LITMIR.BIZ

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for Janis Joplin—the dog, that is—who let out the kind of howl that explained how she had gotten that name, and practically mowed me over in an attempt to get past me and out into greener—or in this case, sandier—pastures.

      “Don’t let the dog out!” Tom yelled by way of greeting.

      “Sorry,” I said, shutting the screen firmly behind me, which only caused Janis to start to whimper and paw at me, nearly unbalancing me. “Nice doggie,” I said, dropping my shopping bag and wheelie, and sliding my pack off my back. I assumed if I wasn’t supposed to offend the master of the house, I should be careful not to offend the master’s dog.

      Not that Tom noticed. “So you finally made it,” he said. Since I wasn’t sure from his bland tone whether he was being sarcastic or not, I glanced up at him once I had successfully brushed off Janis’s advances. My eyes widened. Not only was Tom dressed in nothing more than a towel around his waist, his hair damp as if he had just come from the shower, but he was chopping garlic with what looked like a barely contained fury. I wasn’t sure if it was the way he was wielding that knife that weirded me out, or the strangeness of seeing Tom in nothing more than a towel, which looked in danger of slipping every time he brought the knife down on another clove of garlic. Somehow the sight of his damp chest, covered in gray hair and a bit saggy with age—he was, after all, nearing fifty—made me uneasy. Kinda the way you feel uneasy the first time you catch your father running from the bedroom to the bathroom in nothing more than his skivvies, which was one of the few memories I actually had of my father. But that was the other thing about Fire Island. Living in close quarters with strangers often brought you an up close and personal view of them, whether you wanted one or not.

      I would have slid away to the bedroom, except it looked like Tom was in the midst of making that dinner I had heard so much about. And was none too happy about it. “Well, you didn’t miss much,” he said, peeling the skin away from a fresh garlic clove. “Maggie disappeared. Last I saw her, she said she was going to Fair Harbor Market to look for coriander. But that was almost three hours ago.” He brought the knife down on the clove with a solid whack.

      Oops.

      “I come home a little while ago and find dinner half-made,” he continued, shaking his head. “I don’t know what gets into her.”

      “So, uh, dinner is still on?” I said hopefully, wondering how I could surreptitiously put the coriander on the counter without him realizing I was the cause of this culinary disaster.

      He finally looked up at me, eyes roaming over me as if I had two heads. “It’s ten o’clock. We can’t eat now. I’m just trying to finish the sauce she started before she took off to God knows where.” He sighed, as if the thought of the wasted meal deeply disturbed him. “I guess we’ll eat this tomorrow. If Maggie ever gets back with the coriander,” he continued. Whack. Whack. Whack.

      Seeing my opening, I said, “Actually, I think I might have some coriander in one of these bags.”

      He looked up, knife paused in midair as he regarded me anew. I guess he didn’t figure me for the type to be packing a jar of coriander. And with good reason. I didn’t even know what coriander was until the grocer at Gourmet Garage kindly explained it to me. Locating the jar in the shopping bag, I placed it on the counter before him, transforming myself from the neglectful tardy dinner guest to the heroine of the piece.

      For all of thirty seconds. “Oh, so you got Maggie’s message? She wasn’t sure you did.”

      “Uh, yeah. I, uh, got a later ferry than I expected.” And since I figured I had already effectively destroyed my momentary heroic status, I decided to come completely clean, pulling out the wine and the Vidalia onion, which was looking a bit bruised. “I got these, too.”

      “Ah, well,” he said, eyeing the onion. “I already used the Spanish onions we had in the fridge. I can’t tell the difference anyway, but that’s Maggie for you,” he said with a roll of the eyes. “An onion’s an onion, if you ask me.”

      “Yep, it’s all the same to me,” I said, in an attempt to bond with dear old Tom over our mutual ignorance of the varieties of onions.

      Janis Joplin, who had been humming a low whine as I emptied the contents of my shopping bag, was now clawing at the screen door.

      “Dammit, Janis!” Tom roared, returning to his former austere—and somehow more intimidating in that towel—stance.

      Even Janis backed down, lowering to her stomach and whimpering, her eyes on me, pleading.

      “I don’t know what’s gotten into that mutt,” Tom muttered. “Must be a full moon tonight.” Whack. Whack. Whack.

      I didn’t think there was any moon tonight, judging by all the darkness I had just ploughed through. But I wasn’t about to argue.

      Whack. Whack. Whack.

      “So, um, where is everyone…else, that is?” I asked, not wanting to invoke the name of Maggie again, seeing as Tom was none too pleased with her at the moment.

      He lined up another garlic clove. “Sage had a date or something. And I’m not sure where Nick is.” He frowned, and I wondered if he was remembering how cozy Nick and Maggie had gotten on Memorial Day weekend. God, maybe Nick and Maggie were…Oh, yuck. I wouldn’t put it past Nick, though. He didn’t seem to have many scruples when it came to his love life. And ever since Bernadine had moved to San Francisco, he seemed to have even less.

      Whack. Whack. Whack.

      Janis let out a low moan.

      “Shut up, you damn mutt!”

      I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Um, maybe I should take her for a walk or something?” I said, realizing I had found my escape.

      “Yeah, why don’t you do that?” Tom replied, in a tone that implied that perhaps I should make myself useful for a change.

      Whack. Whack. Whack.

      Grabbing my wheelie and my knapsack, I quickly shuffled my load down the long hall that led to the back bedroom, which Tom and Maggie had designated as my and Sage’s sleeping quarters.

      I unloaded my stuff in the middle of the room, then flicked on the lamp on the nightstand between the two twin beds, shedding a dim light over the small room. The green room, as it was aptly referred to with its mint-green walls and matching mint-green curtains, looked like a little girl’s bedroom with white furniture and ruffled bedspreads. But at the moment, it looked more like the inside of the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret. Must have been some date, I thought, figuring the assortment of bikini tops, bras, postage-stamp-size skirts and slinky tops that littered both Sage’s bed and mine was Sage’s date-preparation debris. I briefly wondered who she might be out with—Sage had no small amount of admirers on Kismet—then figured it was likely the dock boy she’d been chatting up on the beach the last time I was here. I couldn’t remember his name, but I wasn’t sure it would matter in the long run. He was the kind of young, buff little boy that Sage usually aspired to. But who was I to judge? I hadn’t had sex in two months. Almost three, I thought, remembering that July Fourth was coming up. Maybe it was the reminder that I had spent last July Fourth weekend with Myles that had me shoving my wheelie and knapsack off to one corner and quickly leaving the room.

      I spotted Janis Joplin’s leash hanging from the coatrack by the screen door the moment I returned to the kitchen. Thankfully, Tom had finished his merciless chopping and was now stirring a pot on the stove, sipping a glass of wine freshly poured from the bottle I’d brought. I beelined for the leash, not wanting to banter over the merits—or lack thereof—of the wine. (Tom was, I had already learned, a bit of connoisseur. I wasn’t.) The moment I pulled the leash from the coatrack, Janis’s whimpering turned into an all-out howl of impatience.

      Tom turned from his stirring briefly. “There’re some Baggies in the top drawer right there,” he said, gesturing to a small pantry cabinet.

      “Baggies?”

      He raised an eyebrow. “For the

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