Free Friday's Harbor by Diane Hammond Page A

“It’ll do me good to be on my feet for a little while. If you sit for too long, things tend to seize up.”
    “Yes, ma’am, they do.”
    “Don’t ma’am me, Sam. We’ve known each other for years.”
    Grumbling, Sam said, “I called Miz Biedelman ‘sir’ until the day she passed. I was brought up to be respectful.”
    “Well, get over it.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Ivy released Julio Iglesias from the Snugli and set him down on the pool deck. She saw Neva and Gabriel come upstairs with a bucket of fish. Gabriel walked to the edge of the pool and clanked the handle of the bucket to bring Friday over. Neva came to stand by Sam and Ivy.
    “What do you think of our little boy?” Ivy asked her.
    “He’s amazing. I’m in love. I’m totally in love.”
    “Well, of course you are. Is he settling in?”
    “Gabriel says he is, but frankly, I haven’t learned my way around this model yet.”
    “You have to wonder whether he’s homesick,” Ivy mused. “Don’t you wish we could explain it to him? Honey, would you be an angel and bring that lawn chair over?”
    Neva fetched the nylon-webbed chair and set it beside Sam, who had once more offered the Adirondack chair unsuccessfully. Ivy sat with a low grunt, unwinding the empty Snugli and tucking it beneath her chair. “Getting old’s a bitch, isn’t it?” she said to Sam.
    “Ain’t it just.”
    They watched Julio Iglesias making a minute inspection of every square inch of the pool top, peeing here and there, while across the pool Gabriel scratched Friday’s tongue. Ivy said to Sam, “What do you think Max Biedelman would have made of all this?”
    Sam sat with that for a minute or two. “She’d be glad we were helping an animal in trouble. That’s what she did with shug when she was just a baby and an orphan. Bet she’d never have thought of bringing a whale here, though. I think she would have been pleased with the rescue part, I just don’t know if she would have put money into building something this big and this ugly. Seems like an awful lot of money for one animal.”
    “She did that for Hannah,” Ivy pointed out.
    Sam reflected for a moment before saying, “You know, she told me once that having shug sent over here was the biggest mistake she ever made.”
    Ivy was surprised. “Why? I always thought it was the height of generosity. Wasn’t she badly wounded? Hannah, that is, not Max Biedelman.”
    “Yeah. Shug’s mama was killed and baby girl lost an eye. She was just a little bitty thing, too.”
    “So what part of that was a mistake?”
    “Miz Biedelman had an old elephant, Reyna, when shug first got here. She took real good care of her, too. Not many people knew about old Reyna—that was before Havenside was a zoo. She died a little over a year after shug got here. Miz Biedelman knew Hannah would be alone after that, at least where elephants were concerned. Said more than once that what she’d done was irresponsible.”
    “So she hired you as a companion.”
    “Yes, ma’am, she did.”
    “So Hannah wasn’t alone.”
    “Well, I guess you could say that.”
    Neva interrupted, touching Ivy on the arm. “Excuse me, but Gabriel’s going to put Friday through a session, and I want to watch up close, so I’m going around to the other side.”
    “A session?”
    “A workout session. Think of it as physical therapy.”
    “Is he up to that?” Ivy asked, surprised.
    “Gabriel?”
    Ivy smiled. “Him, too, but no, the whale.”
    “I’m sure Gabriel will go easy on him, but it’s important to keep him moving so his lungs stay clear, especially since his immune system’s compromised.”
    “Ah,” said Ivy. She watched for a couple of minutes as Neva circled the pool. Then she said to Sam, “She seems like a very nice young woman.”
    “She is,” said Sam. “Saved shug, even though it ruined her career.”
    They both watched as, across the pool, Gabriel gave a hand signal and Friday swam slowly away to circle the perimeter.