The Black Butterfly

by Shirley Reva Vernick

The Grindle Point Shop was a book nook, gift store, diner and takeout stand all rolled into one. It had a barn feel to it—lots of exposed wood, a high sloping ceiling, open layout, a grab bag of smells. Blinking holiday lights looped around the walls like the scalloped edges of a piecrust. “Sleigh Ride” boomed from a hidden stereo. A wood stove was working double time in the corner, and after the walk from the parking lot, the blast of warm air felt delicious.

  We hit a typical crowd today, George informed me as we walked toward the eating area. Xandros, the island’s only resident attorney, was the one drinking coffee at the counter and taking off his helmet. “He actually has snow tires on his bike. And over there by the magazines,” he said, touching my arm, “that’s Thaddeus. He runs a combination hardware/Bible store down the road. Something about Jesus being a carpenter.”

  Maybe I was imagining things, but it didn’t feel like a simple I-want-to-direct-your-attention-to-this-corner-of-the-room tap of his hand on my arm. It was a more deliberate touch, released with a barely there stroke of his fingertips. I glanced up at him, and he smiled casually back, revealing nothing, the male Mona Lisa.

  “Who’s the bald guy behind the cash register?” I asked.

  “That’s Buddy, he owns the place. The old lady bending his ear is Mrs. Walker the Talker. No one knows what she looks like with her mouth closed. Here, I’ll save him. Hey, Buddy,” he called across the room. “Over here.”

  Buddy, a tall man with a baby-smooth complexion, rushed over to greet us. “Look who’s back in town,” he grinned, shaking George’s hand in vigorous thanks for the out.

  “Buddy, this is my friend Penny. She’s staying with us for a couple of weeks. First time at the inn.”

  “Really?” His eyes widened. “You’re in for a treat, Penny. Did George tell you Dan Shwam of the Catskill Cougars once sailed here all the way from Bar Harbor just to eat supper at the Black Butterfly? Or that Chip Hutchins—y’know, from the Bangor Lumberjacks—stayed at the inn for a weekend after the big one in Quebec?”

  “I…no,” I said, wondering if these were household names that had somehow escaped my awareness.

  “That’s right, and José Garcia–”

  “Buddy’s all about baseball,” George explained. “He wouldn’t notice if the Pope walked in, but give him a ball player no one’s ever heard of, and he’s all over it. So Buddy, how’s that skiff you were building last time we talked?”

  Boats seemed to excite Buddy almost as much as athlete sightings. I listened politely for a few minutes and then excused myself to the book nook. This seemed like as good a time as any to explore the place.

  I circled the three book carousels that stood between the postcard rack and the jukebox, wondering if anything would draw my attention. The first carousel was crammed with magazines of either the sportsman or handyman sort—not my bag. The second carousel, larger and harder to turn, carried novelty books: Compendium of Ocean Meditations, Angling: A Pop-Up Book for the Rod and Line Enthusiast, Ten-Minute Brain Teasers—not my type either. The last carousel, marked clearance, was my only hope. My eyes went straight to a small hardcover book near the bottom. It had a black spine that, intriguingly, had no title on it. I squatted down and pulled it out.

  Lacking the typical glossy paper flap, the woven cover felt rough in my hands, as if it had been hand sewn by a cobbler instead of whizbanged together by a high-speed press. The front was a solid shade of ice blue, the color of winter or my birthstone or forget-me-nots. Across the top, in calligraphy style, it called itself Facts and Fancies about Islemorow. Below that, in smaller but equally fancy type, it added By One of the Very Oldest Cottagers. I had to turn to the copyright page to learn the name of the old cottager: Alda M. Eldenberry, who self-published the book in 2005 under the business name Berry Press.

  The book was heavy for its slender size, as if the words inside were substantial enough to add weight to the silver-rimmed pages. There were five chapters:

  Cabbages and Kings: Founding Fathers

  Fire and Ice: Nature on the Island

  Sticks and Stones: Local Architecture

  Bed Knobs and Broomsticks: Islemorow During the World Wars

  Sweet and Sour: Automobiles, Motorboats and Other Progress

  Opposite the table of contents, an aerial photo offered a bird’s eye view of the island. I tried to find the inn, and I thought I picked it out, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t even sure which side of the pickle−shaped, fifteen square-mile island the inn sat on. And since the photo was all beachfront and forest and dot-sized roofs, it wasn’t a simple task for someone who has trouble finding North on a map.

  Alda M. Eldenberry offered this counsel in the photo caption: “Islemorow hasn’t changed much since the early days, and that’s just fine to this old cottager’s way of thinking. There’s no better place on earth if you know how to make your own fun, if you adore the simple rhythm of the tide, and if you don’t mind a quirky neighbor or two. But if you prefer movie theaters, cafés and conventional personalities, you may wish to stay on the mainland.”

  Curious about the Black Butterfly’s past, I turned to the Sticks and Stones chapter. On the first page was an ink drawing of the inn, its front door open in a welcoming gesture. “A lavish 20-room resort called the Legacy once stood on the site of the Black Butterfly,” Alda wrote. “Built to house wealthy Harvard boys on their summer holidays, the Legacy burned down in 1910. Only the earthen-floor basement, part of one staircase, the old chain-pull toilets, and a metal safe survived.”

  The Legacy. The long ago fire. Blue. My hands began to shake. I had to own Mrs. Eldenberry’s work, even though it suddenly frightened me just to hold it.

  I read on: “Five years after the fatal fire, the esteemed painter Cleo Easton bought the land and built a home on the site. Her family transformed it into the Black Butterfly Inn after her death in 1954 and sold it to Wilson Henion in 1974.”

  There was no price marked anywhere on the book. That probably meant it was expensive, even at clearance price. Still, I wanted it. I spotted Buddy feeding the wood stove and hurried over to him.

  “Find something interesting?” Buddy asked, closing the stove door.

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to sound overly eager. “This book about the island looks like a good read. How much is it?”

  He extended his hand, and I gave him the book. “Facts and Fancies,” he said. “I didn’t realize we still had any copies.”

  “It was the only one left.”

  He turned the book over a couple of times, looking puzzled. “Doesn’t seem to be marked, does it? Hardcovers usually start at twenty though.”

  That wasn’t going to work. Then I remembered. “It was in clearance. What does that do to the price?”

  “In that case, we knock off a couple of bucks, just to try to move it out of here. If that doesn’t work, we switch it back up to full price and start all over.” He started to laugh but must have seen my face fall, because he immediately added, “You know what? This thing looks like it’s been kicking around forever. Why don’t we call it a loan? Take it to the inn with you, and try to get it back to me before you go. If you remember.”

  “Really?” I said hopefully.

  “Hey, any friend of the Henions is a friend of mine. Enjoy.”

  “Thanks, Buddy.” I turned to go, then added over my shoulder, “I’ll take good care of it.”

  When I looked for George to tell him about my find, I spotted him standing near the take-out counter, deep in conversation with someone. Remembering that Bubbles had some of her work here, I wandered over to the jewelry display.

  Bubbles’ few pieces were easy to spot with their signature glass chips and computer entrails. There was a ring that was kind of pretty if you didn’t mind it covering the knuckles of two fingers, and a bunch of bangles in assorted metallic colors. My favorite item was a set of seemingly mismatched earrings. One earring was the question mark from a keyboard. The other was a blue circle of glass with the Chinese sym
bol for serenity painted on it—sort of a yin and yang thing, I guessed.

  After a few minutes, a voice behind me said, “I see you have an appreciation for great art, Miss.” It was George.

  “Do you know absolutely everyone on the island?”

  “This time of year I do. It’s all townies, no tourists. C’mon, let’s sit. I ordered us some soup.”

  We took a little corner table, white Formica with red chairs, next to one of the shop’s few windows. When we each rested a hand on the table, our fingertips practically touched. God, I love hands. They’re so much of how you experience the world. In biology last year, we learned that the human hand has 1,300 nerve endings per square inch. So when two hands touch each other, well, you can do the math. As for me, I didn’t need actual contact to set all those thousands of nerves ablaze.

  “See anything interesting in the shop?” George asked.

  Oh, right, we were supposed to talk to each other, not just sit here while I shamelessly lusted after him. I pulled myself together. “Look what Buddy let me borrow,” I said, pulling the book out from under my arm and passing it to him.

  “Facts and Fancies about Islemorow,” he read. “Looks familiar. I think we have a copy of it at the inn.”

  “Really? Maybe I should return this one to Buddy then.”

  “Don’t bother. Even if we do have it, who knows where it is?”

  I put the book back into my purse. “Have you ever read it?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Hmmm. Does it have a drawing of the inn?”

  “That’s right. A drawing and a little history.”

  “I think I’ve glanced through the pictures.” Then his attention shifted. “Look over there,” he said, pointing out the window. “See that lady across the street, the one in the red coat, shoveling snow off her car?”

  I turned to see a woman hardly as tall as her shovel, who looked old enough to give Alda M. Eldenberry a run for her money as one of the very oldest cottagers.

  “That’s Miss McQuiggan,” he said. “She was my teacher for three years in elementary school—she was about 90 back then.” We watched as she loaded her shovel into her trunk and took off in a burst of fumes. “I think she’s gotten younger as I’ve gotten older.”

  I spent a minute watching the snowy little world go by: a man in an Elmer Fudd hunting cap, a child bundled up like a mummy, a pickup truck with a snowmobile in tow. Across the road was Cliff’s General Market, which, according to the handwritten sign on the door, also housed the post office. Next door to Cliff’s stood a shack with a snowed-over barber’s pole in front. After that was Suzy’s Boating Supplies, clearly closed up for the winter. And then there was nothing, nothing but snow and scrub, until the road disappeared around a bend. If I could just take this view and shake it, I’d have the perfect snow globe souvenir of the island.

  “When I was a little kid,” he said, “I used to love sitting at this window. I’d press my nose right up against the glass and see if I could pick out the people who must be my parents.”

  Wait a minute, was he saying…?

  “I’m adopted,” he said. “That’s why Ma and I don’t look anything alike. Or hadn’t you noticed?” This was a rhetorical question. Where Bubbles was thickset and fair, George was—there’s no other way to put it—tall, dark and handsome.

  “I take it you never found them,” I said.

  “Nope.” He absently touched his eyebrow scar. “And I probably never will. It was a closed adoption.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean, not that you’re adopted—Bubbles is great. It’s just that, you know…” I had no idea what I was saying. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “No need,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, it’s not over yet, right?”

  “Right,” I said, even though it sounded to me like George’s chances of meeting his parents were about as good as my chances of meeting The Donor.

  Then our waiter arrived, and the topic was dropped. Buddy was carrying two styrofoam bowls of soup and two paper cups of tea. Apparently, it was supposed to be French onion soup, but it was more like beef bouillon with a slice of Wonder bread and a glob of Velveeta cheese floating on top. “This is our specialité du maison,” he said, setting the bowls down in front of us.

  “Looks great,” I lied. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, I forgot your water. Be right back, unless I forget.” He winked at me and turned to the table behind us.

  George motioned me to start, so I took a spoonful. It tasted like it looked. Trying not to grimace, I forced it down and set the spoon back on the table.

  “That bad?” George asked.

  “I guess Rita’s got me spoiled. But you go ahead.”

  He dipped his spoon between the droopy bread and the soggy onions and lifted it to his lips. The broth got into his mouth okay, but the Cheez Whiz didn’t want to come off his spoon, so he bit it off instead. “Not so awful,” he said, still chewing the cheese, “as long as you don’t breathe through your nose…hold on, saved by the bell.”

  He took his cell phone out of his back pocket. “Hello…hey, Smitty, what’s up?…I didn’t see it…yeah, that’s weird…I’ll take a look when I get home…got it. See ya.” He clicked off. “Mike Smitty—the repairman—he misplaced his cordless saw. Thinks the last place he had it was the inn, so he wants me to look around.”

  Odd. I mean, how do you misplace something the size and weight of a power tool?

  “But enough about Smitty and soup and me,” he said. “Will you tell me about ‘The Purple Agony’ now?”

  He remembered the title of my short story! I felt embarrassed, shy, flattered. If he was interested in my story, did that mean he was interested in me?

  “Please?” George asked oh so sweetly. He dropped his spoon and leaned toward me, chin on hand.

  “Okay, all right.” I cleared my throat. “‘The Purple Agony’ is the story of a prizewinning photojournalist. This guy is always in the right place at the right time—you know, just when disaster strikes, he’s there to snap the picture. Well, late one Christmas Eve, he finds the body of a homeless woman on a deserted road, victim of a hit and run. She’s wearing flip-flops even though it’s freezing out, and she’s clutching a dahlia, the symbol of dignity that she just received at midnight mass. He snaps the photo, and it appears on front pages nationwide on Christmas Day.”

  George nodded attentively.

  “Only, down at the soup kitchen, they knew this woman. They say she never went to church, never went out that late, never wore flip-flops. Turns out she’d collapsed on the street sometime earlier that night, and when the photographer happened to cruise by, he purposefully ran her over, then put the flower in her hand and exchanged her boots for flip-flops before taking the picture. P.S., he’s been staging fires and accidents for years. This is just the first time he got caught.”

  I took a gulp of air and waited for George’s reaction. He gazed at me intently, somberly. “Say something,” I said when I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Why’s it called ‘The Purple Agony’?”

  “Because of the purple camera flash. That purple dot you see after a camera flashes in your face.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “It’s blue.”

  “What?”

  “The dot. It’s blue.”

  I grabbed the napkin off my lap and squashed it into a tight ball. “Maybe I’ll change it to ‘The Blue Agony,’ or ‘The Cobalt Agony,’ or maybe ‘The Periwinkle Bordering on Indigo Agony.’”

  “Stop,” he laughed, sitting back. “I like it, truly. A real page turner. I can’t wait to see the movie.”

  “It’s not just a crime thriller,” I said, hearing the edge in my voice. “It’s supposed to make you think. Like, maybe this guy simply has no regard for human life. But maybe it’s more complicated than that. Maybe in his personal hell, he’s convinced himself he’s making art.”

  George’s eyebrows rose. “Well, which is it?”

  “Both, so
rt of. Like this soup here. It’s evil, but it’s just trying to do its job.”

  “Well then,” he pinned his eyes on mine, “maybe the next meal we share should be homemade. By someone who knows something about cooking.”

  My cheeks flamed. No male has ever cooked for me. In fact, short of Rita and old Mrs. Toussaint, I couldn’t think of anyone who’d ever cooked for me. And now this! George wanted to use those beautiful hands and all their thousands of nerve endings to create a meal for me.

  As I racked my brain for something to say back, something alluring or at least playful, I noticed that George was letting his eyes drift dreamily around the room. Was he pondering what he would make for me—brunch or an indoor picnic lunch or a late-night supper for two? Was he envisioning the before, the during, and especially the after? Dream on, George, dream on. I’ll fantasize too, and later we can compare notes.

  Then I realized something: George’s room gazing wasn’t idle. No, there was definitely a purpose to it. He was peering over my shoulder the same way Chad Laramy had done back at the Logan terminal: eagerly. I fought the urge to look behind me. When George broke into a massive smile, I finally turned around to see if Buddy was bringing us banana splits on the house or something.

  A pretty girl in a red leather jacket, jeans and high-heeled boots was walking toward us. George jumped up and met her before she made it to our table. They fell into a tight hug. “Iris, you’re here!” George rejoiced.

  “I thought I was going to miss you,” she cooed. Spotting me, she added, “Is this a bad time? Because I could—”

  “No, no, this is perfect,” he reveled, tightening his arm around her waist and leading her to the table. “Here, sit down. Iris, this is Penny. Penny, this is my old friend Iris.”

  Gentle reader, I’m here to tell you that Iris wasn’t old, and she obviously wasn’t just a friend either.

  “Good to meet you, Patty.”

  “It’s Penny,” I said.

  “Penny? Sorry, it must be these earmuffs.” She took off the muffs and flipped her sleek black hair over her shoulder. “There, much better.”