Random Road

by Thomas Kies

  I could see that his face was flushed and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. “Jesus, honey, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just hotter’n hell.”

  I felt like the temperature had dropped a little since we’d arrived on the waterfront. He turned away and looked out over the harbor. Sailboats bobbed lazily in the swells. The sky was overcast but the sun still stubbornly stabbed its way through the clouds with pink-gray beams of color.

  “This is nice,” I grinned at the view.

  “Really nice.” Then he turned to start the fire on the gas grill. Once he was satisfied with the flame, he pulled a plastic container out of the cooler, opened it up, picked out half a dozen pieces of chicken, and placed them on the grill. “I’ve been marinating these all afternoon.”

  I enjoyed the water view and felt the sudden cool breeze of a weather front seductively sliding in over the water. I sighed with satisfaction. “Kevin?”

  “Yes?”

  “Whose house is this?”

  “Drink?”

  “Sure,” I answered. “You wouldn’t happen to have some vodka and ice in that magic cooler of yours, would you?”

  The boy was just full of surprises. He lifted out a chilled bottle of Absolut. “Ta da!” he sang. Then he dropped a couple of ice cubes into two crystal glasses, poured vodka in mine, and Dewar’s in his and we both took a drink.

  “This is really swell, Kevin. But, seriously, whose house is this?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Harry and Nancy Brill.”

  I nodded and looked around. “Nice place they have, the Brills. Harry and Nancy are home?”

  He continued to rub his chin. “They’re vacationing on the Outer Banks.”

  “Ah.”

  He went back into the wicker basket, pulled out a linen cloth, and draped it over the wrought-iron deck table. Once more, he reached into the basket and brought out two candles in glass holders which he lit with a flourish.

  I watched him go back to the grill to check the sizzling chicken. “So the Brills, do they know that we’re having dinner on their back deck?”

  He turned the chicken and the fire flared for a moment. “Well, last April, I built this deck. They said I should come over for dinner sometime.”

  I held up my glass. “And here we are. Using the Brill’s grill.”

  “Can you get the place settings out of the basket and put them on the table?” He was laying down some aluminum foil and carefully placing sliced vegetables over the fire.

  I opened the wicker container for the plates, the silverware. and the napkins. As I took it all out, I saw a photograph lying at the bottom of the basket. I picked it up to see it in the diminishing light.

  I recognized the moment right away. A faded Polaroid photo showed two sixteen-year-olds in an awkward embrace, slow dancing with each other. The boy looked embarrassed and was wearing a brown suit that was slightly too big for him. The girl had hair that was over-teased, used too much eye makeup, and wore a dress that was too tight for her ripening body.

  It was us.

  High school, the Junior Prom. Kevin and I hadn’t gone as dates. I went with Tony Pollack, linebacker for the varsity football team. He was a big guy, sweet, but not too bright. After he graduated from high school he was planning to be a cartoonist. Last I heard he was selling life insurance.

  Kevin was on the dance committee and had been working the front table, taking tickets. He was there stag.

  I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but I think that when Tony discovered I wasn’t going to show him my boobs in the backseat of his Camaro, he disappeared with his buddies to go buy beer.

  During one of the last songs of the night—I’m pretty sure it was Unchained Melody—and I was standing along the wall feeling pissed off at my date, embarrassed, and trying hard to fade into the crepe paper decorations. Kevin walked up to me, smiled, and asked me if I’d like to dance.

  It was so natural. I remember wondering why we hadn’t come to the dance together. And then we were out on the dance floor holding each other and swaying to the music.

  Our Biology teacher, Mrs. Van Skiver, took the photo.

  “I fell in love with you that night,” Kevin whispered, looking over my shoulder at the Polaroid, taking my hand.

  I turned back to see his eyes. “How come we wasted so much time with so many other people when it’s so obvious we’re supposed to be together?”

  He beamed. “Because it made us into what we are now. I don’t think you would have liked me much when I was younger.”

  I frowned. “I knew you when you were younger. I liked you just fine.”

  He squeezed my hand and then walked over to the grill to turn the chicken. “I need to ask you for a favor.”

  I waited.

  He turned, serious. “It’s a big one.”

  “So ask.”

  “Actually, I think Caroline might have already talked to you about it. When the time comes…”

  I put my fingers on his lips and stopped him in mid-sentence. I finished it for him, “And that’s not going to be for a long time. But if it does, I’ve already agreed that Caroline can live with me.”

  He nodded and held up his glass in a toast. “Thanks. That’s a load off.”

  “Still not sure why you wouldn’t rather have Caroline live with Ruth.”

  He struggled to find the best answer. “Ruth’s a loon.”

  “Granted, but Ruth has a lot of money.”

  “Money isn’t everything. But just so you know, I met with an attorney this afternoon and wrote a will.”

  A knot started to swell in my throat and I wished he’d just stop talking.

  But he kept going. “I’m leaving everything to you.”

  I put my hand on his chest. “Don’t say any more.”

  “We have to talk about this. I’m leaving everything to you. There isn’t a lot, some money in a savings account. Some equity in the house and the house has nearly doubled in value since I bought it.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled, head down.

  “Some insurance money.”

  “Kevin, please let’s talk about something else.”

  “And I’ve left instructions that you’re to be Caroline’s guardian.”

  I lifted my head forward until my lips found his. Kissing him was the only way I knew to shut him up.

  His lips felt hot, not sexed-up hot, feverish hot.

  I stepped back. “You okay?” Wondering if I was going to cry.

  He gave me a sheepish grin even though it was obvious he was sweating through some pain. “No, honey. That’s kind of what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m not okay.”

  I got up close again and hugged him.

  “I’ve got to check the food.” He gently disengaged.

  I watched him go back to the grill and tend the chicken and vegetables.

  I wanted to talk about something else, anything else. “So what’s Ruth’s problem, anyway? Do you know she tried to convince me that Caroline has an eating disorder? And that it was my fault?”

  He drained his glass and headed to the cooler for a refill. Holding up the bottle of vodka he asked me, “Ready for another?”

  I finished the last drabs from my own tumbler and held it out.

  He dropped fresh ice cubes into our glasses. “I think you’ve already discovered that Ruth is a relentless drama queen.” Pouring a second helping of our respective vices, he continued, “Caroline doesn’t have an eating disorder.”

  “I know. This afternoon I watched your daughter eat a double chili cheeseburger and fries from Sound Bites and she didn’t puke.”

  He handed me my drink. “Damned near a miracle for anyone.”

  “But you know, Ruth told me something else that was even more disturbing.”

>   I watched him stiffen. He already knew what I was about to say and turned back to the grill. “What was that?”

  “That you used to be an out-of-control drunk, a really bad one. That you hurt your family. Not what you are now.”

  “You believe it?” He speared the pieces of chicken with a long fork and dropped them on a serving plate.

  “I’ll believe whatever you tell me.”

  He put the serving plate on the table, pulled out my chair, and I sat down.

  He brought out a bowl filled with salad and settled into his chair. Without looking at me, in a deliberate voice, he slowly said, “She’s right. There was a time when I was out of control. I hurt Joanna. I hurt Caroline. I hurt all of my friends and family. I can never make up for the pain I inflicted. I went to rehab and got straight…for a while. I had to because Joanna was sick and I had to take care of her and Caroline. I accept that I can’t change the past but I can affect what happens now.”

  So it was true.

  I didn’t say a word. I waited to see if he added anything else.

  “Joanna forgave me. Caroline forgave me. Even Ruth, in her own strange way, forgave me. And for everything I put them through, they had every reason not to. And for that, I’ll always love them.”

  I stared at the glass in his hand.

  He swirled his scotch around. “Too late, way too late, I can control it. But in the end, it’s what’ll kill me.”

  I reached out and squeezed his hand.

  He stared down at his lap for a long time. Then he looked up into my eyes. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “No. There’s something that I want you to know.”

  “What?”

  “I love you.”

  He allowed a short sigh and tried to smile. There were tears in his eyes when he answered me. “I love you so much.”

  We sat in silence for what seemed to be a long time, letting our dinners go cold. I listened to the water gently lapping at the shore. I spoke first. “Look, I’m so confident that things are going to turn out okay and you’re going to beat this thing. I’m going to ask you something and this is serious.”

  I had his attention. “What?”

  It took every bit of confidence I had to say it. “Marry me.”

  He blinked, not believing what he was hearing. “Forgive me for saying, but you have a spotty record on this marriage thing.”

  I waved at the air. “Bygones. What do you say?”

  The silence in the air hung like an evil omen.

  Oh, my God, he’s going to say no.

  “Okay. I’m in.” The look of confusion on his face gave way to a big grin.

  We fell into each other’s arms and held each other tight, not wanting to let go. We were quiet again.

  “So,” I broke the silence, wondering, “all kidding aside. Do Harry and Nancy Brill know we’re here?”

  He glanced around at the empty decks of the houses on either side of us. “I’m thinking we should probably eat before the neighbors start to wonder.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  To call the Sheffield Harbor Association’s vessel a “ferry boat” is a tad misleading. It’s not one of those husky ships that take hundreds of people and cars across challenging bodies of water. Nor is it one of the many lithe, dependable vessels that ferry commuters in and around Manhattan seven days a week in all sorts of weather.

  No, the Harbor Express is a pontoon boat that runs a few months in the summer and maxes out at twenty tourists per trip.

  It’s a refitted party barge.

  When I got to the dock at a little after nine, streetlights reflected like lazy, slithering, illuminated eels on the black surface of the harbor. Small clouds of mosquitoes silently hovered and hunted in the reeds on the edge of the shore. We were only a couple of blocks from the bars and the nightclubs and, every once in a while, I could hear the shrill, screaming laughter of someone who already had too much to drink rise above the low, ambient rumble of traffic.

  The man standing next to me on the dock touched my elbow to get my attention.

  “The Harbor Association is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the preservation of Long Island Sound. We’re able to fund a lot of our programs with this ferry boat,” explained Daryl Zelfin, the president of the association’s board of trustees. “Over the summer, we take hundreds of people for harbor tours and out to visit Fisher’s Lighthouse.”

  He was in his mid-fifties, wore tiny wire-frame glasses, had a full mustache and, when he smiled, displayed a set of unusually big teeth. Daryl was an uncanny cross between a leprechaun and Teddy Roosevelt. He wore a dark blue Harbor Association polo shirt and khaki slacks.

  We were standing on the dock, out of everyone’s way, while a dozen men and women loaded equipment onto the boat.

  “But tonight,” I stated, holding my digital recorder between us, “we’re not taking a harbor tour.”

  He leaned forward so that he could speak directly into the machine. I’d heard that Daryl was an unabashed publicity hound. “No, Geneva. Tonight we’re carrying thirteen paranormal investigators.”

  “Thirteen?” I asked. “Isn’t that unlucky?”

  He chuckled, “It’s only unlucky if we run into a storm.”

  Which isn’t entirely out of the question.

  On the way over, I’d seen lightning flashing in the distance. Once I was parked, I checked the weather app on my phone and saw a bright red and orange blob, a nasty thunderstorm, south of us moving from west to east. The vanguard of the tropical depression bearing down on us.

  While the ghost hunters got their gear onboard, silent spears of electricity flashed and played tag along the horizon. Granted, it was so far away I couldn’t hear accompanying thunder, but it was out there nonetheless.

  A slightly zaftig woman in her early forties, wearing jeans, a short-sleeved top, and a silver and black feathered hairstyle that was popular around the time that the original Charlie’s Angels was broadcasting, walked up between Daryl and me and introduced herself. “I’m Stella Barry. Are you the reporter?” She was smiling, slightly breathless, and her green eyes were wide with excitement.

  “Yeah,” I put out my hand. “Geneva Chase.”

  She ignored it. “When’s the photographer getting here?”

  This lady obviously thought that the newspaper was working for her. I tried to smile. “I’ll be taking the pictures tonight.”

  She studied me dubiously. “You want some background info?”

  “Okay.”

  “You already know my name is Stella Barry. I’ve been a paranormal investigator for over twenty-five years.” She gestured to the people who were nearly finished loading the Harbor Express. “These folks are the New England Paranormal Investigations Team. Some of them have been with me for over ten years and some of them are newbies-in-training. I’ve personally done a hundred and fifteen investigations. Seven of them have been documented and broadcast on the Discovery and the Travel channels.”

  No need to ask questions. This was the Stella Barry Show.

  “Have you ever heard of Newford Hospital?” she asked.

  Before I could answer, she continued, “Mental institution, built in 1898, it once housed as many as a thousand patients. It closed in 1977 and it’s been deserted ever since. There’s a cemetery onsite with nearly five hundred unmarked graves. We did an investigation two months ago and found over forty active spirits there. Got eleven of them on film, got another seven on audio. The Hartford Courant covered it. Maybe you read the story?”

  This woman was exhausting.

  I shook my head no.

  “Too bad,” she said. “Tonight, we’re going to investigate reports of an unexplained light seen out on the harbor every year on this night, the anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of Bartholomew Gault.”

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nbsp; Without saying another word, she whirled and dramatically boarded the boat.

  Daryl watched her. “She’s a force of nature, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  A good-looking, muscular young man with short black hair, dressed in a dark blue Harbor Association polo shirt and khaki shorts walked up to us. “The captain is asking everyone to please board now.”

  Kid was a real heartbreaker. He looks familiar.

  A second young man stood at the open entrance to the boat and helped us aboard. He was dressed exactly the same as the other boy, except this one was taller, broad in the shoulders with closely cropped hair.

  That’s when I recognized them. They were the young men I’d seen by the pool when Kevin and I had been at the Elroys’ place out on Connor’s Landing. It took me a moment, but by the time I found a place to sit down, I’d even recalled their names.

  The older, good-looking boy was Lance Elroy, a sophomore at Yale. The younger boy, who looked like he spent too much time in the gym, was named Drew.

  I also recalled, from my short discussion with their father, how proud Pete Elroy was that they were gainfully employed working on this ferry, and that Drew was a senior at the Handley Academy, the prep school that was every rich boy’s best chance to get into an Ivy League college.

  The same exclusive prep school where, until their untimely deaths, Kit and Kathy Webster had been teachers.

  Suddenly, this boat trip became very interesting.

  ***

  Once the two boys finished casting us off, the captain powered the boat slowly away from the dock. I took a bottle of insect repellent out of my bag and started to slather it on my face, neck, and legs.

  “Once we get out of the harbor, the breeze will pick up and it’ll help keep the bugs off us,” Daryl said cheerily.

  “Have you ever seen this mysterious light?”

  “You mean the ghost?” He held up his hands and wriggled his fingers in a mocking, pseudo-scary way.

  “Yeah.” I wasn’t feeling particularly amused.