“Here we go again,” I said.
Angel and I told our story about Louise breaking her ankle, and once again no one seemed upset or suspicious. They only wanted to know where the beach was and were there sharks and where was the best place for fried clams.
The second group of renters was different from the first the way families are different, of course—one had two moms, one was from Canada, and one needed a cot for a cousin who’d come along at the last minute—but they were the same, too. In fact, I thought maybe not too much had changed since George’s parents had opened the place: Linger Longer was a place for families with little kids, taking vacations in their big cars, and probably the cars had changed more than anything else.
But that second group of renters was different because it brought us Katie. It brought us two Katies, actually. One was a quiet seven-year-old in Tern, and one—my Katie—was about four years old and the opposite of quiet.
Katie Sandpiper latched on to me from the minute she spilled out of the car. She ran right over and grabbed my hand and made me admire her hairdo—a wispy pony-tail of hair as pale as corn silk on the top of her head. “Fountain-head,” she informed me.
I looked at it from all angles and nodded. “I get it.”
She skipped along beside her mother as I opened up Sandpiper for them. Katie pointed to the flowers I carried. “They go over there, on the table.” I put them down, and then Katie dragged me around, showing me everything as if it was her home and I was the visitor. “That’s the couch,” she informed me. “There’s the fidgerator.”
A boy of about nine walked through then. He was reading a book, and he never looked up, just headed straight into a bedroom.
“Daniel, come back here,” his mother called, and I got the feeling she had to call him back a lot. “Say hello and help your father unload the car.”
Daniel walked back through again, his nose still in his book. He lifted two fingers an inch off the page as he passed me. “’Lo.”
As I was heading out to open Plover for the next family, Mrs. Sandpiper asked, “Now, could you recommend a babysitter?”
My first thought was how dangerous it could be to have girls from town come here. They might know us, they might ask questions. My next thought was a lot smarter: Babysitters get to eat.
“Actually,” I said, “you’re looking at one.”
As soon as we got everyone settled, I lettered four index-card signs. LINGER LONGER BABYSITTING SERVICE—MATURE, DEPENDABLE, AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO DRIVE US HOME! I added the phone number, then delivered them.
Angel went to the calendar. “We’re full from now on. Say thirty or forty bucks each week for cleaning, and maybe another twenty or thirty in babysitting….”
I realized Angel was figuring on splitting the money with me. I opened my mouth to tell her I didn’t want any of it, but then I saw what she was doing—tapping her fingers down the weeks, calculating when she could leave—and I closed it.
“Hey, what’s this?” she said.
I followed her finger.
Dr. P, cleaning, 9:30. This Monday. The Monday in two days. We’d forgotten to look at Louise’s calendar! How could we have forgotten to look at Louise’s calendar?
“Oh, crap, oh, crap,” Angel chanted. “What are we going to do?”
And then I recognized it. “It’s okay,” I said. “Dr. Payne, that’s her dentist. I remember thinking when she mentioned him one time that ‘Pain’ was a terrible name for a dentist—he should change it or get a different career. She told me how it was spelled.”
I found the number in the phone book. “It’s the weekend. There won’t be anyone there.” Before I could chicken out, I left a message that Louise wanted to reschedule for sometime in August. “Crisis averted,” I said, crossing off the appointment.
And then my eye traveled down the calendar. “Angel,” I said. “What’s this?”
Two weeks away, on a Friday afternoon, was penciled in Lorraine M., 1 p.m.
“No clue,” Angel said. “A friend? Lunch?”
Lorraine M. Somehow, I felt I knew that name, or I should. “That has to be it—lunch. It won’t matter. Louise will be a no-show, and then this Lorraine person will call and we’ll make up some excuse,” I said. It sounded right, what I’d just said. It made sense.
The next day, Sunday, went pretty much the way the last Sunday had gone—millions of questions in the morning, but by noon, everyone was gone. Like I had last Sunday, I headed for the beach with a book after I’d worked in the garden for a while. I didn’t stay too long, because I’d forgotten sunscreen.
When I reached our backyard, I stopped short. Music was coming from upstairs—swelling and beautiful, like violins, but it was a single voice. I rinsed my feet with the garden hose—sand tracked on a wood floor can ruin it—and listened for a while. The words were in another language, but they made my throat ache—“throat tears,” I had called the feeling when I was little—so I knew the woman was singing about something very sad. I also knew that Angel’s music was a private thing, like her soap opera reports to Louise.
I wandered back to the blueberry bushes. They looked worse than ever—the berries were a little shriveled, and some had even turned black. The leaves were ragged and the bushes themselves looked tired, like they wanted to give up. I suddenly understood they were dying. Maybe nothing I could do for them would be enough, because I wasn’t Louise.
Just then, George pulled into the driveway next door. Treb danced beside him while he pulled the mower out of the truck bed. I waved, and he and Treb started over.
“How’s everything going?” he asked. “The cottages?”
“Great,” I said. “Everybody’s out now.”
George nodded. “Beach day. Late tide today, so I figured it would be a good time to mow. I haven’t heard from Louise—how’s she doing?”
“She’s…oh, she’s the same.”
“Well, I’ll come in to see her when I’m done. Better get to it.”
“George, wait,” I said. “Do you know anything about blueberry bushes? These don’t look so hot.”
George bent and splayed some leaves through his fingers, turning them over a few times. He straightened up. “You can probably kiss ’em good-bye this year. Gypsy moths are eating the leaves.” He swept his pipe over the pines and oak scrub. “Pests. Bad year.”
“Gypsy moths?”
“The caterpillars, actually. Most years, they’re just a nuisance. Every once in a while, though, they’re a plague. So many they strip the trees, kill off whole areas. They like oaks best, but in a bad year like this, you’re wearing a green T-shirt, you don’t want to stand still too long.”
“Caterpillars?” I pulled the branches apart and poked through the ragged leaves. “I don’t see any.”
“They hide in the daytime—can’t take the sun.” He toed aside some mulch at the base of the bush and crouched beside me. “There. See ’em? Ugly things.”
They were ugly—greenish brown and hairy, squirming away from the light. I edged away.
George stood up and rubbed his back. “They come out at night, climb up the trees, and start eating. Look how bare the oaks are getting. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard them? God-awful sound…the chewing and the droppings spattering down all night long.”
“And they’re eating my blueberry bushes too? I mean Louise’s?” Relief washed through me—those plants weren’t grieving to death, and it wasn’t my fault. “That’s what’s wrong?”
“’Fraid so. Well, that grass isn’t going to mow itself, you know.” George started to leave, but the second piece of his good news finally hit me.
“Wait a minute. Did you just say you can hear them chewing all night?”
“Yep. Disgusting sound, gets in your ears, hard to shake out. Makes you think you’re losing your mind. You haven’t heard that?”
It was all I could do not to tackle George, I was so happy. Instead I hugged my elbows, hard. “I have! That’s great! That’
s so great! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“I’ll be darned!” he muttered.
I laughed and squeezed myself harder against the sudden tidal wave of relief. “Right!” I agreed. “I’ll be darned!” Tonight, when I heard that awful chewing sound, I would just smile and close my eyes and fall asleep.
Then I stopped short. “Can I stop them?”
“One girl, stop a plague?” George shook his head. “I guess not. But…well, you can keep ’em off an individual tree…is that what you mean? I’ve got a couple of apple trees I never let them have. My wife planted them the year before she got sick.”
“How do you…Wait, oh. You have a wife?”
“Had. She passed.”
“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.” I tried to picture George with a wife, and I found it was easy. “Do you have any kids?”
“Wanted to.” George looked so forlorn for a minute that I could have kicked myself for bringing it up. But then he gave a little shrug. “I got a crew, though. They’re like a family. And speaking of them, we’re going fishing tonight on the late tide, which means I’d better get mowing.”
I followed George back to his truck. He wheeled the mower onto the lawn and pulled the starter cord. The engine sputtered a second, then died. He tried again and again, with no luck. “Piece of junk.” Then he kicked the wheel and cursed.
“Hey,” I said, “remember about broken things. Sometimes they have a story to tell you.” I suddenly wanted George to know that I understood that now. That we had that in common. A tie.
George kicked the tire again. “And sometimes they’re just plain broken.” He looked up then, too fast for me to hide my disappointment.
He smiled at me. “And sometimes, Stella by Starlight, they’re just out of gas!”
He went to the shed and came back with a red tank. I held the funnel while he filled the mower’s belly.
We listened to the gasoline chugging in, and I took a deep breath—I always liked the smell of gasoline. It smells clean and exciting, like you’re about to go someplace new.
George sniffed, too. “I love that smell. That’s the smell of a finest-kind day.”
I knew he wanted me to ask what a finest-kind day was, so I did.
“It’s a fishing thing,” he said. “Finest kind means the best. Best quality, just perfect. Some days you set out and you don’t know where you’ll end up. But your boat is sea-worthy, the wind is calm, and the sea is full of hungry fish. And you’ve got a full tank of gas.”
“Finest kind,” I said, handing him the mower cap. Then I remembered. “Hey, George. Your apple trees? How did you protect them?”
“Wrap the trunks in burlap. The caterpillars hide there when the sun comes out. I shake the burlap out and kill ’em.”
I looked back to where the squirming mass of caterpillars was and tried to imagine squashing them. “What else?” I asked.
“What else? Nothing. They die, your tree lives.”
“No. I mean what else could I do? I don’t want to kill them.”
George capped the tank and wiped his hands before he straightened to look at me. “Louise’s blueberry bushes? You’re going to try to save them for her?”
I nodded.
“Well, some folks tie greased rags around the trunks. The caterpillars can’t climb past ’em. Seems like a lot of work, but…I got some extra rags at my place. I could bring around some motor grease.”
I thought for a minute. Rags and grease. “That’s okay, George.” I gave Treb an ear scratch that made him look the way I felt. “Louise has everything I need.”
It took a long time, because there were so many bushes and they each had a bunch of stems. When I finished, I was sweaty and dirty and greasy and scratched all over, but happy. I stood at the sink, washing up and letting the happiness flood through me like cool water, filling every thirsty cell.
I heard the mower go silent. And I remembered. “Angel! George’s coming over. He wants to see Louise!”
Angel trotted down the stairs, smiling. “I know. I saw him pull in. I got it covered.” She pointed to a huge vase of roses on the coffee table in the living room. “They’re from her boyfriend.” Then she pointed to a suit jacket hanging over a kitchen chair. “The one whose jacket is here.”
“What a coincidence,” I said. “It looks just like the one Mr. Gull left.” I recognized the roses, too. “Louise’s boyfriend picked roses from her garden? That’s so lame of him.”
“George will be too brokenhearted to think of that. Love hurts, but it’s for his own good.”
I nodded out the window. “Well, here he comes.”
George stopped at the kitchen door to shake the grass clippings off his clothes and make Treb lie on the step before he came in. One more thing I liked about him—he was thoughtful about Louise’s clean kitchen.
“You got something dead in your garden,” he said.
CHAPTER 17
“I caught Treb digging like crazy earlier. Right where those pumpkins are. I figure you got something dead in your fertilizer. Probably fish meal. Sorry. Don’t think he did any damage, though. I smoothed it all back. Although…”
I forced myself to breathe naturally. In and out. Through my nose. Louise was deep, really deep.
“Although a funny thing—I didn’t see any sign of those pumpkins of yours. It’s been two weeks. They ought to have sprouted by now….”
“Huh,” I said, and my voice was only a little squeaky. “That’s weird.”
“Well, thanks for telling us,” Angel said. She took a step toward the door, but George wasn’t going anywhere.
“Where’s Louise?” he asked.
“She’s out,” Angel answered.
George looked puzzled. “Her car’s here.”
“Her boyfriend picked her up,” Angel said, practically yawning with how bored she was trying to sound. As if Louise went out with boyfriends every day.
George didn’t even try to hide his surprise. “Her boyfriend?”
“Yep, her new boyfriend. They’re on a date. The one who sent her those roses over there. He left his jacket.”
I busied myself washing some dishes because I couldn’t even look at Angel.
“Louise has a boyfriend? Since when?”
“Since a long time ago, actually. He’s actually her old boyfriend. But he went out on a spy mission years ago, and he got caught and everyone thought he was dead. And then he got amnesia, which is why he forgot about her all these years. Do you want to look at his jacket?”
“Look at his…? Ah…no. No thanks. I’ll be off. Those fish aren’t going to catch themselves, you know.”
Later that night, I sat down with a notebook and a pen, doing something I never thought I’d get to do until I was an adult. Angel walked into the kitchen just as I was finishing, and my pride took over my good sense. “My first one,” I said, holding up my notebook.
“First what?” Angel asked, pretending to be bored.
“My first hint. I’m sending a hint to Heloise. And the best part is that it’s for one of her favorite subjects—old panty hose! Hints about onion bags are actually the most popular. Old panty hose are second, though—I’ve got about a dozen hints about those.”
“Old panty hose? Who do you know who even has old panty hose?” Angel glanced up toward Louise’s room. “Oh, right.”
“Right,” I said. And I guess I was just kind of crazy with relief and happiness from my afternoon, because there’s no other explanation for what I did next: I handed her my notebook. “What do you think?”
Angel read aloud, “Dear Heloise, I love your column. I think if more people took your advice, the world would be a better place. I am very proud to be able to tell you a new use for those old panty hose after they get runs in them. You can tie pieces of them around blueberry bush stems (or other trees or bushes!) and slather them with Crisco so gypsy moth caterpillars won’t climb up and eat all the leaves! Sincerely, your friend, Stella. P.S. Please feel free to use my real n
ame.”
I looked up at Angel, and too late I saw my mistake—she was thinking up something smart to say to ruin my letter. But then her expression changed.
“That’s a good one,” she said, all sweet. “I’m going to write her a letter, too.”
“You can’t just write her a letter,” I explained. “Heloise is very busy. She gets hundreds of letters a week, and she has to test out all those hints. Of course she has a whole bunch of people to help her now. Still, she can’t take time to just say ‘Hi, how are you?’ kind of stuff. You can only write if you have a really good hint.” Like mine. Which Heloise was going to love.
“Oh, I have a really good hint all right,” she said. She took my pen and ripped a fresh page out of my notebook. When she sat down at the table, I stood behind her because I couldn’t help it—I wanted to know what her hint was.
Dear Heloise, she wrote. I have a really good hint for what to do with those old panty hose after they get runs in them.
“You can’t just copy mine,” I warned her.
“Don’t worry. This is definitely my own idea.” She gave me another big smile—this time so fake she might as well have been wearing wax teeth. I read what she wrote anyway: The best part of my hint is that it will work for onion bags, too: THROW THEM AWAY!!!
I tore up her letter and threw it at her, which just made her laugh.
CHAPTER 18
I went outside to put my letter in the mailbox, and then I walked around back and lay down on the picnic table. What made me maddest was that she was ridiculing Heloise—Heloise, who never did anything but good in the world, who made millions of people’s lives better. I went over some of my favorite tips I’d learned from her, and after a while, I calmed down.
There was no moon, but a couple of the cottages had yellow lights on in the bedrooms. Fireflies drifted up like embers from an imaginary campfire, and the air was soft and sweet with honeysuckle. It was a pretty night. The phrase reminded me of what George had said that first time we’d met him—that it was a pretty day. I wondered if he was on his boat now, with his crew. I wondered if he slept at sea sometimes, if his sleep “fingerprint” had to do with the waves.
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