the morning. Well, salut. Bottoms up, you sweet old soul. I suppose I’d better shove off.”
“Thick as chowdah out there tonight Dee-Dee,” Amos said, draining his whiskey. “Woman alone out in that pea souper in that little toy Boston Whaler of yours. No instruments, a’ tall. Easy to lose your bearings in a fog bank that way. Yup. That’s what happened to that Kennedy boy a few summers ago, you may remembah, over to the Vineyard. Got himself into a fog bank. My opinion is that poor boy ran out of luck and experience at about the same time.”
“I’ve been making that crossing twice a day since I was six years old, Amos, and you know it. Follow your ears out to that old bell buoy and hang a right. Yacht Club docks dead ahead. I could do it blindfolded.”
She’d found Siri on the floor with the kids, reading Black Beauty aloud. The light from Laura’s spinning carousel lamp was causing shadowy horses to gallop around the room. “Mommy,” Laura had said with a big smile. “We like Siri! She’s funny! She doesn’t speak Spanish but she speaks another funny language.”
“I’m glad you like her, darling. That means you’ll listen to her when she says it’s night-night time, right?” She kissed them both good-bye and said to Siri, “I’ll be home by midnight. You know the rules, I’m sure. No smoking, no drinking, no boys. Okay?”
“Yes, Mrs. Slade,” Siri said smiling. “I know the rules. Would it be all right if I watch TV after they’re asleep?”
“We don’t own a TV, Siri. Sorry. You will find plenty of good books in the library downstairs.”
She’d found Amos still on the dock. He insisted she follow his boat over to the club. On his way home, anyway.
“Thanks, Amos,” she said, climbing down into the Whaler. “And tell Millie I hope she feels better soon.”
“Yup. Ain’t like her to come down with a bug. Girl has a cast-iron stomach. Always has. Never sick a day in her life that I can recall.”
“I should be home by midnight if you want to pick up the babysitter then, Amos.”
“Sure thing. See you then, dear girl.”
She followed the halo of the hazy white running light on Amos’s stern through the fog, around old Number Nine, clanging mournfully, and fifteen minutes later tied up at the club dock. Eight on the button. She shrugged off her foul-weather gear, shook the beaded moisture off the old yellow jacket, and threw it down across the boat’s thwart seat. Her hair was damp and matted, but what the hell. Wasn’t like this was some big embassy do where she had to—
“Deirdre, darling,” a bourbon-soaked male voice said, emerging from the fog. “Popped out for a quick puff and saw your yacht steaming in.”
“Oh, hello, Graham. Fancy meeting you here.”
“Well, Michelle’s just popped down to New York with the kids for some birthday shopping or something and I’m afraid they’ve stuck you next to me. Table nine. The two bachelors, as it were.”
“No, Graham, you’re the bachelor wannabe. I’m the happily married woman. Could you possibly find someone and order me a whiskey?”
“Certainly, my dear. Bit nippy out for early June, this.”
She had to smile. She loved Americans who’d lived in London for a few years and came home with the most agonizingly affected British accents. Next thing she knew, he’d be inviting her to “nip round to his flat for a capper.” He pulled the club’s front door open for her and she waded in, waiting for it, yes, here it came, “After you, luv.”
Graham was one of the club’s self-proclaimed Wharf Rats. Never took their boats out, would never dare venture out off the perilous rocky coast of Maine. No, they just sat there in their stern chairs and drank, their fancy radars spinning merrily away on the sunniest afternoons. He was insufferable, unctuous was the word, but easy on the eyes in his black tie, and she allowed herself to just float on the buzz of conversation, the bad hors d’oeuvres, the mindless chitchat about children and summer plans.
She’d heard it all a thousand times, the major themes, the minor variations, and, smiling and nodding at appropriate moments, she could get through one of these cocktail buffets in her sleep.
When they were finally seated, Graham was on her right. He kept refilling her wineglass, trying to get her tipsy, and after a while she tired of putting her hand over the top to stop him. The wine was a way to float over the thing, look down upon the actors on the stage, paying just enough attention to be ready for the cue for her next line.
Faye Gilchrist, two seats away on her left, was saying something about children being sent home from school that day. High fevers. Something about tainted flu shots.
“Faye, excuse me for interrupting,” Deirdre said. “What did you say about the children being sent home?”
“Well, Dee-Dee, it’s just the most horrendous thing, darling. Apparently they’ve all come down with horrific fevers and stomach cramps. One child went into convulsions and is apparently in critical condition.”
“Lord. What happened?” Deirdre asked. “Something bad in the cafeteria food at lunch?”
“Oh, no, my dear. It was in the morning. A nurse in the gym giving flu shots. When the children started getting violently ill, someone called the hospital. Apparently, well, from what I hear, this nurse wasn’t even on their records and—well, she’s been suspended pending investigation. Isn’t it awful? To think that our children—”
“Excuse me,” Deirdre said, knocking over a big goblet of red wine as she got to her feet. “Sorry, I’m not feeling well and I must rush off…sorry. You must excuse me…”
She somehow managed to navigate the crowded dining room and took the shortest route through the club towards the docks, through the kitchen, everyone back there smiling at her and saying good evening, Mrs. Slade. She reached the payphone in the pantry, pulled the door closed and opened her evening bag. No cell phones allowed in the club but she managed to find two quarters at the bottom of the bag and slammed them into the machine.
“Hello, Slade residence.”
“Siri, it’s Mrs. Slade.”
“Oh, hi! What’s up?”
“Nothing. I just…just wanted to check on…to check…”
“Mrs. Slade?”
“Check on the children. Are they all right?”
“Oh, yes. Sleeping like two little angels.”
“Angels,” Deirdre said and was about to hang up.
“Will your husband be coming back with you, Mrs. Slade?”
“My husband? Why do you—”
She burst out the swinging double doors and took a deep breath, willing her heart to slow. It had grown colder, and the swirling fog wrapping itself around her snapped her out of the daze of wine and words, clicking everything back into sharp focus.
Line was tied up. Cast-iron stomach. Never sick a day in her life. Nurse, pediatrics. Nurse suspended pending investigation.
She’d been staring numbly at Faye Gilchrist, her salad fork poised in mid-air, when Siri’s breezy lie turned her insides to ice.
No, Siri, the line was most definitely not tied up.
There were two lines running under the bay and into the house. The old one they’d had since she was a child. And then a later one Evan had had installed. If the second line rang, it was one of a small number of people they’d given the number to. It was the only line Evan used when he called from Madrid or Washington because he knew she’d pick up. That was the line they’d been on tonight. The only call she’d taken on the old one was when her sister had called from San Obispo around three that afternoon.
Line was tied up. Sorry, Mrs. Slade.
She leapt down into the Whaler and yanked the starter rope. It came to life, thank God, on the first pull. Graham was swaying on the dock above her, sloshing drink in hand, saying something ridiculous about a nightcap in his fluty Queen’s Guards accent, and she threw the lines off and twisted the throttle wide open, up on plane before she was twenty yards from the dock.
