Mitch was not happy that Des wouldn’t come with him to the beach club.
In fact, he was so not happy that he decided he’d better get off the phone awfully damned now. His jaw ached. His mood was vile. And he didn’t want to say anything that he might really regret. He found it hard to believe she was so self-centered she couldn’t see that he was in the midst of a monstrous professional crisis and that he needed her by his side-not going on and on about her damned trees.
His situation could not have been more of a nightmare. The twenty-four-hour cable news channels were already broadcasting video highlights of The Fight by the time he got home to Big Sister Island. The digital photos of Tito with his hands wrapped tightly around Mitch’s throat were out all over the Internet. There was Tito astride him like a wild beast, teeth bared, ready for the kill. There was Mitch pinned helplessly underneath him, looking like some form of slow, terrified water mammal.
It was America Online’s top news story of the day. The headline on the service provider’s main screen read “Tito Lowers Boom on Highbrow Critic.”
The arts editor of Mitch’s paper, Lacy Mickerson, had e-mailed him twice and left an urgent message for him on his phone machine. Dozens of his fellow critics from around the country had sent e-mails as well, many humorous. He would respond to them at some point, but right now he was too busy fending off calls from one media outlet after another. Everyone wanted a comment, a quote, something, anything. The very same tabloid TV vans that had been following Tito and Esme all around Dorset were now pulled up on Peck’s Point at the gate to the Big Sister causeway, desperate to getout there and film him. Mitch was having none of it. He did not want to comment. He did not want to appear on camera.
He was not an entertainer. He was a critic.
Or at least he used to be.
He sat at his desk, an ice pack pressed against his jaw, and called Lacy back.
“Honestly, Mitch, I thought your review was gentle compared with a lot of the others I’ve seen,” she said after he’d given her his version of what happened. Among her many attributes Lacy was fiercely protective of her critics. “Hell, this film has been positively trashed by everyone. People are walking out in droves. Why did he pick on you?”
“Because I was there,” Mitch grunted, adjusting his ice pack. It didn’t help with the pain, but it gave him something to do. “He’s a genuinely talented actor. I feel sorry for him, actually.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ve seen these so-called bad boys come and go over the years.” Lacy was in her late fifties and claimed to have bedded Irwin Shaw and Mickey Mantle in her youth, not to mention Nelson Rockefeller. “They all have talent. It’s what they do with it that counts.”
“What do I do, Lacy? What’s my next move?”
“You shut it down,” she said firmly.
The two of them cobbled together a brief statement that would be posted immediately on the newspaper’s Web site-just as soon as Lacy ran it past someone with a larger office and, possibly, a law degree. It would also appear on the lead arts page in tomorrow’s paper. The statement would serve as Mitch’s one and only response to the attack:
This newspaper’s chief film critic, Mitchell Berger, and the actor Tito Molina engaged in a spirited creative disagreement yesterday afternoon in a popular eating establishment in Dorset, Connecticut. Mr. Berger feels the matter is fully resolved. He believes that Mr. Molina is a gifted artist with a wonderful career ahead ofhim and he looks forward to his future film work with as much excitement as ever.
After he and Lacy were done Mitch swallowed three Advils and spent the rest of the afternoon ducking phone calls. His phone machine got quite a workout that day.
He did pick up when Dodge called. And was pleased that Dodge wanted to broker a peace deal at the beach club. It seemed like a genuine solution. Dodge was smart and tactful. He’d make the perfect intermediary.
As for Des, well, Mitch hoped she’d figure out what she needed to figure out-and soon-because when she was stuck in the deep muck she had a way of dragging him down there with her, whether he felt like going or not. And that could be awfully damned hard to handle sometimes.
Not that love was ever supposed to be an easy thing.
When it came time to leave he dressed in a white oxford button-down shirt, khaki shorts, and Topsiders. He had a welt on his jaw and red finger marks around his throat, otherwise he looked fit, casual, and terrific. It was a warm, hazy evening with very little breeze. The sun hung low over the Sound, casting everything in a soft, rosy glow. He threw a pair of swim trunks and a towel into the front seat of his truck, then moseyed over to Bitsy Peck’s garden with a galvanized steel bucket to pilfer a dozen ears of corn.
It was Will who’d taught Mitch the best way to cook corn-plunge the fresh-picked ears directly into a bucket of water, soak them for at least a half hour, then throw them on the grill to steam in their husks.
Bitsy was busy digging up her pea patch with a fork, dressed in cutoff overalls and a big, floppy straw hat. She was a round, bubbly little blue blood in her fifties with a snub nose and freckles, and just a remarkably avid and tireless gardener. Hundreds of species of flowers, vegetables, and herbs grew in her vast, multileveled garden. Actually, Bitsy’s garden looked more like a commercial nursery than it did somebody’s yard. When Mitch first arrived on Big Sister shehad gleefully stepped into the role of his garden guru. The lady was a fountain of advice and seedlings and composted cow manure. Mitch liked her a lot.
Although lately she hadn’t been nearly as upbeat as usual. Not since her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Becca, a ballet dancer, had come home to mom and the massive three-story shingled Victorian summer cottage where she’d grown up. Becca had gotten herself addicted to heroin out in San Francisco, and had just finished a stint at the Silver Hill Rehab Clinic in New Canaan. Mostly, the two ladies kept to themselves. Hardly left the island at all, and seldom had guests. Bitsy went grocery shopping every couple of days. Otherwise, Mitch would find her toiling diligently in her garden refuge from dawn until dusk.
Becca was out there working with her right now, weeding a flower bed in a halter top and shorts, her own efforts rather distracted and halfhearted. Mitch had seen old photographs around the house of Becca in her full ballerina getup. She had been a slender and graceful young swan of a girl. Truly lovely. But that was before the needle did its damage. Now she was a gaunt, frail shell of a woman with haunted eyes that were sunk deep in their sockets and rimmed with dark circles. Her long brown hair was twisted into tight braids that looked like two lifeless hunks of rope.
Mitch smiled and said hello to her. Becca mouthed “Hello” in polite response, although scarcely a whisper came out. She was painfully quiet. This, too, was the needle, according to Bitsy, who said Becca had been the most outgoing, popular girl in her high school class. Looking at her now, Mitch found it hard to believe.
“So sorry about all of those press vans at the gate today, Bitsy,” he said, toting his bucket over toward her corn patch.
“They didn’t bother us one bit,” Bitsy assured him.
“Well, they sure bothered me.”
Bitsy swiped at the perspiration on her upper lip, leaving a smear of mud behind. “My, my, aren’t you all fresh scrubbed and smell-goody,” she observed with motherly pride as he began stripping choice ears of corn off their stalks and plunging them into hisbucket. “And here we are like a pair of sweaty farm animals, aren’t we, Becca?”
“Yes, Mother,” Becca responded faintly.
“What’s the occasion, Mitch?” Bitsy asked, her good cheer a bit forced.
“I’ve been invited to the beach club. I’m kind of anxious to check the place out, actually. No one’s ever invited me before.”
“And who did, dare I ask?”
“Dodge Crockett.”
Becca immediately dropped her trowel, which clattered off a low stone retaining wall onto the ground. She stared down at it briefly, but didn’t pick it up. Just walked away instead-straight into the house, her stride still uncommonly graceful.
Bitsy watched her go, biting down fretfully on her lower lip. “She doesn’t like to talk about Dodge.”
“I noticed. How come?”
“I’m worried about that girl, Mitch. She spends too much time alone. It’s not good for her. She needs stimulation. I wish Esme would come see her.”
Mitch glanced at her curiously. “They know each other?”
“Oh my, yes. They were best friends when they were girls. The great Esme Crockett practically grew up out here. Slept over almost every night during the summer. There were slumber parties and pillow fights, and poor little Jeremy was so in love with her.” Becca’s younger brother, a senior at Duke, was away serving a summer internship in Washington. “He’d follow her around like a gawky little puppy. The house was full of kids and laughter then,” Bitsy recalled fondly. “Not like now.” She went back to her forking, throwing every fiber of her body into turning over the soil. “I didn’t realize you and Dodge had become buddies.”
“We walk together every morning. I like him a lot.”
“People do think very highly of Dodge,” she allowed, nodding. “There was even talk about the party running him for lieutenant governor some years back. I suppose it’s just as well they didn’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Yes, he’s a bright, enthusiastic fellow, all right. More than willing to do his part around town. So is Martine, who is so generous with her time, always ready to throw herself body and soul behind a good cause. And such a decorative creature, too.” Now Bitsy trailed off, glancing up at Mitch uncertainly. “Just promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t be too taken in by them. Will you do that for me, Mitch?”
“Okay, sure,” Mitch said, frowning at her. “But why?” “Because they’re cannibals,” she said quietly. “They eat people.”
The Dorset Beach Club was located at the end of a narrow and perilously bumpy little dirt road that snaked its way back through a half mile of marsh and wild brambles off of Old Shore Road. It was a private dirt road. No sign on Old Shore marked its presence. In fact, the roadside brush was so overgrown at the beach club turnoff that if you weren’t looking for it you would never know it was there.
Which, this being Dorset, was the whole idea.
In fact, Mitch wasn’t even sure he was bouncing his way down the right dirt road until he reached a grassy clearing filled with beat-up old Ford Country Squire station wagons, Mercedes diesels, and Subarus. Then he knew this had to be the beach club-in Dorset, the richer they were the junkier their ride. Only the working poor drove shiny new cars.
At the water’s edge sat a modest, weathered gray shingled cottage-style clubhouse that looked as if it had been built in the 1930s. Mitch got out, corn bucket in hand, and made his way around to the beach-side on a raised wooden walkway, passing through a portal directly into a different time and place. Here, on a wide wooden dining porch beneath a striped blue awning, Mitch found properly attired club members being served their proper lobster dinners by hushed, respectful waiters in white jackets. Proper attire for men was apparently defined as a madras sports jacket and Nantucket red pants. Proper attire for women was anything Katharine Hepburn might have worn to a summer concert under the stars in, say, 1957. A rathertinny sound system was playing soothing, vaguely Polynesian-sounding music. Not a single one of these members was under the age of seventy. Actually, not many appeared to be under the age of eighty. They seemed lifelike enough, although none of them actually spoke and all of them moved in slow motion, as if this were a dream. Standing there on the walkway with his bucket, Mitch had the astonishingly powerful feeling that this was a dream, that none of it was real, just his own Jewish schoolboy fantasy of what a private club like this might have been like in bygone days.
Mitch had experienced these paranormal phenomena several times before since he’d moved to this place. He’d taken to calling them Dorset Interludes.
Dodge had instructed him to continue past the dining porch to the long wooden veranda that faced the sand. Here there were showers and changing stalls, a cold drink stand and other amenities for beachgoers. Umbrella tables and built-in barbecue grills were provided for members who wanted to cook out and eat right there on the beach. It was all pretty unassuming considering just how exclusive the beach club was. Three letters of recommendation and a certified check for $10,000 were required-and that was the easy part. The hard part was that the membership roll capped out at a strict maximum of two hundred families, meaning that in order to get in you had to know people and then those people had to die. Not that it looked as if it would necessarily be a long wait, given the median age of the members who were politely gumming their lobster and corn back there on the dining porch.
Of course, the main attraction of the club was the beach itself- and a very nice, wide stretch of clean white beach it was, the sand so immaculate it looked as if it were raked hourly. No trash, no doggy poop, and above all, no beer-bellied pipe fitters from New Britain with their loudmouthed wives and squalling kids. Only the right sort of people were to be found on this beach. People who belonged here. Mitch didn’t and he never would and he knew this. But he plodded his way toward the barbecue grills anyway, footsteps thudding heavily on the wooden walkway. He was not here to fit in. He was here to bury the hatchet with Tito Molina.
The Crocketts had commandeered two umbrella tables at the far end of the veranda, where they were sharing a pitcher of iced margaritas with Will and Donna and Jeff. Tito and Esme hadn’t arrived yet. A big spread of cheeses and crackers was laid out on the table. No one seemed to be touching any of it. They were too busy drinking and talking, their eyes bright, voices animated.
“Hey, it’s macho man,” called out Donna, who was the first to spot him.
“Mitch, you look like you just went three rounds with Roy Jones Jr.,” observed Will.
“How does the jaw feel?” asked Jeff, who sat huddled under the umbrella with a beach towel over his exposed knees. Being a redhead, he burned easily.
“It’s really not so bad as long as I don’t smile, talk, or eat.”
“Where’s our resident trooper?” asked Dodge as he refilled everyone’s glasses. The pitcher was already half empty-they’d gotten a serious head start.
“I’m afraid she couldn’t make it.”
“That’s an awful shame,” clucked Martine, who was stretched out languorously on a lounge chair in the sun, looking tanned, terrific, and not a day over thirty-five in her snug-fitting black one-piece swimsuit. Martine’s hips were slim, her legs long, shapely, and smooth. She glanced fondly up at Dodge as he brought her a refill, stroking his arm with tender affection. Then she turned her inviting blue-eyed gaze on Mitch, drawing him effortlessly toward her. “But I’m so glad you could join us.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” said Mitch, his mind straying back to that word Bitsy Peck had just used to describe the Crocketts-cannibals. “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful,” she murmured, gazing at the soft glowing sky over the Sound.
“It will be raining by midnight,” Dodge predicted. “My left knee aches-old lacrosse injury.”
“Darling, I always thought it was your right knee,” Martine said teasingly.
“It’s always been the left,” he kidded back.
“Oh, goody, Berger brought corn,” observed Donna, her eyes gleaming at Mitch. She already seemed a bit tipsy. “Some men bring flowers and champagne, others bring hog feed. Speaking as one of the hogs, I say thank you.”
“Speaking as another one of the hogs, I say you’re welcome.” Mitch delivered the bucket to Will, who was building a fire in one of the grills out of seasoned hardwood chunks and mesquite. Dressed in a tank top, nylon shorts and leather flip-flops, Will could easily be mistaken for the club’s lifeguard. To Mitch he also seemed a bit less lighthearted than the others. Distracted, maybe. Was it being around Martine when both her husband and his wife were around? Mitch wondered.
“Seriously, Mitch, how is your jaw?” he asked with genuine concern.
“Seriously, it hurts like hell. I really don’t like getting hit.”
“But you’re okay to eat?”
“Oh, I’ll manage,” said Mitch, his stomach growling as he checked out their dinner-racks and racks of baby back ribs, potato salad, red cabbage slaw, fruit salad, brownies.
“For what it’s worth, I’ve known Esme since she was in pigtails,” Will said. “She’s always had good instincts about people. If she likes somebody, there’s some good in there.”
“I believe it.”
“Care to try a margarita, Mitch?” asked Dodge.
“I’ll settle for a beer, thanks.” Mitch fetched a Dos Equis out of the cooler, popped it open, and settled into a deck chair with it. “This is nice here,” he said, taking a long, thirsty gulp.
“You’ll have to be our guest more often,” Martine said lazily, crossing her ankles. “We vastly prefer it down at this end. You’ll find all of us club rebels down here. That dining room crowd is so stuffy.” A cell phone rang in the canvas tote bag next to her. She reached for it. “I’ll bet that’s Esme. She’s always late… Hi, sweetie,” Martinesaid into the phone, nodding her blond head at them. “We’re all here waiting for you… It’s lovely out, although Daddy is absolutely convinced it’s going to rain. His right knee’s acting up.”
“Left knee,” Dodge interjected, grinning at her.
“Sweetie, when are you two-?” Now Martine’s face fell, her brow furrowing. “What do mean, you’re not… No, I absolutely don’t understand. This is very important. You know it is. Tito needs to- Esme? Esme, are you still there?…” Martine flicked off the phone, sighing, and tossed it back into her bag. “She couldn’t get him to come. They quarreled about it and he drove off in a huff. Everything with them is such a battle, Dodge. I wish we could do something.”
“They have to work it out for themselves,” Dodge said. “It’s their marriage.”
Now Mitch heard sharp footsteps coming their way.
“Oh, great, here comes Little Mary Sunshine,” muttered Jeff.
Chrissie Huberman was marching toward them, the wooden veranda shuddering under each of her onrushing strides. The publicist’s face was set in a determined scowl, her fists clenched. She did treat Dodge and Martine to a great big toothy smile when she arrived at their table. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Crockett!” she exclaimed, all sugar and spice for the parents of a prized client. But then Chrissie abruptly whirled, stuck her finger in Mitch’s face and snarled, “Don’t you ever try to pull something like this again! I forbid it, you hear me!”
Mitch took a sip of his beer and said, “I hear you, Chrissie. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Like hell you don’t,” she raged. “You’re trying to feed off of Tito behind my back. No way! You want face time with my client then you come through me! I protect those kids. I bleed for those kids. And there will be no secret sessions with Tito Molina as long as I’m-”
“Before you go any further,” Mitch interrupted, “it’s my duty to inform you that you’re way off base.”
Chrissie tilted her head at him mockingly. “Tell me this wasn’t a secret meeting.”
“It really wasn’t, Chrissie,” Dodge spoke up. “It was simply an informal get-together between family and friends.”
“Of which you are neither,” Martine said to her pointedly.
“Honestly, all I want is for this situation with Tito to go away,” Mitch said.
Chrissie let out a derisive laugh. “Yeah, right. I know all about you, Mitch Berger-how you’re the Mother Teresa of film critics. Won’t do the junkets, won’t accept gifts. Well, guess what? I don’t believe any of it. What Tito did to you today is every critic’s wet dream. You’re no different than the rest. You all want a taste,” she jeered at him, grabbing her own crotch for lewd, crude emphasis. “You want it so bad you can’t stand it.”
Mitch gazed at her in stunned silence. They all did. Heads were even starting to turn all of the way back at the dining porch. It was safe to say no one had ever seen such a public display of behavior by a female at the fabled Dorset Beach Club. Certainly not by one over the age of three.
“Young lady, I would like you to go,” Martine said to her between gritted teeth. “This club is for members and their guests only. You will kindly take your potty mouth and leave right now.”
“Are you trying to tell me this seedy dump is private?”
“Get out of here, Chrissie,” ordered Will, moving over toward her. “Get out or I’ll throw you out.”
“Fine, whatever. Just remember what I told you,” she warned Mitch.
“Not a problem. I don’t think I’ll be forgetting this for quite some time.”
Satisfied, Chrissie stormed off, her footsteps clunking on the veranda. Heads turned to stare as she went charging past the dining porch.
“Well, it’s been quite some day for histrionics,” Mitch said wearily. “Sorry about that, folks.”
“No need for you to be sorry,” Jeff assured him. “Not your fault.”
“Not in the least,” echoed Dodge.
“That woman thinks everyone else in the world is exactly like her,” Will said, gazing after her. “Greedy, two-faced, and conniving. And when you try to explain to her that you’re not, she calls you a goddamned liar right to your face. She couldn’t get away with that if she was a guy. She’d get punched.”
“You should have given me the signal, honey,” Donna said, putting up her dukes fiercely. “I would have had no problem decking her.”
“She has a hard job,” Dodge said. “That’s not to defend or excuse her.”
“What she has is a personality problem,” Martine argued. “I wish Esme would get rid of her.”
“She didn’t hire her,” Dodge said. “Tito’s agent did.”
“Fine, then I wish Tito would get rid of her.”
“Hey, let’s not let her ruin our party,” Dodge said, forcing a smile onto his face. “Why don’t you folks take a swim while we start the chow?”
“I think I will,” said Mitch. Although in his case “float” would be the operative word. A true child of the pavement, Mitch hadn’t known how to swim at all when he moved to Dorset. But thanks to diligence and hard work, he’d taught himself how to float on his back-the main thing was to relax and trust in his own considerable natural buoyancy. As he started his way toward the changing stalls with his swim trunks he discovered Jeff was tailing him, stride for stride. “Going to take a dip, Jeff?”
“Not exactly… I wanted to ask you something personal,” Jeff said, sucking his cheeks in and out. “Would you go talk to her for me?”
“Talk to who, Jeff?”
“Abby-when she’s at C. C. Willoughby on Thursday. She’s just got to come sign books for me, Mitch. I need this, or I swear I’ll go under. Chrissie totally blew me off, and Abby hung up on me as soon as she heard my voice.”
“What makes you think she’ll speak to me?”
“She’ll at least hear you out. She doesn’t hate you. Will you do it, Mitch?”
Mitch really didn’t want to get involved in Jeff’s marital problems. But the little guy seemed so desperate and alone that he didn’t know how to say no. “Can I think it over?”
“Does that mean yes?”
“It means I’ll think it over.”
“Sure, sure,” Jeff said with great relief. “Mitch, you’re a real pal. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Honest.”
Mitch continued on behind the open-air showers now to the weathered knotty pine changing stalls, which were grouped on either side of a center aisle, maybe fifty of them in all. Each stall was about three-by-five feet, with a door that was cropped a foot short at top and bottom for ventilation. Mitch’s stall was bare except for a wooden bench and a few pegs to hang clothes on.
He emerged a moment later in his baggy surf shorts, and padded back out to the veranda. Martine was already swimming laps in a roped-in area out by the float. There was no one else out in the water. Will and Dodge were busy laying the ears of corn around the edge of the fire, which was getting good and hot. Jeff was seated back under the umbrella in the shade.
Now Donna joined Mitch, wearing a generously cut one-piece suit and a self-conscious look on her round face. Donna was no long-stemmed bikini babe-she was stubby and short-waisted, and she knew it. “Berger, is that you?” she joked, groping blindly at the air before her. She had removed her wire-rimmed glasses for the swim.
“It is.”
“How do you like my new hot girl suit?” she asked, modeling it with a dainty curtsy. She was definitely feeling her margaritas.
“I like it fine. You ready to go in?”
“Absolutely, but you have to go in ahead of me. I don’t want you staring at my big butt.”
“But this way you get to stare at mine.”
“That’s right, honey.” she giggled, swatting his arm with her hand.
The tide was out, the bottom sandy and soft. It fell off gradually as they slogged their way out, the water calm but surprisingly chilly. It was still only about chest deep as they neared the float, where Martine continued to swim laps back and forth, the hazy sunlight glistening on her smooth, tanned flesh.
“What’s up with that Rocky Dies Yellow tattoo?” Donna asked, peering at his biceps. “Are you some kind of a Stallone boy toy?”
“No, Cagney.”
“Oh, sure, that’s from the end of Angels with Dirty Faces. I love that movie.”
“I didn’t know you were into old movies.” Mitch’s eyes continued to follow Martine, her stroke so effortless and graceful that she barely made a ripple in the water.
“Mitch, there are more layers to me that you can possibly imagine. I’m like a really good lasagne Bolognese-but I’m also old-fashioned.”
“How so?”
“I believe that when you go swimming with one girl you shouldn’t be staring at another.”
“I wasn’t staring.”
“Were.”
Mitch lowered his voice. “What do you think of her?”
“That’s a funny thing to ask,” Donna responded slowly. “I should hate her guts.”
Mitch widened his eyes at her. “Really?”
“Oh, totally. There’s never been a day in her life when she wasn’t pretty, popular, rich, could have any boy she wanted. And look at her now, she’s pushing fifty and she’s still built like I was when I was never. Which is, like, so not fair.” Donna paused, letting out a sigh. “But the truth is that she’s a real doll, and she’s been nothing but nice to me since I moved here. Why are you asking?”
“Just curious.”
“And does Trooper Mitry know you’re just… curious?”
“Not that kind of curious.”
“Yeah, right.”
Donna headed farther out now, so that the water was up over her head and she had to paddle a little. Back on the veranda, Dodge wasbusy working the grill. Will was busy staring out at the two of them-so intently that Mitch couldn’t help wondering if he was jealous. Jeff was still seated by himself at the umbrella table, shoulders slumped.
“What’s up with our Mr. Wachtell tonight?” Donna wondered, squinting back at the shore. “He seems somewhat bummed.”
“He’s got money worries.”
“Hey, who doesn’t?”
“Come on, The Works is an incredible success story.”
“Incredible,” she agreed. “Just as long as you don’t look too close.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mitch, let me put it to you this way-what am I doing right now?”
“You’re, well, you’re at the beach club. You’re in the water. You’re…”
“Work with me here, Mitch,” she said impatiently.
“Okay, I’ve got it-you’re treading water.”
“And what happens if I stop paddling?”
“You sink to the bottom and drown,” he replied, nodding. “But how can that be? Your place is mobbed morning, noon and night.”
“Overhead,” Donna answered simply. “We owe the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. Our payroll is huge. Our debt load is huge. Everything we hold near and dear is tied up in The Works, including the note on our house. Long term, Dodge is convinced we’ve got a winning idea. He thinks we can even franchise it all around New England-anywhere there’s an abandoned mill. But short term, we are just total kitchen slaves. This is the first time I’ve had fun in I don’t know how long.”
Martine started back in toward shore now, waving at them as she swam past, her smile dazzling and white.
“I wasn’t kidding this afternoon, Mitch,” Donna said, coloring slightly.
“About what?”
“Sailing off to Bermuda with you.” Her eyes were locked on to his now.
Mitch swallowed. “What about you and Will?”
“Don’t look too close at that either.”
“You’re having problems?”
“I don’t know what we’re having,” she confessed. “Things just haven’t been the same since we went into business together. But, hey, enough with the Oprah-babble. I’m trying to seduce you, handsome. Do you want to sail away with me or not?”
“This is the margaritas talking,” Mitch said lightly.
“No, it’s all me. I’m dead serious.”
“I don’t have a sailboat, Donna. I don’t even know how to sail.”
“Do you know how to swim?”
“Why do you-?”
She dunked him hard, pushing him underwater with both hands. He surfaced, sputtering, and paid her back. And the fight was on, the two of them frolicking and shrieking like a pair of twelve-year-olds. When they’d laughed themselves out Mitch noticed that Will was waving at them to come in. Dinner was ready.
As they waded in Dodge got busy lighting a dozen or so citronella candles to ward off the mosquitoes. Donna wrapped a towel around herself and made straight for the grill to see how everything was doing.
Mitch rinsed off under one of the open-air shower heads and padded back to his changing stall, where he stripped off his wet trunks and toweled himself dry, feeling tingly and invigorated. As he dressed he heard someone’s footsteps clomp past him on the decking toward a neighboring stall. He heard a stall door slap shut. Then he heard something else.
He heard a man whisper, “Not here-someone will catch us!”
And a woman whisper, “I don’t give a damn! He does what he wants. Why can’t I?”
Mitch froze, drawing his breath in.
“You’re insane!” the man whispered, groaning softly. “We can’t just…”
“I want you,” she gasped. “Hurry! Give it to me now.”
Mitch could not recognize them by their furtive whispers. Butthere was no mistaking what he heard next-the quick, heavy breathing, the slapping of bare flesh against bare flesh, the steady, rhythmic creaking of the wooden floorboards. The two of them were having it off in there together like a pair of sex-starved high school kids.
And then there was silence.
Mitch immediately tiptoed to the back of his stall and climbed up onto the built-in bench. From this vantage point he’d be able to see over his cropped stall door when they headed back out to the veranda. He was being a snoop and he knew it. But there was no way he was not going to find out who these lovers were.
A few moments later he heard their stall door swing open on rusty hinges. And footsteps, leather sandals clacking against the decking. Martine Crockett walked past, calmly straightening herself. She’d changed into a polo shirt and shorts, and she was striding a bit unsteadily, but she looked as cool, collected, and fresh as she always did.
Mitch waited, breathless with anticipation. After a moment a man emerged, looking flushed and shamefaced.
It wasn’t Will Durslag.
It was Jeff. Martine’s lover was Jeff Wachtell.
Ab-so-tootly.
The party was still going strong at ten o’clock when Mitch decided to say good night.
A dense fog had settled in, signaling that the rain wasn’t far off. His jaw ached and his head was spinning. All he wanted to do was go home, take three Advils, and crawl right under his bed. He could not look at either Jeff or Martine throughout dinner. And yet he was also unable to stop picturing the two of them together, groping each other’s naked, tumid flesh in that changing stall. Nor could he turn off the quiz show that was broadcasting nonstop inside of his mind.
Question: Could this GET any weirder?
Answer: Please, God, no.
Mitch felt so whipped by the time he’d steered his way across thefog-shrouded causeway for home that he didn’t even bother to turn on the living room lights. Just made straight for the kitchen, where he replenished the cats’ kibble bowl, fished an ice pack out of the freezer, and swallowed his Advils, hearing the mournful call of the foghorn on the Old Saybrook Lighthouse across the river. He was halfway up the steep, narrow stairs to his sleeping loft when something undeniable and truly frightening suddenly occurred to him.
He was not alone in his house.
Noises. He distinctly heard noises. The clinking of a glass. A cough.
His heart racing, Mitch flicked on a light and discovered Tito Molina sitting there in his one good chair, drinking up his scotch. Clemmie dozed contentedly in the actor’s lap.
“Geez, Tito, scare people much?” he demanded.
“I like sitting in the dark,” Tito answered, his blue eyes blazing at Mitch defiantly.
Mitch stood there in guarded silence, wondering what the combustible young star wanted. And whether he should be afraid for his life. Should he try to call Des? Should he arm himself? What with, the fireplace poker? He ended up just standing there, his eyes falling on Clemmie. “She hasn’t sat in my lap all summer.”
“Animals take to me. I’m one of them.” Tito took a gulp of Mitch’s scotch, the glass trembling so violently in his hand that it clinked off of his teeth. The man was wrapped beyond tight.
Clemmie awoke with a yawn, jumped out of Tito’s lap, and wandered off toward the kitchen. Mitch watched her go, jealous in spite of himself.
“That guitar of yours is a piss,” Tito said, his eyes falling on Mitch’s Stratocaster. “Play me something.”
“Kind of tired right now, Tito. What is it you want?”
“To talk.”
“Okay, sure.” Mitch sat on the edge of his loveseat, keeping the coffee table between them. He’d made that himself by bolting a discarded wooden storm window onto a leaky old rowboat. He wasvery proud of his coffee table. “But how did you get here?” he asked, snugging the ice pack against his jaw.
“What, you think because I’m Chicano I don’t know how to use a damned phone book?”
“Of course not. I didn’t see a car parked at the gate, that’s all.”
“I swam out. My ride’s back at the town beach.”
Tito’s hair was indeed wet, Mitch now noticed, as were the yellow nylon shorts that he was wearing. The orange-and-blue T-shirt he was wearing was dry. It was one of Mitch’s T-shirts. In fact, it was Mitch’s treasured and exceedingly threadbare New York Mets 1986 World Series T-shirt. He’d owned that shirt since he was in high school. And Tito had gone and helped himself right to it.
“That wasn’t very smart of you,” Mitch told him. “People have drowned trying to swim out here-the river currents can be treacherous. That’s how the island got its name. Back before they built the causeway they used a little ferry boat, and it capsized and a Peck daughter washed out to sea.” Mitch stared at the young actor, wondering what it would be like to be so handsome. Everyone in the world wanted to look like Tito Molina-and yet his unparalleled good looks hadn’t brought him anything even remotely close to happiness. “It would have been better if you’d buzzed me. I’d have raised the gate for you.”
“How could you do that, man? You weren’t here.”
“I was at the beach club. I thought you’d be there, too. I thought we’d have a chance to talk then.”
Tito didn’t respond. Just poured himself some more of Mitch’s scotch, his hand wavering unsteadily.
Mitch abruptly rose and marched into the kitchen for his emergency stash-the family-sized squeeze bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup that he kept hidden under the sink behind the laundry detergent and furniture polish, away from Des’s disapproving eyes.
“What are you doing in there?” Tito called to him.
Mitch returned with the syrup and sat. “Just getting comfortable,” he replied, squirting a generous shot of it onto his tongue.
“You have really disgusting personal habits, man,” Tito observed, curling his lip.
“Hey, you pick your remedy, I’ll pick mine.”
“Fair enough,” the actor conceded. “I hear you’re hooked up with the trooper lady.”
“So what?”
“So nothing. I’m envious, that’s all.”
“You’re married to the sexiest woman in America and you envy me?”
“Totally. Yours is the real deal. The way that she took charge of our situation today. Charged right in, no fear…” Tito gazed out the window, his knee jiggling nervously. “That was so cool.”
“Esme said you’d be at the beach club tonight.”
“She shouldn’t have. I told her I wouldn’t go.” He drank some more scotch, his finely sculpted features tightening. “She’s my Miss America, know what I’m saying? All she needs is the damned crown and that… what’s that thing they wear across their boobies, says where they come from?”
“A sash?”
Tito nodded. “Right. But she doesn’t listen to me when I tell her things. I’d never go near a place like that. It’s filled with dead men walking. I start hanging at their damned beach club with them then I’m not me anymore, know what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Okay, what did you mean by that?” Tito demanded suddenly.
Mitch shook his head at him, perplexed. The man was an absolute master at keeping people off-balance. “By what?”
“This afternoon, you said I was better than this. What did you mean?”
“It doesn’t exactly require a translation.”
Tito gazed at him searchingly. “I’m just a poor dumb beaner, jack. I need one, okay?”
Tito Molina sure needed something. He seemed to be consumed by inner disquiet. Mitch just didn’t know what it was he needed, or why he seemed to feel he needed it from him.
Mitch settled back on the loveseat with his syrup bottle, listening to the foghorn. “I was there on opening night when you were in Salesman. I saw it happen, Tito. I saw you blow Malkovich right off of that stage. You’re the real deal. You have the talent and looks and pure unadulterated star quality to do whatever you want. They can’t stop you. And that’s rare. One, maybe two actors in a generation have what you’ve got. Newman had it. Redford had it. Right now, there’s you and there’s only you. For me, it’s as if you’re holding a fortune right in the palm of your hand and instead of investing it wisely you’re pissing it away on crap like Dark Star, and I wish like hell you wouldn’t.”
Tito threw down another hit of scotch, shuddering. “Sometimes it’s like a trade-off. You’ve got to do that stuff so they’ll let you do what you really want.”
“I understand that,” Mitch said. “But what is it that you really want to do?”
“Man, I don’t know,” he replied, staring gloomily down into his glass.
“I don’t believe that. You know exactly what you want to do.”
Tito peered up at him suspiciously. “Okay, so maybe I do. What I want… I want to make a movie about my father. It would be, like, a way to understand where I come from, know what I’m saying? See, he was just this really angry, screwed-up juicehead and he died-”
“In a bar fight, I know.”
“I’d play him myself, see. And Esme would play my crazy mother. I’ve written the script. Most of it, anyway. And I want to direct it myself, too, which means I’d have to raise the money myself, which my agent totally hates. But that’s okay, because I don’t think I’ll be straight with myself until I do this. I need to do this.” He glanced at Mitch uncertainly. “You’re a smart guy. You know about things. Word up, what do you think?”
Mitch stared back at him for a moment. Now he knew why Tito Molina was here, what he wanted. Tito was an actor. He wanted Mitch to direct him. “I think you should do it.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely, because you’re passionate about it. You should always work on whatever you’re most passionate about. Otherwise you’re just another meat sack, wasting your time, wasting your life…” Mitch applied more syrup to his tongue. “Unless you can’t afford to do it, that is.”
“Hell yes, I can afford it. They gave me twenty mil for Dark Star. That’s my going rate now. I’m in the club, man. But, see, my agent wants me and Esme to do this romantic comedy together, Puppy Love.”
“I’ll probably be sorry I asked you this, but what’s it about?”
“I play a young veterinarian from the wrong side of the tracks,” Tito replied woodenly. “She’s a high-class breeder of champion basset hounds. We meet. We fall in love. We fall out of love. We-”
“Say no more. Please.” It sounded like a feel-good sapfest, the kind where exhibitors ought to post a sign at the box office reading Diabetics Enter at Own Risk. “Do you like the script?”
“No, I hate it. It’s just this bunch of cute, fake moments, strung together like beads. Totally Hollywood, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean.”
“But it’s a go project. The studio’s behind it.”
“And Esme?”
“She’ll do it if I will. But I don’t know, man. I feel like…” Tito ran a hand over his face, distraught. “I feel like I don’t have any real say in what happens. Like I’m not an actual person, just a character in a movie that somebody else is creating. None of it’s real. I’m not real. Esme’s not real. Esme and me, Chrissie and me.. .”
“What about Chrissie and you?” Mitch asked, frowning.
“Nothing, man. Forget that. Would you read the pages I’ve written?” he asked Mitch nervously.
“I’d be honored,” replied Mitch, who found himself discovering the same thing about Tito that Dodge had. Mitch liked the guy. He didn’t expect to, but he did. There was genuine boyish innocence to him that came through in spite of that twitchy anger. “Mind you, this means I won’t be able to review it when it comes out. Hey, wait, is this all just an insidious ploy to disqualify me?”
“No way,” Tito insisted. “I’m not that clever, man. I swear it.”
“In that case, I’ll be happy to read your pages. Drop them by any time.”
Tito sat there staring out the window for a long moment. “I don’t know, it’s all just so…” He trailed off. Briefly, he seemed very far away. Then he shook himself and drained his scotch. “I’m in the middle of something bad. Something I got myself into. And I can’t get out of it.”
Mitch watched the actor curiously. Was he still talking about Puppy Love or had he moved on to something else? Mitch couldn’t tell. “You can get out of anything if you really want to. You’re in charge of your own life, Tito. You have the power.”
“What power, man? I don’t even know who I am.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Trust me, that puts you way ahead of most people.”
Now Tito jumped to his feet, so suddenly that Mitch found himself flinching. It was an involuntary thing, and if the actor noticed it he didn’t let on. “Gotta go. Big thanks, man.”
“For what, Tito?”
“The T-shirt,” he replied, flashing a smile at him.
“I wouldn’t mind getting that back, if you think of it.”
“You can have it right now,” Tito said easily. “I’m all dried off.”
“No, go ahead and wear it home. It’s damp out. You might catch cold. Besides, it looks so much better on you.”
Tito went to the door and opened it, pausing there in the doorway. “Sorry about this afternoon.”
“It’s forgotten, as far I’m concerned. Can I give you a lift back to your car?”
“Naw, I’m cool. I’ll take that bridge thing back. The walk will do me good. Later, man.”
Mitch flicked on the porch light and watched Tito Molina melt soundlessly into the fog just like Sinatra did after he delivered the Arabian pony to the young lord in The List of Adrian Messenger, one of Mitch’s favorite thrillers in spite of George C. Scott’s awful English accent. Quirt was curled up on a tarp under the bay window, his eyes shining at Mitch. Mitch said good night to him, then flicked off the light and went back inside, breathing deeply in and out.
He hadn’t realized it, but he had been holding his breath practically the entire time since he’d walked in on Tito.
He crawled right into bed, Clemmie snuggling up against his chest for the first time in weeks. Mitch didn’t know if this was her trying to atone for being disloyal to him or whether she just felt cold. And he didn’t much care. He was just grateful to have her there. Exhausted, he lay there stroking her tummy and listening to her purr. And now the rain started to patter softly against the skylights over his bed. Mitch lay there with Clemmie, listening to it come down and growing sleepier by the second. Soon, they had both drifted off.
His bedside phone jarred him awake. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. It didn’t seem like very long. He fumbled for it, jostling Clemmie, who sprang from the bed and scampered downstairs. “H-Hello… Whassa?…”
“I’m sorry if I woke you. I just wanted you to know something.”
“Okay… Uh, sure.” Mitch sat up, recognizing the voice on the other end despite the steady, persistent roar in the background. “Where are you?”
“I’m on Sugar Mountain, with the barkers and the colored balloons.”
“Wait, give me a second, I know what that’s… Neil Young, right?”
“You are.”
“What’s that whooshing noise? Are you hanging out in a men’s room somewhere?”
“Not exactly.”
“What time is it anyway?”
“It’s too late. The damage is done. The hangman says it’s time to let her fly.”
“What hangman? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Good-bye, Mitch.”
“Wait, don’t-!”
No use. The line had already gone dead.
Mitch lay there trying to figure out what on earth had just happened. Briefly, he wondered if he’d simply dreamed the whole conversation. He decided there was no sense to be made of it now. He was just too damned tired. So he rolled over and fell immediately back to sleep.
Until another phone call awakened him. This time it was Des. It was dawn now and a steady, driving rain was pounding the skylight over Mitch’s head.
“Baby, I’m sorry to wake you-”
“No, no. I’m glad you called,” he assured her, yawning. “I didn’t feel good about how we left things yesterday. I shouldn’t have hung up on you.”
“Mitch…”
“I was just having a bad day. I understand that you have to obsess. If you don’t, you won’t get anywhere.”
“Mitch…”
“So was that our first real fight? Because if it was I don’t think it was that bad, do you?”
“Baby, please listen to me…”
Something in her voice stopped him now. “Why, what is it?”
“I’m on my way up to the Devil’s Hopyard. The ranger’s found a body at the base of the falls. A jumper, apparently.”
The hangman says it’s time to let her fly.
Mitch’s heart began to pound. “God, I should have known. The falls, damn it. That’s what I was hearing…”
“When?” she demanded. “What do you know about this?”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” he said, his voice filling with dread. “It’s Tito.”
She didn’t need to answer him. Her silence said it all.
Mitch closed his eyes and let out a groan of sheer agony.
His own worst nightmare had just taken a giant leap into pure horror.