Frankie
I’m placing another plate of tuna—the regular kind, from a can, not bluefin from Mark’s fish purveyor—in front of my porch
steps when I hear it: PUTT PUTT PUTT.
I can’t believe it.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s been a week since Mrs. Baumgarten and her husband moved out. Someone was going to have
to show up eventually, either to clean out the place for the next renter or change the locks.
I just never expected it to be the homeowner himself.
Ash parks his decrepit truck (that Mark assured me cost “forty grand, easy”) and gets out. He’s not wearing his usual business-bro
uniform of dark jeans, white shirt, and dark linen jacket today. No, he’s swapped those for a pair of utility trousers, vintage
tee, and flannel shirt. The fact that it’s over eighty degrees outside hasn’t seemed to deter him from wearing what appear
to be winter hiking boots, I’m unsurprised to see.
What does surprise me is the fact that, for the first time ever, when he gets out of the truck, Ash doesn’t have his phone pressed to his ear. Maybe Rochelle has finally gotten through to him about the seriousness of the situation.
I have to wonder what she told him, though, since instead of ducking straight into his house without a word to any of his
neighbors, as usual, he turns that bro-flowed head of his and looks at . . . me.
And waves.
I glance around. It’s a beautiful late summer afternoon, but I’m the only one of my neighbors who’s out in her front yard.
The rest are all either at work, or down on the lake. I can hear the laughter of Mrs. DeLong and her grandkids and the occasional
splash of their kayak oars, along with the quiet hum of Mr. DeLong’s lawnmower and the coos of my resident mourning doves.
It’s been too hot for them to think of migrating south.
I’m sure Ash has to be waving to someone else since he has never once spoken to or even acknowledged me, a fact for which
I have always been grateful.
But when I can’t see anyone else—even the cat is still stubbornly refusing to come out from his cool, dark hiding place—I
have no choice but to admit it:
Ash Merit is waving at me.
Reluctantly, I climb to my feet—I’ve been kneeling in the bald dirt that had once been Richard’s impeccably groomed lawn—and
wave back.
“Hi,” I say, though inwardly I’m thinking, What have I done to deserve this? First Summer People, now Ash Merit.
“Hi.” Ash is taking the exact same path toward me from his house as Mrs. Baumgarten did last week, only his stride is loose and confident, whereas hers had been shy and hesitant. “We haven’t met before. At least, not officially. I’m Ash Merit.”
Before I have a chance to reply—not that I’m sure what I would have said. Nice to meet you would be a lie—he asks, “You’re Dr. Giovanni, right?”
“Frankie,” I correct him. “You can call me Frankie.”
“Oh.” He looks slightly disappointed. “Rochelle at Harbor Hideaways says you’re a doctor.”
“She’s right, I am,” I admit. “But of philosophy. I’m not a medical doctor.”
“Oh, okay.” Ash has now reached my side and is pointing down to the plate of canned tuna sitting in the dirt. “What’s going
on here?”
“Um . . .”
I don’t know why I feel so embarrassed. I don’t care what Ash Merit thinks about me.
But the fact that he, of all people, caught me in the act feels deeply embarrassing.
“There’s a stray cat living under there,” I hear myself explaining. “I’ve been trying to get him to come out, but—”
To my surprise, Ash kneels in the dirt beside my feet, leaning down until his head is even with the space where I’ve seen
the cat crouching in the dark.
“Oh, yeah,” he says. He sounds delighted even though his right ear is only an inch above the dirt in my yard. His dark hair—which
he probably pays a fortune to have cut, to maximize the sway of his tousled curls—is so long, some of the ends sweep the dirt.
“I see her! Hello there, kitty.”
Of all the scenarios I’ve imagined about my first meeting with Ashraf Merit—played out in my head during my morning workout, the rage helping to fuel my pace—I never pictured this.
Hitting me with a lawsuit for snipping his speaker cables?
Sure. Telling me off for suggesting to his tenant that she cancel her lease? Certainly.
But striding over and kneeling in the dirt to talk to the stray cat living beneath my porch?
Never.
I’m so stunned I can only stare down at him as I’m forced to reassess some—but not all—of my assumptions about him.
“Don’t bother,” I say to Ash. “It won’t come out. I’ve been trying for weeks.”
“Oh, she’ll come out for me.” He’s leaped nimbly back to his feet. “Lost things always find me.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Lost things.” He’s taking off his flannel shirt and laying it over the step railing. The sleeves of the vintage tee beneath
it are a little tight on him and emphasize the swell of his biceps.
I try to avert my gaze but am not entirely successful. Those biceps are not small.
“They always seem to find me,” he goes on. “It’s a gift. Not one anyone would ever ask for, but I don’t mind so much anymore.
I don’t even mind telling people about it, though they hardly ever believe me. Like you.” He’s grinning a little. “I can tell
you don’t believe me. But you will when this cat comes out. If she’s lost, she won’t be able to resist me.”
His confident tone reminds me a little of my sister Angie, who lopped all the hair off my Barbie dolls when she was seven
and never expressed an ounce of remorse. In fact, she insisted in the same confident tone that they looked better. Ash Merit seems to be in the grip of a similar grandiose delusion.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my tone mild. “That definitely sounds believable.”
“Does it?” He looks shocked but pleased as he kneels down once again in the dirt. “I’m surprised you’d say that, being a woman
of science.”
“Oh, no.” I don’t see the harm in playing along with his delusion. “I’m intrigued. Please tell me more about how lost things
always come to you.”
“Well, they don’t always come right away.” Ash isn’t looking at me. He’s stretching his right index finger into the dark gap
at the side of my porch steps. “Sometimes they need a little coaxing, like now. Here, kitty, kitty. Come on. It’s okay. You
can come out now. We won’t hurt you.”
Unsurprisingly, the cat does not budge from beneath the porch.
“So.” I figure the best thing to do is keep him talking, but maybe not about his special gift. “Are you here because of Mrs. Baumgarten?”
“Yep.” He keeps one knee on the ground, undaunted by the cat’s refusal to be found by him, but glances up at me. “I’m glad
you’re around. I wanted to thank you. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
Wait. Is he apologizing?
Where are the heated denials I’d fantasized he’d give me when I confronted him over his neglect of his tenants and property?
Where are the infantile excuses? The outrage? The petty man tantrums?
And yes, I do know how pathetic it is that these are the kinds of things I fantasize about.
“Uh,” I say, frowning. Not that he notices, since his gaze has returned to the cat cave. “Well, I understand from Rochelle
that you have some doubts about what really happened to your tenant.”
“That’s right.”
Here we go. He doesn’t believe there was a break-in at all, Frankie, Rochelle had told me in a tone of incredulity. And he says he can prove it.
A pleasurable tingle of excitement races up my spine, because the fantasies I’ve been having are about to come true: Ash is
going to try to deny and deflect. And I’m going to crush him with my superior knowledge and logic.
“So what do you think happened?” I ask.
“I’m not sure. But I know what didn’t happen: those groceries definitely weren’t stolen.”
I’d expected denial. But this is another level. “What makes you think that?”
I gape as he pushes himself up with his hands—quite nimbly, I have to admit. I never noticed before what an athletic frame
he has.
“I don’t think this cat is lost,” he says. “If she were, she’d come to me.”
“He isn’t lost. He’s feral. He’s never been inside a house or spent any time with humans, so he’s terrified of us. That’s
why he won’t come out.”
He looks thoughtful. “That could be true. But I think it’s more likely that she won’t come out because she considers this
home. Why should she come out when she feels safe here? I think she’s exactly where she wants to be.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, sweeping aside this completely illogical theory. “Tell me more about why you think your tenants’ groceries
weren’t stolen.”
“Oh, well, there’s no footage from the doorbell camera of anyone else going into the house.
” He’s brushing off what little dirt ended up clinging to him.
It’s a surprisingly small amount for someone who was literally sprawled in it.
“I feel bad for Mrs. Baumgarten because it must be embarrassing for her. But no one broke in or used an old passcode on the lockbox or came into the house at all.” He reaches into his back pocket.
“And I can prove it. I have the footage right here.”
Before I can say another word, he hits Play on his smartphone—the most-up-to-date and expensive version, which I always warn
my patients not to be duped into buying—and shoves the screen into my face.
It’s difficult to see anything on a phone screen when viewing it in full sunlight, especially if you’re wearing sunglasses
with polarized lenses, which I am.
And it’s even more difficult to see anything on a phone screen when it’s being held by a very virile, very handsome man who
is standing less than a foot away from you, smelling very nicely of soap and some kind of clean, citrusy cologne.
So my gaze keeps naturally straying from the phone screen to the man holding it. Because not only does Ash smell very good,
but the collar to his vintage tee has slipped a little, revealing a tantalizing hint of springy, dark chest hair. Unlike my
brother, who wears a gold cornicello everywhere he goes, Ash doesn’t wear a neck chain at all, only a watch that looks like
it must have cost him at least ten grand.