The Secret of Hailey's Comments

by Kristy Tate

  “Really?” I asked.

  Dean nodded. “We have a broker coming out to settle things. He was supposed to come yesterday actually, but the storm kept him mainland. You probably want to wash your hands,” Dean said, motioning to a powder room. “Other than the phone, can I get you anything else? Something to drink?”

  I shook my head. Dean disappeared while I washed in a porcelain sink surrounded by marble. An Audubon engraving of a mallard hung beside the gilded mirror. I wondered if Dina and Dean lived alone. Why would two single, thirty-somethings live on a sparsely populated island? I looked out a tiny window and watched the Sound. What was the cost and payoff for the isolation?

  After I washed, I found Dean in the living room holding a portable phone. He excused himself while I called Artie. She squealed when I told her I was sitting in Dean’s living room. “I knew you’d like him,” she said.

  “I didn’t say that,” I protested.

  “But you don’t dislike him,” she said.

  “I don’t know him,” I spoke softly, since I didn’t know where Dean had gone.

  “You think too much,” Artie said. “That’s your problem. You think you have to know everything.”

  A framed photograph of a young Dean, Dina and presumably Dino sat on the table to my left. They sat at the edge of a dock; Dean smiled broadly while Dina, her arm thrown around Dean’s shoulders in a protective gesture, looked at the camera steadfastly, earnestly. Dino, a collie, rested his head on Dina’s thigh. Dina appeared to be the defender of the three, the Larry of the three stooges, even though nothing seemed comical about Dina. Like Larry, she looked as if she didn’t have a sense of humor and could easily slap someone upside the head if they provoked her. I pulled on my hair and wondered if I had misread her. After all, I’d only met her briefly. Dean came down the stairs carrying an armful of shoes and a pair of socks, looking like an overworked shoe clerk. He held up a pair of leather boots. I shook my head, they appeared much too nice. I chose the Converse sneakers.

  “I have to go,” I told Artie. Dean sat down at my feet and picked up my left foot. His warm, large hand cupped my heel. He slipped the sock over my toes.

  “Here, let me,” I said, taking the sock out of his hand. He didn’t lean back when I bent forward to finish socking myself.

  “It’s quiet here,” I said, hypersensitive to Dean’s proximity.

  Dean stood, his gaze locked with mine. “Dina’s gone to Seattle on business. The crew’s gone home.”

  “Gone home? All of them?” It’d take a number of employees to run the farm. I slipped on the sneakers and tied them tight. My feet swam in the big shoes. I’d have to curl my toes to keep them on. “Already?”

  “Most live on the mainland. They needed to ferry back before the fog set in.”

  I looked out the window. Wyeth’s black nose pressed against the glass, his entire body began to shake when we made eye contact. “The fog?”

  Dean settled into the neighboring club chair. “They’re predicting a pea soup night.”

  “Really?” My voice cracked. “But I wanted to get back to Seattle tonight.”

  Dean smiled and leaned back. “Not a chance. But there is a very good chance you could stay here.”

  I must have looked wary, because he continued, “For dinner at least. I make a mean crab cake.”

  No intelligent person can decline crab cake, as long as it doesn’t come with a cage attached.

  “It would have to be an early dinner so you could get back to the cottage before the fog gets too thick,” he added.

  This was the perfect opportunity to tell him about the visitors, but in the daylight, they no longer seemed threatening. Dinner and nightfall both seemed a long time away. It seemed impossible the sunny day would turn to fog.

  “I’d love to show you around the farm, but first I’ve some accounts I need to work on. Do you mind being on your own for a bit?” Dean asked. “I could get you a laptop so you could check your e-mail. Do artists do Internet and e-mail?”

  “This artist does,” I told him, grateful I had some way to tell Gram why I had gone incommunicado.

  After Dean trotted away, I leaned back into the club chair and looked up at the stuffed pheasant. This is a very nice place, I told the bird, but there was something bothering me, some intangible worry, picking at my conscience. I willed it away and wondered if there would always be something not quite right when a handsome male came my way. Which would mean there was something not quite right with me.

  Dean came back with the promised laptop, a plate of home-baked oatmeal cookies and a glass of cider.

  I bit into a cookie and sighed with content.

  “Good?”

  “Better than good.” I wiped crumbs off my lips with the back of my hand.

  Dean looked pleased. “My new recipe. I try to keep up with Dina.”

  Some people are too good to be true, but then I decided if his flaws were that he was too good, too handsome, too rich, and too culinary talented, then I was too stupid. I bit into a cookie and murmured a compliment.

  “I’m nothing like my sister. She’s the true gourmet.” He smiled sheepishly before turning toward the office doors.

  I settled the computer on my lap and fought the urge to Google Dean and Dina Jenson. After I returned the computer, Dean could easily check the history and my curiosity might seem rude and obtrusive. I decided to e-mail Gram, explain my situation, and ask her to do it.

  After quick messages to Gram and to Artie, I searched for information on James Hopper and Phil Henderson. I found Phil Henderson in The Seattle Times. He’d recently been released after a four-year prison stay for fraud, just like Artie had said. He and a partner, a Wallace Stevens, had set up a sting bilking mostly retired investors out of millions of dollars. Maybe James Hopper was really Wallace Stevens. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that my intruders had arranged to meet at the cottage. I had interrupted their evening. They had been civil, charming even. Wasn’t charisma a typical character trait of conmen? My only experience with conmen was watching Harold Hill in The Music Man. Not helpful.

  I checked my messages and was surprised to receive a prompt from Gram. ‘Anything for you, sweetie, but you’re far too suspicious.’

  I also had several previous messages from Gram. Other people had seventy-year-old Grams who don’t know the words blogs, spam, or Internet. Elderly, sensible Grams joined knitting groups, and book clubs. Maybe the more adventurous played golf and flirted with caddies. My Gram, more at home in an on-line chat room than in bowling alley or craft boutique, e-mailed me regularly. Tips on spicing up my love life, articles on dog care, cheesy poems illustrated with pictures of animals—she forwarded every drip of sentimentality that came her way. I expected her message to be one of the several she sent to me and her fifty closest friends, but she surprised me.

  “Darling, I’m sending you this week’s correspondence. Will explain later, loves, loves, Grammy Hailey.”

  The other ten messages were letters she was considering for the column. I sighed. I loved my Gram. She was the only family I had, except for Dad, and he really didn’t count. Very few people had my good fortune—a fortune handed to me while I was very young. My problem was that I wasn’t sure this was the fortune I wanted. I wanted to be an artist, and in that future, I was quite sure there wasn’t any fortune at all. Rich and plagued by 60 million problematic readers, or a poor artist, incapable of putting brush to canvas—these were my choices.

  I looked up at the pheasant. He was looking at me. “I came here to paint,” I told the bird. “Why am I sitting in this club chair? Because someone handsome and charming I barely know has offered me crab cakes? I’m trading my art for an evening of crab cakes?”

  I picked up a cookie and took a bite. If the crab cakes were only half as good as the cookies, I was making the right decision. I guessed Dina would be at dinner. I thought about her chilly smile, the way she’d turned her back in the middle of my sentence. I imagin
ed sharing a table with her, trying to string sentences into conversations. I chewed and swallowed, while the cookie turned sawdusty in my mouth. I decided that despite the Dean temptation I needed to go back to the cottage and reapply myself to my art. I looked up at the Remington and imagined the obese cowboy agreed. I glanced out the window and saw Wyeth watching me through the glass doors. He wriggled impatiently.

  I stood abruptly. “I have to go,” I called to Dean.

  He looked away from the numbers on his computer screen, a baffled look crossing his face.

  “Why?”

  “I just…there are some things I need to do. Can I have a rain check?”

  “Definitely.” He stood and quickly crossed the room. “I’ll walk you back.”

  “No!” I tempered the panic in my voice. Where had that come from? “That’s okay. You’re busy. I’m sure dairies don’t run themselves. Thank Dina for the shoes for me. I’ll bring them back tomorrow.”

  “Promise?” he asked.

  I nodded, fighting the itch to bolt from the room. Slowly, I walked to the front door, striving for nonchalance.

  “And we’ll do dinner?” Dean trailed after me.

  Later that evening while I sat in the cottage staring at the canvas, my belly hungry for crab, I tried to understand why I hadn’t stayed for dinner and came up empty.

  Eventually, I went to bed with the protection of my bottle of linseed oil. I listened to the raccoons in the attic and hoped we would spend the night alone.

  Chapter Six

  By the next morning the mud on my boots had dried to a one-inch layer of filth. Stamping my boots in the cold morning felt good, but I opted for my clean sandals and left the boots sitting on the porch. I tucked my paints under my arm and headed up a path leading to the top of the hill overrun with Scotch broom. On the water, beyond the floating islands, I noticed the red hull of a fishing boat. The fog had lifted and hovered over the mountains. The sandpipers peeped and a red breasted robin beckoned.

  The bright blue tent had disappeared, and from my vantage point on the hill, I saw that so had Phil Henderson’s boat. “Phil and James are gone,” I told Wyeth. “I can paint in peace.” I found a level spot to set up my easel. I freshened my paints, lined up my brushes and stared at my canvas.

  Nothing. Fudge.

  Wyeth looked at me expectantly.

  The Sound stretched a blue-gray line along the edge of the world. Beyond a sea of waving, golden grass, I saw the steep angled dormers of the Dunsmuir house. I stood a little taller for a better look at the brick red chimney, the lichen-green stone, and faded window casings. I knew from Artie that Helen Dunsmuir’s memorial was tomorrow. Artie would be here soon as would, I supposed, her relatives. Maybe they’d stay at the house. Maybe they were there already.

  It looked empty.

  I stared at my canvas and thought back to a yoga/finding-your-muse workshop a friend had convinced me to take. I’d thought it would be boring, but I’d found the exercises relaxing. And that’s all I needed. I needed to relax. I needed to let go and breathe deep. Focus, reflect, and clarify.

  I inhaled. Clarify issues. What issues? I wanted to paint and I couldn’t. That was my issue. I couldn’t dig deep, because I had nowhere to go.

  Although, I could go into that house. It might be my last opportunity before off island guests arrived for the memorial. Before I went home.

  I apologized to my canvas, said goodbye to the critic, put down my brush and palate, and started down the hill.

  #

  The Dunsmuir’s dock extended out into the bay. A few boards were missing, leaving gaping holes, reminding me of broken piano keys, or a child with missing teeth. The boat house had received as little attention as the dock. Soggy planks of sagging wood held up a pitched roof—more of a roosting spot for gulls than a shelter. A sheen of oil on the water told me the boats that frequented the house were in no better condition.

  Ancient civilizations never have happy endings, and I wondered if the same could be said for abandoned homes. Standing on the stone path, looking up at the house, the words that came to mind were “faded glory.” Giant apple and cherry trees in full blossom stood in the background. The lawn swept down to a veranda running along the beach. Stone benches sat under pilasters holding broken lanterns. For a moment I imagined music, children laughing and tumbling on the lawn, young couples holding hands, mothers and babies, husbands and wives, lovers. I wondered what it looked like at night when the lanterns cast their light on the Sound, when the now dark windows were lit up.

  I apologized to Wyeth, fished his leash out of my jacket pocket and tied him to a dead tree in a large urn that stood by the front doors. He woofed in warning when I knocked on the door, rang the bell and pushed open the door when no one answered. The air smelled dank inside.

  “Hello?” I called out. I hesitated in the circular foyer and looked up a staircase with an ornately carved banister. In the living room, ten-foot windows looked out on the water. I studied the family portrait hanging over the fireplace mantle. The father wore a dark serge suit and looked stiff in his maroon tie. The mother and young child both had amazing thatches of white blonde hair and startling blue eyes. The looked vaguely familiar. I wondered who it was that they reminded me of.

  The dining room had a table that sat twenty. Imagine having twenty friends and family for dinner. I shook myself. Dean had said Dina intended to buy this house, although he hadn’t mentioned why.

  I trailed my fingers along the dining room table and left a streak in the thick dust. The kitchen, a large sunny room, looked out on a rotting vegetable garden. An indescribable feeling came over me.

  I didn’t believe in love at first sight--my years at the column had left me too jaded—but, standing in the kitchen on the white and black checkerboard stone floor, feeling the sun streaming through the windows warm my skin, I wondered if this was love. Could someone, more importantly, could I, fall in love with a house? I had never fallen in love with a person, how could I fall in love with a sunny room filled with dated appliances, filthy tile countertops, and a large discolored porcelain sink?

  I tried to dismiss the new and strange feelings washing over me. I didn’t have twenty family members. I didn’t even have twenty friends. Wyeth and I would rattle around in a house this size like two peas in a giant tin can.

  I went through the mud room. A wooden staircase climbed the back wall and row of pegs for coats ran along another. A bench and a pair of dirty boots sat beside the door. A rack, mostly full with a collection of keys had been tacked on the wall. I recognized the one belonging to the cottage.

  Phil Henderson could have taken the cottage keys from this rack.

  The mustard-colored Dutch door that led to the back garden squealed when I pulled it open. I paused on the porch when I thought I heard another noise. Old houses make noise, I told myself. Settling, they call it, as the wood shrinks and expands with the elements on the foundation. And then there are raccoons, rats, squirrels—all noise makers. I closed the door and turned toward the staircase. Another noise, more distinct, like a tread on a stair. My heart sped and I headed for the door and tripped over the dirty boots.

  A noise like a horse’s hooves came from the stairs. I fumbled for the door handle. A strong grip grabbed my wrist. I screamed and a hand covered my mouth. I struggled in a tight embrace, my feet swinging six inches off the floor. Between the strain and the hand over my mouth I began to feel light headed.

  Somewhere far away, Wyeth barked.

  “Shh!” The man hissed in my ear. “I’m sorry,” he said, still holding me. “I thought you were someone else.”

  A horrendous noise came toward us. It clanged through the dining room and kitchen. Wyeth, in a snarling frenzy, hurled toward us, barking and dragging a dead potted tree. He leapt at my captor, who swung me around using my legs as shield. Wyeth made a charge to our right.

  “Call off your dog!”

  I tried to pull his hand off my mouth.

 
“Sorry,” he stuttered and removed his hand.

  I sucked in a deep breath, just in case I had another reason to scream. “Put me down,” I said in a shaky voice.

  “First, call off your dog.” He sounded breathless. He twirled me again and my legs bounced off of Wyeth’s side. Wyeth staggered briefly, but quickly went back on the offensive, and attached himself to the man’s leg.

  The man yelped and tried to shake Wyeth off.

  “He won’t be happy until you put me down,” I said.

  “Right.” He set me down and I turned to face James Hopper. His tan face was flushed and his breathing was labored.

  I managed to pull Wyeth’s teeth out of James’ jeans. James had a circle of puncture wounds oozing with blood.

  “I guess this is what I deserve,” he said, inspecting his leg. “I’ve been expecting…someone else.”

  “And this person you were expecting, were you planning on slitting their throat?”

  “No.” He spread out his hands for my inspection. “No knives. No weapons.”

  “Except for your hands.”

  I went over and knelt by Wyeth. He whined and refused to break eye contact with James Hopper. Somewhere he had lost the urn I had tied him to and I unleashed him from the dead tree that dangled from his leash. The tree’s root-ball had left a trail of dirt through the house. I ran my hand down his trembling back and he nosed my hand for reassurance. “I’m okay,” I whispered to him and to myself.

  “What are you doing here?” James asked.

  “Did you get tired of the tent?” I asked, almost simultaneously.

  He shook his head. “I’m still sleeping in the tent…although I’m not actually here to photograph otters.”

  “I didn’t think so,” I said, stroking Wyeth in an attempt to calm him. The fur on his neck stood like porcupine quills.

  “No? Why not?”

  “When you came to the cottage you didn’t have any equipment. What decent photographer would leave his gear out in a storm?”

  James raked his hand through his hair and swore. “I can’t do this. I’m a terrible liar.” He sat down heavily on the bench.