As if on cue the birdsong stilled above them in the trees, and all the leaves hung quietly a moment, as though waiting.
Boudreau, having taken little notice of the latest movements on the beach, had looked away instead to where the waters of the wider bay showed blue between the gaps amid the tangle of the woods. Now he said, “The wind is changing.”
“Yes,” said Jean-Philippe, still taking in the family scene below them. “I believe you may be right.”
Charley
“There’s a storm coming.”
Strange thing to hear on a perfectly cloudless October day. Stranger by far when the warning was given to you by a vampire.
Adjusting his teeth, Don Petrella stepped out of the booth where, for most of this morning, as part of our Fall Harvest Festival, he had been posing for photos with fans for five dollars. He glanced skyward, adding, “A big storm. My scar’s acting up.”
I liked Don. I’d been too young to watch his show back in the day, with its crime-fighting vampire detective, but he had been famous enough that I’d seen him in interviews, and I remembered. Back then he’d been lean, dark, and dangerous-looking, and viewers had voted him “Sexiest Man on TV” two years running. His waist might have thickened a little, his eyes showing hints of the puffiness men sometimes got when they drank to excess, and his hair might have silvered to gunmetal grey, but when he shot me that lopsided smile, I could still see the sex appeal.
Rachel, on learning that Don was a Wilde House trustee, had said, “Lucky you. He’s really hot.”
“He’s a grandfather.”
“So? He’s still hot.”
I’d conceded the point. “But he seems like he’s pretty high maintenance.”
She’d glanced at me then without comment, and gone back to helping fold laundry, but I’d caught the edge of her smirk.
“What?”
She’d shaken her head. “Nothing.”
“Rachel.”
“It’s just that I’m trying to picture how bad he must be if you think he’s high maintenance.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
She had rolled her eyes. “Look who you’re dating.”
“Who, Tyler? He isn’t high maintenance.”
“Oh, really?” She’d caught Tyler’s cadence in a pretty good imitation: “Hey, babe, can you make me a sandwich? Can you take my car for an oil change? Can you move your whole life half an inch to the left, babe? You’re blocking my light.”
I had tossed her a T-shirt. “Come on, he’s not like that.”
She’d said, “He’s exactly like that, and you know it.”
At that point, she’d only met Tyler a handful of times, and I’d still held out hope that I’d get them to like one another someday.
But I wasn’t so sure anymore after how she’d reacted on Labour Day weekend, when I’d taken her back to college.
She’d been quiet for most of our drive to the city that morning, but after I’d helped her to carry her boxes and suitcases up to her dorm room she’d sighed and said, “Look, I’ve been thinking. I know when you asked me a couple of weeks ago if I’d have dinner with you guys tonight, I said no, but I understand Tyler’s important to you, so I’m changing my answer. I’ll do it.”
I’d looked down, pretending that there was a wrinkle I needed to smooth on her bedspread while I tried to figure out how to respond. Rachel knew me too well. She’d said, knowing the answer, “He bailed on you, didn’t he?”
“Well . . .”
“He’s not coming.”
“He had something come up with one of his friends,” I had said, and I’d tried to make it sound as though the thing that had “come up” was more important than a boys’ night in Atlantic City.
Rachel hadn’t bought it. “He is such an ass.”
I’d known there wasn’t any point in arguing. I’d taken her for lunch instead, the two of us alone, and then we’d snagged last-minute tickets to a Broadway show, and after that I’d dropped her at her dorm again and spent the night all by myself in the fancy, expensive hotel room that wasn’t refundable.
Tyler had offered again to repay me when he’d called the following night, but I’d shrugged it off. “No, it’s okay.”
“Well, we’ll go somewhere nice for the long weekend. My treat.”
“It can’t be that weekend.”
“Why not? Rachel’s going up to spend time with your parents, right? To celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving? So you’ll be on your own.”
“I’ll be working. That’s our Fall Harvest Festival weekend, remember?”
He hadn’t remembered, or so I’d assumed from the change in his tone. “So then when will I see you? I have to work weekends the rest of September, you know that.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I had promised, and he’d let it drop. Which was good, because I’d had enough on my plate these past weeks.
I’d had meetings to deal with our Fall Harvest Festival plans and more meetings to deal with our annual budget, and in between I’d been working with Frank to track down all the furniture and smaller items his family had given to other museums. At least three of those donations had been made over a century ago, but we were making progress, and most of the curators I’d spoken to were happy to arrange to let us have the items back here to display, on what amounted to permanent loan.
The only one who’d been a bit resistant was the curator/director of a large historic house museum in New Jersey. According to the records he’d acquired the “Spanish chair with leather seat” that had been listed in the inventory, but despite repeated emails and three phone calls I’d heard nothing back from him.
On all of those calls his assistant had answered and seemed very helpful and nice, and the third time I’d called she had offered apologies. “I don’t know why he hasn’t called you back yet. I’m so sorry.”
“Maybe I could just email you all of the details, and then you could pass those on. Would that be easier for him?”
“It might.”
As she’d started to give me her email address I’d said, “Hang on, I just need a pen.” There’d been everything else on my desk at that moment, but nothing to write with. Not even a pencil. I’d bent down to open a drawer, and repeated, “Hang on.”
Modern phones weren’t designed to be cradled between ear and shoulder like old phones had been. Mine had kept slipping as I searched my desk drawers. No luck.
Then I’d straightened.
The voice on the phone had asked, “Are you still there?”
I had stared at the top of my desk. At the pen that was now sitting perfectly placed on the neatly stacked papers that filled the same space where, a heartbeat before, there’d been total disorder.
I’d answered her carefully, “Yes, I’m still here.” She had told me her email address. I had copied it down. I’d said, “Thank you.”
And then, having ended the phone call, I’d said it again, only this time the words had been meant for whatever it was that was sharing my room: “Thank you.”
There’d been no answer. No cold brush of air, no mysterious footsteps, no movement at all. But I’d known that I wasn’t alone.
I’d begun to accept it. I still hadn’t wrapped my mind comfortably around the concept of ghosts, but I’d come to that level of compromise where I no longer denied they existed, I just hadn’t let my thoughts dwell on that too long.
And then had come the morning when I’d opened up my office door to find a pair of steel-toed work boots on my desk, beside a brand-new yellow hardhat.
Those, I’d guessed, had not come from the ghost.
The boots had been brand-new as well. I’d put them on and tied the laces tightly, put the hardhat on, and gone downstairs. Outside, I’d found Sam working on the scaffolding his men had set up all along the north side of the house.
“Okay,” I’d said. “I take the hint.”
He’d grinned. “I only told you twenty times.” He’d looked down at my feet. “They fit all right?”
“Like they were made for me. How did you know my size?”
“Well,” he’d said, “yesterday when I was eating my lunch and you tried to sneak past without letting me see you were wearing your running shoes . . .”
“Oh.” I had shaded my eyes, looking up. “You saw that?”