Free Twillyweed by Mary Anne Kelly Page B

me up bodily, flung me over his shoulder, and put me over the side.
    â€œHey! Let me go!” I protested, but he already had.
    â€œIt took me two hours to finish that job!” he flashed angrily.
    â€œWell, you should have put up a sign!” I shrieked with injured pride.
    He held up the pertinent sign he must have been working on when I’d surprised him. Only the last N and T were missing. His face was all sucked in with fury. “What the hell do you want, anyway?” he growled.
    I spat on a tissue and wiped his red paint print from my arm. “I was wondering what you’re doing with the cottage up on the cliff.”
    He searched my eyes for a long moment and held them. Then with this crushed look he turned from me. He sort of sagged.
    I remembered what the neighbor had said. His mother only dead three weeks. “Look …” I stammered, “I’m really sorry. I sure know how to start off on the wrong foot. I’ll come back later.” I don’t know what I thought he’d do. Say something conciliatory, I guess. But he whirled on me and shouted, “Just don’t come back at all. Just leave well enough alone!”
    â€œOkay. Okay.” I tried to sound soothing and I tripped, backward, away up the deck. Sheesh , I thought, rubbing my arm, what a grouch! I cleared the marina and stomped back up the beach road, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember which cliff stairs I’d come down. All I could think was what an unnecessarily rude, cantankerous man he was! And so strong, picking me up like that! He’d made me feel like a foolish little girl. I realized I was trembling. I stopped walking and sank down onto the nearest bottom step and as I did so I heard a harsh ripping sound. It was my pants. Or should I say, Carmela’s (that I hadn’t yet mentioned to her that I’d borrowed) good interview pants. They were split soundly up the back. If I’d have had a cigarette, I think I’d have smoked it. And now the best part, Carmela’s fancy shoes—the ones she was so finicky about—were absolutely crusted with varnish. They looked caramelized. It all seemed to catch up with me. My marriage. Now Enoch. I let my head down and this time I did cry, cried my heart out, my face cradled on my knees at the bottom of the dock shelf. I just collapsed and crumpled into a mush of mascara raccoon eyes and tears. Then, just to make everything perfect, the man from the boat, Morgan whatever his name was, came up the road. He was carrying my purse.
    â€œI believe this belongs to you,” he said and plunked it down at my feet, removing his eyes from the sorry sight of me. But I was beyond caring. My nose, he didn’t have to tell me, was running like a hose. A hose! I collapsed again into wretched sobs.
    He handed me his handkerchief and squared his fists to his hips, seemingly oblivious to my hysterics. “I keep telling you people to leave me alone. Don’t you have any respect?” he went on. “You people think all I’m interested in is the lure of your money.”
    I reared up in dismay. “Hold on a second.” I snorted disdainfully, for I, too, am (or was) a hotheaded red-head. “While we people demystify our-our-our tantalizing allure.” I gave a meaningful good honk into his pristine handkerchief, dredged up what was left of my shreds of dignity, and stood to go. My feet, however, were already stuck to the ground with his quick drying varnish and I fell like a tree on my nose.
    Jenny Rose
    She hung up the phone. No answer. Again. All evening she’d been calling, and here it was night. This was odd. She wouldn’t have pegged Auntie Claire as one to let you down. She went upstairs to the kitchen. Wendell was still sitting at the table with Patsy Mooney. He was eating creamed corn with a spoon and picking at a saucer of torn-up little bits of deli ham. He was having trouble with the spoon,