Love on the Rocks: A Heartswell Harbour Romance

by Mavis Williams

  “Everyone?”

  “Yup,” he grinned. He had nice teeth. “And trust me, friend Lucy. The minute you install a stripper pole in the grade three classroom, I’m gonna arrest your lovely ass.”

  He was gone before she could pick her jaw up off the asphalt. And then she started to laugh.

  She laughed a lot.

  Old Lazy Eye was a pretty funny guy.

  And that was when she heard the first scream.

  Seventeen

  Actually, it wasn’t so much a scream, as a holler.

  A holler of pain.

  The kind of holler an elderly person might make if they had, perhaps, fallen into a hole. In a soccer field. In their pajamas.

  To her shame, Lucy thought about creeping back inside the school, but to her credit she instead followed Dog quickly around the corner of the school to the edge of the soccer field where the T’ai Chi-ers were gathered in a flowy, gauzy, meditative circle around a woman sitting on the ground.

  As Lucy approached, she could see the hole… the several holes… that she had dug the other night. Vicious traps awaiting unsuspecting victims.

  “I have no idea.” A man with silver hair was squatting by the hole. “Could be gophers, I suppose?”

  The seated woman groaned softly as another woman lifted her foot gently, squinting at her ankle and shaking her head. “I’d say that’s a pretty bad sprain, Louanne. How you feeling?”

  Louanne didn’t seem to be feeling too well. She was probably past seventy and had just been trapped in a gopher hole. Lucy wanted to wrap her in bandages and tuck her into an ambulance.

  “Hello,” she said, as a dozen grey heads turned her way. Lucy loved old people. She wished they would all adopt her… but she doubted that would happen now that she had tried to kill one of them. “I’m Lucy…um… of the School…”

  “You just locked the door on us, didn’t you?” foot-holding woman said. She didn’t sound angry, just curious.

  “No, I … um… let me help.” Lucy squatted beside Louanne and put her hand lightly on her shoulder. “Those damn gophers… they’re a real menace…”

  “Do we need an ambulance, do you think?” someone asked.

  “Did anyone call 911?” another voice said.

  Louanne waved a hand in the air, dismissively. “Don’t be silly,” she said. She wasn’t as Irish as Mumsy, but there was a lilt of an accent under her words. “I just need to get up and walk it off.”

  Lucy would have been very happy for all of them to get up and start walking, straight to their cars, and then straight out of her life, but judging by the bulge of purple bruise rising on Louanne’s ankle, she was stuck with them for the time being.

  “Louanne… may I call you Louanne?” Lucy began. “Stay here. I’m going to go get you something so you’re more comfortable, and then I’m going to call my friend to come and take a look at you. Is that all right?”

  As Louanne nodded and the other elders relaxed, Lucy dashed back to the school. She grabbed her phone and called Ruby while she rummaged around in the gym, looking for the gym mats she knew must be hiding there somewhere.

  “Ruby!”

  “Lu? What’s wrong?”

  Lucy swore she could smell pastry every time she talked to Ruby on the phone.

  “I need Sven. I need muscles. These people are all far too old.” She continued tossing aside old boxes and deflated basketballs until she spied a soft blue mat. “Eureka! Perfect!”

  “Lucy. Are you drunk?”

  Lucy froze. She was not drunk. She should not be surprised by this question from her very best friend, because she deserved that assumption… but it hurt anyway.

  “No.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Lucy took a deep breath. This, as with all things, was her fault. But she was sober. And Louanne needed her to protect her from the damn gophers. In the alcoholic’s best defence, Lucy could almost convince herself that the holes were dug by gophers… she barely remembered digging them herself, until she looked at her ravaged fingernails.

  “I dug holes in the soccer field and an elderly T’ai Chi lady twisted her ankle in one,” she spoke slowly, looking thoughtfully at her fingers. “I need Sven to help move her so we can get her to a doctor.”

  “We’re on our way,” Ruby’s voice was full of warmth and Lucy smiled. That woman was worth ten of Lucy. Stuffing the phone in her pocket, Lucy grabbed a gym mat and raced back up the steps and out the door, dragging the mat awkwardly behind her.

  When she came around the corner of the school, all of the Tai Chi-ers were sitting on the ground… with Mumsy. Oh groan. Just when things were going so well.

  “Hello Mums,” Lucy said as she folded the gym mat into a roll and eased it behind Louanne’s back so she could lean against it. She was rewarded with a smile and a sigh from the injured woman. “This is Louanne, and these are my Tai Chi people…”

  “They’re yours, are they?” Mumsy squatted beside Lucy, her knees groaning as they strained against the tweed of her skirt. Only Mumsy could wear tweed in the middle of spring without breaking a sweat. It was as if she walked around enveloped in a stiff Irish breeze, straight off the moors, and slept on a mattress stuffed with heather. “Ye should probably take better care of them, seeing as they’re yours.”

  “I’ll be fine, dear.” Louanne gamely tried to flex her swollen foot but winced instead. “I could go for a stiff drink though.”

  “Amen,” sighed Lucy.

  “Tea,” intoned Mumsy.

  “With whiskey,” Lucy offered.

  “Honey,” Mums said. It was not an endearment. Both Mumsy and Lucy rose to their feet, facing each other over the prone form of Louanne, the other Tai Chi people crowded around them watching the stand off like a crowd at a wrestling match.

  “Whiskey and honey.” Lucy was nothing if not good at compromise. “I’m on it.”

  But she didn’t move.

  Lucy felt her mouth saying the words, felt her throat parched for the whiskey, goddamn the honey… but she didn’t move.

  “I should stay here. With Louanne,” she managed. Her brain was dragging her, kicking and screaming, toward the bottle, but she held her mother’s gaze and nodded. “You make the tea, Mums. Heavy on the honey.”

  Eighteen

  There were words coming from Lucy’s mouth that had never been heard on the school playground before. Words her Mumsy had not taught her, words she had never used in all her years teaching, words that made the ears of young children bleed.

  “My ears ain’t bleedin’, silly,” Ida said. The words melted into the playground gravel, leaving behind a scum of crusty residue. Ida passed her another nail. “But you’se gonna be in trouble for the cussin’.”

  “Am I grounded?” Lucy hated hammering. Hammering was for stupid people. Only stupid people hammered. She took Ida’s proffered nail and stuck it in her mouth like all seasoned carpenters did. If she swallowed it, it might perforate her intestine.

  Maybe a good idea.

  “I could more successfully perforate my intestine with this nail than hammer it into that piece of wood,” Lucy said. She stood up and stretched. Carpentry was stupid.

  “That seems pretty dramatic, don’t you think, Miss Ida?” Dorian appeared on the playground out of nowhere. Like a spy, or a ninja. Ida smiled at him and danced on her tiptoes to hug him around the middle.

  Lucy only just managed to stop herself from climbing his giant frame and licking his chin.

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing tights, or a cape or something?” Lucy twirled her hammer, dropping it just shy of her foot. Flip-flops were probably a bad carpenter choice. “Isn’t that what superheroes wear when they’re sneaking up on innocent carpenters merrily plying their trade? Carpenters who, by the way, are not bothering anyone and being all innocent and sober-like?”

  “I’m not checking up on you,” Dorian said, looking hurt even though it was hard to tell with the sunglasses. He looked kind of handsome, actually. With t
he sunglasses. She imagined his eye was rolling wildly around behind the dark lenses, like a compass seeking north. “I just heard hammering and decided to do my good deed for the day.”

  “You heard hammering from inside your police cruiser?”

  “Off duty today.”

  “We’re building,” Ida said, grabbing the nail bucket as proof. “Looocy gonna build a goat house!”

  “So…,” Lucy said, drawing his attention away from the bent nails and mangled wood ends. “Why aren’t you making citizens arrests or writing raunchy novels or going to the optometrist about the whole eye thing…” She waved her hand in front of her eye, which was not Lazy. Not like some peoples’.

  He took off his sunglasses and frowned at her, lifting one eyebrow as his eye found her and he stared straight into both of hers. His were blue like the bottom of the sea.

  “That’s impressive,” she said. “You can make them both look in the same direction.”

  “Only when I find something worth looking at,” he said. She felt goosebumps ripple over her skin and she frowned at the sun beating down with all the heat of a May afternoon. When she looked back at him, he was blushing, red rising from his collar to his ears. He kicked at the gravel like a gawky teenager. “And, like I said, I’m, uh, all about doing a good deed today, anyway.”

  “Which is?” Lucy asked. She decided to be polite, as a role model for Ida. He was ridiculously charming, awkward conversational skills notwithstanding.

  “Fishing,” he grinned. Ida dropped the nail bucket as she leapt to her feet. “D’ya wanna?”

  “Yeah!” Ida hopped around. “Yes, yes, yes! I’m a great fisher! I fish faster than you would ever seen before, ever!”

  “We don’t fish,” Lucy said, giving Ida the evil eye and head roll and full body shrug. “Actually, we hate fishing. Thanks anyway.”

  “Fish! Fish! Fish!” Ida crowed, grabbing Dorian’s hand.

  “Fish! Fish! Fish!” Dorian bellowed, swinging her in a screaming circle that made Lucy smile despite her determination to avoid all moments of smiling with this law-enforcing individual who would no doubt not allow any frosty beverages on their little jaunt to the seaside.

  “That’s right, no booze. And we’re going to the wharf, not the seaside. And you need a sweater and a leash for Dog and a happy face instead of that old woman scowl you’re pretending to wear.” he said. “And you really need to come up with a real name for Dog. It’s embarrassing.”

  Dog did look, indeed, a little embarrassed.

  “I wanna call him Pirate Watermelon,” Ida said seriously. “Or maybe Butthole.”

  “We’re not calling Dog Butthole,” Lucy said, choking back a laugh. “That’s not a nice word.”

  “That’s what my Mom calls the neighbor dog,” Ida said. “When it barks a lot.”

  “Lucky for us, Dog never barks,” Lucy said.

  “Liar,” Dorian grinned at her as Dog perked his ears and took off yapping after Goat who had been peacefully perched on the fire escape. Dorian turned and walked toward the parking lot, swinging Ida as he went.

  Lucy could see Goat prancing on the roof of his car.

  Serves him right. Damned good deed humanitarian novel-writing ninja.

  Lucy kicked at the gravel as she shuffled slowly behind Dorian and Ida, Ida swinging wildly from Dorian’s arm like a scrawny chimpanzee. Together they shooed Goat off the car. Someone really needed to be in control of the goat.

  It was hot. And the hammering was stupid. And she was determined to do good things for Ida… and Ida definitely seemed to think that Dorian was a good thing…

  It was only when they were twenty minutes down the road that Lucy informed him that she didn’t know how to fish, to which Ida replied that it was okay because Ida herself would teach her, and that there was no need to be afraid of the sharks because Ida could swim faster than the sharks anyway…

  “You said nothing about sharks,” Lucy raised her eyebrow at Dorian, who responded by throwing a rubber worm at her as they got out of the truck. Dorian gathered fishing poles and a tackle box from the back of the truck. Dog hopped down from the cab, wagging his tail like he was at Disneyland.

  Ida hopped dizzyingly from one foot to the other, wearing her sweater like a cape. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt since she had refused to allow them to stop at her house for her anything warmer. Lucy hadn’t seen Connie for over a week, and Ida’s usual response to any questions about her mother’s well-being was that she was napping. Let sleeping mothers lie, Lucy thought. Not a bad plan.

  “Can we fish? Can we fish?” Ida raced around them in circles as Dorian and Lucy walked to the end of the pier. There were several other groups of people sitting in deck chairs along the edge of the wharf, rods balanced on the pilings and empty buckets ready to be filled with the days’ catch.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s catching anything,” Lucy said doubtfully.

  “It’s not called catching,” Dorian said, nudging Ida on the shoulder.

  “It’s called fishin’!” she screeched, grabbing the rod that Dorian passed her and flinging her line over the edge of the pier without waiting for permission, instruction or a worm.

  Lawn chairs magically appeared from the back of the truck as Dorian set up their own little encampment. He had a cooler with sandwiches, fruit and, wondrously, Ruby’s signature chocolate croissants, still warm and flaky in her hand. He produced a thermos of coffee and poured her a mug as she settled in one of the chairs.

  “This isn’t fishing like I remember it,” she said, breathing in the steam from her mug. “When I think of fishing it’s all mud and slime and worms. This is quite civilized.”

  She almost forgot how nice a swig of whiskey would be. Almost.

  “My dad used to bring Connie and I here when we were kids,” Dorian said, hooking his fingers into Ida’s waistband to keep her on the dry side of the pier. He hauled her back and carefully threaded a worm onto her hook before letting her hunker down by the piling.

  “You two grew up together?” Lucy surprised herself by asking. She wondered what was happening to her stalwart policy of not caring. It was as if this gentle policeman was chipping away at all the defences she had built up around herself over the last two years and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  He did bring croissants, though, so she decided to go with it for now as she licked chocolate off her fingers.

  “Connie’s dad and mine were brothers,” Dorian spoke quietly, watching Ida as he talked. “Russell and Randy, the Wells boys. Both big drinkers, both angry drinkers. I don’t have many happy memories of my dad, but fishing is one of them.”

  “What about Connie?”

  “Connie’s dad…” he paused. He looked at her as if deciding what to say. “Russell died when Connie was about ten. Car accident. My dad took it hard.”

  Lucy knew without asking that Connie’s dad had been drunk when he crashed the car. She knew without asking that Dorian’s dad blamed himself. She felt a small dark place inside her chest grow a little smaller, like it didn’t want to let anything else in. Like life was already bleak enough, thank you very much.

  “My dad left a couple a years after that. We woke up one morning and he was gone, just like that,” Dorian shrugged. “Connie lived with my mom and me all through her teen years, and it wasn’t pretty. She was angry at the world then, and she’s still angry now.”

  “And Ida?”

  “Ida is my cousin’s daughter, but I call her my niece. She’s the best one of the bunch of us,” he smiled. “When my mom died I promised to keep an eye on her. I guess I didn’t realize it would take more than an eye.”

  He winked at Lucy.

  Gotta love a man who can make fun of himself.

  Ida reeled in her rod and asked for another worm.

  “This worm is a no good one,” she said, screwing up her face like the worm had made a bad choice that morning. “I needs a more betterer one.”

  Ida held out the faulty worm t
o Lucy who squinted at it. “That is definitely a no-good worm,” she agreed. “But you don’t want to ask me to put one on your hook for you. It will definitely not be more betterer.”

  ✽✽✽

  They fished for a couple of hours without a bite until Ida decided that there were no fish in the ocean and fishing was stupid anyway. She stomped her feet and slammed the rod down onto the ground looking disconcertingly like Mumsy in a snit.

  “You sure she’s not Irish?” Lucy asked as they bundled their gear back into the truck. Ida pouted in the back seat, rubbing her face into Dog’s shoulder.

  “Hey kid,” Dorian said, once everything was packed away. He waited until Ida lifted her chin stubbornly, her little face tight like a dried apple. “What’s better than fishing, kiddo?”

  “Everything,” Ida pouted. Lucy giggled. This child was her soul mate.

  “Come on, Warrior Princess,” he tried again. “What’s even better than fishing?”

  “Snacks?” Ida perked up as if she could smell ice cream on the horizon.

  “Wanna go to the…” Dorian paused spreading his arms wide as Ida got into the game and hopped out of the truck, stupid fishing erased from the turmoil of her day.

  If only it were so easy to let go of life’s disappointments, Lucy thought.

  “Ice cream!” Ida crowed.

  “Ice cream!” Lucy echoed.

  Dorian looked crestfallen. He dropped his arms to his side and sighed hugely.

  “I was thinking the Book Nook,” he said, pulling a face. He hung his head and began shuffling away from the truck. Lucy thought it was ridiculously adorable.

  Ida ran after him and grabbed his hand.

  “We can have ice cream and the bookstore,” she bargained.

  “We can eat ice cream while we read our books,” Lucy said, reaching out for his other hand without thinking until she felt the warmth of his fingers curl around hers. She tried to pull back, but he neatly tucked her hand under his elbow, smiling like he’d just got her to swallow the hook.