media outlet after another. Everyone wanted a comment, a quote, something, anything. The very same tabloid TV vans that had been following Tito and Esme all around Dorset were now pulled up on Peck’s Point at the gate to the Big Sister causeway, desperate to getout there and film him. Mitch was having none of it. He did not want to comment. He did not want to appear on camera.
He was not an entertainer. He was a critic.
Or at least he used to be.
He sat at his desk, an ice pack pressed against his jaw, and called Lacy back.
“Honestly, Mitch, I thought your review was gentle compared with a lot of the others I’ve seen,” she said after he’d given her his version of what happened. Among her many attributes Lacy was fiercely protective of her critics. “Hell, this film has been positively trashed by everyone. People are walking out in droves. Why did he pick on you?”
“Because I was there,” Mitch grunted, adjusting his ice pack. It didn’t help with the pain, but it gave him something to do. “He’s a genuinely talented actor. I feel sorry for him, actually.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ve seen these so-called bad boys come and go over the years.” Lacy was in her late fifties and claimed to have bedded Irwin Shaw and Mickey Mantle in her youth, not to mention Nelson Rockefeller. “They all have talent. It’s what they do with it that counts.”
“What do I do, Lacy? What’s my next move?”
“You shut it down,” she said firmly.
The two of them cobbled together a brief statement that would be posted immediately on the newspaper’s Web site-just as soon as Lacy ran it past someone with a larger office and, possibly, a law degree. It would also appear on the lead arts page in tomorrow’s paper. The statement would serve as Mitch’s one and only response to the attack:
This newspaper’s chief film critic, Mitchell Berger, and the actor Tito Molina engaged in a spirited creative disagreement yesterday afternoon in a popular eating establishment in Dorset, Connecticut. Mr. Berger feels the matter is fully resolved. He believes that Mr. Molina is a gifted artist with a wonderful career ahead ofhim and he looks forward to his future film work with as much excitement as ever.
After he and Lacy were done Mitch swallowed three Advils and spent the rest of the afternoon ducking phone calls. His phone machine got quite a workout that day.
He did pick up when Dodge called. And was pleased that Dodge wanted to broker a peace deal at the beach club. It seemed like a genuine solution. Dodge was smart and tactful. He’d make the perfect intermediary.
As for Des, well, Mitch hoped she’d figure out what she needed to figure out-and soon-because when she was stuck in the deep muck she had a way of dragging him down there with her, whether he felt like going or not. And that could be awfully damned hard to handle sometimes.
Not that love was ever supposed to be an easy thing.
When it came time to leave he dressed in a white oxford button-down shirt, khaki shorts, and Topsiders. He had a welt on his jaw and red finger marks around his throat, otherwise he looked fit, casual, and terrific. It was a warm, hazy evening with very little breeze. The sun hung low over the Sound, casting everything in a soft, rosy glow. He threw a pair of swim trunks and a towel into the front seat of his truck, then moseyed over to Bitsy Peck’s garden with a galvanized steel bucket to pilfer a dozen ears of corn.
It was Will who’d taught Mitch the best way to cook corn-plunge the fresh-picked ears directly into a bucket of water, soak them for at least a half hour, then throw them on the grill to steam in their husks.
Bitsy was busy digging up her pea patch with a fork, dressed in cutoff overalls and a big, floppy straw hat. She was a round, bubbly little blue blood in her fifties with a snub nose and freckles, and just a remarkably avid and tireless gardener. Hundreds of species of flowers, vegetables, and herbs grew in her vast, multileveled garden. Actually, Bitsy’s garden looked more like a commercial nursery than it did somebody’s yard. When Mitch first arrived on Big Sister shehad gleefully stepped into the role of his garden guru. The lady was a fountain of advice and seedlings and composted cow manure. Mitch liked her a lot.
Although lately she hadn’t been nearly as upbeat as usual. Not since her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Becca, a ballet dancer, had come home to mom and the massive three-story shingled Victorian summer cottage where she’d grown up. Becca had gotten herself addicted to heroin out in San Francisco, and had just finished a stint at the Silver Hill Rehab Clinic in New Canaan. Mostly, the two ladies kept to themselves. Hardly left the island at all, and seldom had guests. Bitsy went grocery shopping every couple of days. Otherwise, Mitch would find her toiling diligently in her garden refuge from dawn until dusk.
Becca was out there working with her right now, weeding a flower bed in a halter top and shorts, her own efforts rather distracted and halfhearted. Mitch had seen old photographs around the house of Becca in her full ballerina getup. She had been a slender and graceful young swan of a girl. Truly lovely. But that was before the needle did its damage. Now she was a gaunt, frail shell of a woman with haunted eyes that were sunk deep in their sockets and rimmed with dark circles. Her long brown hair was twisted into tight braids that looked like two lifeless hunks of rope.
Mitch smiled and said hello to her. Becca mouthed “Hello” in polite response, although scarcely a whisper came out. She was painfully quiet. This, too, was the needle, according to Bitsy, who said Becca had been the most outgoing, popular girl in her high school class. Looking at her now, Mitch found it hard to believe.
“So sorry about all of those press vans at the gate today, Bitsy,” he said, toting his bucket over toward her corn patch.
“They didn’t bother us one bit,” Bitsy assured him.
“Well, they sure bothered me.”
Bitsy swiped at the perspiration on her upper lip, leaving a smear of mud behind. “My, my, aren’t you all fresh scrubbed and smell-goody,” she observed with motherly pride as he began stripping choice ears of corn off their stalks and plunging them into hisbucket. “And here we are like a pair of sweaty farm animals, aren’t we, Becca?”
“Yes, Mother,” Becca responded faintly.
“What’s the occasion, Mitch?” Bitsy asked, her good cheer a bit forced.
“I’ve been invited to the beach club. I’m kind of anxious to check the place out, actually. No one’s ever invited me before.”
“And who did, dare I ask?”
“Dodge Crockett.”
Becca immediately dropped her trowel, which clattered off a low stone retaining wall onto the ground. She stared down at it briefly, but didn’t pick it up. Just walked away instead-straight into the house, her stride still uncommonly graceful.
Bitsy watched her go, biting down fretfully on her lower lip. “She doesn’t like to talk about Dodge.”
“I noticed. How come?”
“I’m worried about that girl, Mitch. She spends too much time alone. It’s not good for her. She needs stimulation. I wish Esme would come see her.”
Mitch glanced at her curiously. “They know each other?”
“Oh my, yes. They were best friends when they were girls. The great Esme Crockett practically grew up out here. Slept over almost every night during the summer. There were slumber parties and pillow fights, and poor little Jeremy was so in love with her.” Becca’s younger brother, a senior at Duke, was away serving a summer internship in Washington. “He’d follow her around like a gawky little puppy. The house was full of kids and laughter then,” Bitsy recalled fondly. “Not like now.” She went back to her forking, throwing every fiber of her body into turning over the soil. “I didn’t realize you and Dodge had become buddies.”
“We walk together every morning. I like him a lot.”
“People do think very highly of Dodge,” she allowed, nodding. “There was even talk about the party running him for lieutenant governor some years back. I suppose it’s just as well they didn’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Yes, he’s a bright, enthusiastic fellow, all right. More than willing to do his part around town. So is Martine, who is so generous with her time, always ready to throw herself body and soul behind a good cause. And such a decorative creature, too.” Now Bitsy trailed off, glancing up at Mitch uncertainly. “Just promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t be too taken in by them. Will you do that for me, Mitch?”
“Okay, sure,” Mitch said, frowning at her. “But why?” “Because they’re cannibals,” she said quietly. “They eat
