by Celia Jerome
According to a blond young man with a ponytail, who heard from the girl he was going to visit in Montauk, the belligerent dolphins had turned the corner around the lighthouse. Last seen, they’d hassled a handful of paddle-boarders readying for a race to Block Island. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could stand up on a surfboard, much less paddle it all the miles across open waters. Or why they’d want to. Block Island was in a whole nother state.
Now they couldn’t hold the race, due to the dolphins who stole the paddles and pushed the boards back to Gin Beach, the paddlers on top, willing or not. No one got hurt, but, boy, did the race organizers get pissed when they had to return the entry fees. Half the paddlers got mad, too, but the rest of them were thrilled with the chance to meet another sentient species face-to-face. If not for the Coast Guard and marine mammal stranding officials keeping boats away from the pod, and the beach patrol keeping more boardsmen out of the water, every dude with a board and a paddle might have jumped in to play.
The ponytailed guy said he didn’t bother bringing his wet suit with him. The beaches were closed along the whole coast.
He shrugged. “Guess I’ll have to spend more time with my girl.”
Experts thought the pod intended to head around Plum Gut and down to Long Island Sound along the North Fork. They frequently chased schools of baitfish there, occasionally getting trapped in tiny harbors when the tide went out. Worse, dolphins sometimes tried to navigate the clogged East River past Manhattan. The Coast Guard stood by, ready to try herding them to safety.
Other experts believed the dolphins might turn back toward Montauk and head for the open ocean. No one knew their goals, or the reason for their sudden antipathy to anyone in the water.
Another conspiracy theory claimed they’d secretly been trained and sent by the Jersey shore, the major competitor for big surfing events in the east. A lady in a lavender jogging suit suggested the dolphins were getting even with us for polluting the ocean.
The marine science people had plans to dart one of the animals with a tracking device. Another boatload of specialists were on their way with underwater sound equipment. They hoped to record the dolphins’ vocalizations for comparisons and interpretations. Meanwhile, swimming, surfing, and kayaking were prohibited in the area. Which, I was sure, did not stop kids from sneaking out to get a look and maybe a ride back to the beach.
On another front, a worried-looking man in a rumpled suit told us that the personal data of every employee of the town of East Hampton—as opposed to East Hampton village—had been hacked. Someone posted social security numbers, salaries, and home addresses on line for every cop, clerk, and town board member. Judges, secretaries, department heads, all had their bank accounts locked down to prevent cyber-piracy. Now over three hundred people couldn’t pay their bills or buy groceries. The man was bringing a new ATM card for his wife. And cash, I guessed, from the way he kept checking his wallet and his inside jacket pocket. The town budget director feared the tax rolls were next.
I feared a lot of things. Okay, I was a complete chicken-shit coward, and not just about the usual culprits. Thunder and heights and tunnels and bridges and guns and little boats and big boats and snakes and spiders—I shook at them all. Add in taxi drivers with eye patches, choking on chicken bones, going crazy or getting Alzheimer’s, dying alone and unloved, and I was a basket case. The last shrink I’d been to, years ago, blamed my anxieties on my parents’ divorce, like Little Red’s foibles. He said it didn’t matter, though, because I didn’t let my fears rule my life. I coped.
If I’d ever told him that my father made doom-filled prophecies, my uncle recognized if someone told a lie, and my grandmother was a witch, to say nothing of the family friend who controlled the weather or the librarian who always knew what book I wanted to read, the shrink would have me locked up in a second. Instead, he wanted to prescribe drugs, which made me worry I’d lose my creative instincts. I stopped going.
But right now I didn’t have a single qualm about anything except Little Red and Matt. And the chiggers, of course. I tried not to scratch where anyone could see.
Maybe I had to close my eyes when the bus went through the seemingly endless Midtown Tunnel, which was far underground, with dark, cold water on every side. But the goings-on in the Hamptons didn’t faze me a bit. After what I’d seen and been through recently, simple robberies were child’s play. I didn’t have enough cash to worry about, or an account in Paumanok Harbor in case the bank there got hit. My name wasn’t entered in any database with the local government. Identity theft? That could happen any time. I took as many precautions as I could and left the rest to fate. Pushy dolphins? They should meet my mother. Like everyone else, I wondered about their odd behavior, and I suppose I’d like to touch a dolphin once—maybe at Sea World in Florida—but I never, ever swam in the ocean’s strong currents. Besides, it was September. I’d put my bathing suits away with my white capris. I was safe.
I did have one piece of treasured jewelry, though, that I never took off. My mother gave me the pendant she’d had made from her wedding band, with the diamond from her engagement ring set into the gold strip. According to people who should know, the inscription on the back is in an ancient language from an ancient world, when true love lasted forever. It gave me hope. It gave me courage. I tucked it under my shirt.
The trip went quickly, with no long traffic snarls. The hostess passed out juice boxes or water bottles and the New York Times. I did the puzzle, in ink. Little Red got tired of standing up on his one rear leg to look out the window, so he curled in my lap like a little fox, his plumy tail tucked around him. I forgave him for peeing on my shoe after I bandaged his feet.
When people got off at the various stops, the driver called, “Good luck, stay safe,” instead of the usual “Have a nice trip,” or “Thank you for coming.” By the time we got to Amagansett, the last stop before Montauk, only a handful of passengers were left.
The bus didn’t run to Paumanok Harbor, so I got off in Amagansett, across from the railroad station. The birdwatchers got off after me, then a dark-haired man who’d been sitting toward the rear of the bus. We all had to wait for the driver to come around to open the cargo bay beneath the bus, for the rest of our luggage.
“Are you nervous about the robberies?” I asked, just to make conversation.
The birdwatchers clutched their telescopes closer, but the other man patted his pocket. “Bring them on,” he said. “I’ll take care of the hoodlums.”
So now the populace went around with concealed weapons. I wondered if they’d be shooting the dolphins next, or if I should warn Grandma Eve.
He got in a car and headed west, thank goodness, not toward Paumanok Harbor. The birdwatchers left in a taxi. Little Red and I waited for Susan on a nearby wooden bench. She showed up almost on time, before Red pulled the tape and gauze away from his feet.
I hadn’t seen my cousin in a week, and I swear she had another hoop in her eyebrow and new magenta streaks in her sandy blonde hair. Her nipples showed through the skimpy T-shirt; her stomach showed above her jeans. She cooed over Little Red, though, so I guess it didn’t matter that she looked like a hooker. I didn’t comment on her looks and she, for once, didn’t give me the what-have-you-done-now stink eye. My twenty-six-year-old baby cousin always knew when I was in trouble. She used to squeal to our parents, too.
“Poor puppy, stuck in the big city with no one but a bookworm. What, did she forget your flea and tick drops?”
“No, I did not. I think he got chiggers, too. That’s why I came back.”
She smiled when she carried the Pomeranian back to her car—my mother’s old Outback—across the street. “I thought you came home to see Matt.”
“I did. Red needs a vet.”
Her smile turned into a grin. “Uh-huh. And they don’t have any vets in the big, bad city.”
“So how’s the restaurant doing?” I asked, changing the subject to her favorite topic, after men. “Are people still ea
ting out with all the robberies around?”
“We’d be in deep shit except for the naturalists. Sitting on your ass behind a shrub all day works up an appetite, I guess. Would you believe they order the chicken and the game hen instead of going vegetarian? Go figure.”
Susan made a U-turn right across Amagansett’s main street and barreled east to pick up Cranberry Hole Road and the Paumanok Harbor turnoff from Montauk Highway. I hung on to Little Red so he didn’t go flying at the corners.
“You think you could go a little slower? I thought you didn’t have to be at work until late today.”
“Yeah, but Grandma needs me at the farm until the high school kids get home to direct traffic.”
“There are that many people here to see a bird?”
“They say it’s a life bird. A once in a lifetime chance to put it on your list. Some of these people travel the world to spot a rare bird.”
“Do they actually get to see it?”
“A few of them might. But they can hear it sometimes, and they say that counts.”
“Have you seen it?”
“No, but the damn thing tweets all night near your house.” Where she was staying, to take care of the two old dogs my mother adopted, and to be away from her mother’s disapproval. “And no, it doesn’t use a Blackberry to tweet. The oiaca chirps, ‘Twee, twee.’ No one answers, of course, so it’s kind of sad. And annoying. It’s got a really loud, scratchy call. Distinctive, though, they say.”
“It’s near my house now?”
“Sometimes, but the naturalists don’t know that. Grandma makes the bird peepers leave at night.”
Now I felt sorry for the poor pink-toed castaway. “Maybe it’ll leave soon when no mate answers its call.”
“That’s what Grandma’s hoping. She’s really upset. For the bird and for the farm.”
Eve Garland got scarier when she got upset. Maybe the oiaca heard about her, and that’s why it hung out at my house, rather than get changed into a toad.
I could see what had my grandmother so aggravated. Cars littered the dirt road and all the way to the farm, parked in front of my house and on Susan’s mother’s lawn, blocking the farm stand. Who knew where the occupants were.
“Can’t the police help?”
“It’s a private road. If Grandma closes it to all traffic, there’s no business for the farm stand, only rotten vegetables, wasted food, and out-of-work pickers and cashiers. Mrs. Donohue won’t get her egg money, and the Berkmans can’t sell their breads. No one wants that.”
“I thought she hired more help.”
“Kids, mostly, and posthole diggers for more fences. She’s afraid to string electric wires because of all the children who come to pick pumpkins. And the bird. My father’s tearing his hair out trying to figure out a solution that keeps everyone happy.”
“I’ll think about it. After I get Little Red fixed up.”
“You still think he got chiggers from you?”
I pulled up my pants leg to show her the red spots. Some were new bites, some nail polish. “Nothing’s working. Now Red’s itching himself hairless.”
“Talk to Grandma.”
I’d talk to Matt first.
CHAPTER 4
“PAUMANOK HARBOR ANIMAL HOSPITAL.”
“Hello. This is—”
“Please hold.”
“Okay.”
Click.
“Okay.” So I listened to the veterinarian’s office hours and the phone number for the emergency clinic in Riverhead that was open twenty-four hours a day. Fine, except in a life-or-death emergency. Riverhead was almost an hour away. Then again, if you had a heart attack in Paumanok Harbor, the ambulance ride to the nearest hospital could be that long or longer, depending on the season. This wasn’t a great place to be sick.
I wrote down the number for the emergency clinic while I waited, and checked to see it was in my mother’s address book. It was, with directions to find the place. I felt like I could be halfway there by the time the receptionist came back on the line.
“Paumanok Harbor Animal Hospital. How may I help you?”
Eck. The voice belonged to Matt’s snooty young niece. She hated me.
“This is Willow Tate and I need to make an appointment.” I once came to the vet’s without an appointment and the girl—I don’t remember her name—acted like I was Michael Vick.
“Dr. Spenser is all booked for today and tomorrow. He can see you on Friday. What is the dog’s name?”
“It’s Little Red, but I cannot wait for two days. He’s licking his fur and biting his skin away in a frenzy.”
“I can give you the number for the emergency veterinary clinic in—”
“I already have it. Are you sure I cannot come in today?”
“We can fit you in as an emergency, for a hundred dollar fee.”
“What? That’s ridiculous.”
“Not when the staff might have to stay later, at overtime rates, and the doctor has to cancel his own plans. The policy is to discourage frivolous calls that destroy the office schedule and cause great inconvenience for the employees and for those patients with legitimate appointments.”
“Having your dog hit by a car is pretty inconvenient, too.”
“Was your dog run over?”
“No, I think he has chiggers.”
“And how long has he had them?”
“A few days, I think.”
“And you waited for now to call? It couldn’t have been much of an emergency, could it?”
If I trusted Little Red to any other vet I’d hang up now. I didn’t. “Damn it, I’ll pay the hundred dollars, just tell me when I can come.”
“That’s a hundred dollars plus the regular fee, of course.”
“I understand already. When?”
“Oh, we put emergencies in as soon as they get here. But the hospital closes at six.”
“Yeah, I heard that five times. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
I made it in ten. The waiting room was empty. The bitch pretended she didn’t know me.
“Yes, can I help you?”
Little Red was shaking so hard in fear I had him wrapped in a towel. That was more to protect my fingers than to keep him warm. He tended to turn his terror into aggression. I felt like snapping at someone, too: Melissa Kovick, according to the small sign on the front desk. I knew she’d graduated from junior college last May with a diploma in computer science. I guess they don’t teach people skills to technology students. Just read any online manual.
Melissa had straight, swishable, satiny black hair, unlike my short, streaky curls that already frizzed from the ever-present damp sea humidity. Janie at the beauty salon thought I needed the yellow streaks to make me look young and hip. Melissa’s raised lip said I’d need botox and a boob job. At least I didn’t look like an anorexic Afghan hound that hated the smell of its own shit.
“I called about my dog’s sores.”
“Right, the emergency.”
Someone should tell her that her lip might stay curled if she kept sneering. Someone should tell her to go back to school so she had more right to be so arrogant. Or maybe someone should just tell her to go to hell.
I almost drew blood biting my tongue. The little snit was Matt’s niece, after all. “That’s us, the emergency. Red’s records should be here.”
She tapped a folder, to prove her efficiency. And that she did know who I was. “Take a seat. The doctor will see you soon.”
Only if she told him we were here, it seemed. After ten minutes of me trying to convince Little Red he wasn’t going to lose another body part, like he had lost his bad leg and his balls, Matt came into the waiting room. His light brown hair needed a trim, but he looked good in khakis and a navy polo shirt with PHVH embroidered on the chest. The broad, well-muscled chest.
He started to say, “We’re all done, Sissy. You might as well go—” Then he saw me. “Oh.”
First he smiled. A really nice smile, as if he was glad
to see me. Lots of even white teeth and crinkly lines around warm brown eyes. Then he remembered me, the weirdo who ruined his life, and the smile slipped away.
“I, um, that is, Little Red has chiggers, I think. And sores from licking at the bites.”
He led me back to an examining room. I unwrapped Red and set him on the high metal table, keeping hold of his harness to stop him from leaping down. “You might want to muzzle him.”
Matt already had a length of black tubing with a noose clip in his hand. “I remember.”
I petted Little Red so I didn’t have to look at Matt to see what else he remembered. Or what he’d been forced to forget.
“So what makes you think he has chiggers?” Matt asked while he carefully unwrapped the gauze I’d put on Red’s front legs.
“Because I have them and he was with me out in the salt marsh a couple of times. And he’s itching frantically, the same way I do, when I can.”
Matt started to put his hand on Red to keep him where he was, but our hands met and he jerked his back. He hated me.
Still, he stepped around the table so I could see his leg when he raised his pants hem. “You mean like these?”
He had the same small red welts I did, only his didn’t look as angry.
Crap, I’d given him parasites, too. At least mine were worse. I pulled my jeans up and my sock down.
“Jeez, that’s horrible!” He cringed and went back to his side of the exam table and stroked Little Red.
“No, some of it’s red nail polish. I forgot to buy clear. It doesn’t work anyway. But yours look almost healed. Did you use the dog flea and tick killer?”
“No, I bought kids’ lice shampoo, like Walter at the pharmacy recommended. Put some on a cloth, wiped my legs, waited ten minutes and showered it all off. Changed the sheets, washed the towels, and done. No more itching.”
“Damn, I wish someone had told me. I’ve got bites up and down my body.”
Matt started wiping Red’s feet with a damp cloth to get rid of the cream I’d put on them. Without looking at me, he said, “I guess that means I should forget about getting in your pants for a couple of days.”