Zapped

Chapter 3: The Back End

CHAPTER 3: THE BACK ENDSCREECH-CRUNCH OF TIRES ON GRAVEL. Park the BMW in the overflow area, where nobody will drift over to chat. Under the tree, where sun won’t scorch the leather seats. No need to check wind-tousled hair or touch up lipstick. Or raise the convertible top: this won’t take long.

Up the grassy slope on flagstone steps. Past the weathered stockade fence hiding Leo’s garbage cans from his customers and the local kids, dogs, and raccoons. Past the Elephant Tree, past the frog pond, to the Back End’s familiar white clapboard façade.

Pam Nash stepped through the screen door and backward in time.

There was Dinah, Leo’s enormous cook, waddling from stove to fridge. Same old kitchen: weathered chopping blocks, greasy black grill, cast-iron pots, plastic-wrapped bowls. How long since she’d inhaled this noseful of frying bacon and burgers, simmering chowder and chili, chopped onions and human sweat? Same ancient conveyor-belt toaster . . . double porcelain sink . . . formica lunch counter lined on this side with chrome-and-vinyl stools. Even the row of T-shirts and tank tops hunched over their lunches hadn’t visibly changed since her mother used to bring her here thirty years ago.

Neither had the menu, a patchwork of colored poster-board squares thumbtacked to the wall.

That flirtatious fortyish guy at the register looked like he might be one of Leo’s sons. The kid ladling sauce onto spaghetti clearly wasn’t: dark-skinned, tall and wiry, with heart-melting brown eyes and a smile that made Pam glad her daughter couldn’t see him.

As if Ashley would set foot in a place like this. If she were on Cape, which thank God she wasn’t (yet), she’d insist on The Whistling Pig up the street, or some new Osterville cafe—

“Stop right there. Don’t take another step.”

That voice! Pam swiveled, and the snapshot in her head expanded into a 3-D craggy, skinny, white-haired curmudgeon.

“Pam Linnell! Where the heck you been hiding, young lady?”

He approached her with his ice-blue eyes crackling. “You city folk are all the same! Go off and get famous and that’s the last we see of you.”

He kept talking, but Pam didn’t listen. “Leo!” Her arm went around his shoulder. “My god, you haven’t changed a hair.”

“You hear that?” Leo demanded of a customer watching in amusement from the counter. “I haven’t changed a hair! And she ought to know. You know who this is? This is Pam Linnell, the famous inventor!”

Pam squeezed him and kissed his bristly cheek. “Don’t fuss at me, you old buzzard, or I’ll rip every whisker off your face.”

Leo spoke to the whole front room. “You read the Cape Cod Times? This is the lady who gave us Here Glasses and the Stick-Up Clock. From right over on Compass Point.”

He pushed her toward the kitchen. “Hey! Tony! Dinah! Look what the cat brought in!”

______

In the back room Lydia Vivaldi wondered why Edgar Rowdey looked as if he’d bitten into a lemon.

She’d just delivered his lunch: nothing unusual, a Tooner Sallid, topped with a parsley sprig and bottomed with iceberg lettuce. Talking to Edgar was a high point in Lydia’s day—at least, on days when he felt like talking. Off Cape, Edgar Rowdey was renowned as the author and artist of spine-chilling little black-and-white storybooks in which hapless characters met a variety of dreadful ends. Most of his fans assumed he was British and dead, a mistake he encouraged. To Quansett, Edgar Rowdey was a tall thin white-bearded old friend of Leo’s who ate here every day with his nose in a book.

Today he’d struck up a conversation as soon as he came in. Had Lydia noticed that the Cape Cinema was showing Jacques Tati’s Jour de Fête? She’d never seen it? Heavens! Not a moment to lose.

Yesss! Given how few concessions Edgar made to the alleged need for human company, Lydia was hugely flattered that he seemed to enjoy hers.

And if they went to this movie, maybe she could find out how long she had a home.

Back in June, when she walked into Leo’s Back End with a flat tire and came out with a job, Lydia didn’t plan to stay in this postcard New England village. She’d fled here on impulse from Cambridge, from the flaming ruins of her work, romance, and aspirations. The first piece of news to meet her on the Cape was that Leo’s sous-chef had just quit. The second was that her one friend here, DeAnne Ropes, was dead.

How could a skilled carpenter fall off a ladder to her death? Lydia couldn’t believe it. As her ex-partner in The Fix-It Chix, she’d never known DeAnne to be so careless.

Lydia grabbed the sous-chef job for the income, the accommodations, and the chance to poke around. Soup-chef, was Dinah’s title: keep the chowder and chili pots full and create a new Soup of the Day when the old one ran out. Sue-chef, was the regulars’ title, who didn’t miss Sue’s rubbery clams and watery broth. Sioux Chef, was Mudge’s title. A local chief’s son, Kevin Mudjekeewis Miles had started as an after-school dishwasher and risen to all-purpose helper and pastry chef. His own preferred title was Wampanoag Chef.

Lydia knew Edgar Rowdey had only been persuaded to lend his guest cottage because she couldn’t afford a rental, and he too would suffer if the Back End were short-staffed, and his niece Mirella was away for the summer hunting rhododendrons in Bhutan. Edgar’s house testified to his fondness for solitude: a vine-choked, silver-shingled, sagging-roofed antique which passers-by assumed must be abandoned or haunted or both.

Do not disturb, Leo warned her. But Edgar Rowdey was the only person besides Lydia who didn’t believe DeAnne Ropes’s death was an accident. Without exactly meaning to, they began sleuthing. She soon reached three conclusions: No, DeAnne did not just fall off a ladder. Yes, Edgar Rowdey was a genius. And although her mother might be right that feeding your neighbors and investigating suspicious fatalities didn’t amount to a career, she wasn’t ready yet to give it up.

Not until she had to.

Not until Mirella came home from Bhutan and took her cottage back.

Which would be when? Every time Lydia asked him, Edgar dodged. Because he didn’t know, or because he hated direct questions?

She’d asked Leo. He retorted that he was an old man who had his hands full managing a restaurant, never mind housing, especially after he’d given her an income, which some folks thought was mighty charitable, what with her dropping in out of the blue, no references, spiky hair all green-streaked at the time, and more earrings than Joe Foley’s hat had fishhooks.

She’d asked Dinah, who advised her to quit worrying. Come September, tourists would leave the Cape like rats from a sinking ship. Only later did Lydia wonder: Meaning there’ll be plenty of places to live, or I might not have a job, either?

She’d asked Mudge, who said that since his dad’s girlfriend fell off the wagon, he’d been spending nights under the Elephant Tree—the giant beech beyond Leo’s frog pond. If push came to shove, he’d find Lydia a sleeping bag.

Lunch traffic was picking up. Lydia realized she’d better find out what time Jour de Fête started. Then that strange look puckered Edgar’s face.

“Is everything OK?”

“Oh, absolutely. Delicious as always.” His forehead smoothed. “By the way. What’s become of the Flying Wedge? Are you and Mudge still . . .?”

“Oh, yeah. We haven’t done any catering since the Frigate’s Fourth of July party, but we want to. It’s just been so busy.”

“Mm.” He picked up his book: end of conversation.

Drat! Under Edgar’s sardonic drawl and courtly manners lay a will of concrete. No use asking him anything now.

She lingered, checking the soups, just in case. Chowder, good. Chili con carne, OK, but the veg was almost out. Amazing! Last month’s customers scoffed at chili without meat.

July is blue-collar, August is white, said Dinah. Less pot pie and burgers, more salads and wraps.

July you got your vacation rentals, August you got your summer homes, said Leo. Up front at the counter won’t change, but the back room’s like a high-school reunion.

You don’t come to Leo’s for the food, she’d been told the first time she walked in. Year-rounders came to schmooze with their buddies. Summer people came because that was what you did on Cape Cod. Same as your parents and grandparents: you went to the beach, the outlet malls, Cap’n Chilly’s, and Leo’s Back End.

Like that woman squeezing past the soda machine. Summer people picked up the locals’ retro style, but they couldn’t resist adding a touch of panache. Through the mesh of this lady’s cotton sweater gleamed flashes of fuschia silk. She got the drugstore flip-flops, but her rumpled khaki shorts and her tousled sandy-silver hair were more Back Bay than Ocean State Job Lot.

Then there was her angular face: too pale for a year-rounder, and too intense. As if she’d just arrived and hadn’t yet found the Cape groove.

Unlike other August customers, she didn’t pause to admire the paintings of sailboats and flower gardens on the pine-paneled walls, or study the menu, or take a slip to write her order.

She beelined toward Edgar Rowdey.

Watching out for Rowdey fans was a job shared by the Back End’s staff. One could argue from his sparse white hair and full white beard that Edgar was old enough to look after himself. That was his trouble: he’d grown up in the age of chivalry. When a stranger came gushing up to him, he would set down his fork and listen. Usually the fan rhapsodized for a few minutes—what a pleasure, changed my life—and Edgar murmured polite replies, and eventually the fan walked away happy. Intervention wasn’t called for unless someone thrust a tall stack of books at him to sign, or a weapon.

Today’s intruder was armed only with a leather shoulder bag, which she dropped on his table. Planting one hand on each side of it, she glared at him over his paperback. Only Lydia was close enough to hear her speak, low and intense:

“Edgar. I need your help. Sorry about your lunch, but this is life and death.”

______

Mudge Miles was so distracted that when Dinah asked him to dish out spaghetti, he handed her the garlic bread.

Leave it alone, he’d been telling himself all morning. Nothing you can do but wait. Anyways, how does that go? Worry is interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.

Coping with shocks was part of Mudge’s everyday life. Rarely did a personal problem interfere with his focus. But Darla’s news this morning had dropped on him like a flock of monster chickens come home to roost.

What the f**k, dumbass?

He blamed Darla, of course, but mostly he blamed himself. He’d been happy to stay at her place instead of sleep under the Elephant Tree. And when she’d told him she was on the Pill, he’d been happy to believe her.

Dumbass!

He hadn’t guessed anything was wrong until this morning. She’d been depressed ever since she lost her housekeeping job, but that was more than a week ago. He’d assumed that was why she welcomed his company. Until she handed him his coffee and dropped her bomb.

Phyllis Nash firing her ass had totally stressed her out. She kept losing track of stuff. Like her pills, a couple times. Now her period was late. That could be stress, right? Anyhow, the thing was, she might need to borrow some money. Not today, but end of the week.

“Like, Friday?” He grasped at the one firm fact in this barrage. “Sure. No worries.” His mind reeling. “Any chance— You talk to Phyllis at all?”

“I tried.” Darla shook her curly blonde head. “I mean, how is she still alive? I did everything for her! Housecleaning. laundry, grocery shopping—”

“She said you were like a granddaughter.”

“Yeah, well. Turns out she hates her granddaughter.”

With his own job to get to, Mudge couldn’t offer any more but a hug.

She hugged him back with a panicky desperation that made him want to shake her off. She’d told him last night that he was the one friend she could trust not to stab her in the back. That since he’d been here, her crappy apartment felt like a real home.

“I gotta go.”

“Sure.” She stepped back. “I just, you know.”

“Sure.” Where were his keys? “No worries. We’ll deal with it.”

Right. Darla forced a smile. They’d deal with it. Everything would be OK. She’d pay him back soon as she got her job back. That’s all she needed from him, was time. Mudge of all people should know, she might be a screw-up, but she wasn’t stupid. No way would she even think about raising a kid here. Even if she hadn’t promised herself and her parents and their priest not to ever become an unwed mother.

If Mudge let himself be drawn into the discussion Darla was asking for, he’d be late for work. So he kissed her, and ran out to his truck, which for once (thank God) started right up.

She just needed to vent. With him gone, she’d pull herself together. Call Phyllis Nash and straighten things out. Or find another job. Cape Cod in August? Plenty of work.

Everything would be OK.

What if it wasn’t?

Dumbass!

How could he tell her now that he’d planned to move out in a day or two? That the fun they had together didn’t change what he’d said at the start, that he just needed someplace to sleep until the ground dried under the tree, or his dad’s girlfriend sobered up? That her two small rooms above a package store would never, ever feel like home to him? That he liked her a lot, more than any girl he knew, but what he mostly wanted was a shower between Leo’s and the Frigate, and to hang up his work clothes instead of stuff them in his duffel bag?

Darla was beautiful, funny, a good friend. Someday she’d marry a local guy—a carpenter or plumber, like her brothers—at St. Pius X and have cute blonde kids. But she had to know, as he did, that if she ever got serious about a half-black Wampanoag, the cops would find them both floating in Hyannis harbor.

Two wishes vied for space in Mudge’s mind: First, that Darla would get her period. Second, that Phyllis Nash missed her comforts as much as Darla missed her paycheck.