Hey,” he said, bumping her shoulder with his own. “I can cheer you up.”

  “How?”

  “You want to know a real family secret?”

  “Sure. Hit me.”

  He pulled the last beer from the case and handed it to her, but she put a hand up. “Not for me, I’ve got to bike home.”

  “Mm,” he said, nodding. “I’d offer you a ride, but . . .” He cracked the final beer and took a sip. “I’ve been drinking.”

  “You okay to get home?”

  “I’m just staying in the village.” He shot a thumb over his shoulder. “Walking distance.”

  “What’s the family secret?”

  Troy held a long pause, smiling at her. “Royce Murdoch had it bad for Scarlet Whaley.”

  “My mom?” She couldn’t help smiling wide at the thought. “Really?”

  Troy nodded and made assuring sounds in his throat that he was serious. “I heard Dad had it bad in high school for her.”

  “I think that’s kind of sweet,” she said.

  “Your mom wouldn’t go with him because he was a Murdoch.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yup,” he said, nodding in bigger strokes and laughing. She joined him.

  “Why? Because of The Feud?”

  “You got it.”

  “Oh, my gosh. My mom? I can’t believe she’d fall for that nonsense.” It brought back memories of being at Fortune when she was little, back in the days when Mom was around; a good feeling, but it twisted at her stomach. She chuckled, shook her head, said to Troy: “She saved your dad some heartbreak. She passed when she was thirty.”

  Troy said, “That’s how I know about it. He was so broken up when your mom passed. I’d never seen him like that. I was just a kid, and I’d never seen tough old Royce Murdoch torn down the way he was.”

  She ran her hair back so she could look at him, the two of them close on the beach knowing each other for a day but sharing so much in common—the good and the bad, both of them leaving the Cove, both of them returned and trying to make sense of it all.

  She said, “You really did care about him. About your dad.”

  “Of course,” he said, grabbing a fistful of sand and letting it sift between his fingers. “All I ever wanted was for him to get me. To appreciate me. What I had to offer the business was important. But all he cared about was making me do things his way, and he didn’t want to hear about spreadsheets and investments and improvements, and he sure didn’t want to hear about chartering.”

  “Stubborn,” she said, putting her cheek in a palm and watching Troy.

  “Stubborn,” he agreed. “And when I made my break, gave up on crabbing and sought a new career, he still hounded me. Made fun of my clothes, said I looked like I was here for the summer, breaking me down because I didn’t want to crab.” He shook his head, then added: “I didn’t want to crab with him. I didn’t want to do it his way.”

  “You’re both kind of stubborn.”

  He chuckled. “I guess.” He took another swig of beer, still chuckling. “Yeah,” he said, backhanding his mouth. “I guess I’m stubborn too.”

  “But you looked out for him.”

  “I did,” he said, looking her way, rubbing his hand.

  “Did you arrange the memorial for your dad?”

  Troy nodded and sighed. “I did.”

  She said, “I wondered how Bucky would’ve afforded that open bar.”

  “Bucky did the funeral, I was going to stay away—then I called the Crab just a few days ago and decided I’d honor my dad by celebrating him with his crabber friends.”

  “They love an open bar.”

  He chuckled and looked her way, smiling at her with narrow eyes. The gold light glinted in his eyes and lit the soft swoop of his thick hair.

  She said, “I’d heard you were supporting your dad.”

  He exhaled, raised his eyebrows, showed surprise that she knew that. “Yeah, I was. He was . . . I’d heard from one of his friends he . . . wasn’t eating. Not eating well. Dad kicked up a fuss, so I used language like it was his business I was investing in. He took it.”

  “He’s a proud man.”

  “Stubborn.”

  “But you stopped?”

  He looked her way again, expression gone sheepish. “Oh . . . I did. I . . . stopped. He’d . . .” He grimaced, took another swig of beer. “The money I was giving him, I find out he’s been passing it to that guy Donovan. Like Donovan has all these big ideas about crabbing, and Dad wanted to help him out. Donovan’s ideas aren’t much different than mine were twenty years ago, but for this guy he’ll offer support?”

  “What did he say?”

  “My dad? That he was investing in Donovan, that if I wanted to invest money in a crabbing business Donovan was the guy. Like he had the hot tip and I was a fool not to see it. But I don’t care about crabbing any more, I was giving the money to Dad to help him out.” Now he laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. “The worst is I liked giving him money. I liked that he’d take it from me. I make a good living. I support my family, I support the people I love. When I gave him that money, I felt like what held us together was being repaired. That all that stitching that got torn loose was being pulled tighter, that things between us were getting better.”

  “Right. Like you were two individuals with a bond. Two separate men who had their own lives, but now all these years later . . .” She trailed off. The logical conclusion of her statement went beyond that a son would help his father because they had a bond, and she saw a new challenge: The son was supporting the father, and that would mean the son had won. All these years later, Troy’s kind gesture was proving to his father Troy’d been right all along. She changed tact: “All these years later he must’ve seen how kind you were. And that you cared about him. I think you two would’ve figured it out. You could have got yourselves to a much better place.”

  Troy wasn’t cheered. He stared out over the Bay. “I feel like I was robbed of that.”

  Bette touched his arm. “You made the effort. You tried. That can’t be taken from you. You know in your heart you did the right thing.”

  He nodded, snuffled a small conciliatory laugh. Maybe she’d got through to him.

  They sat a few more minutes enjoying the weather, the breeze, the wonderful view as they watched the sun set over the Bay.

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON

  “What I’d like to know,” Cherry said, pausing to blow steam from her cappuccino, “is why Lydia failed to mention to us how Royce was lending her boyfriend Donovan money.” She sipped, put her cup back on its saucer. “I mean, we were all there at the memorial, talking about Royce and Donovan and how he lent the boat . . .”

  Pris said, “Maybe she didn’t want to say it in front of us like it might embarrass her boyfriend. Or maybe she left it out on account how it could implicate Donovan. Complicate things for him, you know?”

  Cherry raised a wry eyebrow, said, “Involve him in the murder, you mean?”

  “Or,” Bette said, resting her chin in both her palms, elbows on the table on either side of her cappuccino, “maybe Donovan never even told Lydia. One thing men are good at is keeping secrets.”

  Pris reached over and smoothed and patted her forearm.

  They were at the Steaming Bean, inside today, gathered at a booth near the counter. Early afternoon, the lunchtime crowd fading, Cherry taking a few minutes to sip a cappuccino with them under the lamp light hanging above the glossy pine table and benches. A plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies sat in the center of their table. It was gray out today, not really nice enough for the patio, a perfect day for sugary coffee and cookies.

  They were quiet a moment, taking turns sipping their coffee. Pris added more sugar, tearing open a pack of Demerara and sliding in the crystals. Cherry said, “So that’s what he said, huh? That he felt betrayed?”

  Bette looked Cherry’s way. “Troy? Yeah. I guess it was an insult. Here he was thinking he was d
oing a good thing lending his dad money, and his dad was giving it away. Giving it away for the very thing they fought about originally . . . practically what made Troy leave town.”

  “That is pretty bad,” Cherry agreed.

  Pris said, “Wonder if it was on purpose. Old Royce doing it to bother Troy. Or was he really trying to help Donovan?”

  Cherry said, “Probably a bit of both.”

  Bette shrugged, saying, “Hard to know.”

  Pris studied Bette for a moment, said, “You’re awful morose today. You hung back on the walk, too. Us old girls tired you out already?”

  “I’m fine,” she said and tried the cappuccino. It was excellent. She took a chocolate chip cookie from the platter and bit into it. Also excellent. As usual. She breathed in the chocolate smell, exhaled slowly. There was a beep behind them and the rattle of someone jabbing the keys on the cash register. Terry said, “Hey, Cherry?—it’s doing it again . . .”

  Cherry looked over her shoulder to the counter where there was a three-deep lineup, said, “Hold on a sec.” Then, slipping out of the booth, saying under her breath, “Serves me right for buying an antique cash register.” Pris laughed and watched her go.

  When it was the two of them, Pris leaned forward and said, “What’s going on, hon?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “But you’re going to tell me,” she said.

  Bette looked up at the light, looked down and rubbed her eyes at the phosphorescent blobs.

  “Yeah. I am. Did you know that Royce had a thing for Mom back in high school?”

  Pris sat back in her bench seat, smiling to one side. “Troy tell you that?” Then to herself: “Wonder how he knew.”

  Bette said, “Told me his dad was really . . . affected when Mom died.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s how Troy said he found out. Royce had a hard time with it.”

  “That old devil,” Pris said and shook her head, chuckling.

  “So it was true?”

  “I suppose it was. Though, it wasn’t anything—”

  “That’s the thing . . . Troy said Mom rejected him.”

  “Your mother had a lot of suitors.”

  “Troy said she rejected him because of that dumb old feud.”

  Pris grimaced and cocked her head. “Yeah, I guess she did.”

  “I just can’t believe Mom would fall for all that historical nonsense.”

  Pris clucked her tongue. “Wasn’t really nonsense. I mean, I didn’t go for. I thought it was all hogwash, but . . .”

  “Then how come Mom . . .”

  “Look, darling, she believed it.”

  “Troy told me about the Floyd and Bridget story.”

  Pris shook her head, looked aside a second, expression grim. “You didn’t know that one?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “We don’t talk about that one much.”

  “So my great-great-grandfather killed a Murdoch?”

  Pris still looked aside. “Said it was dark. Said he didn’t know who it was, only that someone’d come to the house, sneaking around in the middle of the night, on his horse working at a window. He didn’t even know Bridget was there when he fired.”

  Bette sighed and put down a crescent of half-eaten cookie on her saucer and rubbed her temples. “After all that, it just seems sort of cruel Mom would rebuff Royce over . . . over ancient history.”

  “You have to remember, Bette, it wasn’t that ancient. Sure, it was your great-great-granddaddy, but—maybe you don’t know—your great-great-grandma lived at Fortune with us, gosh, I guess till your mom was twenty.”

  “Really? Just before I was born?”

  “Yes. Pearl, and your great-grandma, Imogen, and your great-great-grandma, Oorna. Though, they passed just two years apart. ’76 and ’74. But me and your mama were raised by them. It wasn’t ancient history—your mom loved your great-great-grandma. Oorna was Bridget’s mother.”

  “And Oorna still held the grudge, what, fifty-sixty years later?”

  Pris shrugged. “She kinda had to. Spent her whole life defending her husband, man who went up and killed the boy their daughter was in love with. Ruined the family. Bridget almost went crazy.”

  “Whatever happened to her?”

  “Bridget went to Europe a few years later. They hardly ever heard from her again. Wrote a letter one time saying she was living in France, wrote a letter another time to her aunt. Said she met a man from Spain. I think that was the last time she . . .”

  Cherry returned, sliding back in the booth next to Pris. “There we go. You can add antique cash register repair to my CV now.”

  “You learn something new every day,” Pris said, dropping all the terrible talk of Whaley ancient history.

  Cherry said, “Just thinking about Troy, how hard that would’ve been for him. Thinking he was doing the right thing, then his dad not supporting him yet again.”

  “That’s what Troy said, that he felt like all that bad that’d occurred between them was being repaired. Then Royce just let it all slip between his fingers like it didn’t matter.”

  Now Cherry sighed and looked as glum as Bette talking about the murder of Floyd Murdoch. She set her chin in her hands. “I get it,” she said, “that’s what brought me out to the East Coast.”

  Bette nibbled at her cookie again, said, “You mean trouble with your dad?”

  Cherry nodded her chin against her palms.

  “Sorry, Cherry,” Bette said. All this time, she’d been lamenting the troubles of the Whaley family tree, and here right in front of her was Cherry battling the Jambo family tree. “Was it bad?”

  “I’ll say I feel better about it when I look at Troy. As bad as it was for me, it could have been worse.”

  Pris stroked Cherry’s arm.

  Cherry said, “I had to get away from home, too. Couldn’t imagine going to school on the West Coast, like my family wanted. At least my parents were supportive, though—you know, as long as I was doing exactly what they wanted me to do.”

  Bette said, “And what was that?”

  Cherry laughed and waved a hand like she was brushing it all away. “Let’s just say I came out east on my own dime, and I went to school for what I wanted. Then I drove around trying to find myself, and along the way, I found the Cove”—she looked around at all the people seated at her tables, eating and drinking amidst the happy murmur of conversation and the clinking of spoons and cups on saucers—“a perfect spot where I felt welcome and part of something. A place where I’m not beholden or obligated, a place where I can be myself.”

  Pris hugged an arm around her slender shoulders and said, “The Cove is lucky to have you.”

  Out the window over Cherry’s shoulder, Bette could see now a man passing the street-side patio, right to left, looking down, fumbling with keys in his hand; hair combed back, one loose comber bobbing over his forehead, handsome head hanging low; today he wore a black T-shirt and khaki shorts. He did look like a summer resident.

  “There’s Troy,” she said, shifting sideways out of the booth, snatching one more cookie. “I’m going to go say Hi.” She paused to kiss Cherry’s hairline before pushing the cookie in her mouth.

  “Gonna have to get you your own step-counter, you little busy body,” Pris said as Cherry laughed along then scooted from Pris’s side of the booth to take Bette’s place.

  * * *

  On the sidewalk now, she followed along behind Troy, trying to get the cookie finished before she caught up with him. At the end of Madsen Street, he turned left and headed down the slope toward the wharf.

  She picked up her step, last bite of the cookie gone into her mouth, chewing, walking, nodding, swallowing. Before she called out to him, she dusted crumbs off her flannel shirt, tugging on the tails to pop them away. “Troy!”

  Out front of the colonial mansion converted into the Maritime Museum, he wheeled, squinted, then smiled. He raised a hand in greeting and waited for
her to catch up. As she trotted to join him, she wiped at her chin and cheeks, ran her tongue over her teeth.

  “Hey,” he said, “you look all in one piece, so I take it you got home okay last night.”

  “I did,” she said, tidying her hair, laughing. “And you found your hotel okay?”

  “Bed and breakfast. And I did, I was fine. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a lift home, keeping you on the beach till it was dark.”

  "Think nothing of it. My old bike has a light on it, and I know the roads pretty well. Was actually a really nice ride home. I would’ve refused you, anyway.”

  “I’m glad to see you.”

  “And I’m glad to see you too, I was just sitting at the Steaming Bean talking about you—”

  “Talking about me?”

  “Talking about the feud. Kind of fortuitous to see you walk by.”

  “Look at this, hundreds of years later, and you’re still sitting around talking about the feud.” He pursed his lips and shook his head in admonishment—then smiled, and though his face looked worn and grim, it was nice to see him with some humor (even though the effort it took showed in his eyes). He looked like he was worn out, and without the makeup he wore at the memorial, the dark circles under his eyes were slung low like bruised half moons.

  She said, “Here’s the thing: there’s not many of us left, Murdochs and Whaleys.”

  “We’re thinning out,” Troy said.

  “We’re thinning out, and I say it’s time we call a truce.”

  “A gen-u-ine rapprochement?”

  “You got it. Let’s make it official,” she said, and put out her hand, elbow held high in an eager pose.

  “Put’er there, partner,” he said, and closed his hand around hers. They gave it one good solid pump.

  “I think it’s official,” she said.

  “Feud resolved,” he said. They shook once more. Troy had big strong hands, but he was gentle with her.

  She winked. “Doesn’t that feel better now?”

  “Somebody should’ve done it a long time ago,” he said.

  Their hands came apart and they smiled at each other, Troy’s weak and wan. A sudden ray of light fell over them, making them both squint and hold up their palms to feel the warmth.