He looked dumbfounded at first, then shook his head slightly. “I guess your aunt knew what she was talking about when she said you’d be okay. She was much more worried about him.” He glanced toward them, and Michael and Aunt Madge were walking toward us.
Aunt Madge looked to me. “Won’t you tell Michael how many extra rooms I have? I want him to know he can stay with us if he wants to.”
I almost gulped at the thought. “She does, really. But if you would rather stay here, if you’ll stop by for muffins, she’ll feel better.”
Michael almost smiled. He looked at Aunt Madge. “I’ll probably stay here, but I promise if I’m lonely I’ll come find you. I know you would be glad to have me.”
I didn’t realize he could be that gracious, but then remembered he said she’d been his Sunday school teacher.
I was introducing Harry when Sgt. Morehouse came back out. “Would you folks like to come into the house? I didn’t mean you should all wait out here.” He nodded to Aunt Madge.
I found his words odd, as he had definitely wanted us outside. We followed him in and he offered condolences to Michael. “If you’d like to go upstairs and see her now, that would be okay. I have to ask you not to touch anything.” He led Michael upstairs, and I heard him repeating his explanation to me of how the police had to handle an unattended death.
Aunt Madge slapped her hand against her thigh in frustration. “Such a shame she had not registered for hospice yet.” In response to my questioning look she added, “If you’re in hospice, they don’t treat unattended deaths this way.”
This must be one of the things you learn when you get to be her age. Corporal Johnson came up to us. “You can go now, Ms. Gentil.” She pronounced it correctly. “I know how to contact you if we have any more questions.”
She walked away, and Aunt Madge looked upstairs. “I think we should wait for Michael,” she said.
Harry and I looked at each other. “We could…” I began.
Harry gently cut me off and spoke to Aunt Madge. “My sense was that he would call you if he needed to.”
“I suppose you’re right. I just hate to think of him all alone,” she said.
“He must have friends here,” I said, anxious to get home and give Jazz a good hug.
“Not so many,” she said, as we turned to leave.
AS SOON AS WE GOT HOME, I called the local garage and asked them to come put two tires on my car. I said I’d be down to pay them later, and that the car key would be under the driver’s side floor mat. There are such advantages to small towns.
I didn’t realize how tired I was until I hung up the phone. Harry declined Aunt Madge’s offer of lunch. I, never known for declining a meal, said I wanted to take a short nap. Aunt Madge was certain it was because of the shock of finding Mrs. Riordan, while I attributed it to getting up at 6 a.m. Whatever the reason, I was asleep by 11:30 and didn’t wake up until almost 1:30. I might have slept longer, but Jazz was pawing on the door. She had had enough of this afternoon nap stuff.
When I couldn’t deter her by saying “Here kitty, kitty,” I finally got up. I slung her over my shoulder and headed downstairs. I was trying to get her used to the dogs so she could have the run of Aunt Madge’s living area; so far, she would have none of them. She sat on top of the refrigerator (reached by jumping from floor to counter top to flour canister to fridge), and hissed at the dogs, who were most anxious to meet her.
The dogs were outside and Aunt Madge was nowhere to be found. I stepped into the small backyard and spent the obligatory half-minute scratching the dogs before wandering back to the garage, where Aunt Madge kept Uncle Gordon’s small boat and her gardening tools. The garage was so small there was barely room to walk around the boat, a flat-bottomed dory that Uncle Gordon used to launch into the ocean from the surf. Aunt Madge often comments about how he loved to fish. I peered in, not really expecting to see Aunt Madge, and saw that the boat had a fairly fresh coat of paint. Since she never took it out, I was surprised.
Turning to go back to the house I saw Aunt Madge’s car was in her small parking area, next to a guest’s, so I went back into the house. It was then that I noticed her half-empty tea mug on the oak table, with a piece of paper beside it. The small note said, “Be back in a couple hours.” Since I didn’t know when she left, I could not guess when she’d be back. It struck me as odd, since by now she would usually be working on her bread. I peered in a large bowl that was covered with a kitchen towel, and saw it had been rising too long and had deflated.
The tire guy was still working on the flats, so I walked the short distance to the in-town grocery store. Aunt Madge’s guests would expect their afternoon snack, and I was fully familiar with the loaves of bread you could buy in the frozen food section. However, I could not remember how long it took to thaw or cook them. It turned out there would be just enough time to do both and have the small loaves ready by 4 p.m. No cheddar bread, but it would still be good.
The dogs paced the kitchen as I put the preformed loaves on cookie sheets. This was not my usual job, and they seemed to want to supervise. I had just put the loaves in the oven and reached up to take Jazz off the fridge when the front door opened and I heard Aunt Madge’s deliberate footsteps approaching the kitchen.
Thank goodness.
I had no idea how to make small talk to guests I’d never met.
The dogs raced to the kitchen door and sat expectantly in front of it. She gave them an absent pat as she entered and stopped when she saw me and the empty loaf bags, which were on the table. “Oh, good. I knew there was no way to save the bread dough; I thought I was going to have to make muffins, and people don’t like surprises.” She took off her coat and poked a few stray hairs into her blonde French twist.
“I’ve had enough for one day myself,” I said. Jazz had gotten onto my shoulder from the top of the fridge and was now trying to climb to the top of my head. Aunt Madge took her from me and gave me a kiss, then reached into a small canister and took out two large dog treats. “Outside, you two.” They slobbered as she led them to the door.
“What, no prunes?”
She returned Jazz to my outstretched arms, and turned the warmer on her electric kettle to make her tea. “Very funny.” But, she didn’t look amused.
“Where were you?” I sat Jazz on the floor, took a fresh tea bag from the tiny basket next to the kettle and dropped it in a clean mug for her.
“At the funeral home with Michael Riordan.”
“You’re kidding.”
She raised one eyebrow. “He showed up at the front door and said he’d like some company while he made arrangements. I didn’t mind, of course.”
I was astounded. “Why you? Isn’t there family, or something?”
She shook her head. “He knows I was good friends with his mother. His father moved to Atlanta after the divorce. Apparently he met some young woman at one of those resort things in the Bahamas, and he moved to where she lived.”
“No shit.” I thought that stuff only happened to rich people. Wait, the Riordans were wealthy.
Aunt Madge ignored what she had once referred to as my “shit slip” and continued. “Ruth has a sister, but she’s in Phoenix. And,” she hesitated, “Michael isn’t too popular around here.”
“What do you know that I don’t?”
“Quite a bit,” she said, dryly, pouring the water into her mug.
“Let me rephrase that. Would you like to let me in on any of it?”
“Since anyone who lives here knows, I guess it isn’t gossip.” She ignored my rolling eyes. “When Michael married, the wedding was here, because his bride’s parents were supposedly unable to host the event. Ruth and Larry went all out, even though they’d been divorced for a year. They could not have been more gracious to her, never a word about arranging, and paying, for everything.”
“Dad would have liked that,” I said.
“Your father always jokes a lot about the costs of your and Renee's weddings, but you know how proud he is of you.” I nodded, mildly chagrined.
She continued, “Within two months, it was as if Ruth and Larry were Michael’s wife’s worst enemies. She wouldn’t come to visit, and she didn’t want Michael to. No one ever knew what happened, but I can’t believe either of them did anything so awful. Anyway, if one of them did, why would she have been mad at both of them? They were divorced.”
I thought about this for a minute. “So, how does that translate to Michael not having anyone else to ask to go to the funeral home with him?”
“It was very hard on Ruth. Larry had remarried and I guess she felt pretty alone. People thought Michael should have been here more often. He did come occasionally, maybe once a year. By himself, of course.”
It seemed to me to fall in the ‘nobody’s business’ category, but Ocean Alley is a small town. There is a collective mindset about some things, like “tourism is good” and “the ocean never really warms up until July,” but it seemed in this case it had been applied to Michael Riordan. Sort of a town perspective on gratitude, or lack of it.
Later I helped Aunt Madge put out margarine and jam with the warm bread, but excused myself and Jazz before the two couples came in to eat. I thought I would take a slow jog on the boardwalk before supper, maybe even try to talk Aunt Madge into letting me take her out for dinner, my treat. After all, she’d had a hard day, too.
NEWHART’S DINER IS SMALL and always crowded for dinner, a reflection of the great price for the off-season blue plate special. Today it was meatloaf, green beans, mashed potatoes made from real potatoes, gelatin salad, and chocolate cake. In the summer, the menu is largely fish, including sushi, which owner Arnie Newhart sells to the tourists for pretty high prices. From October to April, Arnie and his wife Marguerite take it easy, as he puts it, and they scale back the menu and add the blue plate special. I had been willing to splurge and take Aunt Madge to a more formal restaurant, but she wanted Newhart’s.
We were seated at a booth near the door, and three people had already stopped by to say hello to Aunt Madge. She introduced me each time, and I would make appropriate comments and turn my attention back to the walls, which are lined with photos, framed newspaper articles, and various Ocean Alley memorabilia. When I was here during high school, the collection was displayed in a helter-skelter fashion. Now, each news article is matted in a thin wood frame that is painted the same color as the booths. Aunt Madge told me on the short drive to the restaurant that Arnie’s aunt had left the couple $30,000 a few years ago and they put half of it into redecorating the diner.
Arnie served us himself. “How do you like my new photo?” he asked. He pointed to a framed head shot above the door. “Bob Newhart. And he autographed it, too.”
I looked more closely and could see the words but could not make them out. “What’s it say?”
“It says ‘To my favorite cousin.’” Arnie laughed.
Aunt Madge looked skeptical. “I didn’t know you were related to him.”
“We aren’t. I asked him to sign it that way, for a joke.” He looked quite pleased with himself.
“Why put it up so high?” I asked.
He frowned. “Some jerk would take it, wouldn’t you know?”
“Hey, Arnie.” A food server looked out from the kitchen. “When’s the next batch of meat loaf done?”
We turned our attention to our dinners. We had both gotten the special, and what the food lacked in glamour it made up in volume. I figured we’d be asking for doggie bags.
Aunt Madge had just started on her salad when she frowned. I turned to follow her gaze and saw an older woman in a blue wool coat, which kind of matched her hair. She had her coat on and money in her hand, making her way to the cash register by the door. “Who is she?” I asked.
“Elmira Washington,” she said, with a small frown.
“Ignore her,” I said, turning back to my food.
“I don’t like to be rude, but she’s the one who’s been letting people know why you moved here.”
“I heard. She’s a jerk. I don’t care what she says.” I pushed my dinner plate toward the edge of the table and pulled the cake toward me. “Is this as good as it looks?”
“Better,” said Aunt Madge, as she looked directly at her plate. I took this as a sign that Elmira was approaching.
“Good evening, Madge!” Her voice was loud and had a sing-song quality. I didn’t think I’d ever met her, but her voice alone was enough to make me want to stay far away from her.
“Evening, Elmira,” Aunt Madge said. She gave the woman a brief nod and continued eating, even after Elmira paused at our table.
“So,” Elmira said, “this is your niece.”
I gave her one of my best smiles. “Yes, the one you’ve been talking to folks about.”
Aunt Madge reached for her water glass, but she didn’t fool me. I could tell she was trying not to laugh.
Elmira stiffened. “Talking about you? I never…”
“Come on, Elmira,” I said. “There’s no point in being a gossip if you don’t want to own up to it.” I continued to smile pleasantly.
“Really, Jolie.” She looked to Aunt Madge, as if she expected her to reprimand me.
“How are you this evening, Elmira?” Aunt Madge asked her, as she patted her mouth with her napkin.
“Very well, thank you,” she replied stiffly. “I was going to ask how you two are, what with Ruth’s death.”
Suddenly, my stomach roiled. For a few minutes I’d forgotten about Ruth Riordan. “We’re fine.” I almost snapped the response.
Elmira ignored me and looked at Aunt Madge as she spoke. “Just a few days ago Ruth and Michael were in here for dinner.”