The Moon and More (12 page)

I nodded for my answer and we were silent for another minute or so. Then I said, “You know there’s some people down here shooting a documentary about you, right?”

He didn’t take his eyes off the pump. “I believe I have ignored some phone messages to that effect.”

“They seem pretty persistent.”

He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

When I hit twenty-five bucks, I stopped pumping and replaced my gas cap. As I did so, I looked at Clyde, who was as much an institution in Colby as the pier and the bacon at the Last Chance Café. He’d grown up in Colby, worked doing maintenance for my grandmother in the summers, ran a framing crew my dad was on in high school. I’d met him hanging around the bike shop by Clementine’s, which he owned and had run until a couple of years earlier. He was recognized and referred to by all of us, and yet nobody really knew him that well, which was just the way he’d liked it since he moved back from New York about ten years ago.

On my way in to pay, he nodded at me, and I waved. From inside, I watched him climb into his truck, crank it up, and pull onto the main road. Maybe he was going back to the sound-side house where he lived, or to check on the Washroom, the all-night Laundromat/café he owned. Whatever it was, though, it was his business.

That’s what Theo didn’t understand, what I couldn’t tell him when he first starting asking me questions. It was one thing for all of us here to wonder about Clyde, speculate what his story might be. This was a small town, and that’s what people did. When someone from outside started prodding around, though, it was different. This was the coast. We understood about secrets. And Clyde’s, whatever they might be, would always be safe with us.

“OH MY GOD. Look at
that
.”

There was an appreciative murmur. “Oooh, the scenery here just keeps getting better and better!”

“Melissa, the beach is in the other direction!”

With that, the four girls gathered at the check-in desk burst into loud, squealing giggles. I was pretty sure I knew what they were gawking at, but just to be sure, I glanced out the window. Sure enough, there was Luke, moving some stuff around in his truck bed in the parking lot, shirtless.

“Honestly,” Margo said out loud, adding a couple of cluck-cluck noises as she tapped away at her computer. “Can’t you keep him dressed in public, at least?”

“It’s not up to me,” I said, glancing at the girls again. They were here for a wedding, or so they announced when they’d come in a few minutes earlier. We were used to the kind of pre-vacation exuberance that people let loose after being cooped up in a car for a few hours: voices raised, footsteps hard, the lid to the ice-cream cooler being banged, not eased, shut. Everything took a beating in high season.

“Have you stayed with us at Fancy Free before?” Rebecca, one of our reservation specialists, was saying to them now.

“Never,” the tall brunette who’d first noticed Luke replied. She had that deep brown tan that you just knew was cultivated on a bed all winter. “We usually go to Hilton Head. We could barely find this place! Leave it to Tara to decide to get hitched in the middle of nowhere.”

Margo tsked again, shaking her head. I agreed with her, sort of—not only did these girls show up demanding early check-in, now they were insulting our beach—but she still sounded like an old woman. Then again, as long as she was distracted by them she wasn’t noticing that I was here and not out in the sandbox, where I was technically supposed to be.

The front door banged and Luke came in, pulling a shirt over his head as he walked. He had a sheaf of papers in one hand.

“Oh, no,” too-tan Melissa said to him as he passed her. “Don’t do that!”

Luke yanked it the rest of the way down, then smiled at her. “Sorry?”

“Your shirt,” she replied, nodding at it. “You don’t really
need
it, do you?”

“Afraid so,” Luke told her. “No shirt, no shoes, no service. You know the drill.”

“I hate rules,” she said, smiling at him. Her friends, behind her, exchanged looks as he kept walking, over to my grandmother’s open office door. She was on the phone, so he stopped just outside, smoothing his hair down with one hand.

“Hey,” I called out, my voice low. He looked over, surprised; he hadn’t seen me. “What do you need?”

He glanced at the girls, his face flushing slightly, then held
up the papers. “Invoices from my jobs this week. Carl said I needed to come by and get a check.”

“She might be on forever,” I said, nodded at my grandmother, who was talking shop with one of our more chatty owners. “Come on over to my mom’s. Are they readable, at least?”

“Yes,” he said, sounding annoyed. I doubted it, though. We both knew his handwriting was the absolute worst.

As he followed me across the office, I was distinctly aware of the girls watching not only him but me as well. I was not the jealous type, but that didn’t mean I didn’t notice. I said, “Your fan club just keeps growing.”

“Hardly,” he replied. “They’re on vacation, would look at anybody.”

“Not everybody’s putting on a show, though.”

I felt him slow his steps, and instantly hated how petty I sounded. More and more lately, we kept hitting each other with these little jabs. Like we were siblings or bickering friends, not a couple supposedly in love. “It’s hot and I work outside, Emaline.”

“I know.”

My mom was behind her desk, bent over some papers, a pen in one hand. A fountain drink cup from the Gas/Gro was sweating through a napkin beside her. “Hey,” I said, and she looked up. “Luke needs a check.”

“Doesn’t everyone.” She sighed, waved him in, then looked at her watch. “Aren’t you due to do check-ins?”

“Just about.” Luke handed her the invoices and, as I expected, she squinted at them like they were written in
Sanskrit. “But Grandmother said she had an errand for me to run first, so I was waiting around.”

“Remind her of the time. You need to get out there,” she said, reaching for the checkbook she kept in her bottom drawer. To Luke she said, “Dear God, this is practically illegible. Is that a six or a b?”

I shot Luke a look—he ignored me—as I went back to my grandmother, through the office, which was now quiet. It was three, though, which meant people would start showing up in rapid-fire style soon. Luckily, she was off the phone now, busy opening a Rolo.

“I have to start handing out keys,” I told her. “Did you need me?”

“Yes,” she replied, reaching down for a Park Mart bag beside her. “The owners of Foam Free apparently didn’t trust us to purchase a new doorknob for the property, so they dropped off their own. Maintenance is already there. Can you run it over?”

“Sure,” I said, taking it from her. “Anything else?”

She shook her head, and I headed out to my car and Foam Free, an older property a few blocks down from the office. It should have been a short, easy trip, but I got bogged down en route and coming back by a fender bender on the main road. By the time I pulled back into the office lot, there was a line of cars backed up from the sandbox.

I groaned out loud, already picturing how pissed Margo must be, having to fill in for me. When I got out of my car and sprinted over, though, I found Morris instead, squinting at the box of welcome packets like they were written in code.

“Baker,” a man in a Mercedes, clearly annoyed, was saying to him. “Bay-kurr. B-A-K-E-R.”

“Right,” Morris repeated, still looking. S-L-O-W-L-Y. “Ummm …”

I reached around him, finding the envelope, then grabbed it and the complimentary Colby Realty bag and handed them over. “Here you go, sir. Have you stayed with us at the Jolly Pirate before?”

“No,” he said, taking the bag and envelope from me.

“It’s a fantastic property. Our number is on there if you have any questions or problems. Have a great week!”

He grumbled a goodbye, then pulled away, making room for a Cadillac packed with people.

“What are
you
doing here?” I asked Morris.

“Margo was freaking,” he replied, helping himself to a water bottle from the cooler.

I didn’t doubt this, but it still didn’t answer my question. “Yeah, but why were you here in the first place? Looking for me?”

He shook his head as the Cadillac rattled to a stop beside us. “I came for my other job.”

“McAdams,” a red-haired older woman with a deep tan announced from the passenger seat of the Caddy, skipping a greeting entirely. “We’re renting Sea Door.”

“Right.” I found the envelope, got them a bag, and handed both over. “Have you stayed with us before?”

“Yep,” she replied. “Just hope the air conditioner works this year.”

“Call us with any problems. Have a great week!” They
drove off. I looked at Morris, saying, “You have another job? Since when? And doing what?”

He nodded towards the front of the office. “Working for them.”

A minivan, radio blaring, was pulling up right as he said this. So it was with the number one song of the summer so far—a bouncy dance track called “Mr. Right Now”—playing in my ear that I looked over to see Theo and his boss, Ivy, standing by their white van. They were talking to Margo, and all of them were looking right at me.

“I told you,” I said again. “I don’t even know Clyde.”

We were inside now, in the conference room. Normally I would have been thrilled to be relieved of sandbox duty—Rebecca was suffering temporarily instead—but this kind of third degree was not really an improvement.

“Theo was under the impression that you did,” Ivy said. She wore jeans and a black tank top, her arms pale and sinewy, and she folded and unfolded her sunglasses. “And we could really use some help reaching out to him.

“Why don’t
you
get in touch with him?” I asked Margo.

“I’ve been away at school for four years,” she replied, glancing at Ivy. She was so clearly starstruck, or New York–struck, or just struck, it was embarrassing. All it took was the word
movie
or something similar and she threw Clyde, and me, right under the bus. “I don’t know anybody here anymore.”

I would have liked to point out, for the record, that she’d
only been a couple of hours away, not overseas. “I don’t know Clyde either,” I said again.

Ivy looked at Theo, her expression displeased.

“So you’ve never had contact with him?” he asked me. For the first time, I realized he looked kind of nervous. There was that flush again. “Because I thought—”

“I mean, I’ve met him a few times,” I said. Which was a huge mistake, because they both literally leaned forward, hearing this. “But he’s a pretty private person.”

“This is a ridiculously small town, though,” Ivy pointed out. “Can’t be too private.”

I glanced at Margo, to see if she was equally offended by the use of the word
ridiculously
, but she was too busy checking out Ivy’s bag, a big leather number with a bunch of buckles. “He does a pretty good job flying under the radar.”

“Which is why,” she replied, leaning forward again, “we need
you
, Emaline. We’re not from here, don’t know the back roads and locals. If we want that part of Clyde’s life accurately represented, we need someone to help us get to them.”

I could practically feel Margo breathing, she was so excited by this prospect. Bet she was sorry now she claimed to be all worldly and distanced from Colby. I couldn’t savor this, though, because I was looking at Theo, whose expression could only be described as pleading. Crap.

“I can’t bring you to Clyde,” I told them both. Theo’s shoulders slumped, just slightly, and Ivy shot him a look. I swallowed. “But I can … I mean, I guess I could show you around Colby.”

The minute I said this, I knew it was a mistake. I didn’t know Ivy well, but I had a hunch that once you gave her something approximating what she wanted, she wouldn’t let up until she got it all.

“Wonderful,” she said now, smiling at me. “We’ll start this afternoon. Yes?”

“I have to work here,” I say.

“Only until six,” Margo piped up, clearly having now moved on to directing the bus in what was, exactly, the best way to run me over.

“Then why don’t you come over to the house around seven.” Ivy pushed out her chair, getting to her feet. “We’ll talk, figure out a game plan. Yes?”

I didn’t answer, not that she was waiting for me to do so. As Theo moved to follow her, I started to glare at Margo, only to realize he was trying to catch my eye. Ivy was already halfway down the hallway as he mouthed the words
thank you.
I nodded, despite myself, and then he was jogging after her, towards the exit.

“Well, isn’t that something,” Margo said, watching them go. “Someone’s shooting a movie right here in Colby.”

“It’s not a movie, it’s a documentary,” I told her.

“Either way, it’s interesting.” She craned her neck, keeping them in sight as they got in the van.

I saw Morris was with them as well, sliding open the back door. Earlier, he’d explained to me that he was in the Wave Nails parking lot, having just visited Daisy, when Theo approached and asked if he wanted to make some quick money toting boxes. Fifteen minutes later, he was at the Shipping
Depot, unloading cartons. When Theo asked him if he knew anyone who was really familiar with either Clyde or Colby in general, Morris immediately thought of me. What a coincidence.

“I didn’t know you were already friends,” he’d said, as I handed over another envelope to a family in a car with Delaware plates.

“We’re not,” I’d told him. “We just met when I did a vip drop-off over there.”

He looked at Theo again, then back at me. “Huh.”

Morris was not one for innuendo. It was pretty much beyond him. What you saw was what you got, which was alternately refreshing or frustrating, depending on the situation. “What?”

“I dunno,” he said, as the next car pulled up. “He just acted like he knew you well, or something.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But maybe he’s just like that with everyone.”

Saying this, he had been assuming a lot himself, but I figured it wasn’t worth pointing it out. Still, now, as I watched them leave, I wondered how, exactly, I’d come to feel like I owed Theo anything, especially something I couldn’t even promise to deliver. It couldn’t just be that he was cute when he blushed. And what a weird coincidence that Morris now, too, had been sucked into his orbit, making our paths cross once more. On the flip side, it wasn’t like it was so difficult to find connections. This was, after all, a ridiculously small town.