The Mermaid Collector (17 page)

“What do you think?” Tom said, growing annoyed as he always did when Dean blew into a situation, insistent as a puppy. “We’ve only just moved in, Dean. Calm down.”

“I’m gonna ask Tess and see if I like her answer better.” Dean turned to her, grinning.

Tess offered him a smile, helpless again to his infectious energy. “I should go back and work,” she said. “I’m finishing a sculpture for the library.”

“What a couple of deadbeats!” Dean cried. “What kind of welcome party is this?”

“It’s not a party, Dean,” Tom said firmly, removing his brother’s arm.

“It is
too
a party,” said Dean, walking backward now to face them. “I just got here, and I’m saying we need to celebrate. And don’t even think about trying to take her out to dinner, Tommy,” Dean warned, pointing between Tom and Tess. “I want to keep an eye on you two kids. I say, let’s do dinner here. Tonight. I’ll make us a five-star meal. Tess, baby, how do you feel about lobster?”

Tom rolled his eyes. “We’re not buying lobster, Dean.…”

“I love it,” Tess said, throwing a playful look at Tom.

Dean clapped his hands decidedly. “Then lobster it is. Tell you what, Tess. You bring the wine, and we’ll cover the rest.”

“I can do that,” she agreed. “Red or white?”

“Better bring both. Wouldn’t want any wine’s feelings getting hurt, now would we?”

Tom sighed. “Dean, she just said she has to work.”

“Oh, fuck all that. Work is for when you’re dead—am I right?” Dean pointed over his shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to piss like a racehorse. See you tonight, fair lady.” He swept up Tess’s hand and delivered it a quick kiss. “And thanks for coming swimming with me,” he said as he started back to the house. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

Tom watched Dean climb the hill. “He’s already been in the water?” Tom turned to Tess, looking panicked. “Christ, how long has he been here? I wasn’t gone more than an hour.”

Tess smiled up at him. “It’s okay,” she said. “We had fun. I like him.”

“I can see that.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Not at all. Dean’s a great guy. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t agree with you.”

“Is he always like this?” she asked.

“Except when he’s not.” Tom glanced at the house, hearing the back door thump closed. “He’s up and down. You never know.”

They walked up the lawn to the driveway. When they reached her car, Tess said, “He told me about the rock-climbing accident. You must have been so scared for him.”

Tom frowned. Rock climbing—so that was Dean’s newest story.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but I didn’t want to wake you,” he said. “I wanted you to sleep. I thought we could have a nice breakfast and…”

Tess rose on her tiptoes and quieted him with a kiss, soft at first, then deepening when his hand came up to cradle her face. He tasted cold, she thought, like fall.

“He’s wrong, you know,” she whispered.

Tom leaned back, searching her upturned face. “About what?”

“You’re not too old for me.”

He chuckled. “Oh great, is that what he told you?”

“Among other things.” Tess slipped free of his embrace and slid into the VW.

Tom drove his hands into his pockets and leaned down to speak to her through the window. “I’d really rather you didn’t bring wine. He can’t handle it, and frankly, neither can I.”

“There’s that line again,” Tess said, pointing to his forehead.

“Yeah, well. You’ll see it a lot when Dean’s around.”

But I’m here now too,
she wanted to say, but didn’t.

Tom waited until Tess had rounded the wall of pines before he started back across the lawn to the house, aware of the small but insistent smile that came with him. For too long he’d seen life as a series of accidents waiting to happen, tragedies waiting to unfold. Just when did he decide all things unplanned brought chaos and grief? He’d steeled himself against the bad for so long that he’d also avoided any chance at the good.

Well, no more.

It was going to be different here. No more would he let his guilt get in the way. No more excuses. Dean would manage well in Cradle Harbor. It was a small town, a pretty town, a kind town—save a few crotchety old women. Maybe he wouldn’t have to watch over Dean here, not as he had before. There was only one bar, and people looked out for their neighbors; that was clear.

Yes, it was going to be different, and now that Dean was here, Tom would tell him so. He’d explain it all as best he could. It wouldn’t make sense at first—it barely did to Tom himself; yet he would try to explain how he came
to be falling for a woman he barely knew, how he came to have this sensation of freedom and promise coursing through him—not in strange bursts, but as a constant, driving stream. He would try to explain how he came to see hope in the smallest things, how vegetables tasted different, how sour sea air smelled sweet. Like pears.

BUZZ WAS IN THE DRIVEWAY
, knocking signs into the shoulder, when Tess pulled down to the cove. She made her way to the woodshop, knowing he’d be over to check in. Sure enough, ten minutes later she heard his heavy steps crunching over the gravel.

“I was getting worried,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I was going to see you today.”

Tess glanced up, seeing him studying her, sure he feared she’d been with Pete. As she turned back to her work, her gaze stopped at her mother’s studio, where the white sedan was still parked beside the cottage.

Buzz saw where she looked and frowned. “I heard you made quite an introduction yesterday.”

“She was hanging Mom’s quilt off the railing like an old bath mat.”

“You could have just asked her to put it back instead of making a scene.”

“Is that what she told you? That I made a scene?”

“She didn’t have to tell me. I took a wild guess.”

Tess returned to her sculpture, making her guideline
fatter than she needed to, sure she was angry enough to break the tip of the pencil right off.

“The woman didn’t know, Tessie. She didn’t mean any harm.”

“I never said she did.”

“Well, don’t. It’s not her you’re mad at, so don’t take it out on her,” Buzz said. “Besides, you’re the one who insisted I leave that goddamn quilt on the bed in there all this time.”

Tess spun to face him again. “Because you promised no one would ever use it!”

They glared at each other. The room fell silent.

Tess glanced again at the cottage, thinking that as frustrated as she was, her anger seemed far less raw than it had the day before. Yesterday she’d left the cove, ready to see someone under her wheels. Now all she wanted to do was drive to the Point and climb back into that lumpy bed with Tom Grace.

Buzz turned to go. Tess called to him.

“I was at the keeper’s house.”

He stopped, then looked back at her.

“Last night,” she said. “In case you were wondering.”

“You were?”

Tess met his quizzical gaze, a small smile pressing at her lips, try as she did to subdue it.

“You told me to be neighborly, so I was being neighborly.”

“You bring him a pie?” Buzz asked.

“A cheesecake, actually.”

Buzz grinned. “Cheesecake’s good.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said, but not harshly. “I’ve only just met him, really.”

“Well,” Buzz replied with a smile, turning back to the door, “you have to start somewhere, don’t you?”

“MISTER DON
FUCKING
JUAN!”

Tom had made Dean soup and stuck a hunk of bread on the edge of the bowl. Now he sat across from his brother as he ate, watching him tear the bread in two, dunking one end and chewing it eagerly.

“Just eat your soup, will you,” Tom said, “before it gets cold.”

“Seriously, Tommy. You don’t go to bed with a woman for two years, and then you’re here one day—”

“Two,” Tom corrected. “Two days.”

“Well, good,” Dean said between slurps, “because it’s about time you got laid.”

Tom sighed. “Why do you have to say it like that?”

“Oh, forgive me, dear brother.” Dean chuckled as he clapped a hand over his heart, bending his head in phony reverence. “I mean, it’s about time you made
sweet, tender love
to your soul mate after
two whole days
.” Dean picked up his napkin and chucked it playfully at Tom.

Tom caught it, folded it neatly, and set it back on the table. “So, how was the drive?”

Dean shrugged. “Shitty. Long.”

“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have just come with me when I left.”

“Because we needed two cars.”

“What does that have to do with anything? We still could have left together.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Dean pushed his soup away, leaned back, and fished his cigarettes from his pocket. Tom cleared his brother’s bowl, carried it to the counter, and drew down a chipped saucer from the cabinet, seeing for the first time a bottle of scotch on the counter.

“I thought you were trying to quit those,” Tom said quietly, crossing back to the table and setting the saucer in front of Dean to use as an ashtray.

“I was.” Dean dragged deeply, tossing his lighter onto the table. “Now I’m not.”

There was the challenge; Tom recognized it well—the thump of a closed door, the flat but fierce look that warned Tom to leave it alone, whatever grievance he’d been stewing over.

But Tom wasn’t backing down this time. He returned to his seat, arms folded. “There’s an outpatient clinic in Port Chester,” he began, carefully but firmly. “They said you could come in for a consultation as soon as you got here. I explained the situation with the DUIs—”

“You what?”

“It’s not rehab, Dean. It’s nothing like that. I just thought you could talk to someone.” Tom gave Dean a
weary look. “You said you’d see someone when we got here.”

“I said I’d
think
about it.”

“No, you said you’d
do
it.”

Dean crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

Tom lowered his gaze. “Why did you tell her it was a rock-climbing accident?”

Dean pocketed his lighter. “Because I got bored with the scuba-diving-off-the-Great-Barrier-Reef story.”

“Well, I haven’t told her anything yet,” Tom said.

“Good, so don’t. Now you can cover for me.”

“I’m not covering for you, Dean. Not anymore.”

Dean frowned at his brother. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s not supposed to mean anything. I’m just saying I think things need to be different here. I’m saying I
want
them to be.”

Dean got up and crossed to the fridge, tugging open the door as if he hadn’t heard a word. “So, what exactly
am
I making us for dinner?” he said. “You haven’t got shit in here except—Hey!” He reached for the springform pan. “What’s this?”

“Cheesecake,” Tom said without looking. “Pumpkin cheesecake.”

“Oh baby. Come to Papa.” Dean pulled out the pan, whipping off the tinfoil and staring longingly at what remained. “Don’t tell me you made this.”

“I didn’t. Tess did.”

“Oh, you lucky prick. That beautiful woman made you a cheesecake?”

“She didn’t make it for
me
,” Tom said, standing up and moving to the sink.

He could feel Dean’s study as he emptied the ashtray; he could predict the look of suspicion narrowing his brother’s pale eyes.

“She’s married, isn’t she?”

“No, she’s not married,” said Tom. “There
was
somebody else.…”

“Oh shit, here we go again.” Dean pulled a fork out of the silver drawer, closed it with his hip, and carried the pan back to the table, dropping carefully back into his seat and digging in.

Tom said nothing to defend himself, just watched his brother inhale the last of Tess’s cheesecake, not stopping until he’d scraped the sides clean. Tom knew there was no point in arguing his brother’s wounding comparison. With the reminder, the damage had been done. That was all that mattered, all that
ever
mattered when it came to that night, the one that had changed everything.

LIZ ARANSON WAS GOING TO
be at the party. It was the only reason Tom had wanted to go.

Most of the time,
all
of the time really, he hated high school parties. And why wouldn’t he? Standing in the
shadow of dynamic Dean was hardly his idea of a celebration, and Tom had never been able to hold alcohol.

So when Dean had declined, Tom had been indignant. “Since when don’t you want to go to one of Nathan Fielding’s parties?”

“Since when do
you
?” was Dean’s response, and it had quieted Tom long enough for Dean to get to the fridge and snap a soda off its plastic collar.

“I just felt like getting out, that’s all.”

“It’s Liz Aranson, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.”

Dean snorted behind the lip of the can. “You are such a shitty liar. She’s back with Fielding, Tommy. Move on.”

Tom knew this already. He’d heard the news just that week, but it hadn’t deterred him from wanting to go to this party. Quite the opposite, it only left him more resigned to getting there.

“We’ll just go for a few minutes,” Tom said.

“So go if you want to go,” said Dean, pushing past him for the hall. “You’re a big boy.”

Tom followed his brother into the living room. “I can’t go without you—you know that. They didn’t invite me; they invited you.”

“Fielding doesn’t give a shit. He barely even knows who comes and goes.”

“Come on, Dean. I promise we’ll be back by ten.”

“I have a meet tomorrow, Tommy.”

“I know. Which is why we won’t stay long.”

“Fine,” Dean said, relenting at last. “But you’re driving.”

THE SNOW HADN’T YET STARTED
when they climbed into their father’s Datsun, though the air was close and tinged pink with an impending storm.

Liz Aranson had been a fluke, really. Girls like Liz didn’t fool around with guys like him; Tom knew that as surely as he knew his own birthday. Maybe they did when they were drunk or bored, but Liz Aranson had been neither when she and Tom had fallen together that night at her parents’ house. Not that it had been entirely without luck. He’d been assigned to give her his biology notes after her two-week absence with mono, and when he’d delivered them, she’d taken one look at the pages and burst into tears. He’d offered then and there to take her through them, line by line. “You should be a teacher,” she said, sniffling. “You really should.” He’d smiled. He’d never thought about that. Medical school was his plan. He’d been accepted early admission to Case Western, and all that was left was to wait.