Life Guards in the Hamptons

by Celia Jerome

  Gina banged her fork on the table. “Those fools will never get it right. The ship will sink, creating a worse disaster for sea life.”

  What choice did the Coast Guard or the Army Corps of Engineers or whoever made the decisions have? If they didn’t try, the storm was sure to dislodge the Nova Pride, sinking it or sending it crashing into shore, perhaps doing immense damage there, too. If it floated at all, the ship could end up a hazard in the shipping lanes.

  Vicki told us about what happened a few years ago when an enormous dead right whale came ashore in California. It stank. It attracted vultures and rats and stupid tourists who wanted to climb on top of the rotting carcass for photographs. They couldn’t tow it out to sea and they couldn’t bury it. So they decided to blow it up into small pieces that could be bulldozed away.

  People came from all over the state, filling the parking lots and the adjoining roadways and beaches. And what did those morons do?

  They miscalculated, that’s what. So tiny bits of decomposing flesh rained down on the people, the cars, the beaches.

  Matt and I and Dr. Harmon were laughing so loud that Susan’s uncle Bernie, owner of the Breakaway, came to see if we were all right. So we told him, and he clapped his hands and brought us another bottle of wine before rushing off to retell the story.

  “It’s not funny!” Vicki insisted, showing she had great taste in shoes, but no sense of humor.

  I got the feeling she and Gina were like my mother, so driven by their beliefs, their causes, their righteous indignation on behalf of helpless creatures that they’d developed tunnel vision. Her dogs were all that mattered to Mom. The dolphins, and each other, filled Vicki and Gina’s world. At least they shared their dedication.

  The new bottle of wine didn’t placate them either. They guzzled it down like lemonade.

  The professor sipped, but matched them glass for glass, not that I was counting how many he’d had. He’d lived this long without destroying his liver, so tippling tonight made no difference. And I was driving anyway. Soon, I hoped. I wanted to spend time with Matt, who did not drink either. We had to make plans. For the storm, naturally. I still had to decide on the black or the red negligee. Not for the storm.

  The women weren’t finished with their rants. They cleaned their plates without once complimenting the food and kept bitching about the imbeciles in command and the hurricane keeping them from locating the missing dolphins.

  “You must have seen our subjects,” Gina demanded in strident tones of the professor. “What were they like?”

  “He was underwater at the time,” I snapped. “Without his glasses. Half dead.” And he was an esteemed scholar, not a suspect undergoing the third degree.

  The wine kept Dr. Harmon his usual pleasant self, so he answered politely. “You cannot trust anything I might recall from that night. I believe I saw my first sweetheart in the waves. She married my cousin and moved to Scotland. She died almost twenty years ago.”

  They weren’t interested. I, of course, wanted to know what she died of, if he ever spoke to his cousin, and if he still missed her.

  Gina interrupted my questions. “And you, Willow. Did you see anything odd?”

  “Me? I was onshore with Matt, waiting for a call about the dogs, long after most of the survivors had been brought in.”

  “Crap, you’re as useless as everyone else we spoke to. All we get is rumors and hearsay, or eyewitness accounts from people suffering hypothermia or the rapture of the deep. No damned evidence.”

  Vicki patted Gina’s hand. “There will be other new species for you to name. I’m certain of it.”

  They drank to that, and drank to Matt, who was paying for the outrageous bar tab, too. Then they kept drinking to nothing at all.

  I suggested we leave while they could still stand, inviting everyone back to my house for dessert and coffee. Good thing I hadn’t eaten all the ice cream.

  The marine biologists didn’t accept my invitation. They claimed phone calls to make, protests to lodge, guidelines to give to the ship captains and the underwater demolitions crews. In their condition? I didn’t care if they called the President.

  I wanted to get Matt alone. Too bad I’d promised the professor a chance to meet Oey. And the wine hadn’t made him the least bit sleepy, damn it.

  Matt yawned, though. Maybe another all-nighter wasn’t such a good idea, but with the storm coming, the water worm coming, who know when we’d be … together again.

  The dinner bill was high enough to buy a flat screen TV to watch the weather maps get bigger and scarier. Uncle Bernie ripped it up. “You look after my girls. That’s enough.”

  I didn’t know if Uncle Bernie meant his two Jack Russells or me and Susan. She was his real niece, on her father’s side, and no relation to me at all. I smiled anyway.

  “And thanks for the great story. They’re taking bets on which way the Nova Pride will go, straight down or up in pieces. Oh, and Susan packed up some cream puffs for you to take home, speedy.”

  I tried to laugh. “We’ve taken to jogging on the beach. Last one home has to buy dessert.”

  Uncle Bernie’s right falsehood-detecting leg started twitching and tapping against the wooden floor. He hurried back to the kitchens.

  “An old war wound,” I told the curious diners at the next table. Since I was on a roll, I told Vicki and Gina what a pleasure it was to meet them, and I’d be sure to let them know if I spotted any peculiar creatures.

  We could hear Uncle Bernie’s foot tapping from all the way across the restaurant.

  CHAPTER 31

  BEFORE WE LEFT THE RESTAURANT, I remembered to ask Susan if Axel Vanderman had been back. I stepped into the kitchen and tapped her on the shoulder.

  “No, thank heaven. After what you said, he felt really skeevy to me. I told the other girls around town. Fran dated him once, but she couldn’t remember why they didn’t hit it off.”

  “Weird. The chief is looking into it.” And then I did an evil thing that felt really, really good. I picked up a cream puff from the dessert tray and crammed it into Susan’s mouth. “Now maybe you’ll learn to keep your lips closed, puddles.”

  Matt waited in the parking lot after helping Dr. Harmon to my car and his two guests to his. None of them were steady on their legs. We ducked behind a parked van for a quick kiss. Mine tasted of whipped cream, from licking my fingers. He groaned.

  “I’ll be over at your house as soon as I get them settled. Is it okay if I bring Moses, though? Vicki isn’t crazy about dogs, and he’ll be lonely without his sisters.”

  “Sure. We have to introduce the dogs sooner or later.” Then we’d both know the relationship couldn’t last. Like if you hated your boyfriend’s mother, or his kids from a first marriage. “We can let Moses play in the dog run if it looks like Little Red is in danger.”

  “Hell, I’m worried more about Moses. I’ve seen the Red Baron in action, remember?”

  He could make jokes, but the six-pound Pomeranian didn’t have a chance in any confrontation, especially if he started it.

  I promised to save Matt a cream puff … if he wasn’t too long. Not that I truly thought he’d get up a threesome with Vicki and Gina, but I was my mother’s distrustful daughter, my father’s constant worrier.

  The professor liked my house. “This is more what I had pictured for my retirement, old dogs and comfortable, old furniture, not the elegance of Rosehill. I do not see how I can be at ease in such opulence.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” I said while I set out paper plates for the cream puffs. Everything else was in the dishwasher or the sink. “Imagine dining on delicious food off fine china, with someone to clean up after you.” My idea of heaven.

  “Ah, but with no one with whom to share a cup of tea, no matter how lovely the table setting. Perhaps I should return to my roots after all. When we are done here, of course.”

  “Give it a chance before making up your mind.”

  “Is that what you are doing with Matt
hew?”

  “Oh, listen, I think I heard a twee off in the distance.”

  I made him comfortable on the porch with a snifter of cognac from Mom’s liquor cabinet and a blanket. The September nights got chilly, especially if a wind picked up.

  We sat listening for a few moments without hearing the distinctive bird call, or Matt’s SUV.

  I started to fret, but the professor seemed to be enjoying the quiet interlude. “This is lovely,” he said. “It has not rained in three whole days, quite different from London’s environs. And I can hear the insects, instead of noisy university students and nattering instructors.”

  “Do you miss your friends, is that why you are thinking of returning?”

  He sighed. “I have outlived most. Others of my contemporaries left to live with sons and daughters, which they swore never to do. I expect the children did not want them, either.”

  “Then why … ?”

  “I told you, I am not particularly brave. The unfamiliar appears daunting at times.”

  I understood that very well. “Yet you took a cruise to Nova Scotia on your own.”

  “And see what happened.” He sighed again. “I suppose Rosehill will suit me well enough, in time. As long as you and your grandmother and Matthew keep your promises to visit.”

  “We will, I swear.”

  “And I’ll still be useful, talking to new talents, helping to assess strengths and weaknesses.”

  “You’ll be wonderful. I wish I’d had someone like you to guide me. But we had no one like you here in the Harbor and I refused to go to London. I think I was like you are now, leery of the unknown.” Maybe things would have been different if I’d known Dr. Harmon a decade ago. Or not.

  My cell phone rang. I supposed it was Matt, calling to give some lame excuse why he couldn’t come after all. I’d pretend, but I wouldn’t believe him. I could feel my insides already curling up like a withered leaf. I tried to cheer myself: one more cream puff for me.

  I didn’t believe that would help either.

  The caller ID didn’t work again. “Hello.”

  This time it was “Lying Eyes.”

  “Hey, have you been speaking to my father?”

  I heard a chuckle before the music went on, or maybe that sound came from creaking boards.

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured, too. The police are checking.”

  And I’d ask Russ if it was possible for the phone to ring without the caller’s number showing on past incomings.

  I filled the pool with fresh water and called “twee” while I mentally pictured the parrotfish, a willow tree, welcome, friend, talk, beautiful bird, shining fish.

  I think it was the beautiful part that drew the vain creature, or maybe she was lonely. “Oey, there you are! And looking very handsome.”

  She preened, fluffed out her feathers, and rubbed her head on my shoulder. I tried to avoid letting the fish tail touch my arm. Then I pointed out the professor on the porch. “You helped save Dr. Harmon. Thank you, noble friend. Will you talk to him?”

  She cocked her head. “Thaved?”

  “Twice, I believe.” The professor had come down from the porch and now stood near me, but not too close. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, the familiar sense of Oey-awe written on his face. “I believe I saw it over seventy years ago. I was a sickly child, always ill with fevers and such. One time they thought I’d die, I drifted into a coma for so long. But a parrot came to visit me, a beautiful talking bird who made me laugh. I thought my parents had bought it to try to keep me from fading away. It worked. The parrot gave me great hope and incentive to fight the disease. When I returned to consciousness, the bird was gone. I remember crying, but no one knew anything about any parrot.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It had pink feet and a lisp.”

  “What about its tail?”

  “Long and beautiful, with all the colors of the sea and sky, like this chap’s.”

  “She’s a girl, mostly. And I think you need to take a better look at the tail, now that you are not an ailing child.”

  Oey had flown to a hydrangea bush nearby, her head cocked in that curious way she had. “Immie?”

  “That’s right, Jimmie. And you are Oliver, are you not? That is what I called you, at any rate.”

  “Oey.”

  The professor laughed. “That’s right. You could not say Ollie. Ah, what a good friend you have been.”

  “Thaved.”

  “Indeed. I am grateful that you did, and delighted to see you again.”

  Oey bobbed her head, then flew to the side of the pool.

  Jimmie—I could see him as a frail child—still hadn’t noticed the fish tail. He was busy inviting Oey to visit him at Rosehill, where the bird could have a whole suite to perch in, no matter what Miss Lily had to say, and a balcony porch for coming and going, whenever his dear friend got tired of being out in the wild, or got cold or hungry. Or lonely.

  Then Oey dove into the pool.

  “Um. Ah. Oh.” The professor took his glasses off and wiped them. He put them back on. “Quite. Which explains a great deal, does it not? Well, there is a hot tub outdoors and a huge bathing tub inside.”

  Oey splashed and gurgled.

  “And I would enjoy the company. Miss Tate has a life of her own, although I intend to tempt her to visit as often as she might.”

  Oey leaped out of the pool, shook himself, and then perched on Dr. Harmon’s shoulder. “Immie,” she cooed. “Petth.”

  So he petted her feathered head. I didn’t think that’s what she meant, but I changed the subject. “Oey, do you know anything about Desi?”

  “Dethwy.”

  “No, Desi, the hurricane.”

  “Dethwy.”

  Jimmie thought she wanted to tell us the storm was deathly. Which every newscaster had already told us.

  “Can we stop it?”

  “Thtop the wind? The wain?” The whole parrot body swayed side to side, no.

  “What about N’fwend? Can we stop him?”

  She looked at the professor with those rainbow eyes. “Thaved.”

  “Yes, you did,” I agreed. “So that he can help? He’s the one who can stop N’fwend?”

  Oey didn’t get to answer because Matt drove up then, with Moses. Little Red, who I’d barricaded behind a baby gate on the porch, set up a frantic burglar alarm. Oey squawked and disappeared. I wished I could, too.

  Moses came galumphing up the path like a hungry baby elephant, while my tiny handicapped mouse kept throwing himself against the gate, ready to do battle for his territory. Mom might know how to do this. I sure didn’t.

  Matt suggested we put Moses in the big dog run, and let them sniff each other through the wire fence. Moses pranced and play-bowed and wagged his whole rear end. Red tried to bite him through the mesh, when he wasn’t barking himself hoarse.

  The professor laughed, but then he coughed. Matt’s cell rang. He stepped away to answer it, while I scooped up Little Red before he had a heart attack, and found Dr. Harmon’s brandy for him.

  When Matt came back, he looked grim.

  “An emergency?”

  “Yeah, the geniuses at my house flushed something down the toilet—” obviously an item of feminine hygiene from his self-conscious omission, “—and now the whole system is backing up. I didn’t realize I had to put up a sign, or explain we have cesspools instead of sewers. I have to go. I’ll drop Dr. Harmon off at the farmhouse first. Can I leave Moses here in the pen so he doesn’t drool all over the professor?”

  “Think nothing of that, my boy. Your lad is a wonderful, happy dog. I’d be pleased to sit with him. And have you both visit me at Rosehill next week when my rooms should be ready. I’m hoping to have a pet of my own, but Moses is welcome when you need a babysitter.”

  We both appreciated the offer, me thinking of Matt coming to visit me in Manhattan, sans black behemoth. But Matt wanted to leave him here for now, so he’d get used to Little Red.


  As if Little Red would ever get used to Moses. But I agreed, since it meant Matt had to come back.

  Moses whimpered some when the men left, until I brought the big dogs out. They didn’t look so big anymore, next to him, but he went submissive and licked them and followed them around without once trying to jump on them or wrestle with them. He really was a nice dog. Little Red wasn’t. He vibrated in my arms he was so angry.

  Then I had an idea. I whistled for Oey and sent out an illustrated mental plea for help: dogs, willow tree between them, being battered from both sides, fear, desperation, wanting peace. “Oey, I need you. The petth need you.”

  “Immie?”

  “Immie is not your pet! Sure you look out for him and worry about him and want him to be happy. Um, maybe he is your pet. But that’s what friends do, too. Right now I have a problem with these pets, Matt’s and mine. Moses is one of the dogs you saved, remember?”

  “Matt petth?”

  “No, Matt is a friend. A good friend. Moses is his pet. I want Little Red and Moses to be friends. Can you help?”

  She swiveled her head. “Twain?”

  “Train? I don’t care about sit—” Moses sat. Oh, boy. “But I don’t want him to think Little Red is a toy.”

  “Teath.”

  “No teeth. No biting!”

  Oey clacked her beak. Yeah, I was frustrated, too. My whole relationship with Matt, if there was to be one, depended on harmony between the dogs. “Oh, you can teach them to get along?”

  “Thaved. Thpoke.”

  Of course, Oey’d brought the Newfie pups to safety. “So can you talk to them, tell them to get along?”

  Those shiny eyes focused on Moses, then Little Red, who was yipping, growling, straining to get out of my arms to do battle.

  Oey swiveled her head back to me. “All ballth, no brainth.”

  A lot of males were like that. “He’s fixed.”

  “Din’t wouk.”

  Neutering was not a concept to explain now, or how Red’s personality resulted from grievous suffering. “He can be charming. I love him, despite his bad temper. What about Moses?”