A Month at the Shore (47 page)

Her laugh was indulgent and affectionate. "Oh, you're such an expert."

He nodded absently, but his focus was on her furniture. "Zee, I'll buy you a set of chairs for your birthday. Just go to Cabot's or Pennsylvania House—hell, go to Pier I!—and pick something out. Anything. I'm begging you."

Ignoring his offer, she said, "You should be in sales instead of in cabinetmaking. Why don't
you
write the ads for me? Please, please?"

"Nothing doing. I don't like cats," Zack said gruffly.

"Yes you do."

"No. I don't. If I were going to like anything, it'd be a dog," he said, getting up to check out the wobble.

"Then why not adopt a dog? The main shelter has lots of them, too many of them."

"Not gonna happen. Dogs don't live long enough." He rocked the chair seat gently back and forth and saw that both spindles had come unglued from their supports. "You get attached, and then all of a sudden they're—"

"Gone." She added with a sudden catch in her throat, "I know."

"Oh, Christ, I'm sorry, Zina," he said, looking up from the chair at her.

She saw real regret in his eyes; after all these years, he still had the capacity to sympathize.

She was so grateful for that. She smiled at her older brother, because he was so wrong: he did love cats and dogs and human beings; he just didn't know it. She said softly, "I can't stop thinking about him, Zack. It was the picture in the paper; it hit me out of the blue."

"Zee, Zee," he said, shaking his head. "We've been
through all this. It wasn't him. It didn't look anything like him."

He came over to her and gave her a reassuring squeeze and said, "Hey, how about a beer for all my hard work?"

He was right. Change the subject. Because they really
had
been through all that.

She reached inside the fridge door for a Coors and handed it to him. "But don't you think it's odd that their first names and initials are the same? I mean, really; don't you think that that's quite a coincidence?"

Zack's broad shoulders slumped a little; his expression turned rueful. He took his beer and crossed the imaginary divide that separated the eating area from the living area, and he dropped with a sigh onto her brightly slipcovered sofa. She watched him take a long, thirsty slug and thought how quaintly bizarre he looked, sitting there: two hundred pounds of well-honed workman surrounded by yardage of blue lilacs and dainty butterflies.

He perched the beer can on his thigh and said, "God, I'm sorry you ever learned how to use a computer. Why couldn't you just stick to your sewing machine?"

He didn't mean it the way it sounded; he truly did just want to change the subject.

"But it's such a
coincidence,"
she persisted. "I saw it right away when I looked up the names of the lottery winners on the Web site. James Hodene: it's so much like
Jimmy
Hayward."

"You don't even know if the name James Hodene goes with the picture of the guy you think is Jimmy Hayward."

"Oh, come on."

He shrugged and said, "The last names are nothing alike."

"The initials are."

After a burp came wry agreement. "Yes. That's true. You're right. The initials are the one thing, the single thing, the only thing, that's alike between the two men. What the hell is
that
?"

The long-haired black-and-white cat had come creeping out of the carrier and was slinking with flattened ears toward the darkened bedroom.

"That's Cassie, my newest foster cat."

"Cat, my foot. It looks like a skunk."

"Shh. Don't tease. She was taken from a woman who was watching her for her daughter while the daughter toured Europe." Zina jammed her fists in the pockets of her denim coveralls, reluctant even to relate Cassie's sad history. "The woman didn't want her on the furniture or bringing in fleas from outside, so she kept her in a cage in the basement all day, all night. It was a small cage, the kind you use to trap
small
animals with."

"Jesus. How long was the daughter gone?"

"Six months so far."

Zack looked utterly repulsed. "You're joking."

Zina shook her head. "One of the woman's friends called the shelter, and they were able to talk the woman into letting us foster-care Cassie. With any luck, we'll be able to put her up for adoption soon."

Zack got up and walked over to the door of the bedroom and stared into the darkness within. "I don't see how you can stand working there," he muttered over his shoulder to her. "I'd want to blow these people's brains out. Or mine."

Behind him Zina said simply, "If we don't help the animals, who will? Besides,
most
people aren't cruel."

"Just stupid."

"Thoughtless. They don't think, that's all."

"Give me a break, Zina!" her brother snapped. "When you leave a dog tied up too long to a parking meter while you have a few beers with your pals—that's thoughtless. Keeping a cat in a cage for half a year is cruel. Genuine, bona fide, undeniably cruel.
God
, what a bitch!"

Anyone else might have quaked in her socks at the ferocity of his outburst, but not Zina. She understood her brother well: Zack Tompkins had no use for people who didn't follow through on their commitments.

In that, she and Zack were nothing alike.

He was standing in the doorway still, staring into the darkened room, trying to see she didn't know what.

"I don't think that she'll be coming out soon," Zina volunteered. "She's probably under the bed."

"I'm sure." Zack slugged the last of his beer and turned away from the room, his face the picture of misanthropy. "I suppose," he said as he rinsed out the can, "that you're going to sleep on the couch tonight so that the cat can have a space to itself?"

She smiled. "Actually, it's a very comfortable couch."

"You'll be springing for an apartment with a guest room next," her brother said wryly.

"Are you kidding?" Zina picked up the food and water dishes and moved them into the bedroom. "Where would I find a landlord as willing to put up with my animals? No, I like it here. It's in the country, quiet, cheap, and close to the shelter. Best of all, Margie's hard of hearing. Remember last month, when that Siamese was in heat? She never heard a thing."

"There you go
, then
; the landlady from heaven. Did you lose this?" he asked, picking up a silver bracelet from the floor.

Zina was surprised—shocked—that she hadn't noticed it wasn't on her wrist. "The lock must have opened again!" she said in genuine distress. "I'm going to lose it for sure."

Zack looked at it closely and said, "The loop needs crimping, that's all. Do you have a needle-nose around?"

"A what?"

"Never mind; I'll fix this and bring it back next time. I'll add a drop of solder to keep it from opening again."

"Let me see."

He handed her the
I
D bracelet. She looked at the loop, then ran her finger lightly over the inscription on the plate:
J and
Z
Forever.
Defiantly, because her brother was watching her with wry amusement, she lifted the bracelet to her lips before handing it back.

"My good luck amulet," she said, her chin still high. "Don't keep it too long."

"Zina—"

"Don't. Just
... don't."

****

Every once in a while Jim and his office mates declared a boys' night out; Wendy had got the word earlier in the day that tonight was going to be one of them.

Jim was good about warning her, just as he was bad about holding his liquor. She appreciated both traits in him: they defined a man who kept her in the loop about his comings and goings, and who didn't drink enough to have developed a hollow leg.

At ten-thirty, Jim walked in with a weave in his step that Wendy pretty much expected to see. She was glad that they'd had a designated driver.

He gave her a loopy grin. "Betcha think I've had—guess how many I've had."

"One too many?" she said, taking his rain-spattered jacket from him before he
could throw
it over something upholstered.

"
Two too many," he answered, heading straight—more or less—for the oversized recliner that loomed large in their small living room.

"There was a lot to drink to, I can tell you," he informed her. "Plenty of stuff goin' on. Plenty." He dropped with a grunt into his easy chair.

"What kind of stuff?" Wendy asked. She was wary nowadays about the possibilities.

"You know—all kinds of stuff," he said, elaborating as best as he could. He used his right foot to pry off the loafer on his left, then fumbled through the process in reverse to get the other shoe off. The effort seemed to exhaust him; he collapsed and dropped his head back on the recliner and stared at the ceiling. "Man, I'm wasted."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Oh
... bullshit stuff. Like Phil's getting a divorce from Cindy."

"You're kidding!"

"But not because of the money. Eh, well
... maybe because of the money. Before the lottery—I have to say—the two of 'em seemed shaky. But not
that
shaky."

He sighed, then frowned. "What was I saying?"

"Phil. Cindy."

"Right. Now, all of a sudden, there's another woman in the picture. Where she came from, I don't know," he said, rolling his head back and forth at the ceiling. "Phil never said squat about her before. I think Phil, being Phil, would've said."

"It's because of the money, you can bet on it," Wendy said in grim agreement. She got up to bring her husband a cup of black coffee because she didn't want him falling asleep in his chair, the usual aftermath of a boys' night out. "Phil's always been a jerk," she said from the kitchen, dismissing him.

"On the bright side, Todd finally got engaged."

"Because of the money, by any chance?" Wendy asked dryly as she set the mug down.

"Damn right because of the money. You know how Todd is. Zero confidence."

"His winnings should be able to buy him a good supply of that."

"You would think. But—I dunno, it's weird, but—no one seems to be handling the money that well. Except me. I'm doin' all right with it. As you know. And Ed. But a lot of the other guys, their heads are pretty messed up over this. They're having real problems."

Ignoring the mug on the coaster, Jim yawned sleepily and closed his eyes. He was one step away from kicking his recliner all the way back.

"Don't you dare," Wendy warned her husband, but it was too late; he threw the lever before she could stop him.

She was surprised at how unwilling she was to let him do his post-boys thing. "Stay up, Jim. I want to know who's having problems with the winnings. What kind of problems? Stay up," she said, pushing on his ankles to get him sitting straight again.

"Cut it out, Wen," he groused. But she persisted, and he levered himself
back
into an upright position. "What do you want from me? You want me to tell you that we all decided to give our winnings back? That's not gonna happen. No one's interested in giving back a dime, sorry to disappoint you."

"I didn't expect that. I want to know what 'messed up over this' means."

Jim rolled his eyes and said, "Why did I open my mouth? This isn't something
... I don't know
... it's
... some of the guys are
... restless
... antsy
... I don't know."

"You mean, about keeping their jobs?"

His response to that was a snort. "Forget keeping their jobs; they'll all be out of there by the end of the month. And that includes me, by the way. I can do better than pushing paper around a desk all day." He added dryly, "Don't worry, though; we should be able to scrape by while I have a look around."

"We've already talked about that," she said, surprised at his tone. "You know that I agree with you. You know that I think you should be happy in what you're doing."

"Well
...
just so you know I'm not going to stay there forever."

Something in his voice, something in his green eyes, made him sound a little lost. Even him. Instantly sympathetic, Wendy came over and curled on his lap.
S
he laid her head on the back of the recliner alongside his and said softly, "This is such a huge change in our lives. In all of our lives."

"You've got that right," he said, idly stroking her hair. He sounded a million miles away.

"The one who's handling it best of us is Tyler, I think. As long as he's got what he wants in video games, he's happy. He's clueless about all the possibilities."

"Oh yeah? He clued in on a new boat fast enough."