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Frasier sighed and turned to write something on a Post-it note. He handed it to her, then closed the door.
When Zoey walked back to Lizbeth’s condo, she waved the Post-it at Charlotte. “Guess what this is?”
“We’re supposed to be taking paper out, not bringing it in,” Charlotte said.
“It’s Oliver Lime’s phone number.”
“Oh, sothat’swhy we’re doing this.” Charlotte smiled at her. “There are easier ways to get a date than this, you know.”
“I’m going to text him and ask if he wants me to mail him the box of things I’ve set aside for him.” She stared at the number. “Do you think Lucy would like to join us for lunch one day?”
Surprised, Charlotte sat back on her crate. “My guess would be no. This is quite a turnaround. She’s gone from prowler to guest of honor?”
“I just got to thinking, since Oliver’s not coming home, Lucy doesn’t have any family left at the Dellawisp. What if she’s lonely? Like Lizbeth was.”
Charlotte started going through the box in front of her again. “You have a good heart, Zoey.”
Zoey smiled. “Thanks.”
“A weird fascination with this family, but a good heart.”
Later that afternoon, Roscoe Avanger poured himself some bourbon as he sat outside on his back porch. With a sigh, he took his first sip.
So it began, this cursed sameness.
He hated evenings, the way they stretched out like a long-winded speech. Starting at five, he allowed himself a drink. Then he walkedaround his property and greeted the neighbor’s dog, a golden retriever named Goof, through the fence. Then he swam in his backyard pool. Then he showered. Then he watched television and ate what Rita left him for dinner, usually chicken bog, a dish of chicken, sausage, and rice he must have told her once that he liked, so now it was all she made. After that, there were hours and hours to slog through before he was reasonably tired and could go to bed. During those hours, he prowled through the rooms of his house, reacquainting himself with his lovely belongings. He sometimes went through his closet, trying on expensive suits he hadn’t worn in decades to make sure they still fit.
The one place he studiously avoided was his office. Everything there was a shrine toSweet Mallow,frippery the interior decorator had insisted would inspire him. He’d hired the decorator shortly after he’d bought this large old home on historic Julep Row, in the most affluent neighborhood on Mallow Island. He’d dreamed about living here as a boy when he would ride a stolen bicycle up and down the street until homeowners called the police. His grandfather, his only living relative since his mother died and his father left, would always take a switch to him when he got home. Roscoe would yell at him that he hated him, that he had no idea what it felt like to want to be someone else, that pretending to be the owner of a stolen bicycle and riding in a nice neighborhood was the only way to get away from the things that haunted him. If only they could all see him now. But very few people remembered that little boy. At one time he’d liked his office—the framed book covers, the original movie poster, the large photo of him at the Oscars above the case where he kept his Oscar for cowriting the screenplay for the movie. But as the years passed, he began to hate the room. It mocked him.
He didn’t write for nearly three decades afterSweet Mallow,too busy basking in his own glory. He went on lecture tours, accepted awards, gave commencement speeches. But when those offers stopped rolling in, he focused on the one place he would always be a superstar: Mallow Island itself. He began to buy and renovate old properties, preserving the old Mallow Island of his youth, continuing to put a lasting mark on a town that both rejected him as a boy and gave him the success he had as a man. It gave him something to do when his fingers got twitchy, wanting to peck on a keyboard again. When he saw that old stable property for the first time, something awakened in him. He fell in love with the place and the birds, and he thought he finally had something else to share with the world.Dancing with the Dellawispshad been a tiny illustrated book, no longer than a novella, and he had published it himself. His hubris had convinced him that people would love anything he wrote, so why give a publisher a piece of the pie? But it turned out no one was as fascinated by the place as he was. He should have known. He wasn’t put on this earth to tell his own story. It had been two more decades now sinceDancing with the Dellawisps,and still not a single day went by that he didn’t think of writing.
But he was a hermit now. He didn’t write. He’d even stopped buying properties after the Dellawisp. He was an old man, and he was tired of being famous. He made sure that no one recognized him when he went out, but he was still a big fish in this small town, so it wasn’t for their lack of trying. The Mallow Island trolley tour still rolled by his house every day, and tourists still tried to get photos of his house through the gate and wisps of Spanish moss. The island college extension still hadSweet Mallowas its only English reading requirement, but he no longer felt an obligation to give a speech there every year. Even his own housekeeper rarely saw him. Rita was always gone by five in the afternoon, and from that pointon he had the house to himself, free to be unproductive without an audience. Rita handled everything he needed for day-to-day living. She did his grocery shopping, managed his household repairs, and left him notes on the refrigerator reminding him of doctors’ appointments and missed calls. And there was always chicken bog left warming for him. She was like a fairy, flitting in and out of his life.
And if Rita was the fairy in the story of his life these past few years, then it stood to reason that Lizbeth Lime was the goblin.
Oh, Lizbeth.
Kindness wasn’t something that came easily to him with most people. Certainly not with Lizbeth. She’d worked for him for nearly twenty years, doing who knows what. Something to do with the internet. As far as he knew, it had been her first and only job. He’d only offered it to her because her son Oliver obviously needed some stability. She’d never been put off by his arrogant dismissals when she would say what a great book her life would be. She’d said if he only knew what she had suffered at the hands of her sister, he would understand. She’d been like a child trying to get attention with a secret. But Lizbeth was like every person who had ever told him they had a story they wanted him to write for them—she’d wasted too much time thinking about doing it and now there was no time left. He’d once challenged her to put it all down on paper just so she would shut up about it. She said it was already written down, she just needed to find it. And that was how she’d spent her last years. She never did find whatever she was looking for, which didn’t surprise him. Very little surprised him in his old age.
There wasn’t a story in Lizbeth’s condo, of that he was certain. But he felt he owed it to Lizbeth to at least look. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel if there really was something. Probably not too terrible. Once you accumulate enough regrets in life, they cease to hurt you.They are simply one more thing you collect, like age spots or ugly figurines. You barely even see them anymore.
As Roscoe put on his monogrammed pajamas and got into bed that evening, he finally let himself acknowledge what he wouldn’t admit in the light of day, when it was much easier to still feel irritated by her.
He missed Lizbeth Lime.
He really missed that old bird.
Chapter Ten
NORRIE BEACH, CALIFORNIA
There’s an express envelope for you on the table in the foyer. I had to sign for it. The postmark is Mallow Island. Is it a graduation gift from your mother’s old friend?” Garland said that evening as she walked into her bedroom. “Walked” being a generous word. She couldn’t do more than take tiny bird steps in her skinny dress.
Oliver put down his phone and watched from his position against the bed pillows as Garland spritzed herself with a bottle of perfume on her dresser, something dark and Oriental, like opening a fragrant antique chest. She wasn’t looking at him. He wondered what was wrong. Maybe it had something to do with the envelope. Frasier hadn’t wasted any time sending the papers to sell his mother’s condo back. He thought there would be a long legal process to go through first. Oliver wasn’t sure if he was ready to deal with it yet. He felt untethered now that the single most powerful force inhis life, his desire to distance himself from his mother, was gone. “It was presumptuous to give out your address without asking first,” he finally said. “I’m sorry.”
“Roy has his dealer bring his weed here. Do you really think I mind you having a graduation gift delivered?” She slapped his thigh as she passed him on her way back out. “Come on. Our Uber will be here soon.”
“Have you heard from your dad?” he asked as he got up.
