One Hot Summer

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “Mrs. Forbes, why is Dinah on a leash today if her paw is hurt?” he asked, annoyed the poor animal wasn’t in a crate.

  “Now, Dr. Hunter, you know that Her Majesty does not like getting stuffed into that damned box. She prefers to walk, even if it is with a limp.”

  Mrs. Geraldine Forbes, of the Montauk Forbes, was old money. Very old money. Legend had it her late husband died a mysterious death in his fifties when Geraldine was just thirty herself. Nobody liked him. Roger Forbes was a curmudgeon at best, and an asshole. He treated everyone as if they were beneath him, and nobody that Donovan was aware of shed a tear for him, including Geraldine.

  “I know that she is royalty, but if her paw is injured, we don’t want her walking on it, okay?” Donovan replied softly and patted the table between them for her to place Dinah upon.

  The cat was beautiful. With huge green eyes and spots like a leopard, the domestic Bengal was small for its breed, and extremely friendly. Donovan felt animals could sense people that were into them and as such, most animals were quite friendly with him unless, of course, they were very sick or injured. Dinah was no exception and she rubbed her head against him as he examined her front paws.

  “Did she fall or anything that you’re aware of?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, dear. She’s always climbing about in my closets and such, and she can jump so goddamn high, it’s hard to tell. She’s an explorer,” Geraldine replied, shrugging her shoulders.

  After he gently squeezed the cat’s paws and found the reaction he was looking for, Donovan was certain it wasn’t serious. “I am pretty sure it’s just a sprain, Mrs. Forbes.”

  “It’s not broken or anything?”

  If it were broken, you wouldn’t be able to walk her in here on a leash, he thought. “No, she didn’t get terribly upset when I felt her paws, and nothing appears to be dislocated. I’m going to give you some kitty ibuprofen to mix in her food twice a day, which will help with inflammation. Try to keep her from jumping too high or getting herself in any predicaments for a few days and she’ll be good as new.” He paused before continuing. “She needs to go home in a carrier though. She shouldn’t be walking around on that paw.” He attempted to veil his irritation, internally chalking it up to Mrs. Forbes’ senility.

  “Okay, okay, Doctor. Tell that pretty redhead out front to box up my cat.” Geraldine rolled her eyes at him. She may have been beginning her golden years, but it seemed her sass was still as sharp as a twenty-year-old’s.

  Donovan chuckled. “It’s for the best, I promise.” He lightly patted Geraldine on the forearm before giving Dinah a few more head scratches on his way out of the exam room.

  “How is Her Majesty, the Queen of Sheba?” Toni asked with a grin, once they were out of earshot.

  Antoinette Fournier had been Donovan’s assistant and veterinary technician since he had opened his practice. They met briefly in high school, and then again when he came back to the Port to open his practice. She, too, had been a part of the second generation of the working class in town until she married Scott Dewey, of the Dewey Soda empire. They’d met one summer when Scott was on vacation at his family’s enormous mansion on the bay, where Scott hosted many an unsupervised party for his friends.

  Long since divorced, Toni didn’t need to work. With young love comes the belief it will last forever, and thus no prenuptial agreement. Since Scott’s father had placed several smaller, albeit profitable, businesses in his son’s name, as his wife, Toni was awarded a hefty sum. Nobody knew the exact dollar amount, but to be rid of the family as a whole, she took a payout from them instead of half the businesses when her husband’s philandering came to light. Because it wasn’t about the money, Toni took great pleasure in her work with animals.

  Donovan chuckled at her reference. “The princess is fine, but can you please get a carrier for Mrs. Forbes to take her home in? She has a sprained paw. She will also need six doses of the cat ibuprofen.”

  “You got it, Doc,” she replied.

  As she sauntered off to find Mrs. Forbes a cat carrier befitting royalty, Donovan couldn’t help but watch her ass sway back and forth in her tight scrubs. Divorced women always had great bodies, especially when their ex-husbands footed the bill for it, and Toni was no exception. Her implants, a classy wedding gift from her former betrothed, paired with the personal trainer he was fairly certain she was fucking between sessions, kept her looking like she had the body of a twenty-something even though she was close to thirty-three. Squats. She must be doing a lot of squats.

  Donovan shook off the thoughts of bending his assistant over the exam table and bid farewell to Mrs. Forbes and the princess. Summer would be there soon enough, and he’d be able to get that itch scratched from someone he wasn’t paying to assist him soon enough.

  Later that evening, after feeding his four cats, Hulk, Thor, Ivy, and Diana, and his two dogs Archie and Veronica, he picked up the book he was reading and took it to the porch with a bottle of beer. A storm was coming through and while the wind was picking up off the coast, the position of the small house protected him from the impending weather. Still cool enough for a sweatshirt, Donovan put his feet up on the rattan ottoman his mother had given him as a gift when he purchased the house, and gazed at the sky.

  The dark clouds coming in were moving quickly but brought a refreshing and cool breeze that could only be felt close to the waterfront. Real estate in the Port was always outrageous, which was why the rich and famous, and well to do New Yorkers liked to vacation there. It’s exclusivity brought with it a virtual billboard advertising your net worth if you could afford to spend summers there. It wasn’t always the case, but most of the folks with houses had paid a pretty penny and the resale value went up year over year, creating a vacuum of the rich making each other richer with every summer season.

  The house Donovan bought was a fixer-upper by every stretch of the imagination, and while larger than what he needed just for himself, was quite small relative to the area where it was located. It had gone into foreclosure, and when the bank took it back from the owner who couldn’t keep up with the Joneses, he was able to snatch it up for a fraction of what it would have gone on the market for. The property alone was worth more than the house, but Donovan enjoyed working on it himself in the slow season, and it had become a home he loved, even if it was in a town he wasn’t sure he felt the same way about.

  2

  Riley

  New York City was bustling as always and Riley Maxwell could hear the horns blaring from the hostile drivers sitting in rush hour traffic, trying to get home. “I wonder if they know that honking your horn is illegal in New York City,” she said.

  “Is it really?” Jameson Prescott, her client on the other end of the phone, replied.

  “Yes. Unless it’s an emergency, of course, nobody is supposed to honk their horns at all.” She mused at the useless knowledge that filled her active mind.

  “You should be on that trivia game show. You’d probably win.” Jameson chuckled.

  “Now, you know that I don’t like to be out and about. That sounds pretty out and about to me,” she replied. She wasn't officially diagnosed agoraphobic, but she didn’t enjoy leaving the confines of her apartment for more than a food run most of the time.

  Her favorite client, Mr. Prescott, had hired her to help him write his memoirs. Jameson Prescott was probably about her dad’s age. Older than her, somewhere around his mid-fifties, he’d lived an interesting life and wanted to leave a legacy of some kind behind. Not for his family, as he didn’t have any, but he didn’t want to be forgotten. That’s what he told Riley when they met for the first time in person, at Riley’s favorite coffee shop three blocks from her apartment.

  “You’re young, Riley. You really need to get out of that apartment and get some fresh air,” he said in a fatherly tone.

  “Okay, Dad, I’ll take that under advisement,” she replied sarcastically.

  “I know that means you won’t.”


  “You know me better than I thought you did, Jameson,” she replied with a laugh.

  The two had grown to be friends over the eighteen months they’d been working together on their project. Asking someone to explain their life in detail so it can be documented meant that the two of them spent a tremendous amount of time talking. Riley was never sure how Jameson had found her, but she was grateful for the opportunity and had been paid a very large sum of money to make herself available on Jameson’s timeline. He had requested she name a dollar amount that would be sufficient enough for her to decline any other large projects and only take on small, creative projects while under contract with him.

  Originally, Riley thought it was a joke and she named what she believed was a fair amount that equated to a full year’s salary for a mid-level copywriter. Not only did Jameson agree to it immediately, but he also gave her a ten thousand dollar bonus—he called it—for beginning right away and wrapping up any projects she currently had on her plate. She signed the contract with him and when the money was wired to her account almost instantly, she realized he was not only serious, he was rich.

  What she didn’t know when she first met him was what a kind soul he was, and that he’d lived a life worth telling the story of. When they were introduced face to face shortly after finalizing the contract, Jameson made the trip to New York City and took her out for the fanciest dinner she’d ever had. That was the only other time they’d met. It had been over a year since they’d gotten together in person, and although she generally preferred working remotely with all of her clients, she was compelled to ask him to come back.

  “Do you remember the first time that we met in person?” she asked him.

  “Of course I do. Why do you ask?” he replied.

  “I was just thinking it’s been a long time and we’ve been working together for over a year, almost daily. Maybe we should sit down and go over everything we have for the book. Start talking about how you want to lay it out, and all that?” There was no reason for her to ask other than the fact she simply wanted to see him. She enjoyed his company, and they had the most interesting conversations. It was unusual for Riley to request a sit-down. She’d never even considered asking that a meeting take place in the same time zone, let alone the same room.

  Silence on the line had Riley reconsidering. “I mean, we don’t have to. I just thought it might be nice,” she added with a shake to her voice.

  “I’m sorry, no, that would be lovely,” Jameson replied. “I’ll be away on business for a while though, so we’ll have to plan it for sometime this summer. That’s actually why I called you. I need to take a short break on the book while I’m gone and we can get back to it when I return. That will be a perfect time for us to look at everything with fresh eyes, and you can come up to Port Henry if you’d like.”

  Riley hadn’t considered going up to the Port. She assumed he would come back to the city. Spending even an afternoon there would be wonderful, and she immediately began racking her brain to see if she could turn it into a mini-vacation. “That would be lovely, Jameson! Are you sure though? I don’t want to be an imposition.” She knew some might think their relationship was intimate and to an extent, it was, but it was also intellectual. She didn’t feel anything but kinship with him and she was quite certain it was the same for him.

  Besides the age difference between them, Jameson was practically old enough to be her father, and he was more of a mentor in the ways of life—an advisor, of sorts. Trying to qualify their relationship in a way that was both platonic and special rarely crossed her mind, except for the times she tried to explain it to her best friend, Colette, who lived in Boston. Colette finally chalked Riley’s fascination with the older man as filling a void the crappy relationship she had with her father had left.

  “I think we’re long past the formalities, Riley. You know more about me and my life than any of my wives ever did at this point.” He laughed. “It’s also no secret that I have a house too big for just the likes of me, and you’re welcome here any time. I think a summer get together in the Port would do us both some good, don’t you?”

  “I’d love that. In the meantime, are there any other projects you would like me to work on while you’re away?” Riley was employed by him and only him, so if she wasn’t working on the book, she wasn’t really clear what he wanted her to be doing with her time.

  “Just reread what we have and make any notes you think I need to see.”

  “Are you sure that’s all you want me to do?”

  “I’m sure,” he replied. “Take a little time off to enjoy spring in the city. Even in that concrete jungle, there are leaves that change with the passing of time.”

  Confused, but not altogether upset about a little time away from her desk, she agreed. “When should I expect you back?”

  “If all goes well, I should be back home in the Port in about three weeks.”

  “Where you headed?”

  “Switzerland,” he replied without further explanation.

  “Gonna do any skiing while you’re there?” she asked. Riley had never been skiing, but assumed it was something you’d do if you were headed to Switzerland. She hadn’t traveled much, but her mom used to tell her that living in New York City was almost as good. With the different parts of the city, like Chinatown, Little Brazil, and so many other ethnically rich areas, you could go on a tour of the world within just a few blocks. She knew it wasn’t the same, but smiled reminiscing about her mom’s imagination.

  “No, no. I don’t ski. I have some business to attend to. But I’ll be in touch,” he said.

  “Okay, sounds good. I’ll follow up with you next week with any thoughts I have, and then we’ll regroup and plan a visit when you get back. Have a great time.”

  “Thank you, Riley, I’ll try.”

  A week had gone by and Riley tried to honor Jameson’s request, but “going out and getting fresh air” as he’d suggested wasn’t specific enough for her. She didn’t know what to do with herself. After college, where she’d met her best friend, she started working immediately and hadn’t had much of a social life. The people in New York she knew the best were the shop owners around her block. Not much of a joiner, Riley had a hard time making friends, and if it weren’t for being placed together as roommates freshman year, she and Colette never would have become friends either. As luck would have it though, they hit it off and stayed close, even with the distance between them geographically.

  Riley was bored and with two more weeks without her work buddy, she knew she had to find something productive to do with her time, so she checked out her latest requests for freelance work and decided to pick up a couple of small jobs to occupy her time. Graduating at the top of her class with excellent communication skills, she’d managed to work freelance writing almost immediately and had developed a loyal and robust client base. She may have been an introvert in her personal life, but professionally, Riley was dynamic and had the skills and work ethic to have her own business at a young age.

  Now thirty, she had her pick of jobs. She had all but taken the last year off to work on Jameson’s project, but she wasn’t hurting for incoming requests. As she perused the list, she found two easy blog posts that needed to be written, and emailed the clients to let them know she’d take the work on and would have it done within a few days. Grinning, she started to feel useful again, a sensation that kept her from wallowing in boredom or self-pity, whichever crept in first.

  Able to complete the jobs relatively quickly, she took on a few more to help the time pass. Only a few times did she think she should find something to do outside her apartment, but the moments passed quickly enough that she didn’t give them a second thought, and continued to hole herself up inside.

  By the end of the second week, Riley hadn’t left her apartment once. Finally, she decided she needed to stretch her legs and go for a walk. Spring was almost over and the heat of the city would soon be too much to bear, so she grabbed her crossbody bag, put
some shoes on, and headed for the elevator. Her building was located near Columbus Circle, and the area had plenty of places to walk as well as several nearby shops and restaurants. She couldn’t remember when she ate last—a pitfall of making your own hours—and when she thought about it, a rumble in her stomach reminded her it had been a while and she should find some nourishment. Preferably in the form of Chinese food, she thought.

  After filling her belly and walking off the egg rolls and lo mein, she ventured back to her apartment. Since it was only mid-afternoon on a Friday, it seemed like the perfect time for a nap. But when Riley arrived home, there was a large towering man who looked to be in his mid to late fifties standing in front of her door. Panic set in and Riley wasn’t sure whether to go back down to the lobby or confront the man. While she stood, frozen, trying to figure out why he was there, he spoke up.

  “Ms. Maxwell?” he asked.

  “Who’s asking?” she snarled back, trying to sound tough.

  “My name is Bernard Dubois.” He studied her from afar as she waited for him to continue. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced, but I am in the employ of Mr. Jameson Prescott. He… uh… sent me.”

  “What do you mean, he sent you?” she snapped at him.

  Bernard held up a large manilla envelope she hadn’t noticed and held it out. “I’ve been instructed to deliver this to you.”

  Relaxing a bit, noticing this Bernard character was seemingly harmless, she approached and took the envelope. “What is this?” she asked as she took it gently from his hand.

  “It’s a letter from Mr. Prescott’s attorney.”

  “Am I in some kind of trouble?” Her confusion grew and her heart began to race.

  “No, ma’am. There are instructions inside. I must be going now.” He nodded and quickly walked past her toward the elevator.

  Spinning around, she yelled out, “Wait! Is Mr. Prescott okay?”