Because admit it, ever since setting foot on the Vineyard, guilt or something akin to it had been his more or less constant companion. He’d assumed its source was the decision to put his mother’s house on the market, but what if it was something else? Earlier, in the dark microfilm room at the Vineyard Gazette, when Jacy’s face appeared on the screen this ambient sense of guilt had morphed into something more like dread; and later, after he’d explained the disappearance and Beverly concluded that Jacy was still on the island, his stomach had done a somersault. Whatever this was about, it was more than real estate. He’d gone to Coffin’s apartment hoping he might alleviate his growing apprehensions, and in a way the old cop’s vivid scenario of Jacy being stalked, raped, killed and buried somewhere on the mainland had been strangely comforting, because if she’d died after leaving the island, then he and his friends were off the hook. Whereas if something happened to her here, they were, in a sense, complicit. Okay, sure, it was beyond ridiculous to imagine that Jacy lay buried in the backyard of the house he was now, over forty years later, putting up for sale. Why, then, was its symmetry so compelling?
Halfway to Edgartown, he pulled off to the side of the road. He was able to hold off until several other vehicles were safely past before vomiting his Bloody Mary into the ditch.
* * *
—
“MINT?” Lincoln offered.
Instead of going directly to Marty’s office, he’d stopped to buy a large roll of them and a package of Wet Wipes, having managed to splash his loafers. Had Anita been along, this errand would’ve been unnecessary. Being a woman, she always carried both mints and wipes in her purse. Not being a woman, he had no idea why they would imagine that at some point during the day you just might, for example, vomit onto your shoes and need them.
“You okay?” Marty said, studying him thoughtfully as he crunched his mint. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” Lincoln said to him. “What’s up?”
“Come around the desk and take a gander at this tax map. This is you here,” he explained, running his finger over Lincoln’s property. “And this is our friend Troyer. These other two lots”—he penciled Xs onto them—“also belong to him. Probably to keep anybody from ruining his water view. And at some point either his parents or the previous owners also owned this lot.” He marked another X there as well. “But they sold it.”
“So he owns all this now?”
“Correct.”
“Lucky him.”
“Except for one thing.” Here Marty indicated the dirt road that led to Lincoln’s house, then snaked down the hill to Troyer’s, where it dead-ended. “This is the only way for him to get home from the main road.”
“Does he need another?”
“He wouldn’t if he had an easement, but guess what? He doesn’t.”
Lincoln shook his head. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know, but I just came from the Dukes County Registry and there’s no mention of one on either your deed or his.”
“Again, how could that happen?”
Marty leaned back in his chair, hands laced behind his head. “Hard to say. Possibly an unspoken neighborly agreement going back as far as anybody can remember, and the issue’s never come up because neither property ever went on the market. It happens. You say your place was in your mother’s family for some time?”
“I don’t know exactly how long, but yeah.”
“The other possibility is that the lot they sold off was where the easement used to be, and at the time of the sale nobody caught it. Whatever the reason, he certainly doesn’t have one now.”
“And you think he knows this?”
“It could explain why he’s been so keen to buy your property.”
Lincoln nodded. “But not why he keeps coming at us with lowball offers.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to tip his hand?”
“I don’t know, Marty. Are you positive about all this?”
“Nope, but I can go back down to the registry of deeds and poke around some more. Though there’s a chance he may get wind of it if I do.”
“Are you saying we shouldn’t?”
“On the contrary, I think we have to. Due diligence and all that. I only mention it because I gather you’re not terribly fond of each other.”
“I’ll only be on island another four or five days.”
“How about I hold off until you’re safely back in Vegas?”
“That might be best,” Lincoln said, although now that his curiosity was roused, he wanted clarity.
“But you catch my drift?” Marty asked, rolling up the map. “Whether you like him or not, Mason Troyer’s your ideal buyer. He doesn’t just want to buy your place. He needs to.”
Teddy
Teddy returned from Gay Head both physically exhausted from the long bike ride and emotionally spent from his conversation with Theresa. Unburdening himself to her was painful, though not as devastating as it had been with Jacy a lifetime ago, perhaps because he wasn’t that kid anymore, but also because Theresa hadn’t reacted as he’d anticipated. With kindness, yes, because that was her nature, but he’d also expected intrusive curiosity (When was the last time you saw a specialist? Have you tried Viagra?) and maybe even pushback (But there were things we could’ve…). Instead she’d waited patiently until he was finished and then said only that she wished he’d somehow found it in himself to trust her. By behaving as if the only way for souls to touch was through muscle and tissue and blood, he’d denied them both the intimacy of sharing, honesty and understanding. When he began explaining that he’d been trying to protect her from profound disappointment, she said, “Sorry. Too late.”
When Teddy climbed off the bike and put it back in the shed, Mickey’s Harley was lying right where it tipped over that morning. He half expected to find him still snoring on the sofa, but instead he was outside on the deck talking on his cell. The sliding glass door was shut, but not completely. “I haven’t forgotten,” Teddy heard him say. “I know you need the money.” Catching sight of him inside, Mickey waved, then turned his back and continued, his voice lowered.
Not wanting to eavesdrop, Teddy sat down at the kitchen table and took out his own phone. He’d noticed a Trump sign in Troyer’s front yard when he rode by and wondered if Lincoln had seen it. Probably not, since it wasn’t visible from the deck. Care to guess, he texted, which (need I say) Republican candidate your friendly neighbor supports?
Mickey’s voice, louder now, was audible again. “I don’t know what to tell you, Delia, except I’ll be back on Monday and we can talk about it then. Okay?”
Delia? Teddy thought. They hadn’t heard about any Delia, had they? Was it possible Mickey had married again and never told them? Well, it’d be just like him. He’d gotten married twice before in spur-of-the-moment civil ceremonies, though Teddy and Lincoln hadn’t heard about either union until the divorces were final. “I need to stop meeting girls in bars” was the only explanation he’d offered. To which Lincoln replied, “Where else do you go?”
Mickey’d conceded, “See, that’s the thing.”
When Teddy joined him out on the deck, Mickey was glaring at his phone as if he was considering giving it a good, long toss, then said, “Do you have any reception out here?”
“One bar.”
Disgusted, Mickey stuffed the cell in his pocket. “That’s what I had until I lost it.”
“Everything okay?”
“More or less,” he said. “You know, I figured by the time I was sixty-six I’d have my own dedicated barstool somewhere and be paying for my beer with social security.”
“You’re not on social security?”
“I am, but it’s a funny thing. If you don’t put much of anything in, you can’t take much of anything out. Who knew?”
“Everybody?”
Mickey shrugged, looked around. “Where’s Lincoln? I woke up and everybody was gone.”
“He drove into town for some reason. I took a bike ride.”
“I was thinking about running into town myself. Some guy in Oak Bluffs has a Beatles-era Rickenbacker for sale. Cherry condition. Thought I’d check it out. Want to come along?”
“Nah, I need a shower, and after that I’ve got some stuff to do.”
“You guys both work way too hard,” Mickey said. “It’s unnatural. Unhealthy. Un-American.”
“In fact,” Teddy said, “studies have shown Americans put in longer hours than anybody and take fewer vacations.”
“I don’t see how that can be true,” Mickey replied. “Half the people I know are on disability and don’t work at all. The other half are musicians. Anyway, no work this evening, either one of you. Tonight we eat barbecue, drink beer and listen to rock and roll played at a very high volume.”
After he left, Teddy had a long shower, then put on fresh jeans and a T-shirt and took his manuscript back out onto the deck. He realized after marking up a few pages that they’d actually captured his interest, and rereading the ones he’d edited on the ferry yesterday he found that they, too, were better than he remembered. Which maybe shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He knew from experience that in the run-up to his spells, his judgment was dubious. Food he normally enjoyed tasted off. Movies seemed vacuous, music grating. Was it possible that confiding in Theresa had somehow forestalled the attack he’d assumed was right around the corner? Had the truth set him free? Could a truism really be true?
His phone vibrated, Lincoln texting back: Make America White Again? See you soon. Teddy smiled. Though Lincoln was a lifelong Republican, their politics probably aligned more closely now than ever before, though in the voting booth they’d likely tick their preferred boxes.
At some point, working on the manuscript with renewed interest, he became aware of loud voices down at Troyer’s place. An argument between him and the perpetually naked girlfriend was his first thought, but no, unless he was mistaken, both voices were male. An old gray pickup truck that hadn’t been there before now sat in the drive.
* * *
—
THROUGHOUT THE WOOLLY, disjointed narrative there was a flapping sound, like wings, that Teddy couldn’t account for. Identifying its source seemed urgent, though he couldn’t imagine why it should be. Hearing heavy, actual footfalls on the stairs, he swam toward consciousness, grateful it was only a dream and he could stop trying to figure out what was flapping. Rotating in his deck chair, he started to apologize to Lincoln for napping in the middle of the afternoon when he saw that the man lumbering up the steps was instead a beefy, red-faced guy wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops and no shirt. From the top step, Troyer cocked his head and squinted at him for a long, insolent beat and then, pleased with himself, said, “I remember you,” as if by doing so he’d qualified for a prize.
The gentle breeze that had sprung up before Teddy drifted off had apparently strengthened while he dozed, and a sheet of manuscript magically leaped out of its cardboard box and took flight—the sound of it identical to the one in his dream. Troyer, who could’ve snatched the page floating by, watched it sail past, unconcerned. And Teddy, rising from his chair, saw to his horror that the deck was littered with sheets of manuscript. So, less densely, was the sloping lawn below. The box, nearly full when he’d fallen asleep, was now half empty.
“I’d help you chase those all over Chilmark,” Troyer told him, “if I wanted to look like an idiot.”
Because he had another copy of the manuscript back home, Teddy himself was momentarily inclined to let those pages go. Chasing them around the yard, as Troyer looked on, would be humiliating. Unfortunately, many of them had been edited, and to do it all over again would take more hours than Teddy wanted to count up, so off he raced. On the lawn below he found himself in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Every time he bent over to pick up a page, it danced away on a fresh gust. “This is wonderful!” Troyer called from the deck. He was, Teddy saw, filming the whole thing with his phone.
Give the man this much credit, though. By the time Teddy returned to the deck, having recaptured maybe seventy-five pages of text, Troyer had picked up the ones lying on the floor and put them back in the cardboard box and secured them with a stone. He was now stretched out on the chaise lounge, reading a page Teddy had just edited and chortling nastily. “You wrote this?”
“No,” Teddy said, holding out his hand for it.
“Thank Christ,” Troyer said, passing him the page. “I mean, how bored would a man have to be to commit thoughts like this to paper?”
Teddy put the page on top of the others in the box. Later, he’d have to put them all back in order, see how many were missing and re-edit those. “It’s a book I’m going to publish later this year, actually.”
Troyer studied him for a long beat, his brow knit. “Why?”
Since this was a question Teddy had been asking himself, he couldn’t help smiling.
“Okay,” Troyer said, scratching his hairy, sunburned chest, “then answer me this. Because I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. You’re the same three guys from before, right? You and Moser and the big guy?”
“If by before you mean 1971, then yeah.”
“What, you’ve been, like, roommates this whole fucking time?”
“Hardly,” Teddy said.
“Because that would be truly pathetic.”
Indeed, the notion, even after Teddy had disabused him of it, seemed to fill him with profound disgust, as if enduring friendship were both unnatural and vile. What unsettled Teddy even more was that this man, though he bore little resemblance to the person Teddy remembered from ’71, inspired the same visceral loathing. “Lincoln’s not here,” he said. “I assume he’s the one you’re looking for.”
Troyer leaned back on the chaise and locked his fingers behind his head, as if settling in for what remained of the afternoon. “Lincoln,” he repeated. “Why would a white man name his kid Lincoln?”
Teddy resisted the impulse to tell him that the white man who’d done it was himself named Wolfgang Amadeus. “Maybe because he hoped his son was destined for greatness? That he might even grow up to be president?”
Troyer snorted. “And get shot in the head?”
“This being America, there’s a decent chance he’ll get shot no matter what he’s called.”
Troyer groaned, looking skyward. “It must be summer,” he said. “The libs are returning. And speaking of liberals, remind me. What’s the name of that college all you guys went to?”
“Minerva.”
“That’s right, Minerva. Jesus.”
Evidently, for him Minerva College ranked right up there with enduring friendship.
“Is there something I can do for you?” Teddy said.
The man scowled. “Yeah. You can tell President Lincoln that he can take this place of his”—he threw his arms out wide open—“and shove it right the fuck up his ass. Tell him I don’t need him or it. Can you remember all that?”
Teddy nodded. “Got it. You’re no longer interested in purchasing his property. You wish him luck finding another buyer.”
Troyer, sitting up now, ignored this. “This next part is even more important. Tell him I had nothing to do with that hippie chick going missing.”
Teddy felt his head jerk back, as if from a good, stiff jab, and he swallowed hard. “Are you talking about Jacy?”
“Whatever the fuck her name was. The last time I saw her was the day the big galoot sucker punched me. You know I had to go to Boston to get my fucking jaw wired shut?”
“Gee,” Teddy said, “that must’ve been unpleasant.”
“Yeah, you could say that. For a month I ate my meals through a straw.”
“Well, you had it coming,�
� Teddy reminded him. “Also, it happened over forty years ago.”
“Okay, but here’s the thing. You know where I’ve been that whole time? Right here. See, I don’t visit this island, I fucking live here. And I don’t need some Vegas dickweed spreading rumors about me.”
“What rumors?”
“The fucking guy Googles me? Digs up some twenty-year-old court appearance? Finds out that some Beacon Hill twat took out a restraining order against me after I slapped her big fat mouth for her outside the Edgartown Yacht Club? And decides he knows me? Like that gives him the right to wonder out loud if this Jacy girl from the fucking seventies maybe’s buried somewhere out here?”
“Question,” Teddy said. “Is Lincoln going to have any idea what you’re talking about?”
If Troyer heard this question, he gave no sign. “Okay, so I copped a feel that day. She had great tits, that I do remember. But we were all what? Twenty? Twenty-one? And you come here in twenty fucking fifteen and accuse me?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Teddy said. “And I doubt Lincoln is, either.”
Troyer got to his feet now and came over to where Teddy sat, looming over him. “Then why the fuck is Joey Coffin knocking on my door and asking me a bunch of bullshit questions?”
“Who’s Joey Coffin?”
“You know what?” Troyer said, his face flushing now. “Fuck you. Fuck all three of you.”
“Troyer. Who is Joey Coffin?”
“A cop’s who he is. A retired ex-cop with time on his hands that thanks to your pal is now trying to decide if I’m his new hobby.”
“I don’t think—”
“I don’t give even a tiny little shit what you think,” Troyer snapped. “Or Lincoln, either. Just tell him the next time he opens his mouth, my name better not come out of it. He doesn’t fuckin’ know me. Google doesn’t know me. Chilmark doesn’t know me. The summer people think I’m an asshole? Good. I love that. I’m not politically correct and that rubs them the wrong way? I fucking live for that. With enemies like them, who needs friends? But tell your pal Lincoln I do have friends. In fact, tell him Joey Coffin and I go back even farther than you three assholes.”
Chances Are . . . Page 17