Summer of the Gypsy Moths (10 page)

C
leaning those cottages took all the tricks I knew, and then I had to invent some new ones. But at two forty-five, sweating and exhausted, we closed the door on the last one.

At the top of the driveway, a station wagon waited patiently, loaded down with vacation stuff. I hadn't noticed it coming in, and I wasn't going to notice it now, either. “Three o'clock means three o'clock,” I said. “George said no early birds.” Angel tapped her wrist at the car, and I pocketed the key and headed to the picnic table for the phone. Which wasn't blinking. We headed into our house
for the master list.

As we passed the roses at the doorway, I had an inspiration. I filled four canning jars with water, then snipped some flowers and made bouquets for the cottages. Then we brought them out to our posts under the
LINGER LONGER
sign. Immediately, the car that had been waiting pulled in. We gave it a big, smiling wave of welcome.

“Here we go again,” I said.

Angel and I told our story about Louise breaking her ankle, and once again no one seemed upset or suspicious. They only wanted to know where the beach was and were there sharks and where was the best place for fried clams.

The second group of renters was different from the first the way families are different, of course—one had two moms, one was from Canada, and one needed a cot for a cousin who'd come along at the last minute—but they were the same, too. In fact, I thought maybe not too much had changed since George's parents had opened the place: Linger Longer was a place for families with little kids, taking vacations in their big cars, and probably the cars had changed more than anything else.

But that second group of renters was different because it brought us Katie. It brought us two Katies, actually. One was a quiet seven-year-old in Tern, and one—my Katie—was about four years old and the opposite of quiet.

Katie Sandpiper latched on to me from the minute she spilled out of the car. She ran right over and grabbed my hand and made me admire her hairdo—a wispy pony-tail of hair as pale as corn silk on the top of her head. “Fountain-head,” she informed me.

I looked at it from all angles and nodded. “I get it.”

She skipped along beside her mother as I opened up Sandpiper for them. Katie pointed to the flowers I carried. “They go over there, on the table.” I put them down, and then Katie dragged me around, showing me everything as if it was her home and I was the visitor. “That's the couch,” she informed me. “There's the fidgerator.”

A boy of about nine walked through then. He was reading a book, and he never looked up, just headed straight into a bedroom.

“Daniel, come back here,” his mother called, and I got the feeling she had to call him back a lot. “Say hello and help your father unload the car.”

Daniel walked back through again, his nose still in his book. He lifted two fingers an inch off the page as he passed me. “'Lo.”

As I was heading out to open Plover for the next family, Mrs. Sandpiper asked, “Now, could you recommend a babysitter?”

My first thought was how dangerous it could be to have
girls from town come here. They might know us, they might ask questions. My next thought was a lot smarter: Babysitters get to eat.

“Actually,” I said, “you're looking at one.”

As soon as we got everyone settled, I lettered four index-card signs.
LINGER LONGER BABYSITTING SERVICE—MATURE, DEPENDABLE, AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO DRIVE US HOME
! I added the phone number, then delivered them.

Angel went to the calendar. “We're full from now on. Say thirty or forty bucks each week for cleaning, and maybe another twenty or thirty in babysitting….”

I realized Angel was figuring on splitting the money with me. I opened my mouth to tell her I didn't want any of it, but then I saw what she was doing—tapping her fingers down the weeks, calculating when she could leave—and I closed it.

“Hey, what's this?” she said.

I followed her finger.

Dr. P, cleaning, 9:30.
This Monday. The Monday
in two days
. We'd forgotten to look at Louise's calendar! How could we have forgotten to look at Louise's calendar?

“Oh, crap, oh, crap,” Angel chanted. “What are we going to do?”

And then I recognized it. “It's okay,” I said. “Dr. Payne,
that's her dentist. I remember thinking when she mentioned him one time that ‘Pain' was a terrible name for a dentist—he should change it or get a different career. She told me how it was spelled.”

I found the number in the phone book. “It's the weekend. There won't be anyone there.” Before I could chicken out, I left a message that Louise wanted to reschedule for sometime in August. “Crisis averted,” I said, crossing off the appointment.

And then my eye traveled down the calendar. “Angel,” I said. “What's this?”

Two weeks away, on a Friday afternoon, was penciled in
Lorraine M., 1 p.m.

“No clue,” Angel said. “A friend? Lunch?”

Lorraine M. Somehow, I felt I knew that name, or I should. “That has to be it—lunch. It won't matter. Louise will be a no-show, and then this Lorraine person will call and we'll make up some excuse,” I said. It sounded right, what I'd just said. It made sense.

 

The next day, Sunday, went pretty much the way the last Sunday had gone—millions of questions in the morning, but by noon, everyone was gone. Like I had last Sunday, I headed for the beach with a book after I'd worked in the garden for a while. I didn't stay too long, because I'd
forgotten sunscreen.

When I reached our backyard, I stopped short. Music was coming from upstairs—swelling and beautiful, like violins, but it was a single voice. I rinsed my feet with the garden hose—sand tracked on a wood floor can ruin it—and listened for a while. The words were in another language, but they made my throat ache—“throat tears,” I had called the feeling when I was little—so I knew the woman was singing about something very sad. I also knew that Angel's music was a private thing, like her soap opera reports to Louise.

I wandered back to the blueberry bushes. They looked worse than ever—the berries were a little shriveled, and some had even turned black. The leaves were ragged and the bushes themselves looked tired, like they wanted to give up. I suddenly understood they were dying. Maybe nothing I could do for them would be enough, because I wasn't Louise.

Just then, George pulled into the driveway next door. Treb danced beside him while he pulled the mower out of the truck bed. I waved, and he and Treb started over.

“How's everything going?” he asked. “The cottages?”

“Great,” I said. “Everybody's out now.”

George nodded. “Beach day. Late tide today, so I figured it would be a good time to mow. I haven't heard from
Louise—how's she doing?”

“She's…oh, she's the same.”

“Well, I'll come in to see her when I'm done. Better get to it.”

“George, wait,” I said. “Do you know anything about blueberry bushes? These don't look so hot.”

George bent and splayed some leaves through his fingers, turning them over a few times. He straightened up. “You can probably kiss 'em good-bye this year. Gypsy moths are eating the leaves.” He swept his pipe over the pines and oak scrub. “Pests. Bad year.”

“Gypsy moths?”

“The caterpillars, actually. Most years, they're just a nuisance. Every once in a while, though, they're a plague. So many they strip the trees, kill off whole areas. They like oaks best, but in a bad year like this, you're wearing a green T-shirt, you don't want to stand still too long.”

“Caterpillars?” I pulled the branches apart and poked through the ragged leaves. “I don't see any.”

“They hide in the daytime—can't take the sun.” He toed aside some mulch at the base of the bush and crouched beside me. “There. See 'em? Ugly things.”

They were ugly—greenish brown and hairy, squirming away from the light. I edged away.

George stood up and rubbed his back. “They come out
at night, climb up the trees, and start eating. Look how bare the oaks are getting. Don't tell me you haven't heard them? God-awful sound…the chewing and the droppings spattering down all night long.”

“And they're eating my blueberry bushes too? I mean Louise's?” Relief washed through me—those plants weren't grieving to death, and it wasn't my fault. “That's what's wrong?”

“'Fraid so. Well, that grass isn't going to mow itself, you know.” George started to leave, but the second piece of his good news finally hit me.

“Wait a minute. Did you just say you can hear them chewing all night?”

“Yep. Disgusting sound, gets in your ears, hard to shake out. Makes you think you're losing your mind. You haven't heard that?”

It was all I could do not to tackle George, I was so happy. Instead I hugged my elbows, hard. “I have! That's great! That's so great! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“I'll be darned!” he muttered.

I laughed and squeezed myself harder against the sudden tidal wave of relief. “Right!” I agreed. “I'll be darned!” Tonight, when I heard that awful chewing sound, I would just smile and close my eyes and fall asleep.

Then I stopped short. “Can I stop them?”

“One girl, stop a plague?” George shook his head. “I guess not. But…well, you can keep 'em off an individual tree…is that what you mean? I've got a couple of apple trees I never let them have. My wife planted them the year before she got sick.”

“How do you…Wait, oh. You have a wife?”

“Had. She passed.”

“Oh. Oh, I'm sorry.” I tried to picture George with a wife, and I found it was easy. “Do you have any kids?”

“Wanted to.” George looked so forlorn for a minute that I could have kicked myself for bringing it up. But then he gave a little shrug. “I got a crew, though. They're like a family. And speaking of them, we're going fishing tonight on the late tide, which means I'd better get mowing.”

I followed George back to his truck. He wheeled the mower onto the lawn and pulled the starter cord. The engine sputtered a second, then died. He tried again and again, with no luck. “Piece of junk.” Then he kicked the wheel and cursed.

“Hey,” I said, “remember about broken things. Sometimes they have a story to tell you.” I suddenly wanted George to know that I understood that now. That we had that in common. A tie.

George kicked the tire again. “And sometimes they're just plain broken.” He looked up then, too fast for me to
hide my disappointment.

He smiled at me. “And sometimes, Stella by Starlight, they're just out of gas!”

He went to the shed and came back with a red tank. I held the funnel while he filled the mower's belly.

We listened to the gasoline chugging in, and I took a deep breath—I always liked the smell of gasoline. It smells clean and exciting, like you're about to go someplace new.

George sniffed, too. “I love that smell. That's the smell of a finest-kind day.”

I knew he wanted me to ask what a finest-kind day was, so I did.

“It's a fishing thing,” he said. “Finest kind means the best. Best quality, just perfect. Some days you set out and you don't know where you'll end up. But your boat is sea-worthy, the wind is calm, and the sea is full of hungry fish. And you've got a full tank of gas.”

“Finest kind,” I said, handing him the mower cap. Then I remembered. “Hey, George. Your apple trees? How did you protect them?”

“Wrap the trunks in burlap. The caterpillars hide there when the sun comes out. I shake the burlap out and kill 'em.”

I looked back to where the squirming mass of caterpillars was and tried to imagine squashing them. “What else?” I asked.

“What else? Nothing. They die, your tree lives.”

“No. I mean what else could I do? I don't want to kill them.”

George capped the tank and wiped his hands before he straightened to look at me. “Louise's blueberry bushes? You're going to try to save them for her?”

I nodded.

“Well, some folks tie greased rags around the trunks. The caterpillars can't climb past 'em. Seems like a lot of work, but…I got some extra rags at my place. I could bring around some motor grease.”

I thought for a minute. Rags and grease. “That's okay, George.” I gave Treb an ear scratch that made him look the way I felt. “Louise has everything I need.”

 

It took a long time, because there were so many bushes and they each had a bunch of stems. When I finished, I was sweaty and dirty and greasy and scratched all over, but happy. I stood at the sink, washing up and letting the happiness flood through me like cool water, filling every thirsty cell.

I heard the mower go silent. And I remembered. “Angel! George's coming over. He wants to see Louise!”

Angel trotted down the stairs, smiling. “I know. I saw him pull in. I got it covered.” She pointed to a huge vase of
roses on the coffee table in the living room. “They're from her boyfriend.” Then she pointed to a suit jacket hanging over a kitchen chair. “The one whose jacket is here.”

“What a coincidence,” I said. “It looks just like the one Mr. Gull left.” I recognized the roses, too. “Louise's boyfriend picked roses from her garden? That's so lame of him.”

“George will be too brokenhearted to think of that. Love hurts, but it's for his own good.”

I nodded out the window. “Well, here he comes.”

George stopped at the kitchen door to shake the grass clippings off his clothes and make Treb lie on the step before he came in. One more thing I liked about him—he was thoughtful about Louise's clean kitchen.

“You got something dead in your garden,” he said.