The Sweetest Summer(20)
“We are all grown women here,” he heard her say. “I am confident we will all be on our best behavior this week. Remember, these seven days are the reason we work so hard all year long. This is our holy week, ladies, our sacred duty to the history of this island, the legend of the Great Mermaid, and how the two have become intertwined through the generations.”
The room went quiet. Clancy raised his head, knowing what was coming next. He waited . . . waited . . .
“Pass the merlot,” Polly Estherhausen said.
Bing, bing, bing! He was damn good at this.
“All right. Gather ’round, ye maids. Let us recite our sacred pledge of devotion.”
At his mother’s command, Clancy could imagine the swish of mermaid skirts and mumbled complaints about stiff joints. He decided to give them some space. After all, this closing ritual was supposed to be secret. Most everything Mona’s Mermettes did behind closed doors was supposed to be secret, but the Flynn kids had been spying on these meetings since they were old enough to get out of bed and sit on the main staircase at the Safe Haven. Voices carried in that big old house, and when Mona forgot to close the huge pocket doors to the formal dining room, they got to watch the proceedings, too.
For most children, it would be unnerving to see your friends’ moms hanging around your dining room every Sunday evening dressed like mythological sea vixens, but for the Flynn kids, it was just the way things were.
While the ladies finished their business, Clancy shoved his hands in the pockets of his uniform shorts and wandered out toward Mona’s front walkway, the dogs at his heels. He threw a stick toward the backyard and they raced off.
Clancy turned his gaze east, over the Atlantic. As he often did, he began searching for the breakthrough stars, the first few pinpoints of celestial light to leave their mark on the blank slate of nightfall. He widened and softened his gaze, and like magic, they appeared. As a kid he’d been fascinated by the idea that all those billions of stars and galaxies had been up there all day long, hidden from view by only a thin curtain of sunshine. The stars hadn’t disappeared and reappeared—it was just the perspective that had changed.
Even now, as a cop, he found he returned to that certainty again and again. He often discovered that the truth was right there in front of him, visible only when he widened and softened his gaze and waited patiently for the glare to fade. A change of perspective worked wonders.
His thoughts went to the chick from the ferry, and he decided he’d rely on his tried-and-true method with her, as well. After all, he hadn’t gotten anywhere by trying to force his memory to work. It still bugged the hell out of him that he knew her from someplace yet couldn’t figure out where. So tomorrow, once the parade was over, he would get her name from the ferry manifest and find out where she was staying. Then, he’d pull back, relax, and wait for the spark of recognition to reveal itself.
Because, dammit, he did recognize her. And it was driving him crazy trying to figure out why she felt so familiar.
The front door of the cottage creaked open, spilling lamplight onto his mother’s unruly rosebushes. The ladies filed out chatting and laughing. The dogs abandoned their stick and ran toward the voices.
“Spying on us again, Clancy?” Abigail Foster gave him a friendly wink. “Hey, boys,” she said, bending down to pat the dogs’ large heads.
“I could have you arrested for loitering,” Izzy McCracken added.
“Hold on while I get my cuffs,” Polly said, snorting in appreciation of her own wit. “Hello, Earl. Yo, Mr. T.” She rubbed Earl’s ear and kissed Tripod on his nose.
“Evening, ’maids.” Clancy gave them a gallant tip of his ball cap, stepping aside and gesturing for them to pass him on the sand-strewn walkway. “Enjoy your stroll home. It’s a lovely night.”