The Mermaid Collector (10 page)

“I’m Buzz.” He could see himself in her lenses, a funhouse view, his head like an eggplant, his graying red moustache pointing down to his chin. But mostly he could see sweat. His forehead was one glistening scarlet parking lot of perspiration. He was grateful when she took them off.

Her eyes were a stunning lavender-blue, the lines around them remarkably faint.

“I’m Beverly Partridge,” she said. “I have a reservation.”

Buzz frowned at her. There had to be some mistake. He didn’t have anyone coming in today, and he didn’t remember a Beverly Partridge on the list.

“I think you must have the wrong place,” he said. “I don’t have a reservation under that name.”

The woman blinked at him, her polite smile dropping. “You must,” she said firmly. “We spoke on the phone. You said I was getting the last one you had available.”

He did? Buzz bit at his lip, trying to recall. Jesus, he couldn’t keep track of anything anymore.

“I sent you a check last week,” she continued. “You said you’d hold it until I arrived. I’ve come from Chicago.”

Chicago. He swallowed, feeling the sweat bubble again along his neck.

“I’ll go look,” he said, “but I’m telling you, I don’t remember.”

Still a knot turned in his stomach as he walked back up the hill, twisting tighter when he got to his desk and began rummaging through the impossible piles of papers he’d meant for months to file.

Halfway down the stack, there was her check.

Pale pink, and edged with tiny white roses.

“Shit
.” Buzz hung his head, blowing out a deep sigh.

Defeated and distraught, he walked back to the kitchen and looked out the window to see Beverly Partridge still standing by her car, fanning herself impatiently with a brochure. What a mess, he thought. There was no way she’d find a place this close to the festival.

His gaze drifted past her, down the line of cottages. He did have
one
option. It would cause him a hell of a lot of anguish, but it would also save his neck.

He debated the idea a few more agonizing minutes, his
eyes fixing on the cottage at the end, pink and navy blue, before he resigned himself to his fate.

TESS HATED THIS PART
. The plastic rings always pinched her fingers, and her arms always ached from reaching up so high. Not that she cared today. After waking up with a hangover, she was just glad to be feeling something other than a piercing headache. But changing out a vinyl shower curtain in cottage three and listening to Rosanne Cash weren’t going to clear her tangled brain—any more than wine had been the only reason for her fuzzy head. She couldn’t shake the memories of the night before: thoughts of disappointment, hurt, Pete not showing up, Tom Grace arriving instead.

Tom Grace
.

What had she been thinking? She’d pulled him into her bed, put his hands on her…Oh God, she’d been so drunk. Or had she? She hadn’t been so drunk that she didn’t remember how much she’d wanted him to lie beside her in that moment, how good he’d felt behind her, the smell of old books on his sleeve, the smell of mint soap on his knuckles.

She’d woken to find that he’d put away her food, blown out her candles. He’d
cleaned
.

Why would he do that?

Tess only hoped he didn’t think she’d made some sort of promise to him last night, that some kind of deal had
been sealed between them just because she’d kissed him. Not that she hadn’t been guilty of doing the same once. Barely six hours after Pete had first taken her down to the beach and kissed her under the pier, holding his hand over her mouth when they’d heard voices above them and she’d giggled madly, she’d biked to his house that next morning before the sun was even up to leave him a carving she’d done of a scallop shell. It was a rough little thing—she’d been carving only a few months—but she’d wanted him to have a piece of her, something no one else could give to him. She’d set it carefully on the hood of his Mustang, grateful that his sour mother wasn’t anywhere around, only hoping Edith wouldn’t spy it first and remove it. For the rest of that day Tess had waited for him to come by the cove and declare his love. But he’d stayed away almost a week. When he’d finally arrived, she’d had to remind him about the shell, and he’d stared at her a full ten seconds before any sort of recognition had crossed his face, then saying only, “Yeah. That was cool. Thanks.” She’d told herself it hadn’t mattered if he remembered or not; she’d told herself what
did
matter was that he’d come at all. How could she have known at sixteen that she’d allow him so many chances to be her everything?

“I’m opening Pink.”

Tess looked up, startled to find Buzz standing in the bathroom doorway; she hadn’t heard him come in over the music. She reached over to turn down the volume.

“Pink,” he said again. “I’m putting someone in Pink.”

Tess nearly slipped off the lip of the shower stall. She blinked at him. “What?”

“You heard me,” Buzz said, nodding to the door. “I have to. I double-booked. Lady’s out there right now—came all the way from Chicago.”

Tess released the curtain and let the loose end sail down. “We don’t rent Pink,” she said firmly. “We never rent it.”

“I don’t have a choice. I can’t turn her away—everywhere else is full.”

“So give her my place and I’ll stay with you.”

“You will not,” he said. “That’s just dumb.”

“It’s not dumb,” she defended, panicked now. “You said yourself Mom’s studio isn’t set up for guests.”

“It can be,” Buzz said, as determined now to open it as she was to see it stay closed, Tess could tell. “All it needs is some clean sheets, a wipe-down, a few minutes of a good breeze. A half hour and it’s ready to go.”

“What about Mom’s paintings?”

“What about them?”

“You can’t just leave them up there,” Tess said. “What if this lady tries to take them or knocks them off the wall and tears them or something?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Tessie. Listen to yourself. She’s a person, not a puppy.”

“I don’t want you renting it.”

“Now, look.” Buzz stepped toward her. “I’m not asking your permission. I screwed up, and I need to make things right. I just wanted to let you know, that’s all.”

Out he went, leaving Tess standing in the shower stall with a mouthful of excuses he wasn’t going to let her get out, a hundred more reasons why he couldn’t break his promise and open her mother’s studio to a stranger. If this was his way of punishing her for not listening to him about Pete, he could go right ahead, she decided, batting the shower curtain out of her way. The day wasn’t over, and as far as she was concerned, regardless of Buzz’s exit, neither was this conversation.

“I REALLY
AM
SORRY ABOUT THE MIX-UP,”
Buzz said as he took Beverly up the four cupped treads to the porch and led her into Ruby’s shingled studio. The sour scent of old oil paints was apparent but not as choking as Buzz had feared. Even the few minutes he’d had to leave the screen door open and throw open the windows had done wonders. Now the sweet smell of newly mowed grass blew in.

“It belonged to my late wife,” Buzz said, looking over to see Beverly surveying the room with a narrowed gaze. “She was an artist.”

Beverly touched her throat. “I can see that.”

“Just so you know, there’s no charge for it,” said Buzz. “I’ll give you back your check.”

She looked at him. “Don’t be silly. I don’t expect you to do that.”

“I know you don’t, but I wouldn’t feel right charging you.”

Beverly considered this, clearly uncomfortable with the offer. “No,” she said firmly. “I want to pay you. I’ll take a reduced rate, but I won’t take it for free.”

“All right,” he agreed. “How about half price?”

“Fine,” she said, moving around him to continue her tour of the small space. Buzz watched her as she strolled past the wall of Ruby’s paintings.

“I’m not usually this disorganized,” he said. “It’s been kind of a bad year. I just lost someone close to me, and I guess I’m still kind of trying to wrap my head around it.”

Beverly turned to Buzz, looking almost startled, he thought, though he couldn’t imagine why.

“I gave you a microwave,” Buzz said, pointing to the counter, “so at least you’ll have something to heat up your food. I’ll bring you some restaurant menus. Got a few places in town, more up the road in Port Chester. No phone in here, but I usually let renters get calls up at my place if it’s an emergency. Same thing with local calls.”

“I won’t need that,” Beverly said. “I have a cell phone.”

“They don’t always work out here. There’s coffee on my porch every morning. It’s not that fancy stuff, but it gets the motor going. Doughnuts too. Fifty cents apiece. Honor system—I keep a kitty on the railing. Tips are always accepted and appreciated.”

“I don’t drink coffee,” Beverly said curtly, frowning at a nude painted in shades of orange and blue.

Buzz smiled cheerfully. “That’s fine too,” he said, moving to the door. “Oh, and just so you know, the yellow one
across the driveway belongs to my daughter, Tess. You’ll see her around. She’s got a sign-carving business, but she helps me out too.”

For a moment, paused on the threshold, Buzz thought he might warn her of Tess’s mood, feeling oddly sorry for this woman. But he didn’t.

The truth was that for the first year after Ruby’s death, Buzz had wanted to leave the place untouched as much as Tess did. His grief had been so great, so bottomless; he’d tried to keep everything Ruby had ever touched intact. But coastal buildings didn’t do well left to their own devices in the middle of winter. Paintings could survive being ignored, but not plumbing. Buzz could still remember Tess’s pleas that he not reopen the studio that following spring; the grudge she’d held (nearly a week!) when he’d started to put away some of her mother’s paints and supplies. Finally, tired of the fight, he’d promised to leave all of Ruby’s canvases on the walls and not to rent it out, not even during the festival, and the bargain had appeased Tess. No wonder she’d looked at him today with such panicked confusion, then such contention. Buzz would bet ten bucks that right now she was storming around the cottage he’d found her in, wiping down countertops and windows with a vengeance.

He bet she thought he’d done this to hurt her, and the theory made his stomach knot with pain. Climbing the steps to break the news, he’d hoped she was old enough to
see both sides of things. But maybe kids never quite grew up when it came to grudges against their parents.

ALONE AT LAST
.

Beverly walked to the day bed and sat down, trying to slow her racing heart.

She’d done it. She was here, really here. Fifteen years of loving someone and she’d finally stepped into his world.

But, oh, what a world it was, she thought, looking around the sunlit room, the gaudy paintings on the walls. She hadn’t expected the cottages to be so…
rustic
. Not to mention her host. Frank had never mentioned Buzz was an old hippie; he certainly had never mentioned anything about Buzz’s wife. Knowing Frank—or at least, the Frank she’d
thought
she knew—Beverly couldn’t imagine two more different men. And if this man was Joan’s brother, what did that say about Joan?

How Beverly had wondered about that woman. At first, there had been little point to such musings. When she and Frank had parted after that first afternoon, Beverly had never imagined she’d hear from him again. After all, he had only come into town for business, and she was a widow with teenage sons—what future was there in that?

Then the flowers had arrived—fat, fragrant yellow blooms. (Had she mentioned that yellow was her favorite color? Had he been so attentive that he’d remembered?)
When Frank returned to Chicago for more business two months later, Beverly agreed to see him again. They walked along the lakefront for a while, wandered through the Botanic Garden, and when they returned to his hotel at one, his need startled her. Clark had never been so brazen, so craving. It left her frightened; it left her exhilarated. Even as she rode the train back to her car, hopelessly aware of a smile that refused to be drawn down no matter who looked her way, Beverly was certain she’d been given a drug she would have no hope of flushing from her system. Soon she came to believe Frank carried a terrible pain and that she alone could relieve him of it—the pain of a bad marriage.

She wouldn’t believe that was a lie too.

Beverly glanced down at the colorful quilt beneath her. Running her fingers over the frayed seams where blocks of garish fabrics clung to one another, she caught the faint but sour scent of mildew. She needed a plan, of course. It wouldn’t do to skulk around. She wasn’t a private detective. She had no idea how one did this sort of thing, how one snooped without snooping. But she’d figure out a way.

Because it was all here; she was certain of it. Somewhere in this small town, maybe just up the hill, existed the answers she feared knowing, but feared never knowing far more. And she wasn’t going back to Chicago without them.

TESS PRESSED HER BENT GOUGE
into the wood and hit it with her mallet, pushing out a deep groove and drawing in the faintly sweet smell of the fresh basswood. She worked her gouge and mallet up and down the sides of the mermaid’s torso, but still her eyes drifted to the window, to the view of the cottages where for the last hour a woman in white had been walking in and out, neatening the wicker chairs on the porch and shaking out rugs, as if she might be moving in forever.

Had Buzz at least removed her mother’s journals? What if this woman flipped through them, thinking they were there for her pleasure? What if she spilled coffee all over the pages or got them sticky with food? This woman wouldn’t understand the globs of dried paint on the wall beside the window. She wouldn’t know anything about the night they’d been put there. She wouldn’t see constellations carefully replicated from the sky; she’d see random droplets of paint.

Tess’s mother had tried three other cottages before settling on the one at the end and painting it a blinding pink. It was primer, Buzz had tried to explain to her, not meant to be used as a final coat, but Ruby had refused to cover it and couldn’t understand why anyone would. Buzz had just smiled at her, as if she were the cleverest woman in the world for thinking so.