"TV? I spoke to Daniel last night and he didn't say anything about that." It must have been before eleven when we spoke, and he may not have known it was coming. But all of this meant that she was officially missing-and that my life was awash with missing creatures. I noticed Henderson squinting at me, the sympathy squint I'd seen directed at me a dozen times in the last twenty-four hours. "That's why you came today, isn't it? Because you figured that might push me over the edge, and I was already close enough?"
"Yeah."
"Thankyou, Henderson." I reached for his hand. "But how did you find me? When I left a message for you last night, I didn't know I'd end up here."
"I took a cab to Will's place from the airport and-"
"How did you know where he lived?"
"The phone book, darling. And if there was no one at his house, I intended to perch on the front porch looking as out of place as I possibly could. Attract a crowd and ask everyone where I'd find you. But the instant I got out of the cab at his house, a nice fellow accosted me. Said he lives next door. He knew exactly where you were."
"Sophy?" It was Evan's voice again, but it sounded distant, as if it were coming from the bottom of the stairs. Far away and businesslike. "Can I have a word alone with you down here?" A little too much emphasis on the word "alone." Henderson did not dare follow me out of the room.
Evan, sitting at the dining room table in a Red Sox T-shirt and lavender shorts, half-reading the Globe, gestured to me to sit down at the place setting. A mug of coffee, a bowl of fruit salad, and an English muffin. "For me?" He nodded. "Thank you." I had brushed my teeth and changed my shirt but still felt my brain was encased in porcupine quills.
"I have to talk to you before Mavis and the kids come back. She was upset about last night."
"Do you think the best thing would be for me to write a note and leave it here or-"
"She was mortified by the attack on Betsy Schmidt. As was Sue Winston and everyone else who-"
"I can certainly understand that."
"And furious about this." He reached into the back pocket of his shorts and brandished my FORMAL NOTICE OF WARNING at me, holding it out between his forefinger and middle finger, a jaunty, cocksure gesture that I did not appreciate. I must have left the notice in the car.
"It looks worse than it is," I said.
"Of course, it's not a ticket, but-"
"I couldn't find your registration. He almost gave me-"
"But to be stopped for a DWI-"
"I wasn't. I was parked in the lot by Bell's Cove. It was a lovers' lane search. That's all." But where, I wondered for the first time since last night, was Will's tangerine computer? And where Was my stepdaughter?
"Sit down and eat, for God's sake." Evan studied the fine print on the warning, not certain what new verdict to pass on me. I glanced around the room and saw the laptop on one of the coffee tables, next to a splashy book of photographs called Swansea Summers: Island Dreams and Dreamers.
"Where's Ginny?"
"She took a cab an hour ago to the house her mother rented in Cummington. How'd you get out of the ticket?"
"Sympathy. I reminded him the State Police had called the day before to tell me Will was dead. I had him practically in tears. Do you think if I explained all this to Mavis that she'd-"
"Even without the ticket, I'm afraid it's beyond that. Sue Winston was so keen to win Betsy over that I'm not sure-"
"You want me to leave?"
"Mavis does. I hate to do this, Sophy; you know that. I abhor it. She actually-" Evan twisted up his mouth, a prelude to saying something even more difficult. But one of the advantages of my condition was that I was in such physical pain, using so much energy just to keep my eyes open, it would have been hard for anyone to hurt my feelings. Though this came close. "It would be best if you weren't here when she got home. In about an hour." Very close. "But I have somewhere you and Henderson can stay. It's a converted chicken coop on Jimmy and Edna Baxter's property near the cove."
"You own it?"
"I rent."
"For house guests?"
"No."
We were doing Twenty Questions, and I was getting warm. "You rent it on the sly?"
"Since you ask."
"Use it a lot?"
"Not right now."
"You're full of surprises."
"So are you, Soph."
"There must be a bed."
"There are two. One in each room."
"There must have been a lot of chickens in that coop."
"And a good architect. You'd never know who the previous tenants were."
I smiled, a tight, shallow smile, all lips. I was beginning to feel this was an Escher print or an old-fashioned amusement park funhouse, where the stairways lead nowhere and the corridors are mazes lined with distorting mirrors. "If I stay there, where will you tell Mavis I've gone?"
"I'm not sure she'll ask." Evan was gazing at the editorial page as he said this, Everyman at the breakfast table, having an important conversation with a woman. Did he and Mavis speak to each other only to issue edicts? And did he believe his secret hideaway was really a secret on this island, where gossip travels like chicken pox?
"How long have you had it?"
"A few years."
"Since you stopped sleeping with her?" His head swiveled to me in an exaggerated jerk, as if I'd said something shocking. "You told me that last night."
"I didn't think you'd remember much of last night."
"Unfortunately, I remember every word. Maybe every other word."
A phone was ringing somewhere, a series of high-pitched electronic blasts. "Excuse me," Evan said and headed across the great room to disappear once again into his study. It may have been the twenty-five-year-old. Or Ted Turner. Or Ted Koppel. Or Ted Kennedy. I heard Henderson coming down the stairs and Flossie on the deck, scratching at the screen door and sending out her short, sharp barks, like a smoke detector trying to tell you its battery is dead. I let her into the living room and ran my hands over her great swath of fur warmed by the sun. She crossed the room and stood with her nose to the closed door of Evan's study. When that brought no response, she plopped down with a calm, canine display of resignation and promptly fell asleep. Something in the directness of her longing and her certainty of her place in the world made clear to me that I did not belong in the chicken coop, even for a night or two. Nor did I want another favor from Evan, certainly not one that would draw me into his illicit love life.
"Trouble in Denmark?" Henderson said as he lingered at the bottom of the stairs.
I saw him gaze around the sun-drenched space, as every visitor does, especially those of us who live in one or two rooms, in walk-ups, on air shafts, yearning for the light and color in this room, for the abundant peace it promises.
"This house reminds me of the summer I spent on Swansea ten years ago," Henderson said, moving to a shadowy corner of the room. "I was at a party in a house that looked like this, being chatted up by a lawyer from Boston who asked where I was from. New York. New York -long, pregnant pause. He had to ponder that one, as if I'd said the Mississippi Delta or Azerbaijan. Too many avid people in New York, he said. Well, it is chaotic, I agreed. They're everywhere, he said, starting to sound paranoid, and I knew we weren't talking about the same thing. 'Especially the universities. Especially Columbia.' He was talking about Jews. The avid people. It may even have been this house. I decided not to tell him I was avidly queer. What's our next move?"
Three cups of coffee and the proverbial glass of cold water in my face-Evan's telling me I had to leave-had enabled me to work through some of the choreography. "How long can you stay on the island?"
"For the duration. My show's in reruns, since I'm supposed to be away, getting photogenic."
"Thanks, H. But you know, there'll be a sharp decline in the accommodations. A motel room and a Rent-A-Wreck. Let's find the phone book and start calling around."