Читать книгу The Life Of Reilly - Sue Civil-Brown - Страница 6

“GOT A LADY COMING over tonight?”

The voice came from the yard next door, and it belonged to Zedediah Burch, aka Zed-the-Bait-Guy. Not that there were that many other Zeds on the island. None, in fact. But somehow it was always Zed-the-Bait-Guy, run together into a single word. He caught and sold fresh chum for the commercial fishermen and the few sport fishing boats the island boasted. You could always count on Zed-the-Bait-Guy for exactly what you needed to entice the kind of fish you were looking for.

Jack paused in the process of spreading out a tablecloth on the slightly rusted wrought-iron table on his small brick patio, a patio that rippled and dipped a bit because his predecessor hadn’t thought to make a level bed of sand to support the bricks, all of which looked like castoffs from a brickyard.

“What makes you think that?” he asked.

Zed-the-Bait-Guy shrugged and moved a wad of chewing tobacco a little more firmly into his cheek. “Tablecloth.”

“Oh.” Jack looked at the oilcloth he was spreading, a sheet he’d bought from Hanratty’s general store a couple years back. It was already cracking along the folds. “You think this is fancy?”

“I think you wouldn’t bother for me.”

Jack had to grin at that. “You’re right, Zed. For you I’d let the rust show.”

“Rust adds to the taste,” Zed said. “So who is it?”

“The new teacher. I thought I’d be neighborly.”

Zed nodded and turned to spit into the spittoon he kept on his side of the property line. The wad landed with an audible ping that sent a shudder up the back of Jack’s neck. He had to remind himself that millions of viewers watched baseball players do exactly the same thing, dozens of times during each game. In glorious full-color close-ups, too. The reminder didn’t help.

Jack swallowed hard, then spoke. “Could you move that a bit farther away while we’re eating tonight?”

Zed shrugged. “Won’t be here. Big game tonight.”

“What are the stakes?” Jack asked. He didn’t have to ask what kind of game. Poker was the game on Treasure Island.

“Me and Fred Hanks are facing off with Mick McDonald and Joe Cranston. Winner gets to ask Hester LeBlanc out to dinner.”

“Ahh.”

Hester had been widowed nearly two years ago when her fisherman husband had gone overboard during a severe squall. There was some talk that he’d gone over on purpose, rather than face Hester’s anger, since she’d just learned he was sparking around with Camille Danza. Some went so far as to suggest that Hester…arranged…his untimely demise, although Jack saw nothing in her that would hint at such a possibility. Even on Treasure Island, sometimes gossip was just that—gossip.

Regardless, thus far the island’s middle-aged, would-be lotharios had respected her mourning. Apparently they had decided that long enough was long enough. “Good luck.”

Zed shrugged philosophically. “Winning only means you get to ask first. Doesn’t mean she’ll say yes.”

“True.”

“That schoolteacher though…” He smiled. “Quite a looker.”

“I hadn’t noticed.” Liar! Jack felt instantly ashamed. He was a preacher for heaven’s sake. He had no business lying.

“Maybe you’d better get Buck Shanahan to fly you into Aruba to get your eyes checked then,” Zed suggested, with a twinkle in his eye that made clear he did not believe Jack one iota. “Whatcha making?”

“Just salad and grilled fish.”

Zed shook his head. “No dessert? No taters? Look, I got a couple of bakers you can have. They’re pretty good cooked on the coals. And I have some rum cake I picked up in Aruba. Ain’t been opened yet.”

Before Jack could say anything, Zed was hurrying toward his back door.

Jack shook his head smiling and finished spreading the oilcloth. That was one of the things he loved about this island. On Treasure Island, being neighborly wasn’t merely a phrase; it was a way of life.

When Lynn Reilly arrived, he had the potatoes wrapped in foil and baking on the hot gray coals, the salad tossed and ready, and the fish seasoned with dill and on the rack, prepped for grilling.

He’d even dug into the church’s supply of communion wine for a bottle of passable red, although he knew he ought to serve white wine with fish. Unfortunately, his budget didn’t allow for buying wine from the only supplier on the island, the casino.

“Smells delicious,” Lynn said appreciatively as she took a chair at the table and accepted a goblet of wine. She had changed into a white sun dress that caught the red of the setting sun and reflected it back as pink. The sky overhead seemed ablaze tonight, probably heralding rain for tomorrow.

“I hope you like dill,” he said, reaching for the wire fish basket.

“Love it.”

The potatoes were done, so he put the fish over the heat. It would cook fast, even though the coals had burned low and gray.

“It’s nice of you to ask me over,” Lynn said. “I’ve got a grill out back and a patio, too, but every time I think of actually grilling, it seems like a lot of effort for just one person.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “It’s funny, when I moved here, I was sure I was going to do all those things that come to mind when you move to the tropics. Cook and eat outside, spend hours on the beach or in the water.”

He chuckled. “I know. It turns out you have to make a real effort to do it, just the way it was back on the mainland. I fight the battle every day.”

“Do you?” She looped her fingers and rested her chin on them.

“Yep. I don’t know if I feel lazy because of the weather and the lifestyle, or if it really is too much trouble to bother for one person.”

She laughed, her brown eyes sparkling. “The air is so soft it’s almost tranquilizing. And when the breeze starts in the evening, I just want to sit and enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I have the same problem. The longer you live here, the easier it gets to function, but at first you just want to go on a permanent vacation.”

“School keeps me busy, thank goodness. Some things can’t be ignored, like teaching a class or grading papers.”

He flipped the fish over. “How many students do you have?”

“All the younger ones, from first grade up, then high-school physics one and two, calculus and applied math.” She held up a hand. “It sounds like a lot, but I have a total of sixty-three kids.”

“So lots of individual attention.”

“That’s what attracted me to this island in the first place. With so few students in each class, we can explore more. And I can get some of them hooked on science, so maybe they’ll stay with it after they graduate.”

“You’re passionate,” he said.

She shrugged. “There’s a big universe out there. The better we understand it, the better we’ll know our place in it. Maybe we’ll stop acting as if it’s our garbage can. In fact, I’m thinking about taking some of the classes for a day trip to see an island in its pristine state. One of the parents was telling me about a small island where the only fresh water is in a rain pool.”

Jack nodded and tested the fish. “Just another minute.” Looking back at her, he continued. “I don’t think our kids appreciate just how important rain pools are to our survival. This island would be dead without rain, and we’ve had to dig cisterns in the rock up on the volcano to ensure a steady flow. It doesn’t just magically come out of the tap.”

“It doesn’t do that anywhere,” she smiled. “But yes, I agree with your point. It’s especially critical on these small islands. Rain is truly the gift of life.”

“Just ask Mars.” He removed the fish from the grill and gently pushed a piece onto each plate. Then he forked the potatoes out of the coals and set them on a separate plate. “I’m afraid I don’t have sour cream, but I have—”

“I have sour cream,” said a voice from the deepening dark next door. Zed stepped out of the shadows. For once tobacco didn’t create a bulge in his cheek. “You must be the new schoolteacher.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Lynn, this is Zed.”

“Zed-the-Bait-Guy,” Lynn said quickly.

“Hi.” Zed extended a hand in greeting and smiled broadly, a mistake considering what the chaw had done to his teeth. “Let me get that sour cream for you.”

Jack put his hands on his narrow hips. “I thought you had a poker game?”

Zed smiled. “Was just getting ready to leave.”

Right, Jack thought. And people complained about his curiosity.

Zed returned in thirty seconds with a carton of sour cream. “Keep what you don’t use,” he said. “Seeing as how I can get more when I buy more spuds.”

“Thank you,” Lynn said.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jack said. “Your game?”

“My game?” Zed blinked. “Oh, yeah, my game. Wouldn’t want somebody else to get at Hester first because I didn’t show. See ya later.”

After his footsteps vanished into the sound of the surf that was only a few blocks away, Lynn asked, “Does Hester know they’re playing for her?”

Jack reached for a spoon to use with the sour cream and passed both to Lynn. “Probably. There aren’t a lot of secrets around here.”

She nodded. “Makes sense.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “You think so?”

“Why not?” she asked. “Human attraction is largely random anyway. It’s a matter of pheromones—whether the other person smells like a viable reproductive partner. And we don’t even know it. At the most basic level, it’s about whether proteins in our brain are open or folded, a largely random function of precisely where the potentiality wave collapses into a point particle. So why not turn it over to the deal of a card?”

Jack looked at her, trying to find words. “Umm…”

She laughed. “Sorry. I go over the top sometimes.”

“It’s just that I’ve never heard love spoken of in such…cold terms.”

“Noooo,” she said. “It’s not cold at all. It’s quite beautiful, in fact. The universe deals to each of us in turn, random shuffling at the Planck scale, and yet we’re responsible for how we play every card we’re dealt. It’s a mathematical and ethical symphony beyond imagining.”

“Planck scale?” Jack asked, then shook his head. “Never mind. How’s the fish?”

“Fantastic! I don’t think I’ve ever had fish this fresh.”

“It came in on the boat this morning. One of the perks of living here.”

For a little while they were quiet, enjoying the food and the deepening tropical evening. As the last of the daylight faded, two citronella candles in clay pots provided the illumination. If there were any mosquitoes on the island, Lynne had yet to run into them, but the candles drew the attention of an equally successful pest: moths.

With her chin resting in her hand, she watched as Jack gently waved them away, saving them from death by fatal attraction. She couldn’t help but find it touching; surely he was the first person she’d ever met who actually cared what happened to a moth.

“These fellows,” he said as he waved them away, “are harmless, though not particularly pretty. It won’t be long though before the real butterflies start emerging. The colors are glorious.”

“That would make a great class project for my younger students.”

“Just don’t kill them to examine them.”

She sat up a little straighter. “Observation without interference?”

“Exactly,” he said. “You can catch them alive, look them over, then let them go.”

“You realize, of course, that observation without interference is not even theoretically possible,” she said. “Heisenberg? Schrödinger? Wave-particle duality? Double slit experiments? Any of this ring a bell?”

“Umm…you’ve gone into that other language again.”

“That was English,” Lynn said. “Well, Heisenberg and Schrödinger are German names, but still…it can’t come as a shock to you that we change the universe whenever we look at it.”

“When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you?” Jack asked.

“Well, that’s Friedrich Nietzsche. He was a philosopher, not a physicist.”

“Is there a difference anymore?”

Lynn smiled. “Touché. When we start to look at the most fundamental building blocks of the universe, we do tend to blur that line, don’t we?”

Jack shrugged. “I really couldn’t say. I don’t know all that much about it. But listening to you…well, I’m reminded of some of our more esoteric conversations back in seminary. How many angels really can dance on the head of a pin, and the like.”

Lynn felt the flush rise to her cheeks. Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the shock of a dinner invitation on the heels of Delphine’s visitation. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

He held up a hand. “No, don’t be sorry. I have to say, I’m fascinated. Truly.”

Fascinated. That was a word that could mean a lot of things. Some of them purely intellectual. Most of them not. The latter could be…dangerous. Very dangerous.

She sighed.

“Something wrong?”

Lynn shook her head. “Just tell me to hush when I start babbling about things that sound too weird.”

“On Treasure Island?” he asked with a wink. “Trying to define weird here is like stepping into a tar pit.”

“But—”

“Lynn,” he interrupted, “just be yourself. Don’t try to impress me, because you already have. And don’t try to play to my expectations, because I don’t have any. If I’d wanted to be surrounded by staid, ordinary, never-risk-looking-weird people, I’d have stayed in Connecticut.”

He waved his hand over the candles again, sending a few more moths back to the safety of the shadows. She took the opportunity to study him, really study him. She’d spent most of the evening avoiding directly looking at Jack except in brief glimpses. The interface of observer and observed was never more apparent than in human interaction. All her life, she’d had a strong tendency to watch people, to examine every movement, every facial tic, every shift of the eye or the posture, looking for cues to their thoughts. It had consistently made people uncomfortable, to the point where she’d trained herself not to look at people directly. That had grown into a shyness that had plagued her through childhood and into the present day.

Right now, however, she decided he was an attractive man. Person. Not a movie-star type, but handsome enough in a laid-back sort of way. His face seemed to want to smile, and laugh lines decorated the corners of his eyes and etched the edges of his mouth. The sun had bronzed him, nothing surprising here in the tropics, and left his brown hair streaked with blond. Almost a surfer look in a way, except his eyes held so much more depth.

That was when he realized she was staring at him. To her astonishment, he didn’t squirm. Instead, he smiled, revealing great teeth. “You look like you’ve never seen anyone push moths away from flames before.”

“I haven’t.”

He nodded. “I actually find it an interesting paradox. God gave most creatures a desire to live and the means of survival. Then we have the moth, who seems willing to immolate himself just to approach the light. One would think the heat would warn him off.”

“Not if he can’t feel it.”

He nodded. “Or…if the light is so beautiful the moth wants to approach at any cost.”

Instinctively, she looked into the candle flame. “It is beautiful.”

“And for the moth it is at once a desirable goal and a deadly trap.”

She glanced his way. “Are we talking metaphor here?”

“Why do people always think I’m speaking in parables?”

“Maybe because you’re a minister.”

He laughed at that. “Sorry, I was just marveling at one of nature’s oddities.”

“There certainly are a few of those. Although…”

She leaned on her elbows on the table. “Well, I shouldn’t I guess.”

“What?” he asked.

“The moths aren’t attracted to the flame.”

“Is that a fact?” His eyebrow lifted.

She nodded. “It’s actually the warm candle wax that’s the attraction. The infrared signature of warm candle wax coincides with that of the sex-attractant chemical emitted by female moths. Light-conducting spines on their antennae carry that signal to their brains, and they think there’s a…well…they think there’s a horny female moth there.”

“That would certainly explain the self-immolation,” Jack said. “Huh. So it’s not the flame at all.”

“I didn’t mean to spoil it for you.”

“Not at all! Why would you say that?”

She shrugged. “People are more comfortable with the familiar. The assumption is woven into the fabric of our language—‘Like a moth to flame.’ Then science comes along and shows something else entirely. People resent it when science turns their beliefs upside down.”

“Some people do,” he said. “I’m not one of them.”

Lynn nodded, wondering if his casual smile were covering something else. In her experience, discussing science with religious people tended to end very badly.

He paused for a moment, then continued, “Lynn, I’ve always felt that we miss so much if we don’t realize that the entire universe around us is full of wonders. Every breath of air, every beat of our hearts, is a kind of miracle. A beautiful, beautiful gift. Understanding why it happens, at a scientific level, doesn’t disprove the miracle. It helps us to appreciate the miracle even more.”

Right then and there, Lynn decided she liked Jack. And that, she reminded herself, could be a serious problem.

She jumped to her feet—not too quickly, she hoped—and said, “I’ve had a wonderful time, Jack. Thank you so much. But I have a stack of papers waiting to be graded.”

He rose immediately. “Then get to it, teach.” With a grin, he shook her hand. “See you around.”

She nodded and fled while trying to look as if she weren’t fleeing. This was going to be bad. Very bad. A neighbor who cared enough to save the tiniest creature from its own urges, and wasn’t offended when she shot holes in his worldview. Someone she could appreciate and also talk to. Yes, this was going to be very bad.

To her great relief, she found her living room empty of Delphine. She plopped into a chair and drew a deep breath, taking a moment to look into every dark corner of the room, making sure Delphine wasn’t hiding in the shadows before letting out a deep sigh.

She was alone.

Alone was good.

She could handle alone.

Right?