Carla again: “I call her a Harpy! I always felt sorry for her kids. They grew up with our kids. None of them turned out the way she intended.”
Trudy: “Poetic justice! She wanted the eldest to be a lawyer. He got through law school but could never pass the bar exam.”
Carla: “The next was supposed to be a heart surgeon. And what is he? A perfectly wonderful vet! He always loved animals.”
Trudy: “And what about the girl? She’s a real flake!”
Carla: “And the youngest boy! She’s bailed him out of three marriages already.”
Trudy: “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.”
Carla: “Why does he bother to get married?”
Trudy: “He’s just an easy mark who can’t say no.”
When the merry innkeepers signaled for a third bottle of champagne, Qwilleran stood up, thanked them for their hospitality, and explained that he had another appointment. Leaving them happily relaxed in the wicker chairs, he walked down West Beach Road, marveling at the intrigue behind the Golden Curtain. He picked up his pressed garments, then stopped at the Domino Inn to phone Riker’s office. He left the information about the reservation with the secretary.
“He’s here. Want to talk to him?” asked Wilfred.
“Haven’t time. Late for an appointment.” Qwilleran knew that his friend’s first question would be “How much?”
On the way out of the building he was stopped by the Moseley sisters. “You’re a hero!” they said. “The Hardings told us about the rescue.”
“Just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“We knew Elizabeth very well,” said the one with glasses. “She was a student at our school in Connecticut. When we read about Pear Island resort in the Boston papers and made our reservation, we had no idea we were coming to her beloved Grand Island.”
“Have you seen her since you’ve been here?”
“Oh, no! We wouldn’t think of intruding,” said the pretty one with a soft voice. “Is she looking well?”
“In the throes of a snake bite one is never at one’s best.”
“Very true.” They nodded, smiling at his arch observation.
“But to answer your question seriously, she seems to be unhealthily thin.”
One sister murmured to the other, “She’s having problems again. She’s not eating. Too bad she can’t get away from that environment.”
A profile of the rich little mermaid was forming in Qwilleran’s mind. “Was she a good student?”
“Oh, yes,” said Edith. “All her life she’d had private tutors and was a prodigious reader, but she was a nervous wreck when she came to us. We all worked hard to improve her diet and elevate her spirit and draw her into campus life.”
“We succeeded to a degree, and she should have gone on to college, but…it didn’t happen. The reason was never explained. We corresponded for a while, but gradually she slipped away into her small world. Poor Elizabeth!”
Qwilleran concealed his personal curiosity by inquiring, “And now that you’ve seen her beloved island, what do you think of it?”
“It’s not the idyllic spot we expected,” said Edna ruefully. “The Bambas are a lovely family, but we doubt that we’ll stay our full two weeks.”
“The island isn’t even pear-shaped,” Edith said.
“We’ve taken carriage rides on both beaches, and it’s an isosceles triangle!”
Edna said, “You should put that in your column, Mr. Qwilleran.”
As he ambled back to Four Pips, he was painting a mental picture of the royal family, brushstroke by brushstroke: the daughter who wouldn’t eat…the son who couldn’t stop marrying…the law graduate who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pass the bar exam…the doctor who preferred to treat animals…the autocratic mother who was said to be a Harpy.
Upon arriving home he immediately wrote a brief note to Mrs. Appelhardt: “Found these on the nature trail. Hope your daughter recovers swiftly.” He signed it “J. Qwilleran.” Then he set out for the Vacation Helpers once more, carrying the botany book and the silver pencil.
Shelley was at the counter. “Back again?” she said in surprise. “Was the pressing okay?”
“No complaint,” he said, “except for the scorch marks on the back of the shirt.”
Her look of horror melted quickly to a smile. “Oh, you’re a male chauvinist comic! What can we do for you now?”
“Could you wrap these two articles and deliver them to an address on West Beach Road? Tomorrow will do.”
“We’ll be happy to. I have a nice box and some seagull giftwrap.”
“This is not a gift,” he said. “On the other hand, I don’t want it to look like a homemade bomb. Here’s the note to go with it, and here’s the address.” He looked over her shoulder to the rear of the room. “Is your cat supposed to be scratching himself in the baby’s playpen?”
“No! No! Out! Out!” she screamed, chasing him and slamming a door. “Somebody left the door open. That’s Hannibal, one of our resident strays.”
“A ‘resident stray’ sounds like an oxymoron,” he said.
“Hannibal is foxy, but he’s no moron,” she quipped. “He knows a good place to eat. How did you like your box lunch?”
“The meatloaf was excellent. Could you deliver a whole one to me, say, every other day? I’d pay in advance.”
“Absolutely!” said Shelley. “We’ll start tomorrow. Midge makes four-pounders for sandwiches and two-pounders for snacks.”
“Two-pounders will be ample.”
“Is it for your roommate?” she asked, looking him steadily in the eye. “Your roommate is a raccoon, isn’t he?”
Shelley looked so triumphant, so pleased with herself, that he said mildly, “How did you guess?”
On Friday morning Qwilleran opened a can of lobster for the cats’ breakfast. “This is the last junk food you’re going to get for a while. For the rest of our stay here, you’ll have homemade meatloaf, delivered fresh, every other day, by bicycle. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you are now raccoons.”
Through long association with this pair of connoisseurs, he knew their favorites: freshly roasted turkey, homemade meatloaf, and canned red salmon, top grade. Nevertheless, they gobbled the lobster with rapturous slurping, waving of tails, and clicking of fangs on the plate. Yum Yum looked up after each swallow to confirm that Qwilleran was still there. Afterward, she jumped onto his lap while he drank his coffee, stroked her fur, and paid her extravagant compliments. He called it their après-breakfast schmooz.
Their dinner was served earlier than usual that evening, because Qwilleran wanted to check the post office before it closed. He cubed the meatloaf precisely—five-sixteenths of an inch, he estimated. “Don’t say I never do anything for you,” he said to the waiting cats. They were quieter than usual, and they were sitting a little farther away. After placing a generous plateful on the floor, he stepped back to enjoy their ecstasy. They approached it stealthily and backed away. He sampled a cube himself. There was nothing wrong with it; in fact, it might be described as…tasty. “Try it! You’ll like it!” They walked away with heads lowered and tails drooping.
“Well, I’m not going to stand here and do catfood commercials for you brats!” He left the plate on the floor and dressed for his trip downtown.
The resort area was gearing up for what everyone hoped would be a busy weekend, although the atmosphere was more wishful than confident. Horse cabs lined up at the ferry dock. Cargo was being offloaded for the deli and general store—mostly beer. In an extra bid for business, the T-shirt studio was hanging choice designs on clotheslines strung across the front of the shop.
In the same spirit of hopeful doubt, Qwilleran checked the post office, but there was no news from Oregon. He assumed Polly was having a rollicking vacation—looking for puffin birds, giggling with her college roommate, and talking about him.
For a while he watched vacationers disembarking with bevies of child
ren, their shouts punctuating the waterfront hush: “Junior, don’t hang over the railing!…Mom, did you bring my rollerblades?…
Lookit all the horses! What are they for?…Hey, Dad, could this island sink?”
Among the arrivals were six backpackers. The size of their gear suggested they were the crew who had been camping at the lighthouse on weekends and hang gliding on the dune. They were attractive young people, Qwilleran thought: the women, healthy; the men, athletic; and all exposed skin, enviably suntanned. Also arriving, with luggage to be loaded into a carriage, was Dr. June Halliburton with a limp-brimmed sunhat shading her white skin and red hair.
In the hotel lobby Qwilleran picked up a copy of Friday’s Moose County Something and was surprised to find the following item on page one:
SNAKE-BITE VICTIM
AIRLIFTED FROM ISLAND
The sheriff’s helicopter evacuated a victim of snake bite from Pear Island to the Pickax General Hospital Thursday. Elizabeth C. Appelhardt, 23, a summer resident of the Grand Island Club, was in good condition today after treatment, according to a hospital spokesperson. This is the third medical emergency handled by the sheriff’s airborne division this month.
Only the sheriff would like the coverage, Qwilleran mused; he was always campaigning for re-election or lobbying for more funds to buy rescue equipment. The queen mother would dislike the publicity because it invaded her family’s Olympian privacy. The victim would take umbrage at the mention of her age. Don Exbridge would explode because the report made the island sound hazardous to one’s health.
There was already a commotion erupting in the manager’s office, and Qwilleran caught sight of a bald head and waving arms as Exbridge shouted, “Get those damned T-shirts off the front of the store! What do they think this is? A Persian bazaar?”
As soon as the dining room opened, Qwilleran presented himself at the reservation desk.
“Hi, Mr. Q! You’re early,” said Derek Cuttlebrink, resplendent in pirate’s tricorne and one gold earring. “Are you all alone tonight?”
“No, I’ve brought my friend, Anatole France.” He held up his copy of Penguin Island. “I’d like a quiet table where I can read—also a reservation for tomorrow night at eight o’clock—three persons.” In a lower voice he asked, “Any luck with your assignment?”
Derek nodded importantly. “Gotta contact,” he mumbled while appearing to study his reservation chart. “How about Sunday night? I’m off early.”
“Come to the fourth cottage behind the inn.”
Over shrimp bisque and Cajun pork chops Qwilleran finished reading his book and was leaving the dining room when another blowup occurred in the manager’s office. There was a torrent of invective, and Dwight Somers came rushing out. He caught sight of Qwilleran. “I need a drink! Come into the bar.”
He led the way to a secluded booth and ordered a double martini. “That guy’s a madman when things don’t go the way he planned. And don’t try to reason with him, or you’ll get your head lopped off. If I’m still here by the Fourth of July, I’ll be surprised. Either I’ll be fired, or I’ll be in jail for murder.”
“What’s happened now?” Qwilleran asked sympathetically.
“It’s a funny thing, Qwill. The chicken incident didn’t faze him because he could use his clout to squash the implications, but little things drive him bananas—like the pickets last weekend, and the critical letters to the editor, and the snake-bite item in today’s paper. He says, ‘Who cares if some snooty rich kid gets bitten by a snake?’ He says it’s not important news. He says it only tarnishes the image of the resort, which is a boon to the community. When the paper reported the county’s decision to spray for mosquitoes by plane, he got all kinds of flak, and he blamed you guys for playing it up on page one.”
“Are we running a newspaper or a publicity agency?” Qwilleran asked.
“He’s not dumb; he knows he can’t dictate to the press,” said Dwight, “but he has these insane tantrums! If I play Devil’s advocate, in the interest of public relations, I get dumped on. Wait’ll you hear his latest brainstorm!” He gulped the rest of his drink and waved his glass at the waiter.
Qwilleran advised him to order some food, too. “I’ll have coffee and a piece of pie…Okay, what’s his latest noodle?”
“Well, he’s afraid we’re getting too many families with five kids and a picnic basket, instead of the sophisticated crowd he intended. So he wants to offer a Midsummer Night’s Dream weekend package—everything first class and limited to thirty persons, adults only. It includes transportation from the mainland by private boat; flowers and champagne in the rooms; breakfast in bed; and a supper-dance on Midsummer’s Eve.”
“Sounds okay,” Qwilleran said.
“He wants it outdoors, with white tablecloths, fresh flowers on the tables, three wine glasses at every place, hurricane candles, strolling musicians, and waiters in white coats with black bowties. No pirate shirts! That would be okay around the pool; if it rained, we could set up indoors. But here’s the fly in the soup: He wants it at the lighthouse!” Dwight took a swig of his second double martini.
“Can you imagine the logistics?” he went on. “First you need a fleet of wagons to transport tables, chairs, portable dance floor, table settings, food warmers, chilled wine, and portable johns. There are no facilities up there. Then you need a fleet of carriages to transport the guests. The ground behind the lighthouse is uneven, and how do you keep the tables and chairs from wobbling? The wind is capable of whipping the tablecloths around, blowing the napkins away, putting out the candles, breaking the glass chimneys, and even blowing the food off the plates! And suppose it starts to rain!”
“Hasn’t Don ever been to Lighthouse Point?”
“Of course he has, but he never lets reality and common sense get in the way of a fanciful idea.”
Qwilleran said, “I see a great scenario for a comedy skit. You have all the guests on the rock, getting happily plastered, and it starts to rain. No shelter. No carriages; they’ve returned to the stables. Everyone’s drenched. The steaks are swimming on the plates. Thunder is crashing; lightning is flashing. Then the fog horn starts blatting, fifty feet from everyone’s eardrums. The guests riot. Two of them take refuge inside the portable potties and refuse to come out. I think it has infinite possibilities for laughs.”
“Not funny,” said Dwight, but he laughed just the same and applied himself to his steak. Finally he said to Qwilleran, “And what have you been doing all week?”
“Not much. I rescued a mermaid from certain death, that’s all.” He described the incident with more detail than he had wasted on other listeners.
“It figures,” Dwight said with envy. “The guy who has an indecent fortune of his own is the lucky one who rescues an heiress. What’s she like?”
“She has the svelte figure of a rainbow trout, the hair of a mermaid, and flowing garments that probably hide a tail. Want me to line her up for you? In case you get fired, it would be useful to have an heiress on the string.”
“No, thanks. Finders keepers,” said Dwight. “What do you hear from Polly?”
“She hasn’t even sent a postcard, but I bet she phones Pickax every night and talks to Bootsie.”
“I’m envious of your relationship with Polly, Qwill. You’re comfortable friends, and you keep your independence. I’ve been in Moose County almost a year without any luck. I’ve bought dinner for every unattached female within fifty miles, except Amanda Goodwinter, and I may get around to her yet. So far, no one has passed the litmus test. Hixie Rice is my type, if you want to know, but she’s tied up with that doctor.”
“It won’t last long,” Qwilleran reassured him. “No one ever lasts long with Hixie, and that would go for you, too.”
Dwight said sheepishly, “I even took June Halliburton to dinner at the Palomino Paddock and spent half a week’s salary. It was a bust!”
“What happened?” Qwilleran asked, although he could guess.
“You
know how she is! She has looks, talent, and credentials, but she says the damnedest things! We were drinking seventy-dollar champagne, and she looked at me with those suggestive eyes and said, ‘You’re a handsome, intelligent man, Dwight, with a wonderful personality. Why don’t you shave off that scruffy beard and invest in a good toupee?’ That’s typical of that woman. She pursues guys as if she likes them, and then stomps on ’em. How well do you know her?”
“Well enough to know I don’t want to know her any better.”
“I think of her as a predatory misanthrope.”
“That’ll do until a stronger word comes along,” Qwilleran said. “At the Rikers’ wedding she was coming on to every man at the reception, including the bridegroom. Polly can’t stand her. When they meet, you could light a cigarette from the sparks.”
“Did you ever write June up in your column?”
“Almost. I intended to interview her about music in the schools, but she wanted to make it a social occasion at her apartment. When I insisted on an office appointment, she proved impossible to interview. It was verbal football. She called the plays, carried the ball, straight-armed questions, and made end runs around the subject. The way it ended, she scored all the points, but I won the game. I never wrote the column.”
“You media types always get the last word. I’m in the wrong business.”
Qwilleran said, “Another time, I invited the Comptons over for a drink after the theater, and they brought June. She didn’t stay long. She said the circular building and diagonal ramps gave her a headache. Actually it was Koko giving her the whammy. When he stares at someone’s forehead, it’s like a gimlet boring into the brain.”
“What was his problem?” Dwight asked.
“Apparently he didn’t like her scent.”
“Starting this weekend, she’ll be here for the whole summer.”
“I know,” Qwilleran said. “I saw her getting off the ferry with a lot of luggage—and an eye for the mounted security men in red coats. Was she another of Exbridge’s bright ideas?”
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