Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649)

by Jerome, Celia

  I skipped the parts about larvae and pupal stage and metamorphosis and went to the pictures. Some of the insects were brightly colored, some dull. Some big, some small, some striped, spotted, or solid colored. None had blue eyes. None looked like mine. How could they, when my bugs didn’t exist in this world?

  Magic. I needed a book of magic right out of Hogwarts to tell me what I was seeing and how to get them home. DUE’s arcane library at the Royce Institute was my only hope.

  “Are you having any luck?” I asked Piet, who was hunched over his laptop.

  “It’s taken me an hour simply to get clearance to view the site.”

  Security had to be tight for a secret section of a public university. This one had more firewalls and passcodes and encryptions than the government had. Heck, the FBI, the Army, and the White House had been hacked; DUE couldn’t be. Not when they recruited computer geeks with extrasensory capabilities. An attempted unauthorized entry to one of their sites, the hidden library included, got the web thief tracked, arrested, his memory erased. His computer’s memory chip didn’t matter, because the whole computer blew up the instant it tried to trespass. Big psychic Brother wasn’t watching, but he sure as hell was defending his territory. One could only hope that the DUE crew had more honor and less evil intent than the usual hacker. Imagine what a cyber-wizard could destroy. Or steal.

  Piet sent my sketch of the fishy creature to the researcher he finally reached, plus my drawings of the lightning bugs themselves, blue eyes and all.

  U kidding me? he got back in IM. U I these?

  A friend did, Piet typed back. Just search the archives. Maybe some bard centuries ago told a tale about a flying fish, or beetles that caused fires.

  Paumanok Harbor, USA, right? :)

  Where else?

  Piet typed in his cell number, then asked for mine.

  Hurry.

  He signed off, shut down his computer, and leaned his head against the sofa back. “One hell of a day. I’m ready for bed. You?”

  Not his bed. “I have to get the dogs out and tidy up around here. You go on upstairs.”

  “What about Edie?”

  “She’ll be fine. You said so. When you put out a fire, it stays out, right?”

  He got up and tucked a blanket around her, then came over and kissed me good night: A light kiss, because of his sore lip, but sweet and stirring, and it left both of us wanting more.

  I thought he was supposed to put out fires, not start them.

  CHAPTER 15

  PIET AND ELLADAIRE took a nap the next morning. I called my father.

  “Did you get my message, baby girl?”

  “Yes, Dad, and my rear end is fine. What worries me is some kind of strange creature. It might be a fish, but it has too many fins. It might be an insect, but it has no wings. Do you have any feelings about something like that?”

  “A creature! That must be it! I’ve had a niggling fret about something, not strong enough to be truly worrisome, but troubling all the same. You know how it is, something in the back of your mind that won’t go away, like a sore tooth. I thought I was glimpsing a preacher, but this makes more sense.”

  When I heard “preacher,” I thought of tents and televangelists, not the minister of our tiny local church where I attended weddings and funerals, nothing else. Quiet, gray-haired Reverend Shankman offered no threat to anyone, except possibly boring his congregation to death.

  “So you don’t think the creature is a big danger?”

  “Oh, no. I’d have called right away. As I told you, it feels more troublesome than perilous.”

  “Okay. Nothing about bugs either?”

  “They’ve got termites in the next condo unit. Everyone has to get out while they fumigate the place. A nice widowed woman from Jericho is going to stay at my place temporarily, but don’t tell your mother.”

  “Then Mom isn’t in Florida now?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not talking to me. At least she’s not nagging anymore.”

  I hadn’t actually counted on my parents getting back together, not after all these years and all the arguments. Still, I loved them both and wanted to see them happy. “What happened this time?”

  “Gotta go, baby. Golf game in fifteen minutes. You take care of yourself, okay?”

  In other words, none of my business, and business as usual. “You, too, Dad. Love you.”

  I left a message for my mother on her cell phone. “Hi, Mom. How are you? Where are you and are you coming home soon? Do you know any entomologists? The dogs are all fine, now. Call me. Oh, and do you think Dad is strong enough to be playing golf so soon after the heart surgery?”

  When I got back from walking the dogs, she’d left me a message: “Do you know the number of puppy mills they have in Arkansas? And organized dog fights, too. Do you think I have time to worry about that womanizer? If he’s well enough to entertain his bimbos, he is well enough to play golf. I took care of him after the surgery, that’s more than generous, isn’t it? And all you care about is some bugs? No, you also care about when I am coming home so you can use my room with its king-size bed. Did you think I didn’t hear about the new man you have staying at the house? What does that make? Three different men in three months?”

  She didn’t remember Arlen, the stockbroker in Manhattan I’d been seeing before Grant and Ty Farraday and now Piet. Thank goodness. Four for four. Yikes.

  I heard her unmistakable sniff of disapproval, then the message continued: “What are you turning into, a slut like your cousin Susan? I didn’t raise you to be a floozy. Maybe your father did, when you spent weekends with him. Now you can’t be happy with one—”

  I pressed erase.

  Susan herself came home after four days in the city, at my apartment.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll replace the lamp. And the rug. Mrs. Abbottini remembers where you got your glasses, so they won’t be hard to match.”

  I slammed down the jar of peanut butter I was opening. “What the hell have you done?”

  She looked out the kitchen window and saw bare-chested Piet—Edie’s diaper had leaked—and the bare-assed baby in his arms in the backyard. “The better question is what have you done? Did you kidnap a guy with a kid to make your mother happy in one shot? It won’t work, you know. No handing down the genes.”

  “The child is neither mine nor Piet’s. We are babysitting.”

  “And you’re trying to kill the kid by feeding it peanut butter? That I can believe.”

  “What’s wrong with peanut butter? I was raised on it.”

  “They don’t give it to kids that young, in case they’re allergic to it. Parents of kids your age didn’t know about allergies. Her throat could close up, she could die.”

  “Wouldn’t someone have told me?”

  “Anyone crazy enough to let you babysit their kid mightn’t have known.”

  The peanut butter went back on the shelf. “So what am I supposed to feed her? We’re out of yogurt, she won’t eat the jars of baby food—”

  “I can’t blame her. Have you seen that crap? Or what they put into it? You’re supposed to make your own if you want the best for your kid, or buy organic.”

  I looked at her, trying to appear helpless. I didn’t have to try real hard. “Will you . . .”

  “No way. I have to cook for seventy finicky paying customers tonight. That’s enough.”

  “What about my lamp and my glasses? You owe me.”

  “And your rug. They’re not worth it. They were ugly, anyway. Besides, you’re better off with less stuff. That’s what all the articles and interview shows are saying now. Getting rid of clutter clears your mind.”

  My mind didn’t need clearing. It was empty enough. And I liked my stuff. I felt comfortable surrounded by things I’d chosen, like I was among old friends. “You could still help, you know. You’re better at this baby thing than I am.”

  “Medea was better than you, and she cooked up her kids for dinner, didn’t she? I’d only be
in the way here. I’ll go on back to my parents’ house. Now that school’s open and Mom’s got all those brats to whip into shape, she’ll go easier on me.”

  “You’re leaving me? With a baby and a strange creature?”

  Susan was staring through the back door. “He looks good to me. What did you do to his lip?”

  Sometimes I wished I could press the erase button on my relatives.

  Uncle Henry Hammersmith, our police chief, arrived next. He glared at the rings in Susan’s eyebrow, I swear there was one more than when she left, then glared at me.

  “I didn’t do it.”

  Susan kissed the chief’s cheek, asked if he and his wife wanted a reservation at the restaurant tonight, then breezed out the door.

  “I don’t know what the hell the world is coming to,” the chief said. “Can you imagine what kind of kids that one will produce?”

  They said Susan might never get pregnant, after chemo and radiation. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to stay around Edie, to be reminded of what she couldn’t have. I could sympathize, but I couldn’t relate. In fact, I’d give her Elladaire in a second, so she could see exactly what she was missing.

  Piet had on a clean shirt, Elladaire had on a clean diaper and a sundress and half a jelly sandwich all over her face. I wore the rest of the jelly sandwich.

  Uncle Henry didn’t care. His world was awry, and not because of body piercings, although he took that as an indication of the deterioration of civilization. I seemed to be another harbinger of the downward trend. He glared at me over his bushy eyebrows, but accepted a glass of iced tea.

  He reported that the police hadn’t found Roy Ruskin, not at his rented room, at any medical facility, or at the homes of whatever friends and relatives they located. Big Eddie could go sniff around where they found Frankie’s truck, but the chief figured Roy was long gone, and inclined to leave it that way. Uncle Henry couldn’t spare any of his men, not with everything else going on in town, and Roy had no real charges against him. He hadn’t taken Elladaire. He hadn’t disobeyed any injunction against me. His lawyer could claim Roy was merely a concerned parent asking about his daughter’s safety, unsure where she was. He hadn’t carried a weapon.

  “He hit Piet,” I said.

  “And got hit back,” the chief answered, “if you’re thinking he’d need the emergency room.”

  I’d rather not mention how Roy might be burned, not broken.

  “You could press charges,” Uncle Henry said to Piet, who shook his head. He was counting plastic spoons with Elladaire, but I knew he was listening carefully.

  “Or you could, Willy, for damages to your porch and door. Then I’d have to send men looking for him.”

  Piet had repaired the screen door and nailed the porch railing back in place. I’d swept up the broken pot.

  “I guess not. But if he comes near here again—”

  “You call me. Don’t go wrecking the house, or getting your boyfriends bashed up.”

  “He’s not my—”

  The chief set his glass down. “What I really came to tell you is that boats spotted strange lights over the wetlands late last night. Moving lights. Moving sideways like a missile, not up and down like fireworks. The Harbor Patrol cruised by early this morning, but they didn’t see anything. I’m sending the Bay Constable out there. He can walk some, or take the rescue dory, but it’s miles to cover.”

  “He won’t see anything, not by day.”

  Uncle Henry gave me a look of disgust. “I was afraid you’d say that, and I don’t want to hear how you know. Just tell me it’s not a missile, so I can reassure folks we’re not under a terrorist attack.”

  “It’s not a missile.”

  He swallowed, then waited. When his stomach didn’t protest the way it would have if I’d been lying, he nodded. “Good. We’ll tell folks it’s St. Elmo’s fire or swamp gas.” Now he reached in his pocket for his bottle of antacid tablets and took three, in case he had to do the telling. “Get rid of them.”

  “The officials, the boaters, or the beetles?”

  “All three if you can.”

  “I am working on it.”

  He watched Elladaire crawl over to the sink cabinet and pull herself up by the handle. “You need baby locks before she gets into the cleaning supplies. They can kill a child, you know.”

  Like peanut butter, electric cords, and playing in the street. How did they survive until school age, when they became someone else’s problem? I picked her up and handed her to Piet.

  Uncle Henry was telling him how Paumanok Harbor used to be such a peaceful place. “Worst thing we had was some kids breaking into vacant houses, a few DUIs, a couple of domestic situations.” He bent his head toward Elladaire, remembering her case. “Then Willow got here.”

  Piet laughed. Some partner he was.

  “I said I am working on it.”

  The chief hauled himself out of his chair. “Work harder. Faster.”

  “You didn’t have a lot to say,” I said to Piet when we were alone. “You could have helped, you know.”

  “How? By telling him I can get your fireflies to go to half-power if I get a hard-on? He’d love to hear that, being your Uncle Henry and all.”

  “He’s not a real uncle, just a good friend of the family. He and my father had a poker game every week in the summers, and no, you should not have discussed your, ah, personal issues with him.”

  “I didn’t intend to. Of course I could tell him how the bugs come to your backyard and draw pictures in the sky for you. That’ll help him calm the civilians.”

  I bit my lip. “No, that’ll only get people over here with nets and flyswatters and bug spray.”

  “Oh, then I should have told Chief Hammersmith about some monster you thought the bugs were showing you?”

  “You saw it, too!”

  “No, I’m not so sure now that it was anything but a haphazard blur, like when they put a brush in an elephant’s trunk. You’re the one who saw it as a flying fish.”

  I was dismayed. I thought we were partners, friends, working together. “Then you don’t believe me that the creature is the problem, not the beetles? That the fireflies don’t set out to start fires?”

  “Willy, I don’t not believe you. I can’t feel it like you do, is all. I came to put out fires, not interpret flight patterns. There were no fires last night. No calls to nine-one-one, nothing. Then, when I do see your guys, I can’t extinguish them entirely.”

  I gasped. “You wouldn’t kill them, would you?”

  “Not unless they were setting people on fire, I guess. Not even you could let them burn down the town. Killing them mightn’t work, ’cause the others might retaliate. Or there could be consequences we have no grasp of.”

  “Like more coming from the otherworld.”

  “Exactly. I’ll give it a couple more days, but then I’ve got to be going. People will start to notice when their cigarettes go out when I walk past, or how the candles in the restaurants won’t stay lit if I eat dinner out. I can do more good somewhere else.”

  “You’re still mad I hit you with the flowerpot.”

  “And stepped on me. Don’t forget that. But no, I’m not mad. Just frustrated, about the fires, about staying in the house with a female who kept me up all night long.”

  “Elladaire slept through the night.”

  “Not Edie.”

  “I didn’t make a peep.”

  “In my dreams you moaned damn loud.”

  CHAPTER 16

  BEFORE I COULD THINK of how to respond to that without stuttering, running out of the house, or throwing myself into his arms, the phone rang. Saved by the bell.

  Or not. Barry wanted to come over. At least he’d called before showing up on my doorstep, but I said I was busy. His anger last time made me uneasy.

  “Okay, how about later? I need one more picture of you to put up at the webzine site.”

  “I still have the baby here.”

  “And the firem
an, I suppose. Leave the kid with him and come out for dinner. I heard there’s a great new place in Montauk that won’t be so busy now that Labor Day is past.”

  He was wrong about that, too. Montauk stayed busy on weekends through the fall. Some people came for the fishing, others knew enough to come when the beaches and roads weren’t so crowded and the water was still warm. Nor did I want to spend time alone with him at a cozy, secluded table in a half-empty restaurant. “No, I don’t think that’s fair to Piet.”

  Barry did not suggest Piet and Elladaire come along. I did not suggest he come to my place for dinner. I was out of bread and jelly.

  “I know, how about I pick you up just before sunset? The fireman can put the kid to sleep, can’t he? We can go out to that swampy place where people saw lights. That’ll make a great background for the picture. Kind of spooky, like some of your stories, and kind of diffuse in the dusk,’cause you said you wanted to stay enough incognito to be unrecognizable. We can get the tail end of the sunset for color, and wait to see if the weird lights appear. Then we can get a late supper or a couple of drinks. What do you think?”

  I thought I’d rather crawl through glass than be anywhere near the wetlands in the dark. Or let him see the lights. On the other hand, it was kind of a kick having two men interested in me. Three if I read Matt’s parting smile right. Okay, one wanted a story; one wanted a quickie; one wanted to keep on my mother’s good side. They were all good for my ego.

  “You know, right now might be better after all. Why don’t you come over here. We can get great pictures in my grandmother’s gardens, or go to the beach down the block. That’s a better image of Paumanok Harbor anyway.”

  It wasn’t what he wanted, but he agreed. Piet agreed to watch Elladaire while I changed my clothes.

  There was no way I could keep my writing identity androgynous in a photograph. I wasn’t as well-endowed as Susan, but I was womanly enough that only a spacesuit or chain mail could hide my shape. So I went the other way, toward femininity. I’d have to put my summer clothes away soon, but I could wear one of my favorites a last time. The yellow jersey tank dress was comfortable, the patch pockets were convenient, and the color always made me happy. I thought it was perfect for a picture in a garden or on the beach. Very Hamptons chic. And it looked good with my straw sun-shielding hat which helped hide my face for that ounce of anonymity, and hid those dratted darker roots, for my vanity.