Twanged (15 page)

I
n about as delicate a manner as possible for Lotty, she plunked their plates of eggs, crispy bacon, and whole-wheat toast down on the table.

“Two cholesterol specials,” Brigid joked.

“You said it,” Lotty replied cheerfully, then glanced around. All the tables in the area were now empty. She gestured with her thumb. “The guy who was sitting at that table over there before—he’s come in three times in the past couple days. Doesn’t matter if it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner, he always orders eggs.” She laughed. “I don’t know why he was in such a hurry to get out of here today. He didn’t finish, and he usually licks his plate clean.”

“Maybe he got sick of eggs,” Brigid said.

“Or maybe someone rushed him over the results of his cholesterol test,” Regan commented as she took a bite of the wonderful-smelling bacon.

“Well, he’s a quiet type so at least I didn’t have to listen to any complaints! Now enjoy!” Lotty said as she hurried off to clear a table of dirty dishes.

23

A
rnold Baker had been the president of Welth College for ten years now. A graying man with a military carriage, he’d just turned fifty-seven and enjoyed his life in the Hamptons. His wife was involved with the various fundraisers around town, his two children were grown and living in New York City, and he had a white clapboard house on a pond, which suited him just fine. It was filled with his books, pipes, and tweed jackets.

The only thorn in his side was Chappy Tinka. Here’s a guy, Arnold often thought, who’s a textbook case of being ruined by your inheritance. He would never have to lift a finger in life again. Never really had to lift a finger much before either. Arnold knew that since his twenties Chappy had worked, if you want to call it that, in the family business. When his mother died a few years ago, the entire Tinka fortune had plopped in his lap. He was an only child and so was his father, which of course meant Chappy got everything. Arnold knew that there were distant cousins who bore the Tinka name, but unfortunately for them they were not descendants of Alvin Conrad Tinka, the found of Tinka Tacks.

What does Chappy Tinka do right away after he is freed from the iron hand of his mother and inherits all that money? He goes crazy! Builds a god-awful monstrosity of a house and ruins the look of the neighborhood for all those oceanfront houses on the block. Now he was planning on ripping down the servants’ quarters and building a theatre on his property. How appalling! The worst part of it was that no one could stop him. The land had been in the family for so long that it was grandfathered and the zoning laws didn’t apply to him.

Arnold knew the neighbors were worried that if his thespian efforts didn’t work out, he might turn the whole place into a cineplex showing eight movies at once. The whole neighborhood would end up smelling of popcorn!

Not that Chappy wasn’t generous, Arnold thought as he sat down at the antique desk in his office and looked out at the rolling hills of the lush green campus of Welth College. Tinka had made donations to the college even though he was not an alumnus, and he was one of the big sponsors of the Melting Pot Festival. It was just that ever since he had called and insisted that Brigid O’Neill participate in the festival, there’d been problems.

Brigid O’Neill was a fine singer and a great addition to the schedule, but Arnold had had to do some maneuvering of the lineup for the evening’s entertainment and it had caused trouble.

Darla Wells was not happy. In fact, Arnold thought sadly, she was freaked out, as his students like to say. Last week when Brigid O’Neill had agreed to come to the festival, it had been Arnold’s unhappy task to inform Darla that the younger, hotter Brigid would be participating in the festival, and Darla would have to cut out a couple of her songs to make time for her. The other three bands, all male and known nationally, had agreed to the changes.

Darla was a different story. Talented though she may be, at age thirty-five she was still waiting for her big break in the music business. Up till now she’d been plucking her guitar at little out-of-the-way places in the Hamptons, hoping to be discovered. All to no avail. So her husband had cooked up the great idea to make a huge donation to Welth College—but only if Darla got to perform at the festival. Darla figured there’d be plenty of talent scouts in the audience and maybe she’d finally be discovered.

Well, Arnold thought, she certainly seems to possess the killer instinct you need to make it in the music business. It was definitely on display when I broke the sad news to her.

Darla knew that at the Melting Pot Music Festival the spotlight would inevitably shine, even when it literally wasn’t on her, on the beautiful, charismatic Brigid O’Neill.

Darla would be the only local act at the festival, a festival that had started out small a couple of years ago and now was celebrated grandly, even receiving national coverage. Arnold had always secretly congratulated himself on that. It had been his idea to throw a fund-raising concert on the lawn of the college during the summer, when it seemed that the world was out in the Hamptons. Find a cause that the Hollywood types like to get into, like the wetlands or whatever, and make it a recipient of the evening’s profits. Throw in a little publicity, stir, and what do you get?

One of the most exciting events of the summer.

Given the generosity of Darla’s husband, why did he risk her wrath? Because Chappy Tinka donated
more
money to the college than did Mr. Wells.

Arnold Baker had to do some serious juggling. Trying to keep both families happy was an impossible task.

Now Brigid O’Neill was all over the paper and the radio. He’d caught part of her interview on the car radio this morning.

His secretary buzzed him.

“Yes, Dot,” he said.

“I have a package here for Brigid O’Neill.”

“Bring it in.”

The gleaming wood door opened and Dot sauntered it. She’d been with Arnold since Day One at the college, and a more loyal secretary you couldn’t find. Fifty years old, with a rounded girth and a practical air, the adjective that came to mind about her was sensible. Students waiting outside President Baker’s office to speak with him were always comforted by her motherly presence; she’d raised four children of her own. Her husband was an electrician, and the two of them had known each other since her family had moved to Sag Harbor when she was in the sixth grade.

She was holding a small box wrapped in brown paper. Black lettering spelled out Brigid O’Neill’s name and
WEALTH COLLEGE.

Dot put it down on her boss’s desk. The package sounded as if it had kernels of corn rattling around inside. “Whoever sent it can’t spell, but they’re not too far off the mark, are they?”

Arnold raised an eyebrow and looked up at her. “There’s no address on this.”

“It didn’t come through the mail. Apparently it was left outside the door over the weekend. One of the security guys just brought it to me. He thinks it probably was left by that same crazy gardener who came to last year’s concert. He left boxes of vegetable seeds for all the singers.”

“Okay,” Arnold said. “I think I’ll take a ride over to Tinka’s at lunchtime. I’d like to welcome Brigid O’Neill to town, seeing as I wasn’t on the guest list for the other night.”

“Did you get a look at the paper?” Dot asked as she pushed back her glasses on her nose.

Arnold nodded.

“I hope the festival is as exciting as Mr. Tinka’s party,” Dot deadpanned.

I don’t, Arnold thought. I really don’t.

24

B
ettina sat on a lounge chair on the deck off the master bedroom, staring out at the ocean. Tootsie was cuddled up to her surgically enhanced right breast, busy licking her mama’s neck and right ear. It was tough on Tootsie; she could never seem to get to the other ear. A cellular phone was always in the way.

The
Hamptons News
was on Bettina’s lap.

Chappy had brought her a copy and then run back out into town to do God knows what. He was acting so neurotic lately. Even more than usual. Ever since we got back from Ireland, she thought.

Bettina scratched her leg and gave Tootsie a little kiss. As her eyes skimmed her toes, she made a mental note to summon the pedicurist. She then looked down at the picture of Louisa Washburn spitting up water and smiled. Hilda Tinka must be rolling in her grave, she thought.

She’s got a lot to roll in her grave about these days, Bettina mused happily. Hilda had always thought of herself as so Gatsbyesque. When she wasn’t playing canasta or going to a polo match, she’d been there to bug Chappy. And Bettina, for as long as Bettina had lasted during her first marriage to Chappy. Which hadn’t been long. This time I’m staying till the fat lady sings, Bettina thought wickedly. She laughed aloud as she stared at the picture.

A picture like this taken at Hilda Tinka’s estate just wouldn’t do! Hilda had orchestrated so carefully all those prim-and-proper family pictures taken of everyone in their Sunday finest. She’d even once asked Bettina to step out of a shot.

“Mother, I’m married now!” Chappy had cried.

But Hilda had prevailed and gotten the picture of Chappy alone with his parents and grandparents.

Bettina sat there and wiggled her feet. She wished that Peace Man was giving sessions this week. It always relaxed her.

Why
was
Chappy acting so neurotic lately?

He couldn’t possibly be unhappy with her. She’d been on her best behavior for nearly a year now.

I’ll just have to keep closer tabs on him, she decided.

25

E
veryone thinks you can have everything when you’re rich, Darla Wells fumed. And it’s just not true!

The brown-haired, doe-eyed singer with the cute little body was sitting in the primo chair of her hair colorist at his exclusive salon, Wendell’s, in East Hampton, reading the
Hamptons News.
Actually she was staring at the picture of her arch enemy, Brigid O’Neill. The one who made it necessary for Darla to cut down the number of songs she would sing at the concert.

Wendell appeared from the back storeroom where countless bottles of dye and solutions and peroxide and conditioners were all lined up, just waiting to do their magic on the heads of anyone willing to pay through the nose.

Dressed in black pants and a black collarless shirt, his ever-mournful expression set firmly in place, Wendell solemnly approached the chair and planted his hands on the crown of Darla’s head.

“What do we want to do today, darling?” he asked.

Darla looked at the reflection of his heavy-lidded, jowly, tanned face, surrounded by a cap of dark wavy hair. He was somewhere in his fifties, and everyone in town agreed that a more natural-looking dye job was hard to find on a man of that age.

“Highlights,” Darla answered shortly. “The usual.”

Wendell nodded ever so slightly, then looked down at the paper on Darla’s lap.

“Ohhhhh. Brigid O’Neill is marrrvelous,” he said. “She’s got such a faaaaabulous head of hair. What I wouldn’t give to get
her
in this chair.” With that pronouncement he disappeared into the back room.

Inside her about-to-be-highlighted head, Darla seethed. I
hate
her, she thought. I just
hate
her.

Two hours later Darla exited the salon. She yanked open the door of her Mercedes-Benz sports car, reached in, and grabbed Brigid’s CD off the passenger seat. Flinging it on the ground, she crushed it with her spiked heels.

“That’s what I think of your singing,” she muttered under her breath.

26

A
fter breakfast, Regan and Brigid stopped in the village of Southampton to run a couple of errands. They got back to the Chappy Compound at Eleven-thirty.

A battered gray sedan was waiting on the street outside Chappy’s Castle and pulled into the driveway behind them.

When Regan and Brigid got out of their car, two boys who looked to be about seventeen or eighteen jumped out of the jalopy. Clad in sunglasses, baseball caps, college T-shirts, and baggy shorts, they smiled and waved.

“Brigid O’Neill,” one of them called amiably as he hurried toward the women. He was tall and bony, and wore braces on his teeth. A tape recorder and a notebook were in his arms. A small backpack was flung over his shoulder. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

The driver, stocky and tanned, shut his door and stood there shyly.

“Hello,” Brigid said, smiling.

“Can I help you?” Regan asked immediately.

“I hope so,” the tall one replied. “My name is Phil, and this is my buddy Nick. We’re in high school out here and I work on the school paper. We heard Brigid on the radio this morning and thought we’d take a chance at coming over and seeing if you’d give us a quick interview.” He grinned at them, his braces sparkling in the sun, his nose shiny. “It won’t take long, I promise. It’ll be awesome to have an interview with Brigid O’Neill all ready for the paper when school starts. All of my friends are coming to your concert.”

Regan glanced over at Brigid.

“I don’t mind,” Brigid said.

Regan looked back at Phil. He seemed so young and eager. “Do you have an ID?” she asked.

“Huh?” he answered, looking embarrassed. “I don’t have my license yet.”

Brigid touched Regan’s arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’ll be fast.” She motioned them to follow her. “Let’s go inside.”

The guest house felt cool, and there was a note on the table that said the others had gone golfing.

“We can do the interview right here,” Brigid said. She sat on the couch, the fiddle case next to her.

Phil settled himself close to Brigid. Nick took a seat in a chair nearby.

“Regan,” Brigid asked, “that bacon made me so thirsty. Would you mind getting me a glass of water?”

“Not at all.” Regan turned her back and walked over to the refrigerator. I hope they make this fast, she thought as she reached in to pull out the bottle of ice water. Little did she know how fast they intended to make it.