“Flies?” Dallas frowned as she helped herself to coffee from the old-fashioned silver service that Berry kept on the counter.
“Oh, you remember the flies, dear. Those horrible greenhead flies, and those nasty stable flies that eat us alive in July and August.” Berry turned her back to flip a pancake on the griddle, and Cody turned to his mother with a questioning eye. Dallas nodded—Yes, Berry was telling the truth, the flies could be vicious—and took a seat at the table across from her son.
“Depending, of course, whether the breeze is blowing from the Bay, or from land.” Berry glanced over her shoulder. “You want the breeze from the Bay, Cody, like this morning. Otherwise, during fly season, you could be snatched up and simply carried away by a swarm.”
Cody shot a glance at his mother, who shook her head—No, that couldn’t really happen.
“We all have scars here and there from those beastly greenhead buggers who bite and positively rip the skin to get at your blood.” Berry finished with a flourish.
Dallas nodded again. “Sad but true.”
“How big are these flies?” Cody frowned.
“Oh, they can grow as big as half an inch,” Berry assured him.
“How big is that?” he wondered.
“Over in the cabinet there by the door, second drawer from the top on the left side”—Berry pointed—“you’ll find a small tape measure. Bring it over to your momma and she’ll show you what half an inch looks like.”
Cody did as he was told, and Dallas pointed out the half-inch mark.
“That doesn’t look so big,” he said.
“Darlin’, in the world of flies, that is one big sucker. And don’t let’s even talk about the mosquitoes we’ve had this year. You go outside, you put on some of that spray I have. Won’t help against the flies, but it will keep the mosquitoes away.” Berry placed a full plate of pancakes on the table and removed the empty one. “Dallas, I’m so happy to see you eating. You’re way too thin.”
“I’m happy to see me eating your pancakes, Berry.”
“Well, there’s bacon there, too, so you help yourself,” Berry said as she reached for the ringing phone on the kitchen wall.
“Wow. Dinner last night and breakfast this morning,” Dallas observed. “When did you become such a cook?”
“Since I got hooked on the Food Channel,” Berry noted, and answered the phone.
“Why doesn’t Aunt Berry’s spray help against the flies?” Cody asked his mother.
“Because nothing much does,” she replied. “These are some tough, wily flies.”
“Did you ever get bit?”
“Many times. Berry isn’t exaggerating. Those flies are downright mean. Fortunately, here where we are on the point, we get many more days when the breeze from the Bay blows the flies inland.” Dallas pointed out the window. “Oh, and see those birdhouses on the poles along the side yard there? Those are purple martin houses. A lot of people think those birds help by eating mosquitoes and flies.”
“And for my money, they do,” Berry remarked as she hung up the phone and turned to Dallas. “That was Grace Sinclair on the phone. She wanted to know if it was true that you were in town.”
“I knew word traveled fast around here, but that’s impressive. How could she have heard so quickly?”
“She said Tom Roth was just passing by when you turned into the driveway yesterday, and he was pretty sure it was you.”
“What passes for news around here …” Dallas grumbled. “How is Gracie these days?”
“Still hanging on to that weekly paper of hers.” Berry brought her coffee to the table and sat next to Cody. “I hear she’s doing quite well with it these days, since St. Dennis has had such a rebirth, what with all the tourists coming through all the time. The paper is free, but she takes paid ads from all the local merchants who want to make sure the visitors know where to find their shops, what specials they’re offering, what’s doing in the town that week, that sort of thing. And of course, her son, Daniel, is doing very well with the Inn.” Berry paused to take a sip of coffee. “You remember the Inn at Sinclair’s Point, don’t you?”
“Sure. I used to play tennis out there with …” She bit back the name. “With friends when I was in high school.”
Berry smiled to let Dallas know she wasn’t fooled.
“I don’t recall you playing tennis with anyone other than Grant Wyler, dear.” Berry stirred her coffee. “Did I tell you he’s back in St. Dennis?”
“Yes. I think you might have mentioned it.” Dallas refused to bite. Only about forty times.
“He bought Dr. Evans’s vet practice when the old man retired last year,” Berry continued.
Dallas grinned in spite of herself. That “old man,” Dr. Evans, was probably a good five years younger than Berry.
“And I heard he opened a rescue shelter for small animals.”
“What kind of small animals?” Cody’s head shot up.
“Oh, dogs and cats, mostly, I believe,” Berry told him.
“Why do they need to be rescued?” he asked.
“I suppose because they are animals whose owners either don’t want them or can’t keep them for some reason.” Dallas chose her words carefully. She knew that many of the animals in such shelters had been rescued from high-kill shelters. “The shelters take them in and try to find new homes for them.”
“Maybe we could find a dog for us there.” Cody looked across the table at his mother. “You said I could have a dog.”
“No, Cody. I did not.” Dallas placed her cup carefully on the saucer. “What I said was—”
“Oh, every boy should have a dog, dear,” Berry interrupted.
“I don’t recall that Wade had a dog when he lived here,” Dallas said.
“I don’t recall that Wade ever asked.” Berry ran a bejeweled hand through Cody’s hair. “But now that I think about it, a small dog—perhaps one of those pretty, fluffy little things—might be nice. A white one, I think. A lapdog …”
“When can we go?” Cody jumped up from his chair.
“Cody, for heaven’s sake, we only just arrived here yesterday,” Dallas reminded him. “Let’s get unpacked first and settle in, give us all time to think this over. We talked about this, remember? A dog is a big responsibility. They have to be fed and walked—”
“I can feed it! I can walk it! I can be responsible!”
“—and they have to be cleaned up after, as well. In the yard, if you catch my drift.”
“I can do that! I will do that!” Cody was wide-eyed at the prospect.
“As I said, let’s settle in before we go making decisions that we will have to live with for a long time.” Dallas watched her son’s face. He rose from the table and started toward the door, then stopped, turned around, came back, and picked up his plate and his juice glass. Without prompting, he stood on his tiptoes to rinse everything at the kitchen sink. Then he opened the dishwasher and put in the plate and glass. He returned to the table and picked up his knife and fork, and took them to the dishwasher as well.
Dallas met Berry’s amused eyes across the table as they watched.
When Cody had finished, he turned and said, “Thank you for breakfast, Aunt Berry. May I be excused from the room? I’d like to go upstairs and unpack and put my clothes away now.”
“You may, my sweet boy.” Berry nodded.
“Who was that child? He looks so much like my son,” Dallas whispered, “but he’s so well mannered. So polite. So thoughtful. And putting his clothes away without being told to? Unheard of.”
“He’s a boy who wants a dog.” Berry laughed softly. “A boy who is proving how responsible he can be.”
“Berry, I hate to impose on you …” Dallas began.
“I don’t see it as an imposition. I do get lonely here sometimes,” Berry admitted. “A dog might be a nice companion.”
“You still have your housekeeper …?”
“Oh, yes, but she’s only here during the day, and
lately, she’s only been coming once or twice each week. It might be nice to have a little dog around at night to sit on my lap while I watch TV or read.” She tilted her head and added, “I did tell you, did I not, that almost all of my movies are available now on DVD?”
“No, you didn’t, but that’s wonderful. Now another generation will be treated to the dramatic genius of Berry Townsend.”
“Don’t forget, I played several comedic roles as well. And I must say, I was brilliant in all of them.”
“I know that you were.” Dallas knew this was no idle boasting on her aunt’s part. “Your performance in Miss Lafferty’s Lover inspired my own in Tell Me True.”
“Really, dear?” Berry looked flattered and very pleased. “You won several important award nominations for that role, I recall.”
Dallas nodded. “It was my first attempt at comedy. The critics didn’t think I could pull it off, coming right on the heels of Silver Mornings.”
“I was so proud of your work in that film. You deserved the awards, the accolades.” Berry’s eyes took on a dreamy cast. “It reminded me of my performance in The Long Last Look.” Berry sighed. “I just loved those tearjerkers.”
“Do you ever miss it, Berry?”
“Miss Hollywood?” Berry raised an eyebrow, then shook her head. “No. I am proud of every film I ever appeared in, but I don’t think I’d want to be working again.”
“What if the perfect role came along?”
“At my age? Ha.” Berry shook her head. “It’s not likely. We’ll just be content to look back on my body of work as it stands.”
“So, no regrets, then?”
“Oh, I have regrets, my dear, but none relative to my career. A life without some regret is probably a life that wasn’t lived to its fullest.”
It was on the tip of Dallas’s tongue to ask what regrets her aunt did have, but the phone rang again.
“Dear me, it’s going to be one of those days, isn’t it?” Berry said as she rose to answer it. “I suppose the word is out.”
“Sorry,” Dallas told her.
“Don’t be, dear.” Berry patted Dallas’s shoulder as she passed by. “We could use a little excitement around here right about now. It’s been a dreadfully dull summer …”
Dallas spent most of the morning putting clothes into the old dresser that had served this same purpose for her for many years. Earlier, she’d opened all the curtains and the shades to let light flood in, but soon the sun would be beating down, and by midafternoon, the room would be stifling hot despite the central air-conditioning Berry had had installed when she moved back to St. Dennis for good. She changed into shorts and a T-shirt and slipped into sandals and headed down the steps.
At the landing, she found Cody staring up at the portraits that lined the wall all the way from the second floor to the first, and continued from there throughout the center hall.
“Who’s that?” He pointed to a painting that hung above him.
“That, I believe, is my great-great-uncle Lloyd Worthington Eberle.” Dallas stood back to admire the man in the full-dress uniform of the Confederacy.
“Is he related to me?”
Dallas nodded. “He’d be your great-great-great-uncle. Or that could possibly be four greats back, I don’t remember. To each generation going back, you add one more great.”
“Like Aunt Berry is your great-aunt and my great-great-aunt?”
“Exactly like that.”
“She is a very great aunt.”
“She certainly is.” Dallas smiled. She’d often thought that very same thing.
“That lady there.” He pointed to the next portrait. “She looks like Aunt Berry.”
“Sweetie, that is Aunt Berry.”
“Why is she holding a snake?” Cody looked closer.
“She played Cleopatra once in a movie when she was very young,” Dallas explained, “and she liked the costume so much that she had her picture painted in character.”
Throughout her career, Berry had had her portrait painted in the characters of all her favorite roles. It had confused the hell out of Dallas and Wade as children because those portraits were hung on the walls interspersed with those of real relatives.
“How about that one? Is that Berry, too?” Cody moved on to the next frame.
“Helen of Troy,” Dallas told him.
“And that one?”
“That’s great-grandmother Lorelle Stevens.”
“She sort of looks like Aunt Berry,” he noted.
“There is a resemblance,” Dallas agreed.
“That one? She’s wearing a funny hat.” He pointed to a woman in a black gown.
“That, my love, is Mary Tudor,” Berry announced from the bottom of the stairs. “One of my greatest roles. I was a magnificent Bloody Mary.”
“When I was little, I thought she was an ancestor,” Dallas said. “I told everyone in school that we were related to the Queen of England.”
“Merely an accident of fate that you were not, dear. If my great—I’m not sure how many greats aunt Hermione would be—if she’d been less cautious, well, who knows …?”
“I don’t remember a Hermione.” Dallas went down the steps to join Berry.
“Oh, she was quite notorious in her day. She was said to have …” Berry glanced at Cody, who was leaning over the rail at a point midway between the landing and the first floor and hanging on every word. “To have kicked up her heels a time or two. She was quite the scandalous girl in her day.”
“Do we have a portrait of her?” Dallas looked around the hall.
“Unfortunately, no. But I’ve no doubt that she was quite glorious.” Berry leaned closer to Dallas and whispered, “Family lore says she left some very steamy memoirs. I’ve never seen them, but at one time, a distant cousin in the UK claimed to have had them in her possession. Wouldn’t they make a juicy little read?”
Berry was in one of her nostalgic moods. There was every chance that by dinner, she’d be in costume if any still fit her and delivering lines from any one of her favorite roles. Dallas’s mother had been annoyed as hell whenever Berry decided to relive her glory days, but Dallas and Wade had loved it.
“Marie Antoinette,” Dallas murmured, remembering.
“So sorry, dear, but I won’t be doing her again,” Berry announced. “After all these years, moths finally got into the box and ravished the wig. Sadly, I had to toss it. And try finding an authentic reproduction these days.”
“Pity.” Dallas bit back a smile.
“Indeed.” Berry watched Cody attempt to slide down the banister. “Dear me, no, child. You’re going to land smack on the newel post.” She pointed up to the top of the steps. “Try going from the top. The round post at the landing makes for a much better stop.”
Cody did as he was told, and found the ride sufficiently satisfactory. He repeated it several times.
“So …” Berry turned to Dallas. “What’s on your agenda for today?”
“I don’t really have one. I’m thinking I’d like to lay low for as long as I can.”
“No, no, that’s impossible, dear. That cat has left the bag. You can’t stop word from getting around. I suspect that by tomorrow, the photographers will have invaded. The best you can do at this point is hope there’s still enough time to build a solid defense.”
“A defense? Against reporters? Photographers? Paparazzi?” Dallas scoffed. “There’s no such thing.”
“Wrong, dear. You forget that this is a small town. You have to make it work for you.”
“I’m all ears,” Dallas told her. “How do I do that?”
“Hide in plain sight, as they say.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There are only two types of people in St. Dennis, Dallas. There are tourists, and there are townies. Tourists are free game—townies are off-limits.” Berry started toward the kitchen and Dallas followed. “You used to be a townie. You have to remind people of that while there’s still time.”
Berry poured two glasses of iced tea and handed one to Dallas.
“What are you suggesting I do?”
“Make yourself very visible. Let people see you, talk to you. Act like you belong here. Shop in our shops, eat in our restaurants. Remind them that you are one of them. Get them on your side.”
“You seriously think that parading around town and making nice with the local folks will keep the tabloids away?” Dallas took a sip of tea. It tasted exactly the same as she remembered, with just a hint of lemon and mint.
“Of course not. But the more you try to hide, the more effort they’ll put into trying to find you. It’s a game, you see. If you’re out in the open, accessible, acting like you belong here, the attitude in town to outsiders is going to be, ‘Move along, nothing to see here.’ When reporters do show up, no one will talk about where you’re staying or where you shop or what you do or take money to take pictures of you lying on the dock in a bikini.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to find out any of those things, especially when it’s no secret that you’re my aunt and this was once my summer home.”
“True enough. But no one is going to be looking for Beryl Eberle, which is how I’m known here. ‘Beryl Townsend, the actress,’ has no listings.” Berry sighed dramatically. “Even at the height of my career, I could come and go here as I liked. Why, last year when Beautiful Dreamer was rereleased as a tribute to David Gaston and his last and greatest role and there was an upsurge in interest in moi and so many photographers descended on St. Dennis looking for me, there were no ambushes.”
“I saw lots of photos of you walking the streets of St. Dennis, Berry,” Dallas reminded her.
“All on my terms, my dear. No one took a picture I didn’t want taken.” Berry took a seat at the table. “When I got a heads-up that someone from this rag or that was in town asking about me, I got myself together and went into town on a casual errand. I was photographed going into the bookstore and into the coffee shop—you have to try their iced lattes—and several other places. The photos were taken on my terms and the photographers left town thinking they’d caught Beryl Townsend off guard and unsuspecting. Of course, I looked lovely in every shot because I planned it that way.” She took another sip of tea. “So if you don’t want anyone snooping around hoping to find you with no makeup and looking like a fright, my advice is to get yourself out there today and make nice. Become part of the community again, and the community will protect you. Every time a photographer or reporter leaves his card with someone in St. Dennis, that phone on the wall is going to ring to let us know.”
The Chesapeake Diaries Series 7-Book Bundle: Coming HOme, Home Again, Almost Home, Hometown Girl, Home for the Summer, The Long Way Home, At the River's Edge Page 34