“Who?”
“Gertie.”
“Wait,what?GertieGertie?” Sam had been heartbroken when her uncle split with Gertie Sanger. Gertie was a de facto mother to Sam during her time in Los Angeles, a time that had been exhilarating and chaotic and bewildering. Sam wouldn’t have survived it without Gertie: her calmness, the feel of her scarves against Sam’s neck when she hugged her, her long cool fingers braiding Sam’s hair.
“Yup.”
“He’s living on Block Island? Right now?”
“Not yet. He’s coming on—let’s see.” Amy consults her wall calendar, a complimentary gift from the dog rescue organization. “He arrives a week from today.”
“Where’s he staying? In a hotel?”
Amy rolls her eyes. “Some fancy house his high school friend owns and barely uses, I guess. Some mansion. You know Timmy. He’s not going to live in a single hotel room when he can have a whole house.”
“A whole house,” repeats Sam, sort of in a whisper, as an idea takes shape. “Is he really living there by himself?”
She hasn’t talked to Uncle Timmy since she went to live in the collab house. She sees him online, occasionally on TV, if an old movie of his is playing, and he sends her a birthday card every year with a ridiculously large check in it, but they haven’ttalked.
“I suppose so. I mean, I guess so. It’s not like I’m up-to-date on his personal life.” Her mom sniffs.
“What?” says Sam.
“What nothing,” says Amy. She closes the dishwasher just a little too hard, and the counter seems to quiver.
“You sniffed.”
“I have seasonal allergies.”
“Summerseasonal allergies?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never known you to have allergies.”
“Late onset.”
Sam gives her mother a skeptical look that Amy doesn’t see; Amy and Kona depart the kitchen together, side by side, like members of a wedding party leaving the church. Sam reaches for her phone, making sure, in the transfer of her contacts to the new version, her uncle’s number made it through unscathed. She’s not going to use it yet. She’ll wait out the next week, see what the vibe is at home. But she wants to know that it’s there if she needs it.
Timothy
How cranky he is! Timothy Fleming, in line for the Block Island Ferry, Red Sox cap pulled as low as it goes, which is not so low that he’s not recognizable. He longs briefly for the days of the pandemic, when a strategically sized face mask coupled with the cap could obscure his identity almost entirely. Don’t be a jerk, Timothy, he tells himself sternly. You can’tlongfor apandemic.
What is hedoingin this line? He should be on a plane.
The night before, he’d flown from L.A. to Boston, then stayed in a deluxe king at The Langham on Franklin Street. His assistant, Alexa Thornhill, had assured him that The Langham was now more desirable than The Ritz-Carlton or the Mandarin Oriental, where he’d usually stay, not that he had reason to travel to Boston all that often. The Langham was hipper, she’d said, which he didn’t much care about. More private, she’d said too, which hedidcare about. A car had picked him up that morning and delivered him to Point Judith, where he now stands in line with everybody else waiting to board the 12p.m.high-speed ferry. He’s jet-lagged, yes, and he’s under-rested; the mattress at The Langham was too soft for his aging back, and he feels a twinge each time he moves at the wrong angle.
I should have flown, he thinks again, as the line moves forward onto the boat and he holds out his ticket for the kid to scan. Butthat was easier said than done; the only way to fly direct from Boston was to charter a private plane, and, honestly, he would have felt ashamed if word got out on his home island that he’d paid three grand for such a short and unnecessary flight. Anyway, he thought he might like the experience of the ferry.
Alexa had said she could send the ferry ticket right to his phone so he wouldn’t have to worry about the paper, but he’s too much of a dinosaur to trust a ticket on his phone. He wants toholdthe ticket in his wrinkled old hand. Actually, his hands are still quite nice: his fingers long and slender, piano fingers. He’s always gotten compliments on his hands. Never played the piano though.
The top deck is not an option for Timothy—he sees that immediately as people start to board. It’s going to be packed up there; it’s Saturday, so families are arriving for the week ahead and couples and groups of college kids are coming for the weekend, and, of course—of course!—there are the inevitable bachelorette parties, with their thermoses of Bloody Marys and their short shorts and their heads of long, long hair that they’ll toss around with increasing vigor and lack of spatial awareness the faster the Bloodys go down. It’s inside seating for him.
The ferry sets off from Point Judith into a bank of fog, obscuring the fishing boats filling the port, the circling gulls. No sooner has Timothy chosen a seat, tipped his head back for optimal sleeping, and pulled his Sox cap even lower than he can feel someone staring at him. He squeezes his eyes together more tightly, but he can’t shake the need to peek. Finally he opens his eyes a crack.
A woman is sitting directly across from him. Next to her, on the floor, is a dog: a mix of some sort, the best kind, whitish with uneven ears and a marking above one eye that looks like an actual human eyebrow. The dog is staring at him too, and because of the marking the dog appears to have the single eyebrow cocked.
“You’re Timothy Fleming,” says the woman, smiling.
