Free Island Blues by Wendy Howell Mills Page A

brand-new pad of paper, but then had to search her purse for a pen. She always had a pen, for goodness’ sake, but where had it gone? She pawed through uplifting sticky notes—“stand up straight and don’t forget to smile!”—a comb and lipstick, a half a Diet Pepsi, a screwdriver, a flattened Twinkie—ambrosia for the downhearted soul—little petrified clumps of tissue, and finally upended her purse on a nearby table. A brochure on kayaking slithered to the floor and Sabrina stooped to pick it up.
    â€œOh, look. Kayaking. I’ve always wanted to try it. Are any of you kayakers?” Sabrina smiled brightly around the room. Sergeant Jimmy McCall, who had just stepped to the doorway, winced and ducked back out of sight.
    â€œWhat in the hell are you jabbering on about?” the man in the sunglasses asked, his buffed body tense with annoyance. “I certainly don’t kayak.”
    â€œHow about you two? Do you like to kayak?” Sabrina turned to the other two men.
    There was no response, except for a horrified choke just outside the door.
    â€œOh, well. Let’s see, now what was I doing?” She looked down at the purse detritus on the table.
    â€œMs. Dunsweeney,” said the tall young man sitting in the first row. “There’s a pen inside that pad of paper you pulled out first thing. Was that what you were looking for?” He didn’t seem sure that she might not have felt the sudden urge to clean her purse.
    â€œAh, yes. There it is.” Sabrina stuffed the junk back into her purse and looked at him expectantly, pen poised.
    â€œWhat? Oh, my name is…well, Dennis Parker.” He said the name in a rush without looking at her. Sabrina wrote it down carefully, checking with him on the spelling of Dennis. People were doing all sorts of interesting things to traditional names nowadays, and one never knew. “And your address?”
    Dennis, who seemed relieved to have gotten the whole my-name-is issue behind him, recited his Chicago address easily. He was a handsome boy, with dark curly hair, a touch of freckles, and a thin frame on which his clothes hung precariously. His hands looked proportionally too large, however, like one of those pictures taken with your hand in the foreground so your fingers look like gigantic sausages.
    â€œHave you ever been to Comico Island before?” Sabrina asked Dennis.
    â€œNo. I’ve never been on an island. I grew up on a farm in Illinois, and we never traveled much. Of course, now I—well, I’ve never been to an island, that’s all.” His ears turned red, and he reminded Sabrina of a twenty-something Richie Cunningham. Not the way he looked exactly—Dennis didn’t look anything like Ron Howard—but just the boyish charm he exuded.
    Dennis suddenly grimaced and clutched at his head. Sabrina patted his shoulder, and looked around to see if anyone else had observed his distress.
    â€œDennis? Are you feeling okay?”
    He looked up, his eyes glazed with misery, and nodded.
    â€œDo you need some Tylenol? I have aspirin as well, but at your age you need to be careful of Reye’s Syndrome, you know, so you’re better off sticking with acetaminophen.”
    â€œIt doesn’t help,” Dennis said in a low voice. “Nothing does.”
    Sabrina sensed that he preferred to be alone so she moved over to the table where the man who looked like he was a businessman with a capital “B” was sitting. He made no effort to ask Dennis if he was okay.
    â€œMrs. Dunsweeney,” began the important businessman in an important manner. The man oozed money. His sunglasses alone, which looked capable of x-ray vision, translating foreign languages, and cooking five-course meals, probably cost more than Sabrina’s house in Cincinnati.
    â€œIt’s Ms., actually. And what was your name?”
    â€œI’m Walter Olgivie. And while I’m sure you are