I'm also eating crackers. They have good ones at Morgan's, not just your basic Saltines. Morgan's gives you variety: Waverly Wafers, Ritz, Melba Toast-even those Sociables with the baked-in black specks that I think are pepper, maybe poppy seeds. Each cracker couple comes sealed inside its own individually labeled cellophane wrapper and they all sit in a tidy row inside a black-and-gold wire basket.
Classy.
I have a pile of tooth-torn cellophane wrappers heaped up next to my fork. I also have a light dusting of crumbs in my lap.
Not so classy.
I slurp some soup. It's good. Thick and creamy.
Ceepak has nibbled maybe the corner off one Saltine. For him, chowda is something you stir with a spoon while you ruminate.
“Hey, Danny!” It's my friend, Olivia Chibbs, the med student. She works summers at Morgan's, which is why she is currently balancing a mammoth tray loaded down with crab-stuffed lobster tails and something that smells like overcooked broccoli. “Hey, Ceepak.”
“Good evening, Ms. Chibbs.”
“Where've you been, Danny?” Olivia asks.
I point to my cop uniform. “Working.”
“I thought you were on days.”
“I am.”
“It's night.”
“We needed to put in a little overtime,” says Ceepak. I notice he doesn't offer any additional information as to why we're working later than usual. I think it's his hint for me to do likewise, to keep our current mission under wraps as the chief requested.
“Do you guys get time-and-a-half when you pull OT?” Olivia asks Ceepak nods. “Yes, ma'am. We surely do.” He nibbles another corner off the same Saltine. For a tower of power, the guy eats like a sparrow on a low-carb diet.
“Awesome,” says Olivia. “So Danny, Becca's been trying to text you for like two hours.”
Becca Adkinson is another one of our mutual friends. She and her family run the Mussel Beach Motel over, as the name suggests, near the beach.
“What's up?”
“You and Aubrey Hamilton. She's willing to give you a second chance.”
Aubrey is the girl Olivia and my buddy Jess tried to fix me up with last night.
“Becca set it all up. Tonight. Nine-thirty. The Sand Bar. Be there. On time, this time!”
Olivia shoots me a wink and bustles away with her clattering tray.
“Have I met this girl Aubrey?” Ceepak asks.
“Maybe. Waitress. Rusty Scupper.” When I'm nervous, I tend to speak in quick, incoherent bursts.
“Nice girl?”
“Oh, yeah. Very, you know, nice. Real nice.”
“You know, Danny, I suspect your friends think it's time you moved on. Tested the romantic waters.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“When one door closes, another door opens.”
“Yeah,” I crack, “but it's hell in the hallway.”
“You still miss Katie?”
I'm about to say, “Nah,” when I remember Ceepak's Code. Not only won't he lie, cheat, or steal, he also won't tolerate anybody who does. I am, therefore, once again compelled to tell him the truth.
“Yeah. Sort of.”
He nods his head like the big brother I never had.
“Understandable. Katie is a wonderful woman.”
“Yeah. Must be why she moved all the way across the country to get away from me.”
Now Ceepak shakes his head. “Not you, Danny. The memories. Her secret sadness. I believe Springsteen says it best….”
Of course he does.
“‘Some day they just cut it loose, cut it loose or let it drag 'em down.’”
He's quoting “Darkness on the Edge of Town” again.
“Danny, Katie had to cut herself free from Sea Haven and what happened here or it would have dragged her down for the rest of her life.”
As usual, The Boss and Ceepak are correct, but it doesn't really make me feel any better. So, I tear open another cracker wrapper.
Ceepak tilts his wrist, checks his watch.
“You should definitely meet up with this young lady. Aubrey. It's only twenty-fifteen. Finish your soup and we'll swing by the house so you can pick up your Jeep.”
“Don't you want to go talk to Trumble like Gus suggested? He's right, you know. A lot of the teenage runaways eventually end up there.”
“10-4. However, I feel it might be best if we pay the Reverend a visit first thing tomorrow morning while he's serving breakfast. I find people are often most forthcoming when they're too busy to play games or plot deceptions. Who knows-maybe our redheaded friend will be there as well.”
The thief from the beach. I had forgotten all about her.
Ceepak leans back in the booth and stares off into space, his face softening. I swivel in my seat to see what he sees, what he's smiling at.
Of course. It's Rita. She's over by the bar with her soft blonde hair backlit by the golden glow of a neon Corona Beer sign. She beams back at him and waves something in our general direction.
“Wonder what that might be….” As if she heard him, Rita does a quick scan of her crowded tables to make sure everybody has everything they need for the next two seconds, and then darts across the dining room to join us.
“Look you guys-T. J. went to the top of the Empire State Building!”
She puts a postcard down on our table.
“That's wonderful,” says Ceepak.
“John, he's having such a great time….”
Ceepak sort of blushes. He doesn't want the whole world knowing he paid for Rita's sixteen-year-old kid to go see King Kong's perch. Not that he's embarrassed about doing it. It's praise that usually makes Ceepak feel all squirmy. I think it's why he never talks about the ton of medals he earned in the Army.
“Neither one of us can ever thank you enough,” says Rita. “He went to Greenwich Village and this free rock concert in Central Park….”
Ceepak allows a slight smile to cross his lips.
“I never could have afforded to send him up to my sister's … not on my own … I mean not with everything else … you know, back-to-school clothes and school supplies and….”
“Rita, I'm very glad to hear that T. J.'s having fun,” Ceepak says softly. “He's a good kid.”
Rita leans down because she can't resist giving him a quick peck on the cheek.
Ceepak's grin grows so wide his wiggling dimples look like parentheses quivering on either side of his nose.
Rita giggles when she finds a tear in her eye.
“Look at me. I'm a mess.” She dabs it away with her thumb. “Thanks again, honey.”
“You are very welcome.”
Romance fills the air. Almost enough to cover up the smell of overcooked broccoli and lobster brine. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. If not tonight, sometime soon. If not Aubrey, someone else.
“He'll be home on Friday,” says Rita, composing herself, brushing invisible wrinkles out of her crisp white blouse. “They need him on the boardwalk. Apparently, they're expecting big crowds on account of the Sand Castle Competition.”
T. J. works part-time at this game booth on the boardwalk, helping people lose their money by flinging rubber rings at two-liter Coke bottles in a frantic attempt to win their girlfriend some kind of cuddly stuffed monkey.
“Miss?”
A man three tables away, a huge man with a napkin tucked under his three chins and a glob of sour cream dotting the tip of his nose, is waving his arm like a little boy who needs permission to use the bathroom.
“We need more butter, miss.”
“Right away!” Rita says.
She scoots into the kitchen. Ceepak watches her fly through the swinging double doors. I look down and check out T. J.'s postcard. Naturally it reminds me of the one Mary Guarneri sent her mother all those years back. The one she signed “Ruth,” for whatever reason. When I look up, I can tell Ceepak is thinking the exact same thing. He pushes his chowder bowl aside and reaches into a cargo pants pocket to pull out a stack of Polaroids.