Balls of Fire” on that Stein-way of his. Mitch enjoyed being around the man every morning. He was good company, a good listener, and somehow, he made Mitch feel as if walking with him was the highlight of his day. Dodge also possessed a childlike excitement for life that Mitch truly envied. Hell, the man’s whole life was enviable. He had health, wealth, a beautiful renovated farmhouse on ten acres overlooking the Connecticut River. He had Martine, his long-legged, blond wife of twenty-six years who, as far as Mitch was concerned, was merely Grace Kelly in blue jeans. Between them Dodge and Martine had produced Esme, who happened to be one of the hottest and most talented young actresses in Hollywood.
And the reason why Mitch needed to speak to Dodge this morning. Because this was by no means a typical July for Dorset. Not since Esme Crockett and her actor husband, combustible blue-eyed Latino heartthrob Tito Molina, had rented a $3 million beachfront mansion for the summer. Tito and Esme, each of them twenty-three years old, were the biggest thing happening that summer as far the tabloids were concerned. She was a breathtakingly gorgeous Academy Award winner. He was People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, not to mention a man given to uncontrollable bouts of drinking, drugs, and rage. Just within the past year Tito had served two stints in drug rehab, thirty days in a Los Angeles County jail for criminal drug possession, and been sued twice by tabloid photographers for his violent behavior toward them in the street outside of the couple’s Malibu home. Their arrival in Dorset had sparked debate all over the village. Esme was one of Dorset’s own and the locals were justifiably proud of her. This was a girl, after all, who’d gotten her start on stage in the Dorset High production of Fiddler on the Roof. From there she’d starred in a summer revival of Neil Simon’s I Ought to Be in Pictures at the Ivoryton Playhouse, where she was spotted by a top New York casting director. He was searching for a young actress to play an underaged Roaring Twenties gun moll in the next Martin Scorsese crime epic. Esme won not only the part but an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Now she was one of Hollywood’s top draws.
But Dorset also cherished its decidedly un-Hampton low profile, and Esme and Tito had brought a media army with them, along with stargazers, gawkers, and more gawkers. The village was positively overrun by outsiders, many of them rude and loud-although none ruder or louder than Chrissie Huberman, the high-profile celebrity publicist who the golden couple had imported from New York to run interference for them.
“Oystercatchers at three o’clock, Mitch!” Dodge called out, pausing to aim his binoculars at the rocks down below. Dodge had a bristly gray crewcut, tufty black eyebrows, and a round face that frequently lit up with glee. He was no more than five feet nine but powerfully built, with a thick neck, heavy shoulders, and immense handsand feet. He wore a polo shirt, khaki shorts and size-15 hiking boots. “Two of them, see? They almost always travel in pairs.”
Mitch focused his own glasses on one of them. It was a big, thickset bird with a dark back, white belly, and the longest, flattest orange bill Mitch had ever seen. “Wow, a cartoon shorebird. What a hoot.”
“Not to mention a dead ringer for my uncle Heshie,” said Jeff as they resumed walking. “I wonder if he cheats at cards, too.” Jeff was an odd little puppy of a guy in his late thirties who had a habit of sucking in his cheeks like a fish whenever he was upset, which was pretty much all of the time lately-he was in the middle of a rather ugly divorce. Jeff had moppety red hair, crooked, geeky black-framed glasses, and freckly, undeniably weblike hands. He also happened to walk like a duck. Jeff possessed even less fashion sense than Mitch. Right now he had on a short-sleeved dress shirt of yellow polyester, madras shorts, and Teva sandals with dark brown socks.
“Raccoon poop at nine o’clock,” Dodge warned them so they wouldn’t step in the fresh, seed-speckled clump on the edge of the path.
The path cut down through the bluffs toward the beach now, and they started plowing their way out to the end of the Point’s narrow, mile-long ribbon of sand. It was a very special ribbon of sand. At its farthest tip was one of the few sanctuaries in all of New England where the endangered piping plovers came to lay their eggs every summer. There were two chicks this season. The Nature Conservancy had erected a wire cage to protect them from predators. Also a warning fence to keep walkers and their dogs out. One of the walking group’s assignments every morning was to make sure that the fence hadn’t been messed with in the night. Kids liked to have beer parties and bonfires out there and sometimes got rowdy.
“You know what I was thinking about this morning?” Dodge said, waving to an early morning kayaker who was working his way along close to shore. “I’ve traveled all over the world, and yet I would never want to live anywhere but here. Why is that?”
“Open up your eyes, Dodger,” Jeff said. No one else in the groupcalled him Dodger-so far as Mitch knew, no one else in the world did. “It’s awful damned pretty here.”
“If you ask me,” said Will, “it’s Sheffield Wiggins.”
“Old Sheff Wiggins? My God, I haven’t thought of him in ages.” To Mitch and Jeff, Dodge said, “He used to live in that big saltbox across from the Congregational church.”
“You mean the cream-colored one?” asked Jeff.
“That’s not called cream, my friend. That’s called Dorset yellow.”
“I’ve seen that same color all over New England. What do they call it if you’re in, say, Brattleboro?”
“They call it Dorset yellow.”
“Okay, I think we’re drifting off of the subject,” Will said.
“You mean this wasn’t a story about paint?” Mitch said.
“Yes, what about Sheff? He’s been dead for an honest twenty years.”
A faint smile crossed Will’s lean face. He was a good-looking guy with a strong jaw and clear, wide-set blue eyes. Yet he seemed totally unaware of his looks. He was very modest and soft-spoken. “Sheff’s sister, Harriet, called my mom about a week after he died. This was in January and the ground was frozen, so they had to wait until spring before they could bury him. My dad used to dig the graves over at the cemetery, see.” Will was a full- blooded swamp Yankee whose late father had done a variety of jobs around Dorset, including serving as Dodge’s gardener and handyman. Will was only a kid when he died. Dodge gave Will odd jobs after that and became like a second father to him. The two remained very close. “Anyway, Harriet called my mom to tell her that Rudy, Sheff’s parakeet, had died-”
“Honest to God, Will,” Jeff interjected. “I can’t imagine where this story is going.”
“She wanted to know if my mom would keep Rudy in our freezer until the spring so that he and Sheff could be buried together.”
“You mean in the same casket?” asked Mitch, his eyes widening.
“I do.”
“And did your mom?…”
“She did. And, yes, they are. Buried together, that is.”
“How old were you, Will?” Jeff asked.
“Ten, maybe.”
Jeff shuddered. “God, having that parakeet in my freezer all winter would have given me nightmares. What color was it? Wait, don’t even tell me.”
“My point,” Will said, “is that Harriet Wiggins thought nothing of calling up my mom to ask her. And my mom didn’t bat an eyelash. That’s Dorset.”
“In other words, everyone in town is totally crazy?” asked Jeff.
“I like to think of it as totally sane,” said Dodge as they trudged their way out to the point, the sun getting higher, the air warmer. The tide was going out. Dozens of semipalmated plovers were feeding at the water’s edge on spindly little legs. “Martine was talking about you last night, Mitch.”
“She was?”
“They desperately need tutors over at the Youth Services Bureau. All sorts of subjects-history, English, math.”
For weeks, Dodge had been trying to convince Mitch to join up with some local organization or another. Already, Mitch had turned down a chance to become recording secretary of the Shellfish Commission. Not the sort of thing he could see himself doing. It seemed so Ozzie Nelson. But Mitch was coming to understand that getting involved was part of the deal when you lived in a small town. Will Durslag served on the volunteer fire department. Jeff was a literacy volunteer.
“We have a bunch of really talented kids in this town, but they’re just not motivated. Would lighting a fire under one of them be your kind of deal?”
“Maybe. I mean, sure.”
“Great. I’ll get you an application.”
