Life Guards in the Hamptons (12 page)

“But I need him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure Susan can fix you up with someone.”

“I need him to see the bird, not for sex!”

“There’s nothing wrong with sex. That’s how you get little espers. You two might make psychic history with your kids.”

“Jeez, we are not even dating and you are talking about our children?”

“I heard you went out last night. Those veggie burgers taste like sawdust, don’t they? It’s a start. You know how everyone’s anxious to preserve your genes.”

“All I know is that no one here minds their own goddamn business. I might not ever have children. I haven’t decided.”

“You’re thirty-five. Don’t take too long thinking about it. But adopting might be the ticket, Willy. If you can pass along your gift without sharing genes, like you did with Matt, you could raise up a regular basketball team of talents.”

“I didn’t pass on my talent. M’ma gave it to Matt as a gift.”

“Because you were there, right? That’s close enough. Anyway, I know Matt likes children.”

“I don’t care for infants and toddlers.”

“Come on, kiddo, you were great with Janie’s grandniece.”

“I stank at babysitting Elladaire. The fireman from DUE kept her from setting the town ablaze, not me. I couldn’t stand the responsibility.”

He shook his head. “The whole world is your responsibility now. One baby can’t be more effort. Or three.”

“No babies! A bird. Matt. Tonight.”

“I don’t see why it’s so important for Matt to see your
new friend. Others have spotted it. That’s why your grandmother is having catfits about the cabbages.”

“Others see what they expect to see. Pink toes? Odd shape? Never seen hereabouts? It must be an oiaca. No one has a photo, do they? And it disappears, right? And it’s calling
twee, twee
.”

“I heard it went
tweet, tweet
.”

“No, it’s definitely a twee. The thing lisps. It means tree, as in Willow. It came to see me.”

He waited for the burn in his stomach, one hand on his belly, one reaching for the bottle of pills on his desk. “Crap, it’s true.”

That’s about how I felt, too.

J
OANNE HANDED ME THE HAM and Swiss on rye as soon as I walked into the deli.

“That’s real thoughtful of you, Willy. He’ll be too busy to eat otherwise. I hear the dog is in bad shape.”

The thing was, I hadn’t called ahead. Hadn’t thought about getting Matt a sandwich until I drove past the deli. I was thinking about him, the poor beagle, and if I had enough bread in the house. Scary.

Worse had to be Joanne’s sudden anguish, as if someone had punched her in the gut. Her face crumbled, a stack of napkins fell from her hands, and tear watered her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I looked around to see if the burglars had shown up, to steal my last twenty bucks before I stopped at the bank.

“I … I can’t tell what you want,” she said on a snivel. “That almost never happens. And they say you can bring someone talent. Can you take it away, too? Please don’t, Willy. I love giving people what they want.”

“I can’t give or take away anything! I swear. And I wouldn’t if I could. Take away, that is. You run the best deli anywhere. It’s just that—”

“I know you didn’t like the veggie burger. And you’re going vegetarian, right? How about chicken salad? Will you eat that?”

I thought about Oey, cawing my name. I shook my head.

“How about tuna?” Joanne sounded almost desperate now.

Oey the fish, gasping for air. I’d gag on tuna, too.

Joanne almost cried. “A bagel with cream cheese? Grilled cheese? Peanut butter and jelly?”

“Hey, I’m not hungry, that’s all. I had a big breakfast. But how about …”

“A salad for later! That’s what you want. Whew. You had me scared for a minute there.”

Yup, scary.

I appreciated Joanne’s knack. Incomprehensible talent or not, she worked hard to please her customers.

Melissa at the vet didn’t. She had no talent that I knew of, and no personality either, unless you counted a constant sneer.

Today Miss Snark went for the Goth look. Or maybe the recently embalmed look. She had enough pale makeup for a Kabuki dancer, and enough black clothes for a ninja … or a cat burglar. Hmm. No, she couldn’t be one of the local bandits. Put a ski mask on her and you’d have … a hissy fit. The girl was too vain to put on a mask.

The enviably shiny and sleek black hair of yesterday was dull and crimped today, with long white hairpieces woven in, or bleached in, a la Cruella. Melissa’s long-sleeved black T-shirt had the neck cut so low you could see the dragon tattoo breathing fire down her ample décolletage almost to her navel. Any infant of hers’d get nightmares from breast-feeding. The idea of this vampire wannabe being a mother made my palms sweat. And wait till Melissa tried to explain that tattoo to the nurses at the rest home when she was ninety and the dragon lay flat against her rib cage. How could this … this person be related to Matt?

Then again, I was related to Grandma Eve, the village witch.

“He’s busy.” Her lip curled. Good grief, had she had her teeth filed into fangs? No, they had to be false caps. I got it now; Melissa was practicing for Halloween next month. So I smiled instead of writing her into my next
book as the evil sorceress who sucked joy away from the world.

“I know.” How could I not, with the whole waiting room full, trying to cram a full day’s appointments into the morning before surgery? “That’s why I brought him a sandwich.”

“You won’t get to him that way. Better looking old maids than you have tried. Better cooks, too, with casseroles and cakes. All you brought is a lousy sandwich? You’re wasting your time.”

Maybe she should tattoo a chip on her shoulder in case anyone missed it. “Just give him the sandwich between patients. And tell him I hope the beagle is all right.”

I wasn’t sure about the sandwich, but I knew he’d never get the message.

Then Elise called out from where she sat with a cat carrier on her lap: “Ginger and I are next, Willy. We’ll make sure he takes time to eat. I should have thought of that, too.”

Elise always had a cat in distress. She picked up the feral or abandoned cats in need and paid for their medical care out of her own pocket. Rumor had it she grew fifty-dollar bills in her greenhouse. I suspected pot. She offered to help pay for the sandwich.

Phil, the music teacher at the school, offered to bring Matt dinner. He was coming tonight for the poker game anyway. Phil had perfect pitch, like a lot of people. Like no one else I ever heard of, he could tune all the school band’s instruments at once just by humming a C-note. He made big money as a piano tuner, but he loved the kids better.

Margo Minskoff nodded. So did her Scottie. They both wore red bows in their hair.

The whole waiting room approved. They mightn’t like me, but they liked Melissa less.

Melissa uncurled her lip enough to say, “I was going to call out for pizza.”

None of us believed her. Mrs. Minskoff’s face turned red. She was one of the truth people.

“Don’t worry, Willow, dear. We’ll be sure Dr. Matt gets your message. Both of them.”

I thought I only left one.

After visits to the community center, the school, and the fire department, I stopped by the bank to use the ATM. Mr. Whitside assured me he’d hired extra guards to protect his customers and their money. Since his mind knew to a penny how much his bank had on hand, he’d notice anyone messing with the computers, too.

Finally I went back to my mother’s, to address the traffic situation.

First I posted “No Parking” signs along the dirt road, except for three spaces reserved for government officials. Next I put a “Private Road” sign at the entrance to our street: “No Trespassing except for Garland Farms customers.”

Then I made another sign to mark the empty field right before the turnoff to Garland Drive. “Birdwatchers Park Here. $5/hour.”

I had senior citizens watching the new parking lot this morning, collecting the money to buy a pool table for the recreation center. The volunteer firemen were coming in the afternoon. They wanted a new pumper truck. School kids had the late shift, Boy and Girl Scouts, the nature club, the eighth grade to finance their trip to Washington DC. I had the Lions, the Kiwanis, and the VFW all lined up for a turn.

A policeman stood by, in case the birdwatchers got ugly, or tried to drive down our street. The farm stand might lose some business, but it made up for the loss with birders thinking to get closer to the oiaca if they bought a carload of veggies.

My grandmother seemed more comfortable, now that the crush of vehicles eased. She and Uncle Roger had put flags out, showing the binocular crowd the paths to the back fields, where the farm workers had strung orange plastic snow fences to keep them from trampling the fall crops. No one had spotted the rare bird so far that day.

I wondered if it was back at the kiddie pool in my side yard, where no one could see it from the roadway. Or maybe it had left altogether, having made my acquaintance.

I could only hope.

So did my grandmother. First she managed to thank me for the signs and organizing the volunteers. “That was a fine idea, Willow, raising money for good causes out of this chaos. Luckily, it will all end soon.” She gave me a hard stare. “Won’t it, Willow?”

I could only hope harder.

Joanne made a great salad, with oranges and walnuts and cranberries and chunks of butternut squash. Now I was fortified enough to call my mother.

“I heard you bought Matt a sandwich.”

“Already? What, you have a direct line to some Willow Watch?”

“Don’t be foolish. It’s a Paumanok Harbor Facebook list. People thought I should know about the Camerons’ beagle.”

“He’s not good, I hear, but Matt’s going to try this afternoon. You ought to come home, talk to him.”

“To Matt?”

“No, to the dog. Find out if he’s hurting too bad. No one wants him to suffer.”

“Matt will know. But he’s not right.”

“He’s a good vet.”

“I mean he’s not right for you.”

“I know, he’s not one of the Paumanok Harbor insiders. But he’s changed somehow. They think he has talent now, just not why or what yet.”

“I heard that. I might even believe it. Lord knows stranger things happen there, especially around you. But it’s still not right. He’s got nothing in his DNA to pass on.”

I started to say that Uncle Henry was all for the match, right down to the number of kids we ought to beget or adopt. Then I wondered how come I was defending Matt as a prospective mate. “Don’t worry. I’m
not setting my sights on your hunky vet. He’s planted here, like an oak tree. More firmly now, after … after whatever changed him. He’s not going to move. I am not staying.”

“Still?”

“What do you mean, still? No one knows about the bird yet, no one who would have mentioned it to you. They only suppose. I’ll leave after.”

“After the bird leaves? You mean you have something to do with that lost creature that’s on the national news? Don’t tell me. Just handle it.”

“I’ve got the traffic under control. I’m working on the rest.” I looked out the window to where I’d put a tray full of salad greens, fruit, sunflower seeds, and a slice of bread with peanut butter on it next to the kiddie pool. No Oey. “What did you mean, ‘still’?”

“I meant that you still insist on living in Manhattan. I was hoping you’d come to your senses and appreciate the Harbor the way I do. I’ve always wanted you to make it your home.”

Live with my mother? I spread peanut butter on another slice. This one for me.

“Mom, I have a life in the city. You have yours in Paumanok Harbor.”

“And I am not getting any younger. Neither is your grandmother. You belong here.” She snorted for emphasis.

What did she do, have a kid as insurance against old age and rest homes? Maybe my father’s heart attack had given her those intimations of mortality. “I can’t be your caregiver. I stink at it. Besides, both you and Grandma Eve are fine. If you are worried about her, maybe you should come home already and help at the farm stand.”

By the silence at the end of the line I deduced that helping at the farm in the busy months was partly why my mother stayed away. “You’ve been gone all summer. Surely there are dogs on the Island that need saving.”

She sniffed this time. “Of course there are. And I have a backlog of wealthy private clients that goes on for pages. The dogs will be so set in their ways and spoiled
by the time I get there to straighten out the owners, it’ll be a regular battle. I could use the money, too, after this trip.”

“So why don’t you come home? One more month or so and Grandma Eve shuts down the stand.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help out, between my own clients. For your information, I stayed away so long because I hoped that if you spent enough time in Paumanok Harbor, you’d come to see that you belong there. They need you. You need them.”

The peanut butter stuck in my throat. “I don’t want to be needed that badly. I don’t want the responsibility for you and Grandma Eve in your dotage, much less the whole village. So you’re wasting your time. Grandma needs you, not me. She’s worn out by the strangers and their interference.”