Return to Pelican Inn

“Okay,” Rosa said, springing from the chair and stacking all the plates within arm’s reach. “I’ll put these in the kitchen and we’ll get going. Thanks for breakfast, Bitsy. It was delicious.”

Cy mumbled his agreement around a mouthful of pancake.

Rosa did not give Bitsy any time to consider issuing a lunch invitation. She changed clothes in an eye blink, collected Manny and walked briskly from the inn out to her Nissan, Cy trailing behind into the fog-misted morning.

“I could have used another cup of joe,” Manny said.

“I’m on a tight schedule, Dad, and you didn’t exactly call ahead.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not gonna get too far in that,” Manny said, pointing to the Nissan’s left rear tire, which was flat to the rim.

Rosa groaned. “Why me?”

Manny looked closer. “Got a nail in the tire. Roofing nail, I think.”

Rosa huffed.

“No worries, sis,” Cy said, removing the keys from her hand and popping the trunk. “I’ll have her up and running in half a second.”

Perhaps it was to make up for the fact that he did not drive that Cy strove to be a master at all things automobile. She’d caught him reading over the Nissan’s owner’s manual to kill time between appointments, studying the diagrams of braking systems and trunk release mechanisms with fervor. In truth, he was the world’s worst auto mechanic, though Rosa didn’t have the heart to tell him so.

“Um, maybe we should call for roadside assistance,” she proposed. “Since we’re in a hurry. I think we’ve got one of those membership cards.”

“Nah, this is easy. You just get that lug wrench thing and whip the bolts off. Or is it nuts?” Cy began rummaging through the trunk.

Rosa heard a soft sigh from behind her. She turned to find Pike watching Cy as if he was a rare animal at the zoo. “Can I help?” he said with a slight grimace.

“No,” Cy called, voice echoing in the trunk space. “I’ve got this. Piece of cake.”

“He never lets me help, either,” Rosa said, though she could change a tire in half the time it took her twin. She considered commandeering the lug wrench, but there were some things one did not do, especially to a brother as incredible as Cy. If he needed to change that tire, she would let him.

“This is going to take a while,” Manny said, and Rosa agreed.

“I’ve got a roofing nail in my tire,” she said, skewering Pike with a look. “I wonder who spilled those everywhere.”

Pike chewed his lip, a flush stealing across his cheeks. “I suppose I could drive you.”

She wanted to say no. Actually, she wanted to say, absolutely not while I still have one measly living breath in my body. Cy emerged, saluting them with the lug wrench and an enormous smile. “All right. I’m goin’ in,” he sang out, as he dove under the car.

“He knows the lug nuts are on the outside of the vehicle, right?” Pike asked.

“Sure I do,” Cy hollered good-naturedly. “But it’s important during an automotive crisis to check over the entire undercarriage for any signs of collateral damage.”

Manny whistled. “He’s still got that weird love-hate relationship with cars, doesn’t he?”

Rosa breathed deep to steady her nerves. “Yes, yes he does.”

“Would have thought he’d get over it and start driving again.”

“Some things,” she snapped, “you just don’t get over.” As if her father could ever understand the wake of destruction he’d left behind. She looked at Pike. “It’s just up Highway One about fifteen miles. That’s where his trailer is. I’m really sorry to ask.” Especially you.

“You didn’t ask. I offered. Let’s get this over with.” Pike strode to his gleaming Mercedes and opened the door for Rosa.

“Please stop doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Pulling out chairs and opening doors for me.”

He arched a brow. “Sorry if it offends you, but the Matthews men were trained to be chivalrous.”

“The Matthews men. Now I remember,” Manny said, with a snap of his fingers. He fixed his eyes on Pike. “You’re Ben Matthews’s kid.”

Pike stiffened. “You should remember. You tried to send him to jail.”

Manny pursed his lips. “I investigated. That’s my job.”

“You defamed us. That’s illegal.”

Manny’s eyes narrowed and his slumped shoulders straightened. “Good-looking boat, wasn’t it?”

“Dad...” Rosa warned.

Manny continued. “Sank on a perfectly calm evening. Insurance paid a hundred thousand on it.”

Pike’s face darkened in rage. “Get in,” he snarled. “Or you can walk back to your trailer, if you prefer.”

Rosa shoved Manny into the car before he had a chance to add any more gasoline to the fire. She sank into the plush leather passenger seat, pulling the door closed quickly before Pike could slam it. Pike took the driver’s seat.

“Nice wheels,” she said.

Pike didn’t answer. A vein throbbed in his jaw as he slid on a sleek pair of sunglasses.

“Law business must be treating you well,” she tried again.

“Well enough.”

That concluded the small talk between Rosa and her chivalrous enemy.

Manny was silent as well. Probably for the best, Rosa thought, as they drove along the highway, past fields of pumpkins that, in a month, would greet the visitors who came for that pick-it-yourself experience. She’d been too mature to indulge in such fantasies when they’d moved to Tumbledown. Fifteen-year-olds did not scurry about in pumpkin patches hunting for that perfect squash. At least, that’s what she’d told her family, but nothing would dissuade Manny and Cy until they’d rolled away the most enormous specimen—one that required both of them to heft it into the station wagon.

She remembered the expression they’d carved into that orange flesh. Intending eeriness, Cy and her father had somehow captured the mournful, contemplative look she’d seen on her mother’s face in her more sober moments, a hint that she’d let something pass her by while she was otherwise occupied. Or was it grief for something she’d lost? If she closed her eyes, Rosa could picture the pumpkin’s visage, illuminated by the candle flickering inside. If only there had been such a candle to illuminate her mother’s soul. Would it have revealed the dark impulse that drove her to drink herself to death? What could Rosa have done, or Manny, or any of them to drive that darkness away before it consumed her? She swallowed hard.

“Penny.”

She jumped. “What?”

“A penny for your thoughts,” Pike said. “Ten miles of awkward silence is my limit. I’m a trained talker.”

“The conversation lagged, so I guess I drifted.”

“Yeah,” Pike said, eyeing Manny in the rearview mirror. He appeared to have dozed off. “Took him a while to remember who I was.”

“You’ve changed.”

“More handsome, huh?”

He grinned. Darned if he wasn’t right, but she’d never tell him that. And not only more handsome but lithe and lanky, intelligent. Worst of all was that terrible, wonderful, dimpled chin. “I was going to say more stubborn.”

“Stubborn, sayeth the pot to the kettle?”

“Yes, sayeth the pot. Aunt Bitsy wants her inn reborn and I can do that better than anyone. It’s the best thing for her.”

He cut his eyes to her, a flicker before he focused again on the highway. “And you’re sure about that?”

“Yes. It’s what she wants.” Rosa twiddled with the hem of her linen coat, noticing for the first time a spot of paint staining the fabric. Why had she not thought to put on the green blouse, which brought out the spark in her hair? Get a grip, Rosa. He wouldn’t notice a spark if it leaped out and burned a hole in his retina. And why would you want him to? Remember Foster, the handsome guy from law school? The one who ruined you?

He chewed on his lower lip. “Maybe we shouldn’t always have what we want.”

She twisted on the seat. “Why? What do you know?” She lowered her voice. “Is Bitsy sick?” Bitsy’s pale face and trembling fingers swam into her memory and her stomach contracted.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Oh, quit the lawyer jargon.” Rosa would have grabbed his arm if he hadn’t been negotiating a narrow section of highway that pinched them against the dark cliff side. “You have to tell me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Pike, I love Bitsy. I need to know.”

“It’s for her to discuss with you, not me.”

“How can you be such a...” Rosa heard herself emit a sort of choking sob. She swallowed it and stared stonily out the window.

Pike shifted. “I’m sorry. I know she’s like a mother to you. All I can tell you is I’m going to make it all turn out for the best.”

So condescending. As if she hadn’t experienced and survived plenty of challenges in her life already. “Yet you still refuse to tell me, even though you know what she means to me?”

He kept his eyes on the road. “Not my place.”

Who was Pike Matthews to withhold information about Bitsy? He was the owner of the luxury vehicle in which she was now being chauffeured, with butter-soft seats and a top-of-the-line sound system burbling a blues song that made her want to cry. He had a career, a living and a future that did not depend on winning some nutty contest. He was, in a word, a success.

She thought about how ashamed she’d felt when she’d realized that Foster had been using her teacher’s assistant password to hack into the law school’s computer system and alter his grades. And again how she’d burned with fury when her professor believed it was her doing, a lovestruck girl risking her future for her boyfriend. Maybe if her father had been a benefactor at the school, as Foster’s had been, the administration might have believed her. As it was, Foster claimed he had no idea that poor, addle-headed Rosa was changing his grades. She was a crazy stalker. Obviously.

She fixed her gaze on the horizon, watching the fog ease away from the ocean. Inside her, fear ebbed and flowed like the waves below. Could Bitsy be seriously ill? She forced her hands to unclench. The very first thing she would do after they dropped Manny at his trailer was to sit down with Aunt Bitsy and ask for the truth. They turned into the Seascape Trailer Park.

“Dad, which one is yours?”

Pike lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

“I’ve been busy,” she sniped. “I haven’t seen the trailer.”

Manny didn’t answer.

“Dad? Wake up. Which one is your trailer?”

Manny blinked and stared at Rosa. “What?”

She forced out a breath and kept her voice in what she hoped was a pleasant range. “We’re here at your trailer park. Which unit is yours?”

He sat up and peered out the window, scanning the neat rows of trailers, which were separated by low picket fences. Some were permanent residences and others more likely vacation rentals. Pike slowed the car to a crawl. The trailers perched on small plots of grass, with lush patches of hydrangea and bougainvillea adding a blaze of color. The nearest yard was crisscrossed by a clothesline with children’s garments flapping gaily in the breeze. Clearly that one wasn’t Manny’s.

Rosa turned to Manny again with a stir of unease. “You can’t remember which one is yours?”

“Yes, I can,” he grumbled, passing a hand over his eyes. “Just takes me a minute.”

Pike watched in the rearview mirror and Rosa wondered what he was thinking. Probably that the Francos came from substandard mental material. With an alcoholic mom and a deadbeat dad who couldn’t find his way home, she could see where some might make the connection.

At least my dad didn’t sink his own boat, she thought uncharitably. She pointed to a sign. “Sea Cliff Lane,” she read off. “Is that the one, Dad?”

He smiled, relieved. “Yes, that’s the one. Turn there.”

Pike slowed to let a couple of kids whip across the narrow graveled lane on their bikes and continued on at a snail’s pace, grimacing when a rock pinged against the side of his Mercedes.

Rosa cringed, too. She didn’t want any more damage inflicted on Pike because of her family. The sooner they could deliver Manny back to his trailer, the better for Pike. And for Rosa.

With everything else on her plate, her father’s presence might just push her over the edge of sanity.

The Mercedes crept along at the specified five miles per hour.

“It’s on the end, left side,” Manny said. “Number six ten.”

Rosa rolled down the window and caught an odd scent, like the smell of an extinguished campfire. The grass that was doing its best to spring up along the side of the road was smashed and blackened.

“Dad?” she said.

“Yes, princess?”

She ground her teeth. I’m not your princess. You don’t run out on princesses. “Why does it look like there’s been a fire around here?”

“Because, there has,” Pike said, pointing to the charred remains of trailer number six ten, Sea Cliff Lane.

CHAPTER SIX

ROSA GOT OUT of the Mercedes and moved closer to the burned wreck, as if closing the distance would somehow correct her misbehaving eyeballs. The trailer remained stubbornly fixed in her line of sight, ugly and black. The door was wrenched off its hinges and the linoleum floor was brown and bubbled like a poorly cooked pizza. The stench of burned plastic stung her nostrils. “Dad,” she said, “your trailer is burned up.”

Manny looked at the ground. “Yes.”

Yes? Did he think that would be sufficient explanation? She rounded on him. “Well, what happened?”

Manny spoke softly, perhaps so Pike would not hear. “There was a mishap.”

“A mishap?” Rosa was beyond trying to conceal anything from Pike. “This thing is charcoal. We’re way beyond mishap here. What happened, exactly?”

He screwed up his mouth, as if considering. “I put a pot of ramen noodles on the stove to boil, and then I had a craving for ice cream so I walked to town and went for some Rocky Road. When I came back, the fire department was here and...well...that’s that. My car burned up, too. I’ve been staying in an empty unit for a few weeks now, but they found somebody to rent it.”

Rosa made a conscious effort to close her mouth. “Why would you leave your trailer with the stove on?”

“Just slipped my mind.” His lips tightened. “It happens to people, doesn’t it?”

Slipped his mind. She worked on breathing some more. “Not really, Dad. People do not generally leave their trailers to burn down while they go on an ice cream run.”

“Actually, technically speaking, it isn’t my trailer. It was a rental. Stan owns the park and he said the insurance would cover it, no sweat, which is nice, isn’t it?”

One small bit of good news. She’d take it.

Her father continued. “But he wasn’t keen on renting me another.”

“So, that’s the real reason you showed up at Bitsy’s place?” Pike interjected.

“Yes.”

“Lost your trailer so you’re expecting her to take you in like she did your kids?”

“It’s not the time, Pike,” Rosa said, sweeping an arm to encompass the wreck. “Even you can see that, can’t you?”

She watched the muscles in his jaw working, but he stayed quiet.

“Dad, why didn’t you mention the fire before we drove all the way here?” Rosa asked. “You could have explained that your trailer was destroyed. Why wouldn’t you tell me something like that?”

Manny took in a heavy breath and let it out slowly in leaky spurts, flicking a quick glance at Pike and then away. “Because I didn’t remember until we pulled up to my street.”

A child walked by holding a bedraggled kite with a tear in the middle, like a wound. The girl wiggled her fingers at Manny, who returned the greeting and ambled over. “Didja bust up your kite?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t. My mom said Gregory had to have a turn and he got it stuck in a tree. Brothers are dumb.”

“Yeah,” Manny agreed. “I had a brother and he sure was dumb. Got any tape? The clear kind that people close up packages with?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’ll fix the rip right up. Good as new.”

The girl brightened. “Good idea. But brothers are still dumb.”

Rosa watched it all with the surreal feeling that she was observing from afar. The breeze continued its capricious meanderings, as if things were perfectly normal, as if the world’s equilibrium had not just been dealt a severe blow. Though she saw the wind toying with the branches of the big cypress that sheltered the burned trailer, she did not feel it on her face. Rosa was surprised to find that Pike had stayed near. To gloat, maybe. They both waited until Manny shuffled back, having concluded his kite repair advice. “What did you mean, Dad, that you didn’t remember?”

Manny cast about for a while, starting and stopping his words, pocketing and unpocketing his hands until he finally hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “I think I’ve got something.”

“You’ve got something.” She felt slow and stupid. “Got what?”

“Alzheimer’s?” Pike asked.

“No, not that,” Manny snapped. “It’s got a different name. ‘Pick’ something.” He pulled a paper from his pocket. “Here, I wrote down what the doctor said.”

He handed over a crumpled scrap of paper and headed to a bench perched in the shade of the cypress tree several yards away.

Rosa smoothed the scrap. “Pick’s disease.” She looked at Pike. “Have you heard of it?”

Shaking his head, he thumbed his phone to life and typed in the search. She watched him read, and though he kept his features in a calm, noncommittal expression, something trickled through the coffee brown of his eyes and the corners of his mouth tightened the tiniest fraction as he scrolled through the information.

“What?”

He pocketed the phone. “We don’t need to research it now. Let’s go back to Bitsy’s and you and Cy can discuss housing options for Manny.”

He turned away, but she stopped him with a hand on his biceps. “Pike, tell me.”

He didn’t meet her eyes, but stared at her fingers curled around his arm. “Rosa, I think maybe this isn’t something you should hear from me in light of...everything.”

She didn’t remove her hand and he remained there, still looking away.

“Please.”

He hesitated. “It says Pick’s disease is a rare form of dementia.”

She blinked. “And?”

“And it’s irreversible and incurable,” he added softly.

Dementia. Irreversible. Incurable. The words fell like heavy stones in deep water, swallowed by the mad, whirling rush in her head. She looked at her father, who was skinning the bark off of a stick he’d retrieved, hunched and small on the hewn wood bench, dwarfed by both the old tree and the blackened wreck.

There seemed no sense to it, that she was standing, watching her father, while being floored by a diagnosis that seemed as if it belonged to a stranger. Manny had left a long time ago, chasing some sort of mysterious, phantom dream that he could not even articulate. He had abdicated the role of father when she’d most desperately needed one. So why, now, were her fingers rigid and her breath tight? Why should she care? Why did it pinch at a place deep inside?

Infuriatingly, Pike had been right. She should not have insisted he tell her about the disease because she was no longer certain she was in control. Above all things, she would not let Pike see her lose it. The man who hated her father. The man who had ridiculed her mother.

She realized she was still touching Pike and that he had covered her hand with his, tenderly, as if he feared bruising her. She detached herself. “I see. Thank you for the info.”

“Do you...want to go talk to him?”

Deep breath. A steadying smile. “I think we should go back. We’ll drive him to the inn, as you suggested, and talk to Cy. This is one of those times when I wish my brother would actually answer his cell phone, the big dork.”

Pike eyed her uncertainly, looking as though he was about to press her further.

“I’m sure Cy’s got the flat changed by now, or the car completely dismantled—one or the other.” Her laugh sounded tinny and strange in her own ears. She strolled to her father and told him of her plan. He nodded, without comment, and shuffled back to the car, the naked twig still clutched in his fingers.

Irreversible, her mind repeated as they drove back to the Pelican.

Incurable.

Unbelievable.

* * *

THE OLD NISSAN sported four fully functioning tires, Rosa noted, as they pulled in to the parking lot. Cy was on the front porch, poring over a stack of history books. Her brother believed that a decorator’s sacred responsibility was to understand the past of any given building before reinventing it.

“The history of a place is what changes a house to a home,” Cy preached at anyone who would listen.

He glanced up as the trio climbed the front steps. “Oh, hey, Pops. Changed your mind about the visit?”

Before Rosa could open her mouth, Cy began hurling historical bomblets at her from his spot on the wicker bench. He gestured with a dusty volume. “Got it from Julio. Took us an hour and a half to find it. The Pelican was built by Harold Herzberg in...”

“In 1860, Cy. I know.”

“Yes, but did you know he was a carpenter turned...”

“Forty-niner who eventually discovered that there was really no money to be made in the goldfields. Yes, I knew that, too.”

“Well, did you know that there was a notable portrait done of Herzberg and his wife, worth thousands, that was stolen from what used to be the Tumbledown Bank some twenty years ago?”

“Hmm. Nope, that’s news to me.”

“Anyway, his carpentry background explains the extensive woodwork.” Cy patted his pockets for a pencil until Pike pointed to the one behind his ear. “There’s a mention of the oak window seat in the dining room being a favorite of Mrs. Herzberg, who used to have guests join her to shell peas and watch the horse-drawn carriages come up from the docks. We’ll need to do it.”

“Do what, Cy?” she said wearily, though she already knew.

“Restore the window seat. Make it a focal point. It won’t be hard—most of the wood is still sound. Aunt Bitsy is fine with it.”

“Yes, she is,” said Bitsy as she stepped out onto the porch. She handed Cy a tape measure. “You left this in the bathroom.”

Pike huffed. “I’m aware that no one is listening, but this inn is on the verge of being sold. There’s no need to do work with window seats or paint or anything else.”

Cy wore a glazed expression as he rambled on about crown molding and stain.

Pike rolled his eyes, mumbling something about being trapped in a nuthouse.

Rosa tried to rally, determined to ignore Pike and his bad tidings. “Time and money, Cy. The window will cost both. And besides, we have something to discuss that’s more important.”

He gaped. “More important than a window seat?”

She nodded. “At the moment, yes.”

Manny rocked back and forth on his heels. “She wants to tell you I’m losing my marbles.”

Cy’s face did not show the signs of shock and surprise that Rosa expected. His mouth opened and closed.

“Oh,” he said. “That.”

Rosa sighed. “You already knew about the Pick’s disease?”

He nodded. “Dad mentioned it when he was last in town.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“He wanted to tell you himself, but you weren’t up for the meeting.”

“You could have told me anyway.”

“Well,” Cy said, tapping the pencil on his palm. “You were stressed about the library design. You’re not the easiest person to talk to when you’re stressed. And I figured we had time.”

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