The Rules of Love & Grammar (13 page)

She draws her head in, brows connecting. “Oh, you thought I just
taught
art?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say, feeling a little stupid. I suppose I should have known better. It's like someone assuming my father just teaches poetry, not realizing he's got several volumes of his own work and a prestigious Northeastern Poetry Society Prize under his belt.

“I'm sorry,” I tell her. “You don't always know these things when you're a kid.”

“It's all right,” she says, waving to a couple of women passing by. “I get it.”

A man in a gray suit comes into the tent and starts to browse. “So, are you keeping up with your own art?” Miss Francis asks.

For a second, I think she must be talking to the man in the suit, but she's looking at me. “Who, me?”

“Yes, you. I always remember the students who were especially talented.”

She excuses herself and approaches the man, asking if he needs help, prompting a conversation about a painting of a lighthouse. I'm left to ponder Miss Francis's remark, which hangs in the air like a balloon of dialogue coming from a cartoon character's mouth.
I always remember the students who were especially talented.
How can she think I was talented? Especially talented? Sure, I used to sketch and sometimes fool around with pastels, but my drawings were never very good. At least, I didn't think so. Renny was the one with the talent. She could do almost anything.

Miss Francis takes down the landscape, wraps it in brown paper, and writes a receipt for the man, who hands her a check.

“I think you're confusing me with my older sister, Renny,” I say after the man leaves. “She was good at everything.”

Miss Francis looks at the check and slowly folds it in half, creasing it carefully between her fingers. “I remember your sister. I taught her the same year I taught you. Nice girl, pretty, popular, athletic, I think, wasn't she?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh. I remember that she
went
for everything. She tried everything. She was—well,
enthusiastic,
I guess, would be the way to put it. But you were a much better artist. I'm not being critical of your sister, you understand.” Her voice slows, and she looks down. “Especially in light of what happened.” She runs her fingers over the crease of the check again. “I'm just being honest. Effort can sometimes trump talent, but not usually. You had—have—talent. You just didn't have the confidence.”

This doesn't make sense. Renny had staked her claim to pretty much everything except maybe the written word, which was my little domain. I tried art, music, all the creative stuff, but I always felt as if I was following in her footsteps and, even then, that those footsteps were disappearing as soon as I got to them. Could what Miss Francis is saying be true? I don't know.

“I always felt kind of afraid for her.”

I look up. “Excuse me?”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't be saying this.”

“No, say it. What do you mean?”

“Oh, it's just that…you know, I could see she was hanging around with some kids who were pretty wild. And I had the sense she was a bit lost. I worried about her. All that talent. I'm so sorry about what happened.”

I feel the chicken salad rumble in my stomach. I don't want to have this conversation. “Yeah, thanks,” I say. I look at my watch. “I need to go.”

She reaches toward me. “I didn't mean to—”

“No, it's fine.” I step back. “I just need to be somewhere.”

“All right, Grace. Well, it's nice to see you,” she says, and I can tell she feels bad now, but all I can do is turn and leave.

On the way back to the Bike Peddler, Scooter pauses at the corner of Main and Mockingbird. “Do you mind if I run into the pharmacy? I was pulling weeds yesterday, and now I've got this backache.”

“I don't mind,” I tell him. “I'll just wait outside.”

There's only one pharmacy downtown. It's around the corner, and it's Woodside. I haven't been in there since before Renny died. Before the evening she went in and bought a bottle of shampoo and got back into Mom's Acura for the last time. Before she misjudged the curve and hit the tree. The police found the bottle of shampoo on the floor of the car.
Intact.
That's what the report said. The bottle was intact. But the car wasn't. And Renny wasn't.

We turn the corner, and I see the sign—Woodside Pharmacy, green letters on a white background.

“I'll be right out,” Scooter says.

I hover by Grove Lighting, next door, reading and rereading the first paragraph of a faded magazine article taped inside the window, about how the right lamp can change an entire room. Can it really? I wonder. Is it that simple to change a room? Is there an easy trick like that for changing a life?

Scooter comes out, and we walk back toward Main Street. “I'm not going to fix the bike,” I tell him. “At least not right now. I can't afford it.” There. I've said it. I've told him, and I feel relieved. It's embarrassing, but it's not the end of the world.

He looks at me, his eyes gentle behind his gray glasses. “We could fix it with new parts. Like I said, it won't cost nearly as much.”

“I just can't do it right now,” I say. “I didn't realize it would be so expensive. I'm sorry I wasted your time.”

He gives me a sympathetic glance. “It would never be a waste to spend time with you, Grace Hammond, or to look at that bike. Those are two of life's little pleasures.” He puts his arm around my shoulder, and for a moment I almost think I'm going to cry.

“Thanks,” I tell him. “I'll take the bike home today.”

“There's no rush,” he says.

But I know I have to get it out of there. I'll get Cluny to come with her Jeep and help me. I just wish I hadn't gotten my hopes set on making the bike beautiful, making it run, making it Renny's bike. Now I feel as though I'm letting her down. Again.

“Well, if you change your mind, we'd love to do it anytime,” Scooter says as we turn onto Main. “Seems like the bike means a lot to you. Good memories and all.”

“Yes, it does,” I say. And then I add, “The bike isn't really mine. It belonged to my older sister. We used to ride together when we were young, when we were really close. Before things changed. Before she started to…” We stop at the end of the block. “She was in a car accident,” I blurt out. “When she was eighteen.”

Scooter looks at me, and I can feel the questions that are on his mind. “It happened here in town,” I say. And, after a moment, I add, “She died.”

The muscles in his face drop, as though they are traveling south en masse. He gazes at me with quiet eyes. “I'm awfully sorry,” he says. I mumble a thank-you, and we walk half a block in silence. Then he stops. “Your last name is Hammond. I just realized…” The grooves around his mouth seem to sink a little deeper. “Is your father the poet?”

“Yes, D. H. Hammond.”

“Of course, you're
that
Hammond. Yes.” His face takes on another look, one of recognition, as though he's fished something he never expected to see again out of a deep well. His eyes meet mine, a level playing field. “I remember her,” he says.

Scooter lets out a sigh and gazes around the cluttered workroom. I wait for him to walk to the stand and take Renny's bike down. But he puts his hands in his pockets, and he doesn't move. “Let me ask you something,” he says. “What you said earlier, when I first brought you in here, that you're a…what was it? A stickler for organization?”

I think back to my comment and realize I must have offended him. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to criticize. It's just that I have this thing about crossing the t's and dotting the i's. I think it drives people nuts.”

“No, no, you're right,” he says as we stand inside the doorway. He takes another look around the workroom, as though he's evaluating a friend whose gradual changes, unnoticed over time, have finally become all too apparent. “I used to have this place in shape, although you might not believe it. And I mean the whole store, not just the workroom. But it's harder for me now. I'm older, and I can't do as much as I once did. And with three other guys working here, things get a little out of hand. We could use some help.” He picks up a can of spray paint from the table and moves it to a shelf packed with other paints. “So, what do you think?”

I'm not sure where he's going with this.

“Here's my idea. Maybe you could help us for a couple of weeks and get the workroom organized again.” His eyebrows lift in anticipation.

“You mean, you want me to work here?”

“I'm thinking we could do a trade,” he says as he picks up an empty bottle of salad dressing from the back of the table, shakes his head, and throws it away. “You organize the workroom, and we'll fix your bike. We'll even do the restoration.”

He'll do the restoration. For a moment, that's all I hear. The bike is going to be fixed. No, better than fixed. It's going to be transformed into its former self. Just the way it looked during its glory days, the days of Renny. And that all sounds fantastic. But then I realize I don't know the first thing about bikes. I'd be a fraud to accept this job.

“Scooter, I appreciate the offer,” I tell him. “I really do. But, aside from riding bikes as a kid, I really don't know anything about them. I don't even know how to change a tire or take off a wheel.”

“Exactly,” Scooter says, raising his hands. “That's just my point. You'll come in here with a clean slate. You can come up with some fresh ideas.” He smiles, and the gray frames of his glasses move just a millimeter.

I don't think it's a good idea, and I try to interrupt, but he pushes on.

“And if we need new supplies—you know, bins, boxes, hangers—we'll get them. I want you to make sure that every single thing in this room, from a quick-release spring to a star nut, gets into the right place. The guys will help you.”

“This sounds like a pretty tall order,” I tell him. “I don't want to start something I'm not certain I can do.”

“I think you can do it. Will you take the job?” he asks.

I'm about to say no, but then I see a faint weariness in Scooter's eyes, something that tells me he really wants the help. And when I glance at the bike, I see Renny, riding ahead of me, down Bluff Hill, past the Madisons' house, with the apple trees in the front yard, and around the bend, to the big stone barn, and then to the bottom, where we turn onto Harbor Road and breeze past the Sea Shanty bakery and the boatyards and, finally, stop at the Hickory Bluff Store for candy. It's a ride we took over and over again, on days when Renny could have done anything, when she could have been with friends her own age. But she chose to be with her younger sister. The old days. The good days.

“Yes,” I tell Scooter. “I'll take the job.”

I
walk into Ernie's that night at eight o'clock. It's been only two days since I saw Peter at the party, and I know I shouldn't get anxious, but he hasn't called. So of course I'm anxious. I know it's a long shot that Peter and his entourage will have dinner here three nights in a row, but it can't hurt to be around if they do.

I'm wearing my favorite jeans, faded to perfection, a powder-blue sweater that brings out the blue in my eyes, and a dab of the old Chloé Innocence perfume I used to wear in high school, a scent Peter always liked. I know what Cluny would say—that it's no accident I happened to find that bottle of perfume while I was looking for some deodorant—but I'm sure it was just luck.

Ernie's looks the same as always, like a friend who doesn't change with fads or fashions. I scan its dimly lit interior, decorated in the style of an English pub, with hand-hewn beams running across the ceiling and round wooden tables surrounded by chairs with green, leathery seats. A dark mahogany bar extends two-thirds of the way down the left side of the room. As usual, there's the slightly sour scent of beer in the air, and British rock is playing, the old Rolling Stones tune “Ruby Tuesday.”

I don't see Peter at the bar or at any of the tables, and no one here looks as though they have anything to do with making a movie. I do see Susan McClusky, sitting with a man who is either old enough to be her father or is her father. I raise my hand in a tepid wave. I haven't completely forgiven her for stealing my fifth-grade science homework on the water cycle.

The bartender, a man with a fringe of gray hair around an otherwise bald head, wipes the counter in front of me as I take a seat at the bar. “What can I get you, miss?” he asks.

I tell him I'd like the fish and chips. “I might need it to go, though,” I say. I'm not staying if Peter doesn't show. I don't like to eat alone in restaurants.

“Anything to drink?” he asks. “We've got a special tonight on the Brittini.”

“What's the Brittini?”

He points to the mirrored wall behind the bar. A wooden sign that's been there forever says
Free Coaster with Every Drink.
Next to it is a homemade sign on a piece of shirt cardboard:
Dorset Loves Brittany Wells! Try Our New Brittini!
“It's kind of like a martini mojito,” the bartender says. “She loves them.”

I'm relieved to know Brittany Wells doesn't exist entirely on lemon water. “I hear they've been in here,” I say. “The movie people.” I try to sound nonchalant, as if the sole purpose of my being here isn't to stalk Peter.

“Couple of times,” the bartender says, placing a coaster in front of me. He produces a cell phone and proceeds to scroll through his photos. “Here, take a look at this.” He tilts the phone toward me. There's a picture of the bartender with his arm firmly clamped around Brittany's tiny waist.

“Very nice,” I say.

“Look how little she is. I thought she'd be a lot taller.”

“Yeah, I've heard that.”

I order a Corona Light, the only thing I ever drink with fish and chips. I'm not about to start bucking tradition. As the bartender pours the beer, I hear someone call my name. It's Buddy, at a table with his wife, Jan.

“Hey, Grace!” He flaps his arms like windshield wipers as I walk to the table. A plate of sausages and mashed potatoes sits in front of him.

“Bangers and mash?” I ask.

“Still my favorite,” he says, standing up and clapping me on the back.

I say hello to Jan, who is half Buddy's size—petite and barely five feet tall. “We missed you the other night at the party.”

She shakes her head and looks toward the ceiling. “Not as much as I missed being there. Our sitter canceled at the last minute.”

“Yeah, Buddy told me.”

“Have a seat.” She pulls out a chair and pats the cushion. “I got the whole play-by-play on the party from Bud. He said it was really something. Told me all about your dress, too, and the Marilyn Monroe act.”

I wince and sit down.

“And Sean Leeds!” Jan adds. “I heard he's really taken with you, Grace. A small-town girl and a big movie star. Wow.”

“It's pretty romantic, you gotta admit,” Buddy says.

“We're not having a romance.”

“Not yet,” Jan says. “Did he ask you out, though?”

“No, he didn't ask me out. He doesn't even have my number.”

“Aw, Grace, you should have given it to him,” Buddy says. “Tell you what, if I see him again, I'll let him know he needs to call you.”

“Buddy, please don't do that.”

“We just want to help,” Jan says.

“I don't need any help. Really, guys.”

The front door opens, and I watch several people walk in, but Peter isn't among them.

“Are you meeting someone here?” Buddy asks.

“I was kind of looking for Peter. I heard he showed up the last couple of nights.”

Jan grins. “Maybe he's with Sean Leeds.”

“Why don't you eat with us?” Buddy asks. “You can ditch us if Peter shows up. We won't mind.”

Buddy retrieves my beer from the bar, and I take a seat. “I heard they're going to be shooting downtown soon,” he says.

“Really? Where?” Jan asks.

“Main Street, I guess.” He cuts a piece of sausage and dips it in mustard. “Man, I really hope Pete keeps my sign in that scene.”

“You and your sign,” Jan says as a waitress brings my fish and chips to the table.

“Hey, it could lead to some new customers. You never know.”

I cut into the fish, still steaming hot, and take a bite. The outside is crispy and crunchy and the inside, white and flaky. I wonder what kind of fish Ernie's is using tonight. Probably haddock or cod. The French fries look good—they're the big, crinkle-cut kind, great for soaking up ketchup. And there's a side of coleslaw, another Ernie's staple. I don't know how they make it, but the dressing is light and tangy without being too sweet or too sour.

“Hey, get out of there,” Jan says, slapping Buddy's hand as he steals a fry from my plate.

“Leave him alone, Jan,” I tell her. “He's a growing boy.”

Buddy pats his stomach and sighs.

We finish dinner, and Buddy and Jan order coffee. Ernie's is crowded now, but there's still no sign of Peter, and I feel foolish for coming. I wander to the back of the restaurant, past the pool table that floats under the yellow haze of a Tiffany-style lamp, to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases known as the lending library. I peruse the shelves while two men play pool, the balls clacking against one another and landing with heavy
thunk
s in the pockets of the table.

I scan the spines of mysteries, biographies, travel guides, pet care books, cookbooks, history books, and books in languages of countries I've never heard of, all of them mixed together haphazardly on the shelves. I pull out
Breakfast at Tiffany's,
which is next to a James Patterson thriller, and, even though I've read the story of Holly Golightly's Manhattan a million times, as soon as I see the first page I'm immediately drawn in again. I set it aside to borrow.

And then I can't stop myself from doing a little rearranging. I begin pulling out the books on one shelf and reorganizing them by subject. Soon I've got piles of books on the floor, including one with a bright-yellow cover that catches my eye—
Woodworking for Dummies
.
I think of my father and smile. I'm scanning the table of contents—“What's All the Buzz about Woodworking? Selecting and Setting Up Your Equipment”—when someone pulls the book right out of my hands. I look up.

“
Woodworking for Dummies.
You planning on building something?” It's Mitch, from the bike shop. At first I don't recognize him, because he's not wearing his usual jeans and T-shirt. He's dressed in khakis and a pale yellow polo shirt.

“Me?” I shake my head. “Oh, no, I couldn't build anything to save my life. I was looking at this for my father.”

He turns the book over and scans the back. “Oh, your dad's into woodworking?”

I picture my father and burst out laughing. “No. He's terrible with hand tools. It's sort of a running joke in my family. I was thinking I might buy it for his birthday.”

“Ah,” he says, handing
Dummies
back to me. “A gag gift.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“And what's all this down here?” He points to the stacks on the floor, a Euclidian-geometry book on top of one pile. “Are you planning to read all of these?”

“No, I was just doing some organizing. These shelves are ridiculous. I mean,
The Iliad and the Odyssey
is next to
Simplified Boatbuilding.
”

Mitch tilts his head and one side of his mouth goes up. “Well, they're both about sailing.”

“That's a stretch,” I say, although I have to admit, I'm intrigued by his approach. “With all of these books, they need a system. I could do a real bang-up job if I knew the Dewey decimal system.”

“I'm sure you could,” he says, and that smile appears again. “I assume you're checking these for typos as well?” He picks up the geometry book and looks at the cover, full of brightly colored triangles and trapezoids and shapes whose names I've long ago forgotten. “Where do you want this?”

“Hmm, let's see. Math. Why don't you put it here?” I point to the far left side of the shelf. “That can be the miscellaneous section. And, no, I'm not checking for typos. Not tonight.”

“Ah, so you
have
done that before.” He reaches across me and puts the book on the shelf.

“No. I've never come here and checked the books for typos. Although the last time I was here, I kind of got into an argument with the waitress over an apostrophe on the menu.”

“An apostrophe? You argued with somebody over an apostrophe?” He's trying not to laugh.

I hand him a P. D. James novel. “Mysteries are on the far right. And, as for punctuation, don't you think if you're putting Mom's Meatloaf on the menu, the
Mom's
deserves to have an apostrophe?”

Mitch puts the book on the shelf. “Yes, Grace. It deserves to have an apostrophe.”

I can't tell if he's serious or if he's making fun of me.

“Anyway, that waitress isn't here anymore,” I add. “So maybe that says something.”

Mitch gasps. “You mean you got her fired? Over grammar?”

I raise my hands. “No, no, that had nothing to do with it. She was fired a lot later. Months later,” I insist, trying to recall the exact timing of the apostrophe battle and when I learned the waitress was gone. “At least, I don't think that had anything to do with it.” Now he's got me worried.

“Relax,” he says, a glimmer in his eye. “I was only kidding.”

He's got a good sense of humor. I smile and shove another book at him. “You can put that one over here,” I say. “Biographies.”

He looks at the cover and lifts the book, pretending to be overcome by the weight. “
Einstein.
No wonder it's so heavy.” He places it on the shelf. “Do they have any sports books here?” he asks. “Maybe you can find something on cycling, to help you get ready for the outing on the Fourth.”

The bike outing. I haven't even thought about it since the day I signed up. And I did it only because of Regan. Fifty miles. There's no way I can ride that far. I'm not going. But I'm not about to mention it to Mitch. I don't want it to get back to Regan that I'm canceling.

“I haven't come across any sports books yet,” I tell him, “although I've only started sorting. Anyway, I already know a few things about cycling. I've seen plenty of cycling movies.”

“Movies. Oh, Hollywood again.” He takes a book on vegetable gardening from the pile. There's a bright-green head of lettuce on the front cover. “What movies?
Breaking Away
?” He says the name with the tiniest hint of disdain.

He's right. That's the first cycling movie that came to mind. “Yes, I've seen that,” I say with a casual tone, in case it might be considered cliché by hard-core cyclists.

“No surprise. That's the one cycling movie everybody's seen.” Mitch removes a piece of paper that's sticking out of the gardening book. Someone has written
Tips for Growing Radishes
at the top.

“Oh, I'm sure,” I say. “But I do think it's a good movie. You know, production-wise, acting-wise.” I leave out
script-wise,
because I don't want to get caught in a trap about how accurate the story is with someone who knows a lot more about cycling than I do. Trying to sound blasé, I add, “I've seen others.”

Mitch looks at me. “Oh?”

“
American Flyers,
for one.” Maybe he hasn't seen that. I hope he hasn't.

“Kevin Costner?” he says, with a bit of a snicker. “Not very good.” He looks at the back of the gardening book. A photo shows a woman holding a bowl of red chili peppers.

No,
American Flyers
wasn't that good. He's right about that, too. Damn. “Well, there's
The Flying Scotsman,
of course.” Now I'm getting a little more obscure. I'm confident I can stump him with this one.

But I don't.

“Pretty good movie,” he says. “Graeme Obree was quite a racer.”

Damn again. “Yeah, he was.” I struggle to remember what other bicycling movies I've seen that he probably hasn't. Then I think of one. “I liked
Two Seconds,
” I say, trying to sound as if I'm not even interested in the conversation anymore.