by Celia Jerome
Maybe they wouldn’t be such great escorts anyway, looking for lost souls at a library book signing.
I decided getting my hair done might make me feel better about being the stand-in Tate. Janie had an open appointment at the salon in her house. She also had stars in her eyes about Mom having a book dedicated to her.
“Of course you did one. But you’re her daughter. That doesn’t count.”
A nasty part of me wanted to know if her friend Dawn had to pay to get her book published. There was a lot of that going around these days. Or her publisher might be one of those new small presses that sold two thousand copies, if that. My books counted. They won awards, got great reviews, and paid royalties. My dedicatees were proud to be named in the front of them. And I hated having to sit and listen to the small-town gossip while I waited for Janie to wind my hair in silver foil. I didn’t remember half the people they mentioned, or care about how the Patchens’ third daughter was finally getting married at the church Sunday morning, with the reception up at a converted estate. I certainly did not want to hear about how a native Harborite badass had returned to the neighborhood, on a yacht, no less, docked in Montauk.
Janie and Mrs. Chemlecki, the judge’s wife who was getting a smelly perm, were fascinated about Turley Borsack’s resurrection as a rich guy, not that the one-time bay fisherman/suspected drug runner’d made good, but that he had enough nerve to show up back in town after umpteen years. Word had it, I was forced to hear, that his wife ended up dying in a mental hospital somewhere in Europe, where she had family.
Too much sampling the wares, a woman under the dryer shouted to be heard. But he had loved his wife and daughter, so maybe he wasn’t all bad. Money covered a lot of crimes. And bought a lot of luxuries, no matter where it came from. No one knew what happened to the pretty, dark-haired daughter.
I decided to get my nails done while I waited for my streaky blonde hair to get a life, in Janie’s words. By moving to the other end of the room, I hoped to avoid hearing more about the wages of sin and the pharmaceuticals business than I wanted to know. Pauline the manicurist chewed gum, had sunset-pink hair, and wanted to know all about Grant, Nicky, and my supposed boss, Mr. Parker. The movie mogul was still the most exciting resident of Paumanok Harbor, to Pauline, at least, who knew the exact age of the starlet Parker was currently dating. Young enough to be his daughter by a midlife marriage. Yuck.
I didn’t know any of the answers to the million questions Pauline threw at me between blowing bubbles and scraping my cuticles raw.
Agent Grant was chasing a murderer, Nicholas Ryland was still missing, I never heard from the Rosehill renter.
“You will,” Pauline said, turning my hands over to look at my palms. “Next week. But don’t get excited. He’s not the one.”
“The one who? The one who has Nicky? The one who’s my soul mate?” I snatched my hands back. Thank goodness the timer went off and I could get the crap washed out of my hair. Now I didn’t have to listen to Marie Somebody’s trip to Ireland, suffer Mrs. Noyes’s knee replacement, or coo over pictures of Janie’s new grandchild.
“There!” the small-town stylist announced, swiveling my chair so I could see the finished product in the mirror.
“There” was an over-the-hill Las Vegas hooker on a bad hair day. Oh, God, it wasn’t me. Bright, big, my head looked like a dandelion that got chewed up by the weed whacker.
I exceeded the speed limit back to Rosehill by about three times, praying no one saw me before I could wash my hair. The color wouldn’t come out, but at least I got the blonde spikes to lie flat, if not curl. Well, I’d be in disguise at the book party, if not in costume.
There was no way I could settle at the computer, so I gathered the dogs into the Escalade, all of them. The poodles took the backseat, each claiming a window to stick his head out. Red sat in the front, clipped to the seat belt so he couldn’t get under my feet, into my lap, or jump out the window.
We went to the beach, which was illegal, according to local rules, after Memorial Day. The sand and salt was bad for the dogs’ skin, according to my mother. Tough. I had Baggies, a towel, a bottle of water to share, and a desperate craving for open space.
Sun, sky, sea. Prozac for free, with no side effects. My jaws unclenched, my shoulders unhunched, the line between my eyebrows unpuckered, without the Botox Mrs. Chemlecki recommended.
I spread my towel and sat down, facing the water so I didn’t have to see the few other beachgoers. This was the bay, not the ocean that was just fifteen minutes away across Montauk Highway, so there was no surf, no crowds, and not the smoothest sand, either. But the waves lapped in natural order, the sun glistened off the water, and I couldn’t see land across the Sound today, so the world was big, endless, eternal. My life was small; my problems were insignificant. Except that Red was missing.
Shit. He must have taken off when I threw sticks for Ben and Jerry. They were panting on the blanket next to me, but the Pom was not in sight. Then I heard his sharp yips and spotted him, down the beach, barking at the waves, stupid little creature that he was, nearly giving me a heart attack.
Maybe Red wasn’t so stupid. There was Fafhrd waving back from fifty feet out, his reddish head and chest above water. Maybe Red thought he was a relative. Or were dogs color blind? No matter.
I grabbed Red, told the poodles to stay, and raced back to the car. I pulled out the enlarged design of the back of the ring pendant, and ran back to the beach, at the edge of the water. I held it up.
Fafhrd lowered his prominent brow and squinted. I turned the page upside down. He smiled, showing blunt teeth with wide spaces between them.
“It’s from your home,” I shouted, and tried to project mentally, too, whatever that entailed. “You need to be there. Home.”
He shook his head, creating a miniature waterspout.
I tried my other possibility. “One life. One heart.”
Fafhrd patted his chest, where his heart might be. The noise resounded like a rockslide with big boulders.
“Love? Is that why you are here? You love the boy, Nicky?”
He pounded his chest again.
“Do you know where he is?”
Now he slapped at the water angrily, sending waves big enough to surf on. I scurried back to dry sand.
“He’s in the water?”
If a troll could shrug, he did. He shook his head in sorrow.
“He’s not dead, is he?” I must have shrieked, because all three of the dogs started barking. Fafhrd shook his whole body in vehement denial, making another small tsunami. “Okay. We’re looking. We’ll help.”
Two kids with boogie boards came running toward the waves. Fafhrd patted his heart again, boom-boom, and disappeared.
Well, at least I could talk to him. I hadn’t learned much that would help. But I figured our conversation was more enlightening than any I’d have with the library crowd. And Grant would be happy.
I knew he’d be too busy to take a phone call, so I emailed him: Loved the crane. Talked to F, N lives. Check with FBI, DUE, local police re. Turley Borsack. Drugs. Yacht. Miss you.
That said it all.
CHAPTER 28
I KEPT CHECKING MY MESSAGES. At my mother’s number, I got three reminders about the coming full moon. Was I supposed to join a coven or dig up Grandma Eve’s garlic to ward off werewolves? I also got another of those unwelcome-wagon calls.
“Why don’t you go back to where you belong and stop poking into other people’s business?”
I wanted to call the guy—it sounded like a man or a woman trying to disguise her voice—and tell him to join the twenty-first century and learn about caller ID. The calls were being monitored. Someone would pay the crank a visit soon.
Another message came from someone desperate for a dog handler, then an automated reminder that the hydrants would be flushed next week—I guess I knew where Fafhrd would be—and a call from someone suspicious about the Patchen girl’s coming wedding. The groom’s nephew
was going to be ring bearer; the groom was an only child. If we were looking for a little boy, we should check it out.
I made a note to stop by the church on Sunday to see the ceremony.
I also got a call from Officer Donovan Gregory. Van was coming to Montauk, after all. One of his buddy’s wives had to cancel and so he agreed to share the reserved motel room. I should call him back on his cell if I was interested in dinner or something. We wouldn’t discuss the case, of course.
Jackpot! An escort to the library thing. I called back, he said he was glad I did, which was gratifying, but he wasn’t leaving Manhattan until after his shift tonight. He’d never get here in time. He was really looking forward to seeing me, though, in addition to three days of fishing, golfing, and drinking. So I was right up there with a striped bass and a bottle of beer. Great. I couldn’t complain, though, not when I’d wanted a friend beside me in the gathering of snobby strangers.
We agreed on Monday afternoon, when the cops were planning time at the beach with their families. I couldn’t stay late because of the dogs. I didn’t invite him out to Rosehill because of my scruples about not sleeping with more than one guy at a time. Besides, I wanted to look over the yachts in Montauk, maybe hand flyers out at the marinas. “See you then.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
So was I, actually. Van was a genuinely nice man, with no threats, no questions. Best of all, he was normal. I really, really needed normal.
I called Cousin Lily next, to ask about progress with her daughter. There was no baby yet, but Cousin Lily felt the full moon ought to do it.
Connie was giving birth to a werebaby?
“Gravity, Willow. Don’t you know anything?”
About babies? No.
Louisa called and asked me to lunch at her house next Tuesday, so I guess I’d learn more then. I couldn’t remember if she said she had two or three kids already, with another one imminent. Gads, what if she went into labor while I was there? I’d push the panic button on my cell phone, that’s what I’d do. If the Department of Unexplained Events couldn’t handle a baby, what good were they?
So now I had a full social calendar. If I lived through the book party.
I wrestled with my hair for another hour. Then with Red. He didn’t want to wear the tuxedo-bow collar my mother had for him. Or the muzzle. What was he, a sissy pit bull? The poodles would laugh at him. He didn’t want to stay home, either, latching onto the hem of my one good dress. We compromised. I tied the bow collar to my pocketbook, and put the muzzle inside it.
I couldn’t believe it, but I had to pay just to get into the tent behind the library. My mother never mentioned that.
“It’s all for charity, dear,” a white-haired lady at the gate told me. “To help the poor doggies find good homes.”
So I offered her Red. I’d even toss in another fifty.
“Oh no, dear. I have cats.”
So? Red got along with cats as badly as he got along with everyone else. I paid and carried him in. For the fifty bucks I got either a glass of Perrier or wine, and some brown pasty stuff on a cracker. Red liked it.
Then I got to stand around on a long line waiting for Mom’s friend to sign her name, after I paid another forty-five dollars for the big coffee-table, full-color, photography book. Mom never mentioned that, either. According to the jacket cover, Dawn, the friend, had done the writing. An arty type in a white linen suit with a braided queue down his back and a pound of pretension on his narrow shoulders had taken the pictures. He stood behind the author, shaking hands, making small talk, greeting everyone, it seemed, by name.
Not quite half the crowd was in costume. I saw two Sherlocks, a Great Gatsby, maybe Scarlett O’Hara, Captain Ahab, Elizabeth Bennett or some other Regency belle, and Darth Vader. I guess a bunch of people emptied their Halloween boxes, because there were a couple of Draculas and one Frankenstein monster mixed in with the Lily Pulitzer ladies and the yellow cardigan gents. Oops. They weren’t in costume. Everyone was juggling their glasses and plates of paté while kissing the air around each other.
Dawn Elliot turned out to be a heavyset woman with poor eyesight and a lot of bling. Enough to pay to get the book published, I figured, since I’d never heard of the publisher. I knew gloating was unworthy of me, but I couldn’t helping noticing that I had a lot more people waiting for me to sign my books at the last comic book convention I attended in Manhattan. Some even brought my old books, from their personal collections, for me to sign. God knows how many fans I’d have met at the big conference in California. Planes? Crowds? Dining alone? I stuck with Manhattan.
When I got near enough to have Dawn sign, she asked, “What character are you, dear?”
“Oh, I am pretending to be Rose Tate’s daughter, but I’m not really.”
Mrs. Elliot gave a yelp, jumped to her feet, and threw her fleshy arms around me. At which Red, also in my arms, along with the heavy book and the glass of water, panicked. He sank his teeth into the flesh of my biceps, and then either he peed on me or the frigging water spilled. I couldn’t be sure, but there was still plenty of liquid in the glass. I was wet and in pain, probably bleeding on the forty-five-dollar book, and being smothered by sagging skin and sinus-clogging perfume.
“I looove your mother! She encouraged me to write the book. and it has changed my life. And I have heard so much about you. We must get together and discuss the publishing world.”
Sure. Like we had anything in common. I collected my book, after the photographer signed it, too, unasked. He handed me his card. He did pet portraits if I wanted Little Red immortalized. I wanted Little Red stuffed at this moment, but I took the card, smiled, and tried to leave the crowded tent.
A woman with a microphone stopped me. She nodded toward a cameraman behind her and said they were from the local TV station. I thought she said “eh,” but she must have meant East Hampton. “Isn’t this a wonderful event?” she cooed, shoving the microphone in my direction. Red snapped at it.
“Terrific.” I held up the book and smiled for the camera. “And the money goes to such worthwhile causes.” I held up the Pomeranian, who growled for the camera.
“It does? That is, of course it does. I saw Dawn give you a big welcome. Are you anybody? That is, who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m actually not in costume. I’m Willow Tate from Paumanok Harbor and I write books myself, under the pseudonym Wi—”
“Oh, look, there’s a troubadour. And a Tyrolean. Is that a famous trombone player? Quick, Larry, get a picture of that clever Trojan horse. No, the toreador.”
I wonder what the camera would show, because I doubted anyone else could see Fafhrd juggling ice cubes from the buckets that cooled the wine and water bottles.
I blew him a kiss like a Hollywood star, and left.
I bought Red and myself an ice cream sundae on the way home.
The big dogs were glad to see me—and the melted ice cream I’d saved for them. I was happy to see them, too. They weren’t half as snooty as they looked.
I was happier to hear Grant’s message on my answering machine. “Good catch, Willy. You’re brilliant, but we already knew that, didn’t we? Your friend Borsack was near the Institute at the same time Nicky Ryland’s mother brought him to Royce. Borsack was visiting his psychotic wife—I might have worked with her, although I don’t recall—but who knows what he overheard about the boy. His boat has left Montauk, with no description available, which leads us to believe he’s got some kind of mind control working, which marks him as our perp. The Coast Guard’s been alerted. I am waiting for a sketch of Borsack, his police record, his psi standing if it’s documented, and positive identification from the injured nanny in Georgia. With that kind of proof I can get an arrest warrant and an APB across the country. You did great. Want a job?”
I wanted him back.
I went to the wedding Sunday. The church part, anyway. I hadn’t heard any connection to Borsack, but that story about the ring bearer di
d seem odd. Grandma was invited, so I drove with her.
The local church, which was whimsically nicknamed Our Lady of The Clamshell, was all festooned in that gauzy wedding material, with bows on every candle sconce, drapes of it swagged from pew to pew.
Grandma nodded to everyone she knew in the congregation, which was almost everyone, but she kept looking at the picture of Nicky I had in my lap. “What will we do if it looks like him?”
I noted the “we” and the quaver in her voice. For once Grandma Eve seemed uncertain of herself, maybe even fallible. I liked her better for that. “We don’t do anything until later, when we try to talk to him. I’m hoping we’ll know before then somehow.”
The organ music grew louder. Everyone hushed. Ushers brought in the mothers. Grandma whispered that the Patchen sisters were matrons of honor. Then came the boy in a miniature tuxedo, his hair slicked over big protruding ears. He seemed very serious about his job, looking down at the pillow he carried with the rings tied to it.
“What do you think?”
I couldn’t tell. Neither could Fafhrd. He scooped the boy up for a better look. The kid screamed and grabbed onto the nearest bow, taking down the streamers, the swags, the flowers, and more when Fafhrd put him back on the ground.
“Damn,” someone behind me said, “the kid tripped on the tulle.”
Now he was draped in an acre of it, crying. The groom raced down the aisle and picked him up, hugging him and kissing the top of his head and unwrapping him. The choirmaster came to help and carried the boy out, leaving the groom holding the ring pillow.
The young man, with his slicked-back hair and big, protuberant ears, looked around at the gaping crowd. “All right, he’s my son. I never married his mother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. If anyone has any objections to his being here—”