encountering it-her floors had not been polyurethaned yet either. Damn. Tim would never be done by Friday. She had hoped to be all moved in by then-Friday was the Deacon’s birthday. This could get complicated, she reflected anxiously.
Way complicated.
By seven Des was back at the inn eating her Grape-Nuts with banana and skim milk in the quaint dining room. She still wore her fleece sweats, since once she got dressed for work she scared the hell out of people. As she ate she found herself glancing around at her fellow guests, wondering once again about the identity of her indefatigable upstairs gymnasts.
It had been a gradual process of elimination. The first night she’d heard them, a young power couple from New York had been staying there, eager to impress everyone in the place, especially each other. Des had been positive they were the ones, but they left the next morning and the X-games continued. Next her suspicion had fallen on a honeymoon couple. The man did look like a computer nerd, and his bride was as plain as milk, but appearance was no measuring stick for ardor. Age was, however, and the honeymooners were well into their sixties. Des doubted that they could keep up such a torrid pace night after night, Viagra or not.
Now that she’d heard those light footsteps on the stairs this morning, her suspicions fell elsewhere-on two single men who had been staying at the Frederick House all along.
One was Colin Falconer, the school superintendent. If Des had been told that Colin was the town pastor, she would have believed it. He was a gentle soul in his early forties, with a shy, kindly manner. Very tall and thin, almost storklike, with cheeks like polished apples and neatly brushed ginger-colored hair. Behind his rimless glasses Colin’s eyes were earnest and sincere. He was very popular with the kids in town. Played the banjo at school assemblies. Took the Cub Scouts out to Peck Point to see the piping plovers. Colin was also an ardent environmentalist who rode his bicycle to school every day, dressed in a tweed jacket and corduroy trousers, a jaunty red knit scarf wrapped around his throat. Colin was staying at the Frederick House because he and his wife, Greta, were presently separated. Des was not up on the details.
The other single man in residence was someone Des did not know. He was a big, weather-beaten man in his thirties, muscular and ruggedly handsome, with uncombed straw-colored hair, crinkly blond hairs on his big arms and no wedding ring on his finger. He looked as if he did some kind of outdoor work. He also seemed very chilly and standoffish. He did not smile or say good morning when he came down for breakfast every morning, generally clad in a polo shirt and jeans. Just sat there pecking away at the small laptop computer that he brought down with him every morning, his eyes rarely leaving its screen. Des did not like his face. It was a hard face, a user’s face. Her money was on him. Possibly he was bonking one of the housekeepers or waitresses. He was certainly the type that a pliant, not-too-bright smalltown girl would go for.
“Nu, did your roofer finish yet?” Bella Tillis plopped down in the chair opposite Des now, dressed in a sweatshirt and knit pants.
“Girl, I am not even going to answer that,” Des grumbled back at her.
“You know what your problem is, Desiree? And I say this with nothing but love in my heart…” Bella paused to pour herself some herbal tea from the pot on the table. “You are too nice.”
“So that’s it,” Des said, smiling at her.
Bella was a short, feisty, entirely round widow from Brooklyn in her seventies with four grown children, eight grandchildren and nine million causes. She’d lived next door to Des in Woodbridge. After the breakup with Brandon, Bella had rescued her. Brought her homemade mushroom-barley soup. Dragged her out on her feral-cat rescue patrol every morning. Des quickly became ardently devoted to saving the strays-it is a known fact in pet rescue circles that people who are trying to save stray animals are really trying to save themselves. Staking out supermarket dumpsters together in the pre-dawn cold, the two of them had become unexpectedly close. Bella was her best friend now. “If you want results,” she declared, stabbing the air with a stubby finger, “you’ve got to kick some tuchos.”
“I try to treat people with respect.”
“You see, that’s where you’re wrong. Tim’s not people. He’s a contractor.”
“What’s up with you today?” Des asked, to get her off of the subject.
Bella took a loud slurp of her tea and sat back in her chair, shaking her head in disgust. “I’m looking at more places, if I can get a realtor to return one of my calls.” When Des relocated to Dorset, Bella decided she would, too. Her house in Woodbridge was on the market, and she was in town house-hunting. Or trying. “But I’m getting nowhere fast. I finally got through to that realtor on Dorset Street, that Takai Frye. Know what she did when I told her my price range? She laughed at me. Can you imagine the nerve?” The waitress brought Bella her All-Bran and berries. Bella thanked her and got busy with it. “What kind of a name is Takai Frye anyway?” she demanded, munching. “Sounds like a Polynesian fast food dish. No, no, this is hopeless. If I pay the going rate for what they call a starter home around here I’ll have nothing left to leave my grandkids. Not one penny.”
“So why don’t you just rent something?”
“I can’t. There’s nothing. And what landlord would be willing to put up with our cats?” Bella presently had nineteen boarders looking for good homes-eight in her garage, eleven in her basement.
“The cats can come live with me,” Des assured her. “And so can you. My guest bedroom is yours for as long as you like.”
“Desiree, I appreciate the offer. Truly, I do. But rooming with you is not an option. For one thing-and I can tell you this because we have no secrets from each other-I snore in the night. Late in our marriage, Morris took to sleeping in Abe’s room at the far end of the hall, with the door closed, wearing earplugs. Besides which, you’re young and gorgeous and you’re in love with a nice Jewish boy who treats you like a princess.”
“Um, okay, I think you’re confusing us with another couple.”
Bella raised an eyebrow at her impishly. “Am I? How so?”
“Well, for starters, the aforementioned L-word has not exactly arisen.”
“Well, something has,” Bella cracked. “Or should I say someone.”
“Bella, you are being bad today. Better ease off of that All-Bran.”
“My point is you don’t want some fat old broad around the house when you two want to have wild sex on the kitchen floor at one o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Okay, now I know you’re confusing us with another couple.” Des finished off her cereal, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. “Actually, we aren’t even a couple yet, per se.”
“Tie that bull outside, as we used to say on Nostrand Avenue. Are you seeing anyone else?”
“You know I’m not.”
“Is he?”
“Not if he wants to remain among the walking and talking.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Who says there’s a problem?”
Bella didn’t respond, just stared at her intently from across the table.
Des sighed. “The problem is that I am so not in control of my emotions.”
“Congratulations. That means you’re someone who’s in love.”
“Or a candidate to be a serial killer. Bella, this is a vastly more insidious creature than I’ve ever encountered before. The man keeps doing deplorable things to me. Like when I was packing up my house last week, feeling bluer than blue, he shows up out of nowhere with a bunch of wildflowers he’d picked from his yard. You know what he said to me? He said that they reminded him of the color of my eyes in the candlelight. Shut up, that is so not fair…” Come to think of it, they had ended up on her kitchen floor that afternoon. “I mean, no one is that sweet. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Which you know it will. If he’s human. Only, he’s not human. He’s straight out of one of his horror movies-The Stepford Boyfriend. Except he doesn’t cook, unless you count that damned American chop suey of his, which I sure as hell don’t.”
Bella reached across the table and grabbed Des’s hand in her Vulcan death grip. “Listen to me, Desiree, all men are animals.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Some are wolves. Some are asses…”
“I repeat, tell me-”
“Mitch Berger is a bunny rabbit.”
Des instantly softened, her face breaking into a silly smile. “Isn’t he? I just melt into a puddle when I’m
