Chapter Nine
Nine
“Mom, there’s another cat!”
My stomach fell at Flo’s cry from upstairs, but fortunately she just meant another ornament.
It was the last week of August and our first official day at the Tinker Street house.
Although we weren’t moving in just yet, because Suni had taken one look at the place and categorically forbidden us from sleeping there.
Instead, she’d booked cabins at the campground and given us a week to get it habitable enough to live in.
“The priorities are bathroom, kitchen, and sleeping areas,” Suni ordered. “By the time Wayne and I leave, I want to know you’ll be able to live here hygienically.”
Alison had joined us for the weekend, and she was pretty pessimistic about her mom’s plan.
“It’ll take more than a week, surely,” she’d said glumly, regarding the chaos of the kitchen.
She was in sweats, her long dark hair pulled up into a messy bun, and she surveyed our house with a flat expression.
I understood her pessimism. Even though I’d known what to expect, it had still been a shock to return to find the railings like broken teeth, the cracked windows and wild gardens, and all the stuff…
It was hard to know where to start. We couldn’t empty the porch or the kitchen junk out to the lawn, because there was no lawn, just the wild green tangle, threaded with brambles and thorns. And there was no space in the hall or the front. Where on earth could we put everything?
“I think we’re going to have to tackle the garden first,” Wayne finally said, as we tried to navigate the overstuffed house. He stared down the hallway, with its plastic bags and milk crates and boxes full of God knows what. “We’ll clear a space outside and start emptying things out to sort.”
“But what if it rains? I need to try and sell some of this stuff—I can’t have it ruined by rain…” I was feeling overwhelmed before we’d even started.
Wayne took his Pirates cap off and scratched his head. “Well, I just don’t know what else you’re going to do, honey.”
“Maybe we can get some tarps?” Suni suggested. “Or can we use the outbuildings?”
“They’re full of culch too.” I groaned and sat on the stairs. “What have I got myself into?”
“Culch?” said Suni, raising an eyebrow. But I didn’t have time to answer, because Ali was leaning over the banister looking frustrated.
“Zoe, Flo keeps disappearing,” she complained.
She’d been put on Flo duty but was wary of following her into the clutter.
Ali resented having to come help, but her parents weren’t leaving her alone in Bradford Woods, given that the restraining order she had against her ex didn’t seem worth the paper it was written on.
“The person who lived here must have loved cats,” Flo shouted down from one of the back rooms. She emerged and joined Alison at the banister with a porcelain cat in each hand. “That’s two more up here. I found three in the kitchen, and another one in the laundry. How many do you think there are?”
“Flo-bug, I don’t think porcelain cats are our first priority,” Suni said.
“Ah, let the kid amuse herself.” Wayne grinned up at Flo. “Honey, why don’t you start a cat collection in your mom’s new bedroom, where it’s clean and safe?”
“All right. I’m going to start a button collection too. I’ll get the button dish from the kitchen and bring it up here.” She zipped down the stairs, patting me on the head as she passed.
“One of my new neighbors, the guy at the hardware store, said he could recommend someone to come help us cut back the garden,” I told Wayne. “But I hate to think what it will cost.”
“Needs must, kiddo.” He jammed his cap back on. “Come on, we’ll go talk to him and pick up some supplies.”
“What supplies?” Suni asked. “You’re bound to have everything you need here in the house… somewhere.”
“I was thinking some heavy-duty gloves and face masks for the dust,” Wayne said. “And we’ll get some other bits and pieces too. I brought my toolkit but it’s not quite up to a challenge like this.”
“Okay, well, pick up the keys to the cabins while you’re there,” Suni called after us. “The booking confirmation says we have to get them from the man down at the hardware store anyway. I think his name’s Jake.”
“Yeah, we know him,” Flo told her, as she dashed back up the stairs with the button dish. “Mom liked his muscles.”
“Flo!”
“She did. She kept looking at them. Ali, you’d probably like him too. He’s ripped.”
“I’ve sworn off men,” Ali was saying flatly as Wayne and I disappeared into the kitchen and out the back.
It was the dog days of summer and Tinker Street was somnolent in the morning heat. The summer houses were quiet and the sound of a motorboat was a low lazy undercurrent in the distance.
“Well, you picked a winner of a spot, no doubt about that,” Wayne said admiringly. “Look at that view.”
We gazed down to the glittering of Penobscot Bay and the hazy horizon beyond, where gulls wheeled against its vast canvas. This was where we lived now, I marveled. In this pine- and salt-scented town, with that view on our doorstep.
As we approached the hardware store, we could hear the Red Sox game on the radio, and the sound of excited barking followed by a low pleading whine.
Jake was standing by the picnic tables in front of the store, barefoot and without his shirt again, his body just as bronzed and just as muscled as I remembered.
He was holding a red plastic basket full of bread and lobster bits.
Tied to one of the porch posts was a speckled brown and white hound puppy, with long floppy ears and awkwardly large paws, whining as Jake threw lobster pieces and breadcrumbs to the gulls.
“Dogs don’t eat lobster,” Jake told it irritably.
“Seems to me a Maine dog might eat lobster,” Wayne observed amiably as we approached. He reached down and gave the dog a scratch.
“This is yesterday’s lobster,” he said shortly.
“It’s liable to make her sick.” He threw another piece to the crowding, noisy gulls.
“These guys, on the other hand, have iron constitutions.” He nodded hello to me.
“Saw you drive in this morning. I was going to pop over and say howdy, but I thought you might need some time to settle.”
“Not much settling to be done for a while with the condition of that place.” Wayne laughed. He was still pulling gently on the dog’s ears. Wayne loved dogs. He’d been heartbroken when his corgi Arthur had died.
“Jake, this is Wayne.” I never knew how to introduce Wayne and Suni, so I kept it simple. I didn’t like saying he was my foster father—it told people too much, and too little.
“I’d shake your hand but…” Jake held up his fishy hand.
“I’ll consider it shook.”
“I assume you’ve come for the cabin keys?”
“That and supplies,” said Wayne, giving the dog a thorough cuddle. “What’s this little guy’s name?”
Jake watched him, disgruntled. “She doesn’t have a name.”
“She wasn’t here last time we came,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on Wayne and the dog and not on Jake’s naked torso.
But from the corner of my eye, I could see his muscular arm flex as he upended the plastic basket of scraps.
The gulls exploded in a hungry frenzy, fighting for the best of the lobster.
The puppy also exploded, barking at the birds. Wayne laughed.
“You tell ’em, girl.”
“Did you just get her?” I asked Jake.
He grunted. “Kind of.” He headed into the store, leaving the puppy tied up, straining on her leash and barking at the birds. Wayne and I followed him in. “My sister gave her to me as a present. But I’m not keeping her.” He sounded disgusted. “Who gives someone an animal as a gift?”
Wayne appeared to be very taken with Jake’s store. He made a delighted noise and disappeared into the clutter.
“Let me just wash my hands and I’ll get the cabin keys,” Jake grumbled.
The sash windows were thrown open to the heat and I leaned against the counter, watching the shine of the bay and wishing I could be down there in the water, instead of up here facing a hot day full of culch.
Jake reemerged from the kitchen and snatched two cabin keys off the hooks before sliding them over the counter to me, along with another photocopied map. He circled cabins seven and eight and handed it over. His sea-glass-green gaze flicked up to mine as our hands brushed.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound like my heart wasn’t pounding a mile a minute.
“Your folks staying for the week, huh?”
I nodded. “Flo and I are staying in a cabin too, until they’re happy with our cleanup,” I admitted. “They seem to think we’ll get buried in an avalanche of stuff if we try to sleep there now.”
Jake didn’t seem surprised.
The puppy set up a frenzied barking and was tangling herself up in her leash.
“Dog!” Jake called. “Be quiet!” He swore under his breath. “Hold on while I go untangle her.”
I watched his broad back as he went to rescue his puppy.
“This place is great,” Wayne said as he emerged from the aisles with an armful of stuff. He had face masks and gloves and what looked like a scythe. “It’s like something the Grim Reaper would use, isn’t it?” He was thrilled with it. “And check out the price—it’s a bargain.”
“People mostly use power tools these days, I guess,” I said, amused.
“I should have brought my weed whacker from home, but this’ll be more fun.” Wayne looked as delighted with his old-fashioned scythe as Flo had been with her porcelain cats.
Jake came back in with his puppy, who was falling over her feet with joy at being by his side. He seemed irritated by her affection. “Sit,” he ordered, taking her over to the dog bed by the cold potbelly stove.
She didn’t sit. She followed him, trailing her leash, her pink tongue lolling out of her mouth.
“That thing won’t make a dent in your yard,” Jake said dryly, nodding at the scythe.
“We came to ask who we should call to cut back the yard,” I admitted. “You said you could recommend someone?”