Off Season (27 page)

I told her that Nash Cortez would be dropping by. She hesitated, then began stirring again.

“He comes bearing gifts,” I said. “He wants to mend rifts.”

“Does he?”

“He does. Now I know that you two have had your differences, but . . .”

“Our differences!”

“ . . . But he really wants to make peace.”

Her spoon clattered against the bowl. “Is that a fact?”

“Yes. Come on, Meem, it's Christmas. Nash wants to be your friend . . .”

“Some friend he'd be!”

“Meem, he really means it. He's been making all this fuss because he likes you.”

“Likes me? Likes me? Well, if he acts like he does because he likes me, I'm certainly glad he doesn't dislike me!”

“Meem, he doesn't own any rabbits.”

The spoon clattered, then slowed. “What?”

“You remember. He came over here that day I was working here, and told you he only wanted your greens so he could fatten up his rabbits. Well, Nash doesn't have any rabbits.”

“No rabbits?”

“No. He was being foolish that day, but all he wanted was to catch your eye. He wants you to see that he's there.”

“Oh, I see that he's there! I can see that!”

“He likes you, Meem. He probably more than likes you. He wants you to like him.”

“He has a damned funny way of showing it.”

“He knows he's been foolish. Now he wants to make up for it. He's coming by and he's bringing you some presents. A peace offering.”

The spoon started again. “Well . . .”

“If you don't want him to come in, say so, and I'll go out and head him off before he gets to the door.”

“Well . . .”

“He's a pretty nice guy, Meem, and he's been alone ever since Joan died. He just needs the civilizing influence of a good woman.”

“The civilizing . . . Don't give me that drivel, J. W. Jackson! My land, where'd you steal that line?”

“In his case, it probably applies,” I said. “Well, shall I go outside and intercept him?”

“No, no. Don't do that . . .”

“He really does want to be your friend. He says you and Gus and he and Joan used to be together all the time.”

The spoon stopped again. “Yes. We were. All right, J.W., you've done your matchmaking bit. Now get out of my kitchen so I can get my work done.”

“He's due in about five minutes, and he'll be wearing a jacket and tie for the occasion.”

“Well, he'll just have to take me the way he finds me, apron and all. Oh, my.” She tried to catch her reflection in the windowpanes. “How do I look?”

“Just fine. You could be wearing a Santa Claus suit and Nash would think you look terrific. I think he's in love.”

“Get out of my kitchen!”

I did that, but she herself was also in the living room when Nash knocked on the door.

“I'll get it,” said Angie.

“No you won't,” said Mimi, wiping her hands on her apron, and striding forward. “I'll get it.”

Angie arched a brow and flashed me a look of inquiry. Mimi opened the door, and there stood Nash Cortez, a badly wrapped box of candy under one arm,
each hand holding a larger box. He had a look of worried innocence on his face.

“Well, well,” said Mimi. “Merry Christmas, Ignacio. Won't you come in?”

“Oh,” said Nash, as though the invitation was more than he had hoped for. “Oh, yes. Thanks, Mimi.” He stepped in, and she closed the door behind him. “Here,” he said, “these are for you.”

He put the two big boxes on the floor and stepped back. The boxes mewed and thumped.

Mimi knelt and opened a box and a kitten jumped out. She opened the other, and the other kitten jumped out. The three grandchildren moved in. The kittens scampered under a table.

“Merry Christmas,” said Nash. “This is yours, too.” He thrust the candy at Mimi.

“Oh, they are cute!” said Mimi, as the grandchildren tried in vain to catch the kittens. Nash beamed.

A kitten was captured by a child.

“Now, be careful, dear,” said the child's mother.

The kitten purred, then, with a twitch, escaped. The child pursued. Mimi laughed. Nash beamed even more.

“Cute,” smiled Angie. She lifted her eyes to mine. “I got a present today, too. Have a look.” She lifted her left hand and let the diamond on her finger flicker at me. “Ted popped the question and I said yes.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “Or is it best wishes that you offer the bride-to-be? I forget.”

“I'll take both,” said Angie. “Please give Zee Madieras the news. It may make her feel better.”

I thought she might be right. In a sudden hurry to get home, I congratulated Just Ted on his excellent choice in women, and Mimi on her good fortune in getting her last daughter engaged, wished one and all
good night and merry Christmas, and left. As I shut the door, I could hear Mimi asking Nash if he'd like to stay for supper.

It was dark as the pit. There were no stars. Santa was going to need Rudolph tonight. I drove home and turned down my snowy driveway. The lights in my house looked warm, and the candles in the windows seemed to offer comfort to seekers after bed and board. Beyond them I could see the lights of the Christmas tree.

I parked and went in. Zee met me just inside the door and put her arms around me before I could even get my coat off.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I told myself that I was never going to be jealous again, and I was anyway before I could stop myself. I'm really sorry. I promise I won't ever . . .”

I stopped her words with a kiss that lasted a long time before it ended.

She wiped at her eyes. “I have drinks for us. In the freezer. Give me your coat.”

“You get the drinks, I'll take care of the coat.”

We sat in front of the fireplace and I told her what had happened at Mimi's house.

Zee snugged against me. “So Angie is going to get married. I'm glad.” She smiled up at me. “It'll make it a lot easier for me to really not be jealous anymore. I know I promised, but this will make it easier.”

“The men and women we knew before we met don't count,” I said.

“No. We didn't know we'd be meeting each other, so we can't be held accountable for the people we knew.”

“That's it.”

After a while, I got up and cooked the scallops. We ate them with rice and green beans flavored with
honey, and washed everything down with white wine. Delish. Then we went back to the fireplace again.

“I miss the kittens,” said Zee sleepily. She pointed at a window. “Look! it's snowing.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Now Santa will have a smooth landing.”

In the morning, Santa, in the form of a very happy-looking Ignacio Cortez, arrived with Oliver Underfoot and Velcro. A light snow was still falling. Zee, who had been wondering where her present was, was ecstatic. She kissed Nash and me and each kitten.

It was the best Christmas I could remember.

The new year brought some news. I got it from the chief as we leaned against his cruiser in the parking lot at the foot of Main Street. It was a sunny day, and we were drinking coffee.

“Guess what,” he said.

“What?”

“Chug Lovell really was a tobacco heir. They found a safe-deposit box over in his mainland bank. Seems like kin of his live down in South Carolina, too, so somebody will inherit his house.”

“Such as it is. I thought tobacco heirs lived in mansions.”

“Not when there are a lot of heirs and not a lot of tobacco. Chug got a few thou a year, but not enough to live on. He must have had some other income we don't know about yet.”

“Maybe he was a police chief in some little town. He'd have made a good living on graft and he wouldn't ever actually have had to do any work.”

The chief nodded. “I've made so much money under the table that I could have retired years ago, but greed drives me on. Besides, I like the glory of the job.”

In mid-January we had a spell of warm weather that made scalloping almost a summer experience for the few of us who were still out on the ponds dragging for the last of the bay scallops that most people had given up on catching months before. For days on end, Dave Mello and I chugged over the Edgartown waters, our seven drags hauling up rocks, shellfish, seaweeds of various kinds, empty beer bottles and all of the other odds and ends of coastal waters.

Scallop prices were down, for reasons not apparent to us; but like the members of the light brigade, Vineyard scallopers do or die, nor reason why, and charge on into the guns. What other income was there for island fishermen with boats too small to go beyond the waters of the great ponds? Long ago, when the white men first came to these lands, there had been whales for the harpooning just offshore. But those times had long since gone, and now even the scallops sometimes seemed to be disappearing.

Dave and I were dragging Cape Pogue Pond, our oilskins open, enjoying the January sun, feeling almost as if it was late March.

“I tell you,” said Dave, “on a day like this, I figure that I won't ever give up this game. I've been doing this for fifty years, but it feels like the first year I went out.”

“You're probably right,” I said. “Besides, what would you do if you ever gave this up?”

“Hell, I'm seventy-five years old. I never thought
I'd last this long, so I never gave any thought to what I'd do when I retired. Nobody in my family ever retired. They all worked as long as they could move. What do you think I should do?”

“Stay at home with Millie?”

“Haw! You try staying home with Millie. Drive her crazy to have me lying around underfoot while she tried to get her work done.”

“Maybe you need a hobby.”

“Hobby, hell! This is what I do for a hobby. I scallop all winter and fish all summer. Keeps me out of Millie's hair.”

“Go to Disney World?”

“Been there.”

“Take a cruise? See the world?”

“I seen as much of the world as I want to. Back in the war. Iwo Jima and them places. Pretty enough, I suppose, if there wasn't any shooting going on, but nothing as good as the Vineyard. Why should I go someplace else when there's no place else as good as where I'm at?”

Spoken like a true islander.

“Beats the hell out of me,” I said.

We worked a long time to get our limit, then took the boat to North Neck, unloaded the baskets and put the boat on its hook. While Dave made things fast, I toted the bushel baskets of scallops up the stairway from the beach to the parking lot on top of the cliff. As I brought the last of the baskets up, Dave had the first of them in the truck. He's a rugged guy, seventy-five years old or not.

By boat, it's a long haul back to Edgartown, and if the wind is strong from the north, it can be a wet and dangerous trip between the Cape Pogue gut and the Edgartown light, so when we scallop in Pogue, we bring Dave's pickup over to Chappy and load it up
there. All it costs is the effort it takes to haul the baskets up from the beach. That effort is considerable, but I was up to it. Barely.

We got into the pickup. “Ought to build some kind of hoist out here,” said Dave, not for the first time. “Someday somebody's gonna bust a gut hauling scallops up them stairs.”

“It could be me,” I said, glad to be sitting down. We bounced slowly toward the paved road. Dave never drove fast, being an authentic Hat Man, one of those guys wearing a hat who is always at the front of any line of traffic on a narrow road.

The On Time Ferry (always on time because it has no schedule) carried us from Chappy to Edgartown and we drove on to Dave's house. The snows of December had long since melted, and it felt as though flowers should be blooming. Edgartown was quiet, with only a few wanderers on its streets.

“Fire up on West Tisbury road,” said Millie, as we unloaded. Like a lot of islanders, Millie and Dave had a scanner which let them keep track of fire and police activities. “Nobody hurt.”

“What else is going on?” I asked Millie, as we unloaded and started to open.

“Well, that Manwaring fellow that's got the summer place out by the airport has dropped out of politics, according to the radio. He was running in Connecticut, I think. You know him, J.W.?”

“I know who he is. That's about all.”

I wondered if Shrink Williams and Phyllis were still together, and if Vince had quit politics because Phyllis had sent him the picture of Heather, and if Vince and Phyllis would now take a world cruise. I doubted if I'd ever know any of those things.

“Never mind the Connecticut news,” said Dave. “We've been out on the pond all morning. What's
going on here in town?” Dave, like the
Vineyard Gazette,
took little notice of anything not directly connected to the island.

“Mimi Bettencourt's got another letter to the editor in the paper. Says they should at least stop shooting geese in January and February. Says the Commission should ban all hunting on that Norton land they're thinking of buying. Same stuff as usual.”

It seemed that Nash Cortez had not managed to change Mimi's mind about shooters or shooting. I doubted whether she had managed to change his, either.

“So what else is going on?” asked Dave.

“Somebody thought they saw a guy hanging around outside their house. Prowler. Police didn't find anything. didn't have many prowlers while the weather was bad, but now that it's warmed up, I imagine they'll be out again.”

The island had its share of crackpots, but as I stood in the slanting sunlight opening scallops, the word “prowler” made me think of Joey Percell. I wondered if Joey would ever come prowling after me.

“Them guys like warm weather,” agreed Dave, opening across the table from me. “Not many crooks abroad when it's below zero.”