“And you were right, Mitch,” Abby added. “It’s a lovely little store. Jeffrey even laid in a supply of Cocoa Pebbles for me. Can you believe he remembered?”
“Where’s Frankie, out in the car?”
Abby’s saucer eyes widened in panic. “Listen, I barely knew that yutz, understand? And, besides, he’s history.”
“She fired his tight, hairy buns last night,” translated Chrissie.
“I’ve decided to travel a little lighter from now on,” Abby acknowledged, her eyes following Jeff as he scampered back into the stockroom for another load of books. “Maybe I should help him with those. He gets back spasms if he shleps too much weight.”
“You stay here and sign-I’ll shlep.” Chrissie dashed off to help him.
“You may be seeing a bit more of me in Dorset from now on, Mitch,” Abby confided.
“Working on a new book?”
“A new venture,” she replied, graciously handing over a signed book and moving on to the next kid. “You might even say I’m looking out for my own interests by being here today. This whole operation is going into receivership, and my business manager thinks it has a really huge upside if some new investor is willing to take it on.”
“And that investor is you?”
“Why not? I love food, I love New England…”
“And they’ve barely scratched the synergy surface here,” Chrissie said, setting down a huge load of books. “My God, I can see Emeril Legasse and Jacques Pepin giving cooking demonstrations out there while Jeff’s selling copies of their cookbooks in here. In fact, I can see you here, Mitch.”
“Me?”
“Sure, dinner and a movie with Mitch Berger, noted New York film critic. What do you think?”
“We’ll talk,” he replied. To Abby he said, “So you’ll be Jeff’s landlord?”
“Partner is more like it,” she said.
“We’re not divorced yet, Mitch,” Jeff pointed out as he dumped another load of books in front of her. “Technically, we’re still husband and wife.”
“Technically, we still are,” Abby allowed.
“I knew it-you two are going to end up back together again, aren’t you?”
“Not a chance,” protested Jeff. “Word of honor, Mitch. That could never, ever happen.”
“Not in a million years,” Abby chimed in, blushing furiously. “Like, ab-so-tootly never.”
Esme was building a huge sand castle with Becca on the beach near Big Sister’s lighthouse. Bitsy was watching them from her covered porch, fanning herself with her floppy straw hat. The day was bright and hot, with very little breeze.
“She’s hiding from the press,” Bitsy told Mitch as he stood there next to her, observing the two of them out there in their string bikinis, working away. “I don’t blame the poor thing. She can stay here as long as she wants to, as far as I’m concerned.”
“How long will she?” Mitch wondered.
“You’ll have to ask her that.”
He went down the wooden steps to the beach and plowed through the hot dry sand toward them. They were on their hands and knees before their rising castle, both of them filled with laughter and high spirits. From fifty feet away, they looked like a pair of impudent, playful fourteen-year-old schoolgirls full of lollipop dreams. From closer up they were the very picture of innocence lost-two battle-hardened veterans who between them had logged enough years on the dark side for ten lifetimes. Becca was nothing but skin and bone, with dark circles under her sunken eyes. Esme had that fat, scabby lip to go with the expression of dazed confusion that wracked her delicate, lovely face. Her eyes were those of a woman who was now completely lost and fearful.
“This is quite some castle,” Mitch observed, because it was. A good five feet high, with turrets, towers, and a fine, deep moat.
“Are you going to help us?” demanded Becca, wetting her hands in a water pail. “Or are you just going to stand there like a big boss man?”
Mitch promptly flopped down on his knees and started scooping out more sand for the moat. “How long are you planning to stick around, Esme?”
“Until they release Tito’s body,” she answered quietly as she continued molding the castle walls with her hands. “I want to take him back to Bakersfield and bury him with his parents.”
“That’s a really nice idea,” Mitch said. “Listen, there’s something important I need to talk to you about. The night Tito died, do you remember when he came home and was rummaging around in his closet before he went back out?”
Esme didn’t respond for a moment. Just kept fashioning the castle wall with her shapely hands. “I remember,” she finally said in a voice that came from somewhere on the other side of the ocean.
“It was his script he was getting. He must have mailed it to me on his way up to Chapman Falls that night. I just got it today. It really does exist, Esme.”
“How is it?” Becca asked eagerly. She seemed vastly more excited about Mitch’s discovery than Esme, who’d scarcely reacted at all.
“I have to tell you, I was pretty knocked out by it. Honestly, it’s terrific. He called it The Bright Silver Star.”
Esme sat back on her haunches now, swiping at the hair in her face. “I never once saw him working on it. He must have done it when I was asleep.” She let out a heavy sigh, her breasts straining inside the tiny bikini top. “Tito did get up a lot in the middle of the night. The poor thing had such awful nightmares.”
“I have it back at my house,” Mitch said, climbing to his feet. “I’ll go get it for you right now.”
“No, don’t,” Esme said abruptly. “I mean, please don’t. Tito wanted you to have it.”
“It’s your property, Esme.”
“He gave it to you.”
“But this is something of great value. You can get a lot of money for it.”
“I don’t want it. I don’t even want to read it. It will just make me sad. I’m tired of being sad, Mitch. Can’t you understand that?”
“Sure I can. Only, what am I supposed to do with it?”
“Something good,” she said simply. “Something decent. You’re a smart man. You’ll know what to do.”
“Getting a little dry here,” Becca announced, taking their empty water pails down to the water’s edge to fill them.
“Can we talk about something personal?” Mitch asked Esme.
“If you’d like.”
“Did you know that Tito was gay?”
The actress peered at him curiously. “You must think I’m a total bimbo, asking me that.”
“No, not at all. It’s just… Will told me that you didn’t know.”
“Will was wrong.”
“He said that’s what Tito told him.”
“Then Tito lied to him,” she said, her voice growing heated now. “I always knew he was gay. It was obvious. Gay is gay.”
“And yet you stayed together,” Mitch said. “Why?”
“I loved him. Is that so hard to understand?”
“Not to me,” said Becca, returning now with the water pails. “I think you guys were really great together. And I always will.”
“Besides,” Esme added, her face darkening, “after what I went through with Daddy dearest, Tito and me just seemed kind of…”
“Kind of what, Esme?”
“Normal.”
“How much did Tito know about that?”
“Not a thing.”
“Why, were you afraid of what he might do to Dodge?”
