“And utterly fake,” she argued. “They carry sharp knives, Mitch. Everyone is into everyone else’s business. It’s what they do for amusement. There’s no privacy. And no secrets. Village life is one big soap opera.”
“I have nothing against soap operas.”
“You will when you discover you’ve become a character in one.”
Since the advance screenings for the first big wave of summer film releases had already crested, Mitch informed Lacy that he intended to spend most of his summer out there. He would come in for any screenings as they arose but it figured to be pretty quiet until the studios started gearing up again for fall. She agreed that this would be fine, and wished him luck. There was no more talk from her about where Mitch’s life was heading.
“I just want to be left alone to work on my book, Lacy,” he explained.
“Good luck. But that won’t happen, Mitch.”
“Yes, it will,” he insisted. “Why wouldn’t it?”
He brought out the brown corduroy love seat that was crammed into the corner of his study, collecting newspapers and dust. He brought out his Stratocaster and stack, figuring he now had the perfect setup for playing as loudly as he wanted. He brought out two pieces of art, some dishes and pots and pans, bedding and linens, the stereo and television that they’d bought for Fire Island. Mitch’s super gladly helped him load it all into the Studey. He liked Mitch. Mitch was the only tenant who gave him free tickets to Broadway musicals.
Mitch needed a bed. He bought one from a mattress outlet in Westbrook. The rest he scavenged. He found a rocker and kitchen table in Dolly’s barn. A beat-up little rowboat worked as a coffee table with a storm window fitted atop it. A steamer trunk served as a nightstand. He bought a comfortably worn armchair for ten dollars at a tag sale in town. Also a set of gallantly hideous bright yellow kitchen chairs.
At the town dump he found a fine old raised panel oak door which he mounted on sawhorses to serve as his desk. Actually, the dump was a picker’s paradise. He almost always came back from there with more than he took in-a pair of shell-back aluminum garden chairs, lamps, bookcases. And he was generally in very good company. Mitch rubbed shoulders with a former mayor of New York City, a Tony Award-winning actress and a bestselling author of children’s books at the dump. They, too, were picking.
He put in long, hard days outfitting his new cottage. For nourishment he feasted on prodigious quantities of his famous American Chop Suey. His recipe was a closely guarded secret: one large jar of Ragu, one pound of ground beef, one box of spaghetti, an onion, a green pepper and a package of frozen mixed vegetables. Garlic salt to taste. Maisie had pronounced it dog food and refused to eat it. Mitch could survive on it for several days straight. The nights were still cool on Big Sister. After dinner, he would make a fire in the fireplace and stretch out with a pint of Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond and a spoon, gazing at it. He would fall into bed early, lulled to sleep by the hard work and the rhythm of the water slapping gently against the rocks outside his little cottage. He had not slept so soundly in months. The bright morning sunlight would awaken him well before seven. The Fisher’s Island Ferry was already making its return trip to New London. The fishermen and sailors were already out. He would stand at the living room window, breathing in the clean sea air and watching them, the slanted early-morning light on the water reminding him of Edward Hopper’s Maine seacoast paintings.
He liked to walk the island’s rocky little beach in the morning, particularly when the tide was out. He rolled up his pants and slogged his way barefoot through the tidal pools, marveling at the diversity of life forms to be found there. Sargassum, Irish moss, bright green sea lettuce. Crabs and oysters. Orange-beaked oyster catchers, terns and cormorants. Geese flew right overhead in V-formation, honking loudly.
And he liked to observe his fellow islanders as they went about their lives of vigorous and accomplished leisure. Frequently, as dusk approached, he would sit out on a lawn chair and watch them-competing on the island’s tennis court or returning home to the dock from a sail, sunburned and exhilarated. For Mitch, watching from his front-row seat, these bluebloods were as exotic as the characters in a Merchant-Ivory movie. There was handsome young Evan, Dolly and Bud’s son, who drove a Porsche 911 and shared the stone lighthouse-keeper’s cottage with Jamie, an older man. Those two spent a lot of time together on their boat. There was Bud and his very hot young wife, Mandy, a tall, athletic blonde with good legs who drove a vintage MGA and regularly destroyed the lawyer on the tennis court. One afternoon, they had a croquet party on their lawn. Their guests arrived in white flannels. The men wore straw boaters on their heads. The sounds of laughter and the clinking of glasses wafted across the island toward Mitch like bubbles on a current of warm air. There was Dolly’s mysterious brother, Redfield, who left for work before dawn and was regularly gone for days at a time. Mitch didn’t know what he did for work, but he decided he had to be in the CIA. His wife, Bitsy, was a chubby hausfrau who spent endless hours in her garden, where she grew flowers and vegetables with spectacular success.
Mitch they utterly ignored. No one welcomed him. No one invited him over for a drink. He was sharing the island with them, but he was not one of them.
His sleeping loft was not wired for electricity. In order to read in bed, Mitch found it necessary to buy an oil lamp at the village’s magnificently cluttered hardware store. Dennis, the jovial, applecheeked owner, assured him it would also come in plenty handy during hurricane season. Having established that Mitch was a new resident, Dennis insisted on opening an account for him. And when Mitch gave him his address he was treated to quite some reaction.
For one thing, the name Niles Seymour did not go down too well around the tubby shopkeeper. “He still owes me two hundred bucks, the cheap bastard,” Dennis snarled, his round cheeks reddening. “You’d think he could settle his accounts with the poor local business people before he flies the coop on her.” For another, the man seemed genuinely startled by the news that Dolly had rented out her carriage house. “You are a brave man moving into that place,” he confided to Mitch over the counter in a low, husky voice. “Me, I don’t think I’d have the nerve.”
Dennis did not elaborate. And Mitch did not have the slightest idea what he meant. But he did wonder-same as he had wondered when Bud Havenhurst said he hoped Mitch wouldn’t have any reason to feel sorry.
Mitch was toodling home on the Old Shore Road in his truck, puzzling over this, when a state trooper in a gray cruiser came up on his tail, flashing his lights at him. Mitch pulled over onto the shoulder and waited. Out climbed a tall, broad-shouldered figure in his fifties wearing a trimly tailored uniform and a wide-brimmed Smokey the Bear hat. His sideburns were a bristly gray, face square and leathery, posture erect, stomach flat. One look at him and Mitch immediately thought of Randolph Scott in A Lawless Street.
“Was I speeding?” Mitch asked him incredulously through his open window. “I didn’t think I could even go fifty without a strong tail wind.”
“No, sir, nothing like that,” the trooper said politely. “I recognized the old truck. Didn’t recognize the man behind the wheel. I figured you must be Mr. Berger.”
“That’s right…”
“Just wanted to say hello. I like to get to know folks. Answer any questions they might have.” He stuck a big brown hand through the window. “I’m Tal Bliss, the resident trooper.”
Mitch shook it. “So you’re the welcome wagon?”
Bliss smiled at him. “Yessir. Something like that.”
“That’s very nice of you. I appreciate it.” Mitch decided it would be more neighborly if he got out and joined him. He did so-and immediately felt utterly dwarfed. Tal Bliss was at least six foot four, and that was without the big hat. With it, the lawman was a calm, soft-spoken giant.
“You’re a good deal younger than I imagined,” he said to Mitch, waving at two old characters in a Jeep as they passed by. “When I heard you were a widower I was expecting an older gentleman.”
“Believe me, it came as something of a surprise to me, too.”
“I lost a lot of my friends-and myself-in ’Nam,” Bliss said quietly. “Never did think I’d heal. The hardest part was being patient.” His eyes drifted over to the nearby salt marsh, where an osprey was wafting on the breeze, circling. “This is a good place for it. You picked a good place.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Mitch, who was not expecting to have this conversation with this particular stranger.
“Dolly’s an old, old friend, you know.” Bliss kicked at the hard dirt with the toe of his boot. “We grew up together.”
“She seems very nice.”
“She is,” Bliss affirmed, coloring slightly. “She’s about the nicest person I’ve ever known.”
“How well do you know Bud Havenhurst?”
“Quite well,” he replied. “Why?”
