Sunny looked dubiously at the contents of the bottle. “What’s the secret recipe for that?”
“Ham fat and herbs,” Luke promptly replied, and then scratched his head. “Or was that her secret recipe for scrambled eggs?” Sunny laughed, and Luke smiled at her.
“Just put a little on your finger and rub it on the end of one of those scratches,” he said. “It kills any germs and takes the pain away.”
Sunny took the bottle, unscrewed the top, and let a tiny driblet of the yellowish stuff fall on her left forefinger. Then she gingerly dabbed it on one of Shadow’s scratches.
“Wow!” she said. Almost immediately, the ache was gone, and her skin felt cool and comfortable.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Luke said.
“Can I use a little more?” Sunny asked.
Luke waved. “Keep the bottle. I’ve got plenty more at home. Put a bandage over those scratches for now. But when you get home, when you go to bed, just cover them with the lotion. Let them breathe.”
Sunny took a little more of the yellow stuff, put it over the other scratches, and flexed her hand. The pain was gone. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I can make a suggestion,” Luke replied.
She looked at him suspiciously.
“I have a gig tomorrow evening,” he said. “And I’d love it if you could come.” Did he mean, like on a date? Sunny didn’t know how to answer.
“And if you could bring other people, that would be wonderful,” Luke went on, not even seeming to notice her hesitation. “It wouldn’t hurt if the manager thinks I can draw a crowd.”
“Well, sure,” Sunny said. “Where is it?”
“A bar called O’Dowd’s,” Luke said.
“O’Dowd’s?” she echoed. “Why would you want to play in the worst dive bar in Elmet County?”
“Where were you when I did the deal?” Luke teased. “One bar pretty much looks like another when they’re cleaning up the morning after. I stopped by, they agreed to give me a shot, and that was that.”
“I’ll do what I can, but it’s not going to be easy to get people to go down there.”
“All I can ask is that you try.” Luke snapped his case together and picked it up.
“I have one more thing to ask you,” Sunny said, “something that came out of the stuff you talked about with Will yesterday.”
“What?” Luke’s brown eyes got a little wary.
“You said somebody gave you the heads-up that Reese was going after people for reports. Where did the warning come from?”
Luke looked a little relieved. “Rafe Warner. He’s a pretty decent guy.”
And a pretty busy one, Sunny added silently. She thanked Luke again for the lotion, and made sure the bottle was tightly capped before putting it in her pocket. He said good-bye and headed off to the front door.
Sunny glanced to the nurses’ station, where Camille was beckoning her over, holding up a gauze pad and a roll of tape.
If only a few drops of magic lotion could take care of everything, Sunny wistfully thought as she went to get bandaged.
*
Mike Coolidge almost dropped his remote when Sunny came home, joined him on the couch, and told him about Luke’s upcoming gig.
“O’Dowd’s?” Sunny’s father said in disbelief. “What was the kid thinking?”
“I think he was just happy to find a place where he could play.”
Mike frowned. “The crowd down there will eat him alive.”
“Maybe not, if some friendly faces turn up,” Sunny said hopefully. “Would you mind coming? Maybe you could ask Mrs. Martinson, too.”
“Helena? In O’Dowd’s?”
Sunny tried to imagine the fastidious Mrs. Martinson in a rowdy joint like O’Dowd’s, but the picture just wouldn’t come. “All right,” she said, shrugging in defeat, “that probably won’t work. But you’ll show up for Luke, won’t you?”
Now it was Mike’s turn to shrug. “I wouldn’t mind hearing him do something besides ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ Just remember, I’m not as good at barroom brawls as I used to be.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Sunny got up and went to the kitchen, where she found Shadow back in his usual spot on top of the refrigerator. She went up on tiptoe and he leaned down ’til they were nose to nose. She heard him sniff and his eyes widened, but he stayed where he was.
Sunny zipped up the stairs for a quick shower. That should remove any temptation, she thought. But just to be sure, she unloaded her pockets and sent her T-shirt and pants down the chute to the laundry. Then, in a fresh shirt and shorts, she went downstairs to see what Mike had gotten off the shopping list.
After checking the fridge, she stuck her head around the entryway to the living room. “I see you got some tomatoes and cold cuts. We still have romaine. How does salad and a sandwich sound?”
Mike thought that sounded pretty good, so Sunny went to the kitchen and got to work. While she was slicing the tomatoes, she looked down at her scratched hand. Luke’s lotion had washed off in the shower, and she was getting prickles of pain again. When she finished her preparations, she went back upstairs, applied a little more of the viscous yellow stuff, and taped a new gauze pad over it. She descended the staircase and stepped into the living room again. “Dinner’s ready.”
Mike got the glasses and poured seltzer for both of them—raspberry flavored this time. Meanwhile, Sunny set out a meal for Shadow.
As they ate, Sunny and her dad made small talk about the events of the day. “I’ve been hiding in the air-conditioning all day,” Mike complained. “Even when I went out this morning to the mall, it was sticky.”
“Sticky or stinky?” Sunny said. “Didn’t you say it was supposed to break this afternoon? I left the umbrella in the Wrangler—”
Even as she spoke, a thunderclap detonated over the house like a small bomb. The whole place shook, and Shadow abandoned his supper and dashed over to Sunny’s feet. But he wasn’t cowering. His head and tail were both up, one scanning the area for trouble to be dealt with, the other lashing around in agitation.
“It’s okay.” Sunny leaned down and petted his bristling fur. “Nothing to get upset about. It’s only thunder.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I’m told that it’s lightning you have to watch out for.”
The sound and light show lasted only about twenty minutes, but the heavy rain that followed stayed on. Sunny and her dad finished their meals and the dishes. While he went back to the living room to see if the storm had done anything to their cable service, Sunny stayed in the kitchen by the phone, trying to think of anyone else she could call to go to Luke’s show tomorrow evening.
This is when you realize how much your life has shrunk, she realized. Most of her friends from the old days had, like her, left Kittery Harbor and gone off into the wide world. The ones who remained were all married and didn’t have that much in common with her anymore. Finally she punched in the number for her old high school classmate, current vet Jane Rigsdale, who thought a guitarist in O’Dowd’s sounded like a hoot. “The problem is, Tobe’s got tickets for an outdoor concert in Portsmouth tomorrow night—that is, if the Piscataqua doesn’t break its banks and sweep everything away.”
Desperate to boost the friendly audience count, Sunny went into the living room. “I tried asking Jane to O’Dowd’s, but she has a date for tomorrow. Do you think any of your friends might want to come?”
“I don’t think Zach Judson’s been in that dump since he was your age,” Mike said. “And Ken Howell swore years ago never to mention O’Dowd’s in the Courier. Every time he’d mention a fight or a drug bust there, it only advertised the place to other lowlives. So he stays away. If he actually saw something there, he’d feel he’d have to write about it.”
He gave her a sly smile. “I did talk to one person while you were off phumphing around in the kitchen, and he agreed to come.”