by Jean Stone
“We have to go,” Michael said. “We’re right on the water.”
Liz paced to the window. “How can I?” she asked, as much to herself as to anyone. “What if he comes back and finds no one home? He’s not like others …” She began to cry. She hated that she was breaking down here, in front of them all, but she could not stop.
Then the power blew.
They were left without lights, only the orange flames from the dim fireplace.
“Shit,” Michael said again.
“You can’t stay here,” the sheriff said. “With no power you’ll lose your water. And high tide is coming. There could be a surge …”
“Think about Mags,” Roger said from across the dark room. “And Greg. Even if you want to talk to them, you won’t be able to. You know the phones go as dead as the lights.”
“Michael has his cell phone.”
“Cell phones need to be recharged.”
She knew they were right. She hated it that they were right. Slowly, she nodded. “Danny can’t possibly come back until after the storm …”
Michael nodded, then turned back to the sheriff. “We’ll be there, Hugh.”
The sheriff nodded. “Great. Because this isn’t a drill. Lives are going to be lost unless people use their heads.”
After he left they began gathering what supplies they could. They extinguished the fire in the fireplace, then piled into the car. Sheriff Talbot’s words about lives being lost rang in all their minds.
Chapter 31
Tuna was there. Liz watched him playing with kids she assumed must be his grandchildren. She stood to one side of the big pine-paneled room that was the Chilmark Community Center, where so long ago at the celebrity auction she and Josh had their first date.
Tonight, there were even more people here than at the auction back then. There was an abundance of children—kids too young to be afraid. Instead, they seemed to find great excitement in this thing called Hurricane Carol that had brought them all together in this big, friendly hall.
She looked around the room, first toward the kitchen where tall aluminum urns perked strong-smelling coffee, then at the stage on the opposite side where the humble “Don’t Tread on Me” flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was raised next to the red, white, and blue of the U.S. of A. Between the kitchen and the flags a few hundred islanders and tourists sprawled in various states of dress and undress, chatter and quiet, laughter and tears, amid sleeping bags and cots and small mounds of pillows. The lights, however, burned brightly: the Chilmark Community Center had a generator, a necessity on an island that, when it lost power, lost virtually all contact with the world beyond.
Not necessarily a bad thing, Liz thought, strolling toward the bulletin board, where full-sized colored sheets of paper were thumbtacked and taped.
Children’s Story Time
Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 A.M.–Noon.
Flea Market, Saturdays, 8 A.M.,
Whalers’ Lodge, Tisbury.
Teach Holistic Health.
Free the Spirit Within.
Liz did not read the rest, because she had no interest in freeing her spirit. She had always left that sort of thing to BeBe, who seemed to have been born to be free.
She turned back to the crowd and realized that for the first time in her life, she felt as if she did not belong. Families and neighbors gathered in groups, except, of course, her own. Michael was down by the stage, talking with voters, no doubt. Evelyn had volunteered in the kitchen: she was probably organizing them while gleaning the latest island gossip. Roger was off by himself: he had brought his computer and most likely was monitoring the polls. Keith and Joe and several more agents (who must have arrived with Michael, though Liz hadn’t noticed) were commiserating, a chessboard between them. And Clay—a nurse without a patient—was there, napping or not napping (who could be sure?) to the beat from his headphones. Liz folded her arms, leaned against the bulletin board, and wondered what had happened to her wonderful family, and if it would—could—ever be whole again.
“Let’s have a sing-along!” a young woman in gingham shouted from the stage.
Liz thought someone ought to tell the young woman it was almost two in the morning and that outside Mother Nature might right now be destroying their possessions, including their homes. As the first strains of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” began to fill the hall, Liz retreated to the ladies’ room, wondering if BeBe was singing in a jail cell now, and if, somewhere, Danny was, too.
“This is against my constitutional rights,” BeBe shouted at the bars that kept her inside the now darkened, eight-by eight-foot cell. “If you’re going to hold me, you have to arrest me. And you have to turn on the goddamn lights.”
A uniformed guard appeared at the door. “Look, lady, I don’t like this any more than you do. But the power’s out all over the island and there’s not much I can do about it.”
“You can get me out of here.”
“Sorry. You’re wanted for questioning in Florida. Murder is a capital offense. Until someone can get up here to get you, you have to stay put.” He began to walk back through the doorway.
BeBe jumped up and grasped the bars. “Don’t you know who my brother-in-law is? Don’t you know I have a business worth sixty million dollars? This is illegal! You can’t keep me in here!”
This time, the guard did not reappear.
“Power’s out on the Vineyard,” a salty young guy in a slicker announced, marching into the Cuttyhunk Historical Society and shaking rain from his hat.
Surprisingly, everyone cheered, as if they relished the fact that they would always have lights when their larger, more popular sister did not. Perhaps it gave them some sense of power over the Vineyarders, Danny thought with a chuckle, then wondered if there wasn’t a pun in there about power over power or not to be overpowered. Then he decided there was no pun there, that it was only the three beers doing his thinking.
The salty guy approached them, his wet hat now in his hand. “Looks like the Annabella has a problem, Reg,” he said. Reggie was sitting on a blanket on the floor next to Danny, leaning against a book rack marked “Early Settlement.”
“Shit,” Reggie said. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, if you asked the boat she might say she’s having a hell of a good time. She broke free of the pier … or rather, the pier broke free of her, since it, too, is now out in the channel, dipping around like an apple in a bobbing tub on Halloween.”
“Shit,” Reggie said again and stood up, as if wanting to run out the door of the Cuttyhunk Historical Society, dash down the hill, and rescue the catamaran from her predictable fate.
Danny felt like the shit that Reggie kept referring to. He rubbed his hands on his head. “Oh, man, Reg,” he said. “I’m sorry. This is my fault …”
LeeAnn leaned forward. “Oh, right, Danny. Like you brewed up this hurricane right there in your cellar.”
“I talked you into taking me out … You didn’t want to come …”
“Shit,” Reggie said once more.
“The Annabella’s not the only one out there,” the messenger continued. “Looks like there are at least a dozen boats trying to survive. But my guess is we’ve got gales over a hundred miles an hour.”
Danny whistled. LeeAnn sighed. Reggie shook his head.
“It’s worse than expected,” Reggie said, and Danny took some solace from that.
“And now the Vineyard’s in darkness,” Danny said. He thought of his mother, stranded in the darkness. At least Aunt BeBe was there to keep her company, he thought. At least Moe and Curly were there. And Clay. Danny hoped they’d had the sense to board up the windows.
He wondered if his mother had run to Josh for protection.
Feeling suddenly queasy, he turned to LeeAnn. “Mind if we go outside?” he asked.
“Excuse me? I believe there’s a hurricane ripping out there with hundred-mile-an-hour winds.”
“Yeah, I know. But more than any
thing I could use some fresh air. And if I don’t get some fast, I’ll probably puke.”
“Jesus,” LeeAnn said lightly, “if it’s not one end with you handicapped people, it’s the other.”
Danny did not take it personally.
“Feel better?” LeeAnn asked through the wind that whipped through the cracks between the boards covering porch screens.
Danny smiled. “Yeah. Actually, I’ve felt better since we boarded the Annabella than I’ve felt in four years. Maybe longer.”
“You’ve only been in that chair three years, Danny.”
“Guess I wasn’t much happier before.”
LeeAnn leaned against the windowsill and looked sincerely into his face. “You were going to be a doctor. That made you happy, didn’t it?”
He studied his fingernails. “Yeah, well, things change.”
The wind sang now, a low, ponderous hum. “But you always said you were going to be an old-fashioned doctor who really cared about his patients. Someone as far from a politician as possible.”
“Well, I’m still no politician. That hasn’t changed. I guess the family torch will be passed off to Greg. He’s a lot like …” he caught himself, for a second not knowing how to complete his sentence. He would have loved to share his news with LeeAnn, with someone, if only so he didn’t have to feel its weight all alone. But it was news not to be shared. It was simply too ugly. To mask his discomfort, Danny laughed and said, “Greg’s a lot like my father.”
“Well, I think you’ll make a better doctor, anyway. You’re right about one thing. You’re very different from your father.”
Danny was struck by the thought that maybe LeeAnn already knew. She would have to know. How else could she be so certain he was different from him? She barely knew Michael; in fact, Danny couldn’t remember if the two had ever met. Well, yes, he decided, there was that one time in the hospital. Had that been enough for her to make that judgment, or had she—had all the islanders—already known?
His stomach flipped again. His throat felt as if it were closing, his airway shrinking, as if a boa constrictor had wrapped itself around his neck and was squeezing tighter, tighter. He tried to force his thoughts from a visualization of his mother and Josh Miller, from a picture of them lying together—where? On the beach where Danny used to go clamming with Mags and Greg? Down by the cove? In the same bed where she slept with Michael?
An overwhelming pity for Michael—the man he knew as his father—rushed into Danny as strongly as the wind rushed outside. If Michael had known about Josh, he probably would have waited it out, waited for his mother to come to her senses, he loved her that much.
Maybe, Danny thought, he had waited too long. And now the two men were fighting the biggest battle of all. Suddenly Danny wondered just how much of this election was about the White House, and how much was about Josh Miller’s unresolved childhood jealousy—a conflict that Michael didn’t deserve.
“Danny?” LeeAnn interrupted his thoughts. “I said you are different from your father. Does that upset you? I didn’t mean to upset you …”
Danny blinked. “How do you know?” he blurted out.
“How do I know what?” she asked.
Pain crept around his eyes, around his throat, around his heart. “How do you know I’m different from my father?” Suddenly the image of Josh Miller repulsed him, and he did not wait for LeeAnn to reply. “If this storm is ever over, and we end up alive,” he said, “I need to get back to the Vineyard. Then I need to get off-island and find my father. He needs me to help with the campaign.”
The screen door slammed open. “LeeAnn?” barked a voice. “What the hell are you two doing out here?”
“Staying out of the rain, Jake,” LeeAnn responded to the old man whom Danny had been told was the harbormaster, the keeper of the island or at least of all its comings and goings.
“Well, for chrissakes, you’re not going to believe this, but your friend there has a phone call.”
“Me?” Danny asked. He glanced back toward the Vineyard; the power was still out. He wondered if cell phones would work in the storm.
“Damnedest thing,” Jake continued. “I didn’t know we had a celebrity here, LeeAnn. Well,” the old man said with a scratch of his beard, “you’d betta’ take the call, young man. I think it’s important.”
Danny closed his eyes. “My mother?” he asked.
“Nope,” the harbormaster replied. “Someone who says he’s Josh Miller. And he sounds like he’s pissed.”
It was the middle of the night in the middle of a hurricane, and BeBe was stuck in the middle of a jail cell. The guard had given her two chemical light sticks in case she wanted to see: not that there was much to see except a calendar with New England scenes taped to one wall and a chrome sink and matching toilet in the corner. Still, one might have thought a jailhouse would have an emergency generator.
“We do,” the guard had told her. “But it’s on the fritz.”
Fritz, BeBe thought now. What a stupid, stupid word. Fritz, fritz. She ran the syllable over and around her tongue just as the guard reappeared in the doorway.
“Someone to see you, Ms. Adams.”
“A visitor? How nice. Just like a real prisoner.”
“I’m not just a visitor.” It was brother Roger’s voice. “I’m here to take you home.”
“But I thought …” BeBe said, then quickly stood. “Is it about Danny?”
Roger shook his head. “No word yet.”
The guard glanced at Roger then back at BeBe. They all looked ridiculously ghoulish in the glowing green chemical light.
“I tried to tell your brother that we can hold you up to twenty-four hours for questioning,” the guard said, “but he said in Florida, the law’s only twelve hours, and that’s where you’re wanted.” Then he unlocked the old-fashioned barred door. “You can’t get off the island, anyway. And I want to get home and check up on my family. This storm’s a pisser.” He pronounced pisser like pissah in that exaggerated New England way that drove BeBe crazy. But right now she didn’t much care, because as the guard said it, he swung the door open. She stood there and stared at her brother.
“You came all the way to Edgartown just to get me? Are you an idiot? There’s a hurricane outside.”
“I’m not an idiot,” he said, guiding BeBe from the cell, “but I have been. I decided to steal the Secret Service agents’ car. I had to come get you, Beebs. I need your help. It’s about Evelyn.”
BeBe asked no more questions, but let him lead her down the corridor to the front door. She turned around to be sure the guard had not followed them. “They can only hold someone for questioning twelve hours in Florida?”
Roger shrugged. “I made that up. It’s not as if he can check. The power’s out, you know.”
BeBe didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry. Instead, she slapped her brother on the shoulder and said, “My big brother. At last you’ve located your balls.”
Liz was washing out pots from the chowder she had helped make, wondering if this would be considered the upper-class rendition of a soup kitchen. It was almost six A.M.: the worst of the storm was, hopefully, over. Yet Liz couldn’t sleep, she was far too restless between the sounds of the rain and the wind and the incessant back-and-forth guilt-chatter going on in her mind.
From the big room, melodic strains of semi-sleeping drifted on an occasional softened whisper of one person to another, all trying to be respectful of their neighbors who now lived on the next cot and not down the street. As Liz put away the last big pot, Hugh Talbot came into the kitchen.
“We’re lucky the media left the island with Josh Miller and didn’t know your husband was on the way,” he said. “Imagine what fun they’d have with the next First Lady serving soup to the hurricane-homeless.”
Liz did not bother to try to smile; she was too weary, she was too dead on the inside. She had avoided Michael all through the night; she had also avoided Roger, though, like Danny, he seemed to have
disappeared. She had needed to keep busy. That was the real reason she had wanted to work in the kitchen: not for a photo op, but for an escape. She had even let Evelyn tell her what to do, how many potatoes to put in the pot, how much butter, how much milk.
“The press learned that Danny is missing,” she said to Hugh. “I can’t imagine how they found out.” She did not want to accuse him, although aside from the family, he’d been the only one who had known. Still, she would not accuse him because she needed him on their side; she needed his help; she needed his cooperation.
Hugh shrugged. “I suppose the media has its own devious ways.” He scratched his unshaven chin. “The storm’s lessening a bit. I’m going to try and make it over to Menemsha to the Texaco station. They have a generator and a two-way. Maybe I can locate someone who saw the Annabella. Someone who maybe saw Danny.”
She dropped the damp linen cloth. “I’m going with you.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. Not allowed.”
“I have to go, Sheriff. Danny is my son.”
“I appreciate that, Liz.” He spoke with the familiarity now of those who have been brought together by disaster.
“Danny … has special needs.”
Hugh nodded. “Which is exactly why I’m going to the station. Maybe I can also rustle up someone on the mainland and see if they know how much longer before this storm is long gone to sea.”
“Please let me come, Hugh. If I stay here one more minute not knowing where Danny is, I’m going to lose my mind.”
“I’ll take full responsibility,” Michael said from behind her. “In fact, I’ll drive her myself.”
Liz stiffened.
“We’ll follow you down,” Michael continued. “If a tree lands on the car, it won’t be your fault.”
Hugh hesitated.
“Please,” Michael said as Liz gripped the edge of the sink, “please let us help find our son.”
As Roger had said, he had stolen the car from the Secret Service agents. What he had not told BeBe was that Keith had caught him, and agreed to let him go to Edgartown only if he went along.