Emily's Ghost (50 page)

And without air
conditioning. In a burst of economic caution he'd decided on
Rent-a-Wreck instead of Hertz or Avis at the airport. The three-
year-old Cutlass they gave him ran perfectly fine; if it were, say,
January, he'd have no complaint. But he was dressed for the Arctic,
which is roughly where he thought Maine was, and with the midday
sun beating down on a dark gray roof on a hot June day, he felt
like complaining plenty.

"Go heal somewhere
else,"
his surgeon had advised him.
"Away from the bloodshed. Somewhere cool,
somewhere quiet, somewhere where every citizen isn't armed up to
his goddamned teeth."

Wyler was shell-shocked,
and he knew
it.
He
needed time to think, time to
heal, time to decide whether he even wanted to go back to the
bloody fray. So he'd chosen a small, very small, resort town with a
reputation for quiet evenings and grand scenery. He didn't need
theme parks, topless beaches, casino gambling, or all-night discos.
All he needed, all he wanted, was a little peace and
quiet.

So why, having fled to
this supposedly remote chunk of granite coast, was he feeling his
blood pressure soar and his temples ache?

Because this isn't what it
was supposed to be,
he realized,
disappointed. Because he'd pictured the route to Bar Harbor as a
quiet country road lined with gabled houses with big front porches,
and laundry billowing from clotheslines out back. Instead, he found
himself inching past a more familiar kind of Americana: Pizza Hut,
Holiday Inn, Dairy Queen, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and McDonald's,
all vying with one another for his tourist dollars
—
that is, if the fella
on the curb selling Elvis-on-velvet paintings didn't get them
first.

Shit.
He'd picked a tourist trap after all.

His disappointment lasted
right through Ellsworth and over the causeway onto Mount Desert
Island. The island, too, was pretty developed. The road that fed
into Bar Harbor was lined with campgrounds and cabin rentals and,
eventually, big motels perched high on a ridge to his right,
presumably with views of the ocean he knew was somewhere to his
left. The motels must be what had replaced the string of Bar Harbor
summer mansions that he'd read were lost in the Great Maine Fire of
1947.

All in all, he wasn't
impressed. Shifting his wounded, aching leg into a more comfortable
position, he reflected on how thoroughly he'd failed to follow his
surgeon's advice. He'd plunked down good money to spend at least
half a summer in a place that wasn't cool, wasn't quiet, and as far
as he could tell
—
judging from the number of gun shops he'd passed along the
way
—
where every
hunter-citizen was armed up to his goddamned teeth.

****

"Unseasonable, ain't it,
de-ah?" The mailman handed Meg a bundle of mail, pulled out a
handkerchief from his hip pocket, and mopped his beaded
brow.

Meg put down her watering
can and took the packet. "I don't mind," she said, stepping back to
admire her new flower boxes. "Did you ever see a more charming
geranium? Allie brought them up with her from Portland."

"Awful pretty," agreed the
mail carrier. "Pink do sit well with Dusty Miller. The blue
lobelia's a nice touch. Flesh out a bit, them boxes be right as
rain."

The flower boxes, painted
a dusty rose to match the shutters, were sitting on the
veranda
—
after
they began renting rooms, Meg made everyone stop calling it a
porch
—
ready to
be mounted under the big bay window of the Inn Between. The job was
waiting for Everett Atwells, but as Meg poked through the mail
packet she realized that it would have to wait a little
longer.

"Dad! Mail's
here!"

Everett Atwells ambled out
from the side of the house, paint scraper in one hand, a hopeful
smile on his craggy face. "You're right around this mornin',
Desmond. Hot enough for ya?"

The mailman lifted his
chin in an upward nod of greeting. "Corn weather, without a doubt,"
he said, and went back to his rounds.

Everett eased
Fly Fishing Magazine
out
from among the bills in his daughter's hand. "Two minutes," he said
with an apologetic wrinkle to his nose. "Then it's right back to
the grindstone."

Meg responded with a
resigned sigh.

Her father took that sigh
personally. "Jeez-zus, you're a driver, woman."

"
Someone
around here has to be," she
said, running her hands distractedly through the straggles of her
overlong hair. She reached in the pocket of her khakis and pulled
out a rubber band. "High season is right around the corner, and
look at this place," she said, yanking her hair back in a short and
all-too-functional ponytail. "Between painting and papering, we
have twice as much work as we have weeks."

"The guests'll fall asleep
just as easy starin' at stripes as they will at
florals."

"You
know
what I'm talking about, Dad."
She pointed to the inn on the left. "Look at the Elm Tree Inn." She
pointed to the inn on the right. "Look at the Calico Cat. They're
perfect. Perfect! And then look at
us,"
she said with a despairing
sweep of her arm across the front of their big, rambling Victorian.
The pale gray clapboards of the Inn Between were holding on to
their paint, more or less, but the white trim
—
and there was white trim
everywhere
—
was
a sad and peely mess.

"We ain't perfect,"
Everett allowed, squinting at the high, pointed turret that
dominated the front of the house. "Yep," he said with a yank on his
cap. "Definitely needs paint."

"Oh, take your magazine
and beat it," Meg said, shaking her head and resolving not to
smile. "I'll pick on Lloyd instead."

"Don't I know it?" Everett
said with a wink. He ambled off without a care in the world toward
a chair under the huge oak in the back of the yard. Meg sighed and
flipped through the mail, plucking out the "Final Notice" the way
she would some evil-looking weed from her garden. When she looked
up again, her sister was standing on the front lawn next to the Inn
Between's sign and hanging a NO in front of the VACANCY.

"No kidding? On a
Wednesday?" Meg broke into a big, relieved grin. "Maybe we're
finally turning the corner on this bed-and-breakfast thing," she
added as she bounded up the porch
—
the veranda
—
steps. "Who was it? A couple? A
family?"

Allie shrugged and yawned
at the same time. "Comfort took the call. All I know is they're due
in an hour."

"Damn. Room five isn't
made up. But I've got to get over to the Shop ‘n Save or there'll
be nothing for afternoon tea today. Allie would you
—"

Allie looked at her older
sister incredulously. "Meg, I'm exhausted; we were up all night. I
was just going back to bed
—
why can't Comfort do it?" she demanded in the
perfect pitch of a whiny twelve-year-old.

Meg lowered her voice:
"Because we only have an hour and Comfort will take an hour and a
half."

"What about Lloyd,
then?"

"Lloyd's working on the
furnace. Possibly you don't know how upscale we've become. We're
actually promising hot water in our ads nowadays."

"Well, if I'd known you
wanted me back in Bar Harbor just because you were one slave short,
I might've thought twice
—"

"Yoo-hoo, Meg? And oh, my
goodness,
Allie!"
Both sisters turned to see Julia Talmadge, the well-groomed
owner of the well-groomed Elm Tree Inn, approaching them with a
cheerful wave and a man in tow. It was the man who caught their
attention. Tall, trim, good-looking, and thoroughly overdressed in
corduroys and a heavy flannel shirt, he possessed something else
that set him apart from the men of Bar Harbor: a cane.

****

"So you're
back,
Allie. How
are
you, dear? You
look
fabulous
—
but then! Listen, dears, I want
you to meet someone. This is Tom Wyler, all the way from Chicago.
He'll be staying at the Elm Tree for the next month;
however,
there's been a
dreadful mixup in the booking date. I don't have Mr. Wyler down
until tomorrow."

Eyeing the newly hung NO
sign with obvious skepticism, she said, "You
can
do something for Mr. Wyler,
can't you, dears? Just for tonight?"

"Definitely!"

"I'm sorry."

The two sisters exchanged
surprised and hostile glances. Julia stared at them both with
dismay. Wyler indulged himself in a silent oath and re-adjusted his
weight on the cane.

"Meg, for Pete's sake! He
can have room five."

"Room five is taken,
Allie. You know that."

"But the callers wouldn't
even give Comfort a Visa number!"

"We promised
them."

"What about first come,
first served?"

"Now
—
dears
—
I didn't mean to make this awkward
for you.
"

"This
isn't
awkward, Julia. Meg is just
being Meg. Can't you see, Meg, that this man is
injured?"
Allie asked, turning to
him with a look that suggested she'd just made him a
knight.

Suddenly she did a double
take. "Wait a minute
—
I've seen you recently."

"Oh, I doubt it," Wyler
said quickly.

"Yes, I have. Wait,
I
know
—
the cover of
Newsweek!
You're on the
cover of the
Newsweek
that's in my room!" she cried. "The one about violence in the
streets!"

Hell.
Just his luck. "That's an old, old issue," he said
irrelevantly.

"Violence in the streets,
or
Newsweek?"
the
older sister asked dryly.

Wyler lifted one eyebrow
at her and said, "Both. But in any event
—"

The younger sister
interrupted. "The cover was a collage of a murdered victim, some
cops, and a gang. You were one of the good guys, weren't you?
I
never
forget a
face," she cried, pleased. "My God. What an amazing
coincidence!"

"That story was done four
years ago," Wyler insisted, as if she had no right to dredge up
ancient history. He'd been a sergeant then, and hungrier for
recognition than he was now. "Anyway, maybe I'll just try the inn
on the other side of you," he murmured.

Allie was
scandalized.
"What!
The Calico
Cat?
You
can't stay at a place called the
Calico Cat! It's just not
...
appropriate," she decided
instinctively.

"Not to mention, there's a
NO VACANCY sign hanging there, too, Mr. Wyler," Meg
added.

Julia was becoming
impatient. "I'll call The Waves. Presumably
they'll
know whether they have a
room or not."

Wyler smiled thinly and
said, "That's very kind; I —"

"He will have
my
room,
"
said Allegra Atwells.
She had the look, the tone, the absolute command of a high
priestess at the altar. Everyone was impressed.

Almost.

"No. He won't."

"Meg!" Allie said sharply.
"I can do what I want. This is all about control, and you know
it.
"
She turned
to Wyler, who by now was weaving from the pain, and said, "I'll
bunk down with my sister. Are you allergic to dogs? Oh, God, and
cats, of course: I hope you don't mind sleeping with cats. We keep
them out of the guest-side of the house, but they pretty much have
the run of everything else. Just give me five minutes
—"

"Mr. Wyler, I'm sure you
can appreciate the spirit in which my sister has made her offer,
but it won't be possible. Her room is nothing more than a dressing
closet; it has no private bath
—"

"Neither do our guest
rooms!"

"—
and I'm sure you'll be more comfortable at the Waves or
somewhere else."

"There won't
be
anywhere else. If
we're full, everyone's full," said Allie with embarrassing
candor.

"Please forgive my sister,
Mr. Wyler," Meg said through set teeth. "She hasn't had her
nap."

"Meg," murmured Allie in a
voice soft and hurt and low. "Is this how it's going to be all
summer?"