Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (23 page)

“About what?” she said, as she walked into the room.

Aunt Madge has an uncanny ability to walk into a room just when you’re talking about her.  My sister Renée and I have talked about that since we were little kids.

I let Scoobie go over our idea, but he only got it halfway out when she said, “Why Adam, I just assumed you’d stay at Cozy Corner for awhile.”  She placed a foil-wrapped muffin on his bedside table.  “Then Jolie can drive you to therapy or the library when you need to go.  It will keep her out of trouble.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE FRIDAY OF FOURTH OF JULY weekend Scoobie, Ramona and I walked along the boardwalk admiring the easels that had local artists’ work.  It’s a Fourth of July tradition in Ocean Alley, and gives locals a chance to sell their work to the tourists.  Ramona had six black and white, pencil drawings on display.  They ran the gamut from seagulls on the beach to a single, gloved hand reaching up from the bottom of the frame.  I knew where that idea came from. 

We were also celebrating Scoobie’s return to the real world, as he called it.  He moved back to his room in the F Street boarding house the day before.  He had wanted to return since the middle of June, but Aunt Madge kept encouraging him to stay “just a bit” longer.  They finally agreed that when he stopped using the cane he would leave the Cozy Corner.  I knew for a fact that he used it some, but not where Aunt Madge could see him.

“Hey,” Scoobie said.  “Let’s go over here.  Every time I see a bench my ass faints.”

“I wonder how you’d capture that in a drawing?” I asked Ramona.

“I wouldn’t be willing to try,” she said.

We sat on the bench, with the ocean to our backs.  It was a balmy eighty degrees, a real pleasure in July, when New Jersey temperatures can easily rise to the mid-nineties.  The boardwalk was packed with the usual eclectic bunch of middle-aged lovers, young teenage girls pretending to ignore the boys, or vice-versa, and kids of all ages waiting in line for boardwalk fries and talking about the evening’s upcoming fireworks.

I had on shorts and a loose tee shirt and Ramona had on a paisley sundress, a real change for her.  I noted half the men on the boardwalk gave her a second look, but she appeared oblivious. 

Scoobie laughed and I stared in the direction he was looking.  Lance Wilson was walking out of one of the knick knack shops wearing a child’s pirate hat on his head.  He ambled over and Ramona stood to give him her spot on the bench, which he refused.

“Glad to see you getting in the spirit,” I said.

“Can’t let Scoobie have all the fun.”  He adjusted his hat.  “I actually got this for Sylvia.”

“Madge is already working on my costume,” Scoobie said.  Lance gave us a salute and headed for Java Jolt.  I’ve seen him there several times this summer.  He’s not big on coffee, but he likes Joe’s raspberry tea. 

“Hey Scoobie.”  I followed the direction of the voice and saw two men walking toward us.  It took a couple seconds to realize they were the two homeless men I’d seen around town.  After a summer spent largely outdoors they were tanned and had shorter hair.  I felt a sense of unease.  I hadn’t talked to anyone about my thoughts about whether the shorter guy could be Masterson.  You’re not a detective.  I studied the shorter man.  The more I looked at him the less he looked like “Fun Boy.”

“Hey, guys,” Scoobie said.  “Long time no see.”

“Saw you a couple weeks ago,” the taller of the two said, “but you were busy writing poetry outside of Java Jolt.”

“And you had your cane,” the shorter one said. 

“Yeah, it’s good to get back to my usual routine, such as it…Hey, do you know Jolie and Ramona?”  When they shook their heads Scoobie continued.  “Ramona works in at the Purple Cow, and Jolie does real estate appraisals.”  Scoobie looked at me.  “Josh plays bongo drums down at Ferry Street, and Max helps oversee the operation.”

I knew this meant that Josh played on the boardwalk in the hope that someone would put money in a jar or hat, and now that I took a good look at them in summer clothes I thought I’d seen them there when I did my fast-walk one evening.  Why do we make the homeless invisible to our senses?

The two men had looked uncomfortable as they walked up and when Scoobie started to introduce them, but Josh, the taller of the two, relaxed as Scoobie finished. 

Max stared at me.  “You’re the lady with the food people,” he said. 

“I am,” I nodded.  “Scoobie helps.”

Max kept staring.  Scoobie’s tone changed slightly, and he said, “Max and Josh are helping me spread the word that it’s okay for people who sleep on the beach to go to Harvest for All.”

I held out my hand to Max.  “Thanks.  To both of you.”

At that he seemed to let down his guard a bit.  “Yeah, well, okay.”  They both told Scoobie he looked pretty good, and then walked toward the small carnival that sets up near the boardwalk every 4th of July.  Josh had his bongo drums in a large knapsack.  I figured they would play there, at least until the police made them move, which they would if the guys were playing on a really crowded part of the boardwalk.

“Thanks for telling them,” I said to Scoobie.

“There but for the Grace of God,” Scoobie said, quietly.

Ramona leaned over to pat him on the knee.  “You did a lot of your own work to get sober, you know.”

“I think Josh liked your dress, Ramona,” Scoobie said.  “He was looking pretty closely at the front, anyway.”

“Shut-up,” we both said.

I STILL SERVED AS Scoobie’s chauffer a lot, so I took him back to F Street to rest for a couple hours before firework watching on the beach.  When I got back to the Cozy Corner to change into something a bit warmer for evening beach time I was surprised to see Marcus-the-mystery-writer in the kitchen with Aunt Madge.  She was just putting three loaves of bread in the oven.

“I didn’t realize you were going to be here this weekend.” 
I’d have remembered that.  He’s the only person who’s ever mixed up the floors.

“Alas, the inn was full.”  He grinned.  “I brought a mock-up of the book’s cover to show to my two favorite Ocean Alley women.”

Mental eye roll.

I sat next to Marcus at the oak table and looked at the eight by ten photo paper he pushed toward me.  The cover of
Cash Out for Murder
was a lurid green with an antique-looking silver cash register in the middle.  “That’s, uh, great,” I said, hoping the interior was better than the cover.  “When do we get to read the real thing?”

“November,” he said.  “In time for Christmas sales.”

I stayed for a couple minutes and made for the back stairs, just as Marcus suggested a game of Scrabble. 

AUNT MADGE TOLD Marcus he really couldn’t stay for afternoon tea, as it was for paying guests only.  Much as she seemed to like him, I thought Aunt Madge might want a Marcus avoidance plan, so I told her she could go to the fireworks with Scoobie and Ramona and me.

She had other plans.  “Harry’s son from Maryland is here.  I’m going to sit with them.”

“Ooh la la,” I said.

“Don’t be a twit.  I would appreciate a ride to the beach, but no chaperone needed after that,” Aunt Madge said.

The fireworks are at the far northern end of the boardwalk and most people sit on the beach to watch them.  They’re lit in a large municipal lot.  There’s lots of space so they can cordon off a fireworks-only area, but it doesn’t leave much room for parking.  Normally I’d walk the twenty blocks but, despite his assertions otherwise, that would be too long a walk for Scoobie. 

“So, I told him you didn’t want to walk it.  Back me up,” I said to Aunt Madge as we left the Cozy Corner’s small parking lot. 

“He knows I can out walk you,” she said.

I shrugged.  “I suppose, but his manhood will be intact.”

Aunt Madge almost snorted. 

Very unladylike for someone over eighty.

I dropped Scoobie and Aunt Madge near the boardwalk and parked about five blocks away.  Ramona met Scoobie and me on the beach and we traipsed over to where Aunt Madge was sitting with Harry, son Ken, and Ken’s two sons, who were named James and Avery.

“So, which one of you two guys looks like Harry did when he was a kid?” Scoobie asked.

“None of us,” said Jam
es, who looked to be about ten.

“Grandma Jessie always said I did,” said Avery, who was maybe seven.

I figured this had to be Harry’s late wife.  Aunt Madge more or less settled it by saying one boy had Harry’s eyes and the other his ears.  That cracked them up.

We declined Harry’s offer to sit with them and we went a couple hundred feet down the beach.  Almost since I moved back to Ocean Alley last fall I’ve wondered if Aunt Madge and Harry were sweet on each other as my Grandmother Alva would say.  So far I think just good friends, and I’m not crazy enough to ask.

The air was still so the mosquitoes were out in force.  I had forgotten about bug spray, but Ramona had some so Scoobie and I lathered up.  I don’t like the smell, but I like bug bites even less.

“Jolie!”

I looked around and saw Jennifer Stenner dodging kids’ Frisbees as she came toward us.  She was carrying the kind of short beach chair that true sunbathers use.

“How come,” Scoobie asked in a low voice, “she’s known me longer and better but she calls out to you?”

“Because Jolie’s better looking,” Ramona said as she moved her beach towel closer to the one Scoobie and I were sitting on so Jennifer could squeeze in.

“I figured you were here.  I called the B&B and nobody answered,” Jennifer said.

“Glad you found us,” I said.  And I mostly was.  I’m not sure if Jennifer is actually less pretentious than I had thought her to be or if my attitude has improved from the doldrums I was in when I got back to Ocean Alley in October.  Either way, I don’t mind her as much as I once did.  Other than the fact that she occasionally needles me about her third-generation family firm being a bigger appraisal business than Harry’s.

“So Scoobie,” Jennifer asked, “have you got any more fundraising ideas for Harvest for All?  Something that doesn’t involve wrecking my hair?”

Scoobie turned toward her, face alight with likely some teasing response, and was about to answer when there was a loud sizzling sound, which announced the opening of the firework display.  We all turned toward the parking lot in time to see the words “4th of July” light up on the ground display. 

“One for all and all for one,” Scoobie said, and winked at me.

I turned to get more bug spray out of Ramona’s bag just as an especially bright firework burst and boomed above us.  For a second I thought I saw Mystery-Writer-Marcus a few yards behind us, but the light fizzled and I didn’t see him there when the sky lit up again a few second later. 
Probably sizing up his competition.
  I almost giggled at the idea.  He’s probably thirty or forty years younger than Aunt Madge.

Some years the fireworks seem to be over fast, but this was not one of them.  By the time the lengthy final segment ended my tailbone was ready to stand.  It’s been sore since I fell at the end of November, and it was reminding me I should have brought a cushion. 

It always takes several long seconds to adjust to the darkness again.  There are lights on the edge of the boardwalk, but all they are is guides when you’re on the beach.  Jennifer wanted us to go to Newhart’s for milkshakes — “just like old times” — but I could tell Scoobie was more than tired.  He and I begged off, but Ramona said she’d go, so we split up.  I could see Harry shepherding his grandsons toward the boardwalk but lost sight of Aunt Madge. 

Scoobie insisted on walking to the car with me rather than being picked up.  “Did you ever notice how many people there are in Ocean Alley that you don’t know?” he asked. 

“You might, but I hardly know anybody,” I said.  “Plus, aren’t most of these folks tourists?”

“Probably,” he said evenly.  He was walking gingerly and I wished I’d thought to make him bring a cane. 
As if.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I UNLOCKED THE SIDE DOOR to the Cozy Corner just as a guest car drove into the lot.  I realized I had no idea if Aunt Madge had given one of them a key and was glad I beat them home.  I recognized the pair as a young couple from New York City who Aunt Madge said had come for 4th of July the past several years. 

“You guys need anything?” I asked.  Aunt Madge doesn’t serve any food after her afternoon warm bread and tea, but since she wasn’t there I thought I should be hospitable.

“We’re all set,” the man, whom I thought was named Jack, said.

“Weren’t those the best fireworks ever?” his wife cooed.

“Terrific,” I said, and let myself into the kitchen. 

Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy greeted me at the kitchen doorway and ran toward the sliding glass doors.  Aunt Madge never leaves them out during the fireworks, and they were ready to go.  “Where’s Jazz?” I asked as their tails disappeared into the dark garden.

A short mew came from below me and she stretched as she walked out from under the sofa.