Chapter Five
The Ellington house is the last one on the beach—big, turn-of-the-last-century, graceful, stretching along the shore like a contented cat in the sun. It’s got weathered dove-gray shin-gles and gray-green trim, two turrets, and a porch that sweeps three-quarters around, like the tail of a cat cozying close.
Taken with all that, the carport where Mrs. E.’s Cadillac is parked looks so . . . wrong. There should be a carriage house there, an eager groom in livery waiting to take the reins of your horse.
I walk up the side path to the kitchen door, wondering if this is the correct thing to do. You never know on the island.
Half the houses Mom cleans welcome her in the front and offer her a drink, the other half insist she go around back and take off her shoes.
Toeing off my flip-flops, I look down at my feet, wishing for a second I had dainty ones like Viv, or that my nails were decorated with polish and not a Band-Aid from stubbing my toe on the seawall.
Mrs. Ellington’s glossy oak side door is propped open by a worn brick, but the screen door is closed. “Hi . . . ?” I call down the shady hallway. “Um, hello? . . . Mrs. Ellington?”
A television murmurs in the distance. A porcelain clock shaped like a starfish ticks loudly. From where I am I can see the gleam of a silver pitcher on the kitchen table, a tumble of zinnias glowing in it. I put my hand on the screen door, poised to push it open, then hesitate and call out again.
This time, the TV is immediately silenced. Then I hear click/
thump, click/thump coming down the hardwood floor of the hallway, and there’s Mrs. Ellington. Her hair’s whiter and she’s holding a cane, one ankle tightly wrapped in an Ace bandage, but she’s still beautifully dressed, pearls on, smile broad.
“Gwen! Your mother says you are Gwen now, not Gwennie.
I’m delighted to see you.” Propping her cane against the wall, she pulls open the screen door, then holds out both hands.
I slide my bag o’ lobsters down behind my back and take her hands, her skin loose and fragile as worn silk.
“So you’re to be my babysitter this summer! How it does come round,” Mrs. Ellington continues. “When you were tiny, I used to hold you in my lap on the porch while your mother cleaned. You were a dear little thing . . . those big brown eyes, that cloud of curls.”
There’s a note of melancholy in her voice when she uses the word babysitter that makes me say, “I’m just here to be—”A friend? A companion? A watchdog? “I’m just here to keep you company.”
Mrs. Ellington squeezes my hands, lets them go. “That’s lovely. I was just getting ready to enjoy a nice cool drink on the porch. How do you like your iced tea?”
I don’t drink tea, so I draw a blank. Luckily Mrs. Ellington steams ahead. “It was quite warm this morning, so I made a big batch of wild cranberry, which should be perfect now. Per-sonally, I adore it cold and very sweet with lemon.”
“That sounds good,” I say, glancing around the kitchen.
It looks the same as when Nic and I were little—morning-sky-pale-blue walls, appliances creamy white, navy-and-white checked cloth on the table, another Crayola-bright bunch of zinnias in a cobalt glass pitcher on the counter.
When Mom makes iced tea it’s a two-step process—scooping out the sugary powder and mixing it with cold water. Mrs.
Ellington’s iced tea is a production involving implements I never knew existed. First there’s the bucket for ice and spe-cial silver tongs. Then the lemon and another silver thingie to squeeze it. Then a little slanted bowl to set the tea bag in. Then another little bowl for the squeezed lemon.
Mrs. E.’s blue-veined hand opens the cabinet, flutters like a trapped bird, hovering between two glass canisters. After a second, she selects one, the one with rice in it. The one I know from years of coastal weather must contain the salt. Rice keeps salt from sticking in the moist heat. She places it on the counter, starting to screw off the top.
I put my hand on top of hers gently. “I think maybe it’s the other one.”
Mrs. Ellington looks up at me, her hazel eyes blank for a moment. Then they clear, clouds moving away from the sun.
She touches her fingers to her temple. “Of course. Ever since that silly fall I’ve been all in a muddle.” She shifts the canister back onto the shelf, takes down the other one.
Then scooping the sugar into a silver canister . . . and some sort of scalloped spoon . . . This process was obviously designed by someone who didn’t have to do their own dishes. Or polish their own silver. Mrs. Ellington again asks me how I like my tea, and I want to say “with everything”
just to see how it all works. But I repeat “Cold and sweet,” so she removes a frosted-cold glass from the freezer. She blends sugar in the bottom and finally pours tea for me, then does the same for herself.
“Let’s have this on the porch,” she suggests.
I start to follow her, but remember Grandpa Ben’s gift. Just in time. One of the lobsters is again crawling for its life, this time scrabbling down the hallway toward the back door. I hast-ily snatch it up and put it, indignantly waving claws and all, back into the soggy paper bag.
I’d have expected Mrs. Ellington to be horrified, hand pressed against her heart, but instead she’s laughing. “Dear Ben Cruz,” she says. “Still setting those traps?”
“Every week all summer.” I open the refrigerator, shove the bag in, hoping that Houdini the lobster and its cohort will be stupefied by the cold before I have to slay them. I pass on Uncle Ben’s message, translated entirely from Portuguese.
Mrs. Ellington sets down her cane again to clasp her hands together. “Lobsters and love. Two essentials of life. Do come with me to the porch, Gwen dear—if you wouldn’t mind carrying the glasses? There we can discuss the other essentials of life.”
The porch too—just exactly the same—all old white wicker furniture with the worn, teal-colored hammock swaying in the breeze. The Ellingtons’ wide lawn fades into sea oats, sand, and then the azure ocean. To the far left is Whale Rock, a huge boulder that looks exactly like a beached humpback whale. At