Did he think she was an imbecile? Bad enough she had to accept charity, but she could hardly turn down his gift, not when she needed it so badly. “I can figure it out. Thanks. Now my mother and sister can nag at me when I’m not home.”
“And you can screen your calls when you are, in case you don’t want to talk to Humbert when he calls.”
“Howard is not going to call. He would have found out where I was by now. He knows my sister’s number.”
“He’s a fool.”
Louisa thought so too, but it was nice to have Dante Rivera agree with her. Louisa forgave him for thinking she couldn’t work an answering machine, and watched him go, with regret. Her roof still leaked. She did say she’d go to the beach cleanup, though, so maybe she’d ask him about it then.
She left Galahad out in the newly secured yard and went inside to plug in the answering machine, which she had absolutely no idea how to install or operate. Howard always did those things, damn his black heart. His boring black heart.
By pushing enough buttons, she got her dial tone back and could try to create a message. She pushed “incoming” and heard “You have no new messages.” So she pushed “outgoing.”
“Hello. This is Susan. Neither Dante nor I can come to the phone. Please leave a message after the beep.”
Louisa felt like a voyeur. Which did not stop her from pushing “outgoing” again. So that was Dante’s wife, who had left him for greener pastures, or smoother skin. Susan’s voice was soft, slow and sultry. If someone could be said to have bedroom eyes, she had a bedroom voice, without sounding like she was a dial-a-dirty-talk operator.
Louisa played it again, trying to picture the woman who had left Dante Rivera. She couldn’t.
She pushed the “record” button and left her own message. No, her speech was too prissy. She paused too long before starting her second try, recording seconds of breathing. Galahad barked to come in through her third attempt, and midway through the fourth Louisa decided she should not sound like a single woman living alone. She spoke louder the next time, trying to instill confidence in her voice. “Hello. This is Louisa. Neither Galahad nor I can come to the phone. Please leave a message after the beep.”
There. Another job well-done. Proud that she’d already had a successful day, and before lunch, she decided to walk the five blocks into town to the library. Mrs. Terwilliger had no news about the part-time tech job. “The library board hasn’t decided yet, dear. Mr. Halstrom’s daughter had a baby and Miss Milligan’s sister is visiting so they postponed the meeting. Oh, and it was nice of you to cheer for the Minell boy at the ball game.”
“Francine’s son Teddy? You heard about that?”
“Of course. My niece played canasta with Lawrence Banks’s mother last night. Theodore needs all the encouragement he can get, what with his mother working and that father not paying much attention.”
Louisa was surprised the librarian did not comment on her ride home with the handyman. Nothing seemed to get past anyone in Paumonok Harbor.
Meantime, her free Internet connection approval password had arrived from the county library system. Louisa had to sign all kinds of papers, that she understood her rights and responsibilities. She signed them without reading the small print, figuring the county could track her Web activities if they had nothing else to do, since she had no intentions of sending or receiving porn, spam, or chain letters. What she wanted was to connect to the outside world, and see what a nice set of pearls could bring on eBay.
“C’mon, Champ. Let’s go home and get wired.” When she got there, the light on her new answering machine was flashing. Her sister’s internist had just divorced his receptionist/wife. Was Louisa interested?
Not in the position nor the physician.
Her mother thought Louisa should start a new business: coaching people for job interviews. With her experience in hiring, and people desperate for work, Louisa would be a natural. And Bernie would lend her start-up money.
Exploit the unemployed? No, thanks.
Jeanette from the animal shelter had the best idea of the day. Now that she had such a well-trained dog, the message said, Louisa might be interested in the course for therapy dogs and volunteers being held in Riverhead. Once Louisa and Galahad had been certified, they could go into hospitals and nursing homes, or work with troubled kids. Now that sounded a lot better than hunting for a job or a husband. Gally would be a natural at it, too, since he was used to crowds and being handled. As long as there were no squirrels, he’d do fine, and Louisa thought she might too, helping people, if she could afford the course. She’d call tomorrow for more details. Today she was going to return to cyberspace.
The library system had assigned her a screen name. Louisa Waldon had translated by some arcane formula into lwaldo. As in where was Waldo? That was fitting, Louisa thought, for someone lost in the back of beyond. Nevertheless, lwaldo was online in minutes, and Louisa couldn’t help thinking that Mr. Plug It In Here couldn’t have managed the job so handily. She wondered if Dante Rivera were computer-literate at all, or stuck in the last century with his hammer and saw. No matter, she was connected.
She went through her computer’s files and sent everyone her new email address. Everyone except Howard, his family and friends, that is. She wrote to old college roommates and one high school pal, and the women she’d had lunch with at work, figuring she’d find out soon enough who were her real friends. If she decided to go back to the city, she would need the network. If she stayed out here, she would need the contact with intelligent life.
No one must be online right then, because she only got one reply, and that one was an undeliverable email notice. She checked out eBay, and quickly realized she had to know more about pearls before she could go any further. A quick search found about a million Internet sites and more information than she could possibly sift through. She could take the blasted pearls Howard had given her to a jeweler for an appraisal in half the time. She didn’t want the pearls, and didn’t want to wear clothes that required pearls.
Then she looked up therapy dogs. There were whole organizations for them, tests the dog and the handler had to pass, doctoral theses on the principles behind the method, and case studies that could warm a curmudgeon’s heart.
“We can do this,” Louisa told the dog at her feet, who drooled on her bare toes. “You’ll be great. You’ve already helped me a lot, haven’t you?”
Galahad thumped his tail and dropped a tennis ball in her lap. Now if he could only send an email, Louisa wouldn’t feel so abandoned.
Chapter Thirteen
After a late lunch, Louisa decided to transplant some of her marigold seedlings instead of tackling the storage shed and the old lawn mower again. According to the gardening books and the seed packet, the baby plants were ready for their permanent homes. Louisa was not ready for the lawn.
She was carefully separating the seedlings’ roots for the front yard when a car pulled up next door at the old Mahoney place. Paumonok Realty was written on the side of the BMW, and a woman in a short-skirted pink suit got out. She was in her well-preserved thirties, Louisa guessed, and worked hard on making sure she stayed that way forever. Jogging, dieting, facials, a little highlighting in her auburn hair, a bunch of makeup, and a lot of shopping, Louisa bet. She knew the type from Manhattan, but was surprised to see a day spa doll here. Not that any woman should let herself go, Louisa thought, thankful she’d remembered to put on the sunscreen this morning, but this real estate lady was wearing heels. Granted they made her long legs and rear end look more shapely, but they were as out of keeping with a morning in a little seaside village as an ocean liner would be, tied up at the sagging fishing dock.
The woman walked around the Mahoney place, carefully picking her way through the weeds. She ended up on Louisa’s side of the property, so Louisa stood and said, “Hi. Is the Mahoney place for sale, then? I heard they were ill, but hoped they’d come out for the summer.”
The woman feigned surpris
e that Louisa was there—she couldn’t have missed her in the front yard—and smiled. “I’m not sure, but I have a client who might be willing to make them an offer too good to refuse.”
It was that voice, the one from the answering machine. Slow, soft, sultry. “Mrs. Rivera?”
“Why, yes. How did you know?”
Louisa did not want to confess that she recognized the voice from listening to an old public message that seemed private for being stowed away for years. Talk about being out of the closet…
Dante’s ex-wife laughed before Louisa could speak. “Of course, from the sign on the car. Everyone knows everything about everyone in this town, don’t they?”
Louisa had no idea who ran the real estate office in town, but she had a good idea that Mrs. Rivera had come to Whaler’s Drive to find out about her. Louisa stood taller, although she’d be inches shorter than Susan, even without the other woman’s high heels, and she kept herself from fussing with her hair. Susan’s auburn curls—Louisa would give anything for curls—were swept up on top of her head and held with a turquoise barrette. Louisa’s straight, short hair was held off her face with a paper clip, which was all she’d found that morning in a hurry. Susan’s nails were so perfectly polished Louisa could not tell if they were real or not. Her own blistered hands and ragged nails were thankfully hidden in the garden gloves.
Louisa could not imagine this woman with the rough-edged Rivera. Oh, they’d make a handsome pair, if the handyman were cleaned up and dressed better, but they seemed to inhabit two different worlds. Day and night, chalk and cheese, badminton and bowling. Definitely an odd couple. Then again, Louisa could not imagine Susan Rivera flouting convention to live with another woman, or wanting to be a mother, for that matter. Perhaps her partner wanted to be the full-time, stay-at-home mom, so Susan got the nine-month job. Life was full of puzzles, and Louisa had learned in the personnel business not to judge applicants by appearances. The best-dressed could be dolts, and the slobs… Well, the slobs were usually unsuitable for work at the law firm, except in the mail room. She had also learned not to be fooled by insincere smiles. Susan Rivera was showing perfectly even, most likely bonded teeth, as many as a piranha.
“I am Louisa Waldon,” she said, politely if unnecessarily. “Recently taking up residence in my family’s summer home.”
“Of course you are.” Susan’s glance took in Louisa wearing more dirt than clothes, then the old house with its sagging roof, age-darkened shingles, and warped screen door. At least the windows and doors were freshly painted, and Louisa had found a wicker rocking chair for the porch at a yard sale. With a can of spray paint and some string where the caning was coming undone, it was almost as good as new. She hoped to find a table to match, and cushions, perhaps an old urn to hold the flowers she was counting on to bloom eventually.
Susan finished her survey without curling her lip, which would have made wrinkles. “You’ve done, ah, wonders with the old place. Are you considering putting it up for sale?” She started to reach into her jacket pocket for a business card.
“No. Actually, I am thinking of staying on here after the summer.” Actually, Louisa had been thinking how much she’d hate going back to Manhattan to look for a stressful, demanding job and an ugly, expensive apartment. She’d hate having them even worse, living in a shoe box, working in a crate, dealing with cardboard people. “I’m finding myself enjoying the peace and quiet, the simple pleasures like walking on the beach and planting flowers.” She held up her trowel, which should have meant “Good-bye, I’m busy” to anyone with the tact of a termite.
Susan laughed. “What, you’re thinking of staying year-round, when you haven’t even lived through a summer here? Wait until you see all the traffic, hear all the noise. Your pretty, private beach will be wall to wall with blankets and umbrellas, and you won’t be able to smell the sea for the suntan oil. You won’t hear it, either, not over the boom boxes. And that’s to say nothing of the winters. You’re from the city, right? You’ll hate it here. Autumn lasts a week, then everything turns gray. The weather turns cold and dreary, with wind that goes through every crack of an old house. Keeping an ancient place like this warm will cost a fortune.”
“It has a fireplace. I had the chimney cleaned.”
“Good, so you’ll add to the air pollution. All the heat escapes up a chimney, unless the fireplace is enclosed. Everyone knows that.”
Louisa hadn’t.
“But that’s just the weather,” Susan went on, proving she was not a member of the local Chamber of Commerce. “You’re used to New York City, you’ll be bored to tears here, with nothing to do. No museums or galleries, no shows or concerts. Half the shops and restaurants are boarded over. Even the local movie theater shuts down.”
Since Louisa hadn’t been out to dinner or to a movie in a month, she didn’t think she’d mind. Concerts in the city were too crowded and Broadway shows too touristy. The museums would still be in Manhattan for her to visit by train. “There’s always TV, and books. I understand the library has a lecture series.”
“The Fauna of Long Island. Pirates on Paumonok. Gravestone rubbings. Feh.”
“Feh” must be a Long Island Lady expletive. Louisa thought she’d have to try it the next time she was tempted to use the f-word. “There is a course in Riverhead on dog handling for—”
Susan did not let her finish. “And where will you get your hair done? Janie Vogel’s back parlor? Incidentally, I love your haircut. No one can get that dramatic flair but a true artiste. Let me tell you, no designer hairdresser would be caught dead in outer bumfuck.”
Shouldn’t that have been bumfeh? Louisa made note of Janie Vogel’s name, because the artiste in her needed someone to straighten out the back of her hair, where she had lopped off about ten inches of demanding, curl-defying locks. Which reminded her that she could sell her wave-setters, curling wands, and blow-dryers. Maybe she’d have a yard sale, if she found enough other stuff in the attic.
Susan tapped one pointed toe, as if she were impatient that Louisa was not already packing her bags. “What I am saying is that there is no social life for a person like you.”
Like her? What, was Louisa some new ethnic group, outcast religion, or social demographic? Were rejected brides in a class of their own? Hell, if Paumonok Harbor could accept a lesbian divorcee, they could handle another single woman. “I am not really worried about making friends. I met a few nice people already.”
Susan brushed that aside with one of her elegantly elongated nails. “I am not speaking of friends. I am speaking of men.”
Which was odd, unless Susan was trying to ascertain Louisa’s own sexual orientation. Did she think one broken engagement would turn Louisa against the entire male population? Well, it might have, but that did not mean Louisa was open to other suggestions. “I am not really interested right now.”
“In anything,” was left unspoken.
“But you will be and there are no decent men around here, men of your, ah, caliber, shall we say.”
We shouldn’t be saying anything.
Susan didn’t wait for Louisa’s reply, though. “Half of the locals didn’t finish high school, much less college. The jerks have no ambition or they would have left here. They drink too much and smoke too many controlled substances.”
Was that why she left Dante? Louisa wondered. Was the other woman just an excuse to get away from a bad, dead-end marriage? But then why would Susan want to have Dante’s child? It made no sense, nor did this conversation. “I’m not sure why you are telling me this. I can’t sell the house, even if you convince me to leave, you know. It actually belongs to my mother.”
“Oh, I know that. It’s a matter of record. I am just thinking about you. It’s the small town in me, I suppose, minding everyone else’s business. You’ve already had a rough deal, and Dante took you home from the ball game.”
Ah, here was the answer, Louisa thought, to the question that had been gnawing at her: Why the feh was Mrs. Riv
era here? Susan might not want her husband, it seemed, but she did not want anyone else to have him either. Louisa wasn’t being warned away from Paumonok Harbor. She was being discouraged from Dante. “He has been very helpful.”
“Of course he has. That’s what he does, who he is, but it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want you to be hurt. I’ve tried to interest him in every female I can find, and he is always nice, but that’s all.”
Could Louisa be that wrong? “Excuse me, but you want him to find a new girlfriend?”
“I gave up, but do you think I want to feel guilty for the rest of my life? I know it’s my fault, but he swears he’ll never marry again. He’d have been snared by some gold digger years ago, otherwise.”
Gold digger? For the post-hole digger? “He has money?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that, not in this town.”
“I try not to listen to gossip,” Louisa said automatically, running on autopilot as her brain was in shock.
“They don’t have anything else to talk about, in this town.”
“He has money?”
“Other than some of the summer people, he’s the richest man in town.”
His truck, his clothes, his work… “I thought you got the real estate business in the divorce?”
“But you don’t listen to gossip? You should have paid more attention. He let me have the realty company, but he kept the houses, except for the one I live in, of course.”
Houses? “He owns the one next door?”
“And a bunch more. My agent’s share of the rental fees alone makes me more than comfortable. When he fixes one up to sell, I get a lovely commission.”
“You mean that’s what he does, buys old houses and renovates them for profit?”
“Well, it’s more like a hobby to do some of the work himself. He made his money by inventing some kind of computer code or something I never understood, right out of Princeton. Instead of taking his money all in stock in the new business, he took cash. Thank goodness, for he might have lost it all, like so many others. He said he did not like California or the technical work, so came home when his parents were ailing. He invested his money here in land and houses. He hasn’t left since, the clod. I wanted to move closer to Manhattan, or have a pied-a-terre at least, but he wanted to be close to his family.”
Love, Louisa Page 10