size bed and automatic coffee maker, I called All Souls and left my number, then set out for the wharf in search of food.
Here, at least, the town hadn’t changed The wharf was still lined with charter fishing boats, souvenir shops, and restaurants. I chose the one at the very end, an unpretentious place with booths and a shell-and-fishnet motif. When the waitress brought my crab sandwich, I asked her how far it was to Salmon Bay.
“About ten miles up the shoreline highway. I don’t know why you’d want to go there, though.”
“Why not? What’s it like?”
“Like nothing. A bunch of tumbledown houses. A few beer-and-bait shacks.”
“People up there still fish for a living?”
“If you can call it a living.”
“What about a place called The Tidepools? Do you know anything about that?”
She rested one hip against the table of the opposite booth, obviously welcoming a long conversation. She was in her fifties and, even in the subdued light of the restaurant, looked tired. “Yeah. It’s a pretty fancy place, like a nursing home, only they don’t let you in there unless you’re dying.”
“Is it expensive?”
“I guess it would be. There was an article in the paper about it once. Says they have a new way of dealing with death there.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Seems to me there’s only one way to deal with it-and that’s to go through it.”
“I guess.”
She shifted from one foot to the other, a thoughtful look on her face. “You know, I get the feeling they’re playing games up there.”
“Games?”
“You know, trying to pretend they’re really not going to die. Playing games to keep the dark away.”
The phrase sent a shiver up my spine. “Aren’t we all?”
“Yeah, aren’t we?” She straightened, glancing over at the cash register where a dark-haired man was counting change. “I better get back to work. You want something to drink with that? Some wine?”
“Sure. White.”
I ate my crab sandwich and drank my wine, and afterward I had a second glass, staring out at the water and the people who passed on the wharf. It was not the height of the season, but the tourists were in good supply. They strolled hand-in-hand or walked together, yet apart. I imagined that for some couples the vacation had brought them closer; for others, it had only reminded them of their loneliness.
I thought about Greg and me and wondered how it would have been for us. We’d never had the chance to find out, and now we never would. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever again be one of the ones holding hands and, for a time, banishing loneliness-playing games to keep my own dark away.
Chapter 4
By morning, my private demons had returned to whichever corner of my mind they usually resided in-for a long stay, I hoped. I got up, turned the coffee maker on, took a shower, and then called Jane Anthony’s mother. She was reluctant to talk to any friend of Jane’s at first, but finally agreed to meet me at eleven, after she did her marketing. I had eggs and bacon in the motel coffee shop and then set out for Salmon Bay.
It was a warm day with only the slightest hint of fall in the air, and what fog there was promised to burn off quickly. I followed the Shoreline Highway north, past an expansive housing development with a golf course, into farmland. Pumpkin fields, colorful with their ripe fruit, stretched west toward the sea; to the east, were the sun- browned hills. After eight or nine miles, the land curved, forming a little bay where boats rode at anchor. Half a mile further a left-turn lane with a flashing ember light and a weathered sign indicated the road to Salmon Bay.
It was actually more of a lane, rough and not recently paved. I put the car in low gear and bumped across a field covered with scrub vegetation. The pavement meandered for a while and then paralleled the shore. The first thing I came to was a boatyard surrounded by a chain link fence. Full of no-nonsense fishing craft upon hoists for repairs, it seemed deserted save for one man who was scraping paint from the bow of an old green boat. I continued on, past Johnson’s Marine Supply, Rose’s Crab Shack, and a general store. Soon unpaved lanes lined with ramshackle houses began appearing to my right. None of them had street signs.
I hadn’t asked Mrs. Anthony for directions to her house. Who would have thought it necessary in a village the size of Salmon Bay? I kept going, passing the Shorebird Bar and a place advertising bait, and finally ended up at a dilapidated pier that looked like nobody had set foot on it in years. Two brown-and-white mongrels trotted along the side of the road, but otherwise. I saw no one. All the businesses except for the general store were closed.
I turned the MG in front of the pier and went all the way back to the boatyard. No, there wasn’t a single street sign in town. After parking near the gap in the chain link fence, I got out of the car and went into the yard. The shack that served as an office was also closed, and the only sounds were the cries of seagulls and the steady scraping of the man’s putty knife on the boat. I started toward him, glancing at the craft at anchor.
These were not the luxurious pleasure boats of the Port San Marco marinas, but clumsy utilitarian vessels that had seen better days. A wharf with fuel pumps ran along the edge of the water, but there was no one to man them and no customers either. Had it not been for the man working on the boat, I would have felt I’d stepped into a long-abandoned stage set for a seafaring drama. My feet crunched on the gravel as I approached him, but the man did not look around.
“Excuse me,” I said.
He glared at me, nodded curtly, and went on with his scraping. He had black hair, a full beard, and although he couldn’t have been much more than forty, a face as tanned and leathery as an old man’s.
“I’m looking for Hydrangea Lane. Can you-”
“Who are you looking for?”
“I’m sorry?”
“A Mrs. Anthony. Sylvia Anthony.”
The putty knife faltered in its regular motion. “She knows you’re coming?”
“Yes, she does.”
He stopped his work and wiped the putty knife on his faded jeans. “You sure?”
I’d expected coldness, but not the third degree. “Of course I’m sure. Look-”
“Just asking” His tone was mild, but his dark eyes were narrowed in suspicion.
“Well, can you tell me how to get there? I didn’t see any street signs.”
“Of course not.” His lips turned up in a mirthless smile. “There aren’t any.”
“How does anyone find anybody else?”
“Don’t need street signs to do that.”
“Maybe not if you live here, but what about outsiders?”
The smile dropped off his face. “We don’t welcome outsiders here.” There was ill-concealed menace in the words and his hand seemed to tighten on the putty knife.
I stood my ground. “I guess you don’t. But Mrs. Anthony is expecting me, and I don’t want to keep her waiting.”
The man regarded me for a moment, then turned back to the boat and began scraping again. “You go along to the last lane on the right. Take it to the end, then turn left. It’s a white house with a driftwood fence and blue hydrangeas, lots of them. That’s where you’ll find her.”
I thanked him and got out of there, vaguely oppressed by his senseless hostility. Were all the residents of the village like that? I wondered. Or had I stumbled across the one hardened case?
The boatyard man had meant it about lots of hydrangeas. They filled Mrs. Anthony’s tiny front yard, their blue blossoms escaping through the misshapen crossbars of the driftwood fence and cascading onto the front porch. The house was freshly painted, in contrast to its neighbors, which were shabby and, in a couple of cases, surrounded by junk-filled yards. I went through the gate and along a shell-bordered walk, and knocked at the door. The shades on the windows were pulled to the sills and for a moment I wondered if Jane’s mother had returned from her marketing trip.
