CHAPTER TWELVE #2
I blinked a few times and stared at my phone in my hand.
Was everyone on the island this pushy? While I understood where Tom and Danica were coming from, they kind of went around me to Mabel, even after I said it was unnecessary.
Then again, they knew Jolene and the ways of the island better than I did. Maybe this precaution was necessary.
So many maybes crashed around in my head.
Maybe coming here was a bad idea. Would a big city have been better?
More anonymity. More opportunity to blend in and become invisible?
I doubt anybody would be showing up at my house if I lived in Beverly Hills or Manhattan, demanding to meet my daughter.
I thought island life would be simpler for us, but already it was proving to be more challenging to our privacy than living in Tallahassee in a community that already knew our business.
I left school as soon as I possibly could.
Once I knew the last child was gone, I was in my truck and racing across the island to Tom’s property.
The gate halfway down his long driveway was impressive.
I had to buzz in and wait for them to open the gate from the house.
And it was easy enough to see all the cameras and motion-sensitive yard lights placed around on every roof corner.
The man wasn’t letting any blind spot get the better of him.
And it had to be for a good reason.
I parked the truck and climbed out. A moment later, a squeal and a cacophony of grunts echoed from inside the house, and a fat, squat pig came barreling out of a dog door and down the porch steps. It circled my ankles like a cat, grunting at me.
“Uh … hello,” I said, bending down to scratch its rough, hairy back. It paused and started to jostle its backside back and forth, encouraging me to continue relieving its itchy rump.
“Portia!” Danica called out, opening the door to the house. “There you are, you silly girl. Leave Lennox alone.”
Portia didn’t even acknowledge Danica, she just kept grunting, just kept wiggling her booty as I continued to scratch her.
“Well, now you’ve done it. You’ve won her over with butt scratches. She will be obsessed with you for life.” Danica swept her blonde waves over her shoulders and smiled at me. “How was school?”
“We spent most of it outside, then a few kids and myself decided to take an impromptu dip in the ocean.”
Her green eyes widened. “Did people fall in?”
“Well, one little girl. So I ‘fell’ in too, so she didn’t get upset. Then it kind of became a thing.”
“Did Sam go swimming?”
“I think the only kids from your family who got wet were Austin and Marco.”
She snorted. “That tracks. Mabel is on her way. She’s just finishing up a hummingbird sketch.
I put fresh sugar water in the feeder on the deck before she got here, and the birds have been going nuts.
” She looped her arm in a sweeping motion.
“Come on in. Tom is in the field trying to wrestle Pinata free from where he got stuck in the fence.”
“Pardon? Does he need help? Who or what is Pinata?”
“A donkey. And maybe. I didn’t want to leave Mabel; otherwise, I would have gone to help him.”
I pointed toward the enormous pasture behind me and the barn. “He’s that way?”
“Just behind the big barn. You won’t be able to miss him.” She paused and squinted. “I can faintly hear the Italian swear words on the wind if I focus.”
“Okay …” I spun around and took off at a steady lope, around the big barn and through the gate.
Several horses, including a cute little black foal, stopped to stare at me as I jogged past them.
I rounded the corner where, sure enough, there was Tom, with his arms around a struggling donkey’s neck, as he attempted to free the braying beast from where its head was caught between the fence wires.
“Need a hand?” I asked, reaching them and slowing my roll when the donkey’s eyes widened in fear at my approach. It started to struggle more.
“Si. Just don’t get kicked.” He tightened his grip on the animal’s neck. “Stronzo. Stop. I am helping you. Stop!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Widen the wires. I cannot do that and keep him still and from biting and kicking me. I am not an octopus. Pull them apart and shove his stupid head through while I pull.”
My head bobbed, and I stepped forward, ready to pitch in. The donkey struggled even more, kicking his back feet and thrashing his head. He reared up and the loud clunk sound of his head smashing into Tom’s chin echoed on the breeze. “You okay?” I asked him.
“Si. I will cry later. We do this now.”
“Okay.” I grabbed the wires for the fence, which were surprisingly rigid, and tried to pull them apart. “How the hell did he get his head between them? This isn’t very flexible.”
“Because he wishes to die. He wishes to die by stupidity. Stronzo!”
The wires dug into my palms as I tried to pry them wider to get the donkey’s head through.
But they wouldn’t bend enough. Maybe I needed a better angle.
I stopped to give my hands a break and climbed over the fence so that I was on the other side and only had Pinata’s teeth to contend with. The wire was still too stiff.
“Just push,” Tom said, grunting and growling as the donkey continued to fight him. “He will squish. Like toothpaste. Maybe be a little deformed. That’s on him.”
“Hang on. I have an idea.” I pulled off my black T-shirt with the mountain graphic on it and wrapped it around the top wire. Then I climbed up onto the fence and stood on the wire below the donkey’s head.
“Be careful. Do not lose your life for this idiot.”
“I’ll be fine.” I leaned forward to let the top wooden cross post of the fence support my shins, then pulled up on the top wire, using my shirt to keep my hands from getting injured and create more surface area.
My feet kept the wire down, and with both hands pulling up on the wire, it actually moved and Tom was able to free the donkey.
Pinata took off out into the pasture, bucking and kicking his hind legs. He sprinted past us and gave an obnoxious, hee-haw before galloping off to the top of the field.
I jumped down and tugged my shirt back over my head before climbing over to the other side with Tom.
Sweat dripped from his temples and hairline, and his white T-shirt was filthy, but he was smiling.
“Why I keep him …” he mused, shaking his head.
“He is nothing but trouble. Terrorizes all the other animals. Terrorizes me. Terrorized the neighbors.” Then he chuckled.
“Though, that was funny. Ate Mrs. Principal’s tulips.
The red ones because apparently purple tulips are for whores. ”
“What?”
Laughing, he slapped me on the shoulder and guided me back toward the house. “That is what she told me when I said I would replace the flowers my donkey ate. That I could only buy her red ones because purple tulips were for harlots.”
“Is that actually a thing? I’ve never heard that before.”
“That’s her thing. She was as crazy as her husband. I bought the purple ones for Danica.”
I choked on my spit.
“Not because she is a whore. But because she was there when Mrs. Principal said this, and it was funny to us both.”
He opened the gate for me, and I stepped through. “Quite the security system you have here. Is it actually necessary?”
Then he proceeded to tell me all about the massive invasions of privacy he had endured earlier this year, extrapolating on what Naomi had already told me.
Then he told me what the McEvoys experienced last year with privacy invasion and why had increased their security as well.
Needless to say, I was contemplating hiring a twenty-four-seven guard to stand at the top of the driveway now.
Mabel was on the porch when we reached it, hugging her sketchpad and phone to her chest. “How’d it go, kiddo?”
“Good. The osprey is doing better. They have it under a heat lamp and are feeding it canned salmon mash.”
“Oh, right. Oakley. I forgot about the bird.”
She glanced at Danica and Tom. “Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me over. While I felt safe at home, I don’t like people thinking they can just show up and meet me when I don’t want to meet them. I appreciate your help.”
“Anytime, sweetheart,” Danica said. “Portia really likes you.”
“That means you are good bread,” Tom said. “If the pig likes you, you are good bread.”
“I’m not bread. I am a person,” Mabel said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s an Italian way of saying that you’re a good person,” Danica said gently. ”That the pig is a good judge of character.”
“Oh.”
The adults all shared smirks and chuckles as Mabel bent down to scratch Portia’s rump.
“I like birds, but I could see myself also liking pigs. At least, I like this one. She is very clean.”
“Pigs are actually very clean animals,” Tom said.
Mabel stood up and climbed down the rest of the porch steps to stand next to me. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “Why do you smell like the ocean?”
“I went swimming today.”
My kid looked horrified. “Why?”
“Why not?”
“I can list ten reasons off the top of my head why not. And another ten in the ride home. One, it’s still spring and cold out; two, there are rip currents and undertows; three—”
“Thanks again, guys,” I said, steering my child toward the truck. “I appreciate your help.”
“Beer tonight?” Tom asked.
“You think she’ll be okay? Jolene won’t come snooping around again?”
Tom shook his head. “She is old. She goes to bed early. Come by at eight.”
Laughing, I gave him a wave. “Eight it is.”
“Four, all the oil, gas, and other chemicals in the water from the countless freighter ships,” Mabel went on as she climbed into the passenger seat.
“Five, there are lion’s mane jellyfish in the water here and their stings are extremely painful; six, there have been great white shark sightings as far north as here.
Not to mention there are six-gill sharks which will kill humans. Seven—”
“Okay, kiddo, I get it,” I said as I turned on the truck. “I get it.”