The Mermaid Collector (20 page)

She nodded, letting the air quiet between them as he finished up.

“Thank you,” she said as he rose, done. “Really, I owe you a good deal.”

Buzz grinned, clapping his hands clean. “Buy me an early dinner and we’ll call it even.”

She looked at him, startled.

He chuckled. “I’m just kidding. We’ll split the bill. You can keep me company.”

Still, her expression remained dubious. “You should know I don’t like seafood.”

Buzz frowned, confused. “You came all the way to Maine, and you don’t like seafood?”

“That’s right,” she said, unapologetically.

“We’ve got other stuff besides seafood, you know.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I suppose I could stand a bite.”

“Good.” Buzz returned the flat and the tools to the trunk, shutting it soundly. “We’ll go to Pat’s. You can follow me.”

THE RESTAURANT WAS EXACTLY WHAT
Beverly had expected from the outside: red-and-white-checked tablecloths, pine-paneled walls crowded with photographs of grinning patrons, silk flowers in plastic vases bookended by ketchup and mustard dispensers.

She could smell frying onions even before she’d stepped inside. It hadn’t been a complete lie she’d told him; she
was
hungry, and while this sort of place wouldn’t have been her choice under most circumstances, she would be
willing to accept its menu today. After all, she did owe Buzz Patterson something. He had saved her a great deal of discomfort and inconvenience coming to her rescue. And yes, the thought had occurred to her—and she wouldn’t apologize for it, either—that there might be an opportunity in this meal. She’d tried to get answers on her own and had no luck. Other than those brothers at the keeper’s house, who knew better the truth of Frank’s mysteries than her own host?

“Right this way.” A woman took them past the quiet bar to a table in the back.

“Calm before the storm,” Buzz said, gesturing to the empty tables around them as they took their seats. “By Friday this place will be mobbed. Just wait.”

Beverly looked over the menu, thinking she’d have something light. Across from them, a couple feasted on plates of meat loaf and mashed potatoes, barely looking up from their food.

Their waitress arrived. Beverly ordered a house salad and a bowl of minestrone soup. Buzz ordered the fish and chips. “And I’ll have a Johnny’s IPA,” he added, then glanced at Beverly and shrugged. “Why not, right? It’s practically dinner.”

“A beer for you too, ma’am?” the waitress asked.

“Oh no,” Beverly said, unfolding her napkin. “I’ll just have water. With a slice of lemon. No ice.”

The waitress smiled at Buzz as she swept up their menus.

“That’s Moira,” he said when the young woman had left. “She’s a great girl. She and Tessie used to be good friends.”

Beverly caught the curious tense. “
Used
to be?”

Buzz sighed, resting his elbows on the table. “There was something about some guy,” he said. “I could never get a straight answer. Tessie can be hard on people. Gets her feelings hurt so quickly.” Buzz gave Beverly a sheepish look. “But then you probably already guessed that.”

Beverly, nervous again, didn’t answer, just neatened her silverware. She didn’t know why she should feel so anxious, so exposed sitting there. It wasn’t as if anyone knew who she was—least of all her dinner companion.

She glanced at Buzz, then watched him wave to an older man who had arrived at the bar.

Just ask him already,
Beverly thought.
Don’t be dim about it. You’ve come all this way. Now ask the man.

Maybe she’d need a bit of help.

“On second thought,” Beverly said to their waitress when she returned with Buzz’s beer, “I’ll take a glass of your house red.”

“Good,” said Buzz. “I hate to drink alone. I do that enough as it is.”

“I don’t usually drink,” Beverly said, not sure why she felt the need to say so.

Buzz leaned forward, grinning. “It
is
legal here, you know.”

She gave in to a small smile, thinking he did have
rather nice eyes. Underneath the burly exterior, there was a boyish appeal to him. Perhaps it was all the freckles. If he’d cut that absurd hair and put on a decent shirt, he might be quite handsome. She suspected he was once.

Their waitress brought her wine; Beverly sipped it, finding the peppery taste surprisingly pleasant and instantly relaxing.

“My wife was the same way, you know,” Buzz said. “She couldn’t bring herself to eat seafood, either. She said it didn’t seem fair to swim with them, then turn around and eat them.”

“I assure you that’s not my issue,” Beverly said. “I just don’t like the taste.”

A few minutes later their food arrived. Buzz salted his liberally, then asked for a second beer. The waitress pointed to Beverly’s wine.

“Another glass, ma’am?”

“She’d love one,” Buzz answered before Beverly could.

The truth was she had wanted another glass; she was very much enjoying the lightness it was providing. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this at ease. Ever since she’d found out about the men in the lightkeeper’s house, her whole body had felt like a clenched fist. She could even feel the muscles of her face softening. How many occasions as of late had she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror and thought,
Who is this person who frowns so much? I’m not this person. When did I become this person?

Maybe it was the wine. She glanced across the table. Maybe it was the company.

Or maybe it was a little of both.

She drew up her fork. “Thank you again for your help,” she said. “I’m sorry to have put you through the trouble.”

“Are you kidding?” Buzz chuckled, dunking a piece of fish into a pile of tartar sauce. “Honestly, I’m grateful. I was feeling so lousy about everything—botching up your reservation, Tessie’s fit over the quilt—now I feel like we’re even.” He saw Beverly’s eyes flash, and he added softly, “You know what I mean.”

She took another sip, thinking there was no harm in playing along. Around them the restaurant was filling slowly, patrons who seemed to know Buzz and vice versa. She watched them all as they filed by, wondering how many of them had known Frank.

“You have kids?” Buzz asked.

“Two boys,” Beverly said, piercing a tomato with her fork and running it lightly through her side of dressing. “They’re grown and living out West. I don’t see them much.”

“Must be tough, huh?”

She shrugged, cutting into a stack of iceberg leaves. “They have their own lives. It’s how it should be.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t miss them, though. Doesn’t mean you don’t still wish you could find their dishes in the sink. You can miss that, I think.”

Could you? Beverly considered the possibility, fairly certain that she didn’t. She’d never been much of a home-maker.
She’d put on a good show for Clark in the beginning, in the year before Daniel was born, but it was never heartfelt. Her own mother had been a terrible cook—so terrible that all throughout high school, Beverly’s teachers had charged her with sneaking cigarettes, but Beverly would try to explain it was just the smoke from her mother’s forgotten dinners stuck on everything she owned. Beverly’s mother had blamed it on the divorce, but Beverly remembered plenty of charred food before her father had moved out.

It wasn’t that Beverly
couldn’t
cook; she simply didn’t like to. So when Daniel was born, and Clark was so determined that his wife devote her every waking minute to their son that he’d gladly come home with premade dinners, pizzas, and chicken meals, she hadn’t complained. Even after the boys were grown, they’d kept to the same regimen, much to Beverly’s relief. She was more than happy to keep the refrigerator and the cabinets stocked with food so long as none of it required assembly. She was even fine with collecting Clark’s shirts off the floor of his closet so long as all she had to do was drop them off at the dry cleaner.

For some reason, Clark never seemed to mind her lack of domesticity until she took the job at the makeup counter at Marshall Fields when the boys began going to school full days; only then did her husband began questioning the contents of the vegetable drawers and the load of laundry in the washer that had yet to be moved into the dryer.

No, Beverly didn’t miss those chores—the dishes, the laundry. Who missed laundry?

But Buzz was insistent. “I know Tessie will get her act together one of these days and move out,” he continued, “maybe get married, have kids, but I have to tell you, I don’t like to think about it. She’s everything to me. She’s all I’ve got, especially now that my sister and my brother-in-law are gone.”

Here it came, Beverly thought.

“You were all close then?” she asked as casually as she could.

“Not so much me and Joannie,” Buzz said, smiling gratefully as their waitress returned with their fresh drinks. “But Frank—he was my brother-in-law—he and I were real close.”

How was it possible? Beverly wondered as she watched Buzz over the top of her wine. She’d been in the man’s company for three days now, and she still couldn’t reconcile this relationship. But then, she couldn’t reconcile much of anything about this place and her lover. Had Frank simply felt sorry for Buzz and his family? The Frank she’d known
had
been giving, loving, compassionate. Had he pitied Buzz? Surely he had. The man was sad in his own way, an open wound for the world to see.

“I miss him,” Buzz said, picking up his beer. “I miss him a lot.”

Beverly glanced down at her salad, afraid she might reveal herself. Feeling the wine, the quiet, the calm, she
knew she should slow down, but still she continued to drain her glass.

“How long has he been gone?” she asked. “What did you say his name was, your brother-in-law?”

“Frank,” said Buzz. “Not long. Just a few months.”

She took another sip, needing a fresh burst of courage. “Is it true that he promised the lightkeeper’s house to the town?”

Buzz glanced up at her, tartar sauce trimming his moustache. “Where’d you hear that?”

“I was at the museum earlier. The women didn’t say much, just that they were promised the building.”

“Of course they’d say that.” Buzz dragged his napkin across his lips, then stuffed it back into his lap. “Those hens would say the moon promised them a few thousand stars too.”

“They say there are two men living there. They seemed quite upset over it.”

“They shouldn’t be.” Buzz’s voice dropped. He reached for his beer and wiped at the beads of condensation on the glass with his thumb before picking it up, his expression turning wistful. “Those boys deserve a hell of a lot more than a drafty old house, trust me.”

Beverly lowered her wine carefully, sensing the answers she’d longed for might finally be in reach. He knew something, she thought, her limbs flushing with heat.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

Buzz glanced up at her and smiled sadly. “Nothing.
Just that there’s stuff those women don’t know. Stuff no one knows. Oh man, listen to me.…” Buzz sat back, his palms flat on his thighs, his cheeks pink. “Two beers and I’m spilling my guts. And here I thought we were clearing our debts.”

Their waitress came to check on them, offering them dessert. Beverly considered the opportunity, torn. If she pressed too hard, he’d suspect her. But she was so close, maybe it was worth the risk.

“I’ll take a piece of your blueberry pie,” she said, seeing Buzz’s expression brighten at once. Maybe he thought she was enjoying his company too much to leave. After all, she hadn’t finished her meal. Where would she find room for pie except as an excuse to linger?

“Pie for you too, Buzz?” the young woman asked.

“Sure. But I don’t want ice cream on mine.”

When they were alone again, Beverly took another fortifying sip of wine, eager to steer them back on the road he’d sent them down.

“You were saying,” she began. “About those young men…”

“Just that there’s a good reason they have that place, that’s all.”

“Were they family? Were they…” She swallowed, the words so close.
Say them,
she chastised herself. “Were they his sons?”

She’d done it. She’d put the question into the air, out
into the real world. Now she waited, the suspense every bit as agonizing as she’d expected.

Across the table, Buzz looked at her for a long moment, so long that Beverly feared she’d pushed too far. Her heart began to race. But then his brow relaxed and he said, “No. Nothing like that.”

Beverly felt sure her breath had left her in an audible gasp. It was the rebuttal she’d been hoping for. So where was the certain and tidy sense of closure she’d been so sure she’d find on its heels? The answer had not calmed her. If that chestnut-haired man she’d watched disappear into the keeper’s house wasn’t Frank’s son, then who was he?

“Why, then?” she pressed, too far in now.

“Why what?” Buzz asked, frowning.

“Why did they deserve your brother-in-law’s house?”

Something caught Buzz’s eye over her shoulder then, and his face spread in a deep grin. Turning to see what he saw, she found him smiling at the wall of photographs she’d glimpsed on their way in.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” he said, already rising. Beverly watched him approach the stretch of photos, hunting for one in particular, then finding it and carefully taking it off its nail. Somehow she knew what he’d gone to find, and her heartbeat hastened even before he’d returned. He slid back into his chair and handed her the framed picture.

“This is him. This is
them
,” he corrected with a smile that could be described only as adoring. “That was taken
right here, on their twenty-fifth anniversary. Joannie wanted to have some big to-do in Bar Harbor, but Frank wouldn’t budge. This was where they had their first date, and Frank was determined as hell. As you can see from the picture, Joannie came around. This place was packed for them. It was one hell of a party.”

Beverly nodded dully, but her eyes were fixed on the woman beside Frank.

It wasn’t that she’d never seen a photo of Joan Hammond before this moment. Like most married men, Frank had carried a wedding picture in his wallet, and over the years Beverly had slipped it free while he’d showered or slept, studying the round-faced woman in the powder blue, Empire-waisted dress, thinking how unfortunate a cut it was for someone so short. No, it wasn’t the woman herself that Beverly hadn’t expected; it was something else.