Duma Key(134)

She looked back at the pictures. I stood silently beside her and let her look.

"I don't like these, Edgar. They're not like the others, and I don't like them."

I thought of Tim Riley saying, Your ex has great insight but little kindness.

Pam lowered her voice. "You don't know something about Illy that you shouldn't, do you? The way you knew about-"

"No," I said, but I was more troubled by the Girl and Ship series than ever. Some of it was seeing them all hung in a line; the accumulated weirdness was like a punch.

Sell them. That was Elizabeth's opinion. However many there are, you must sell them.

And I could understand why she thought so. I did not like seeing my daughter, not even in the guise of the child she had long outgrown, in such close proximity to that rotted sheerhulk. And in a way, I was surprised that perplexity and disquiet were all Pam felt. But of course, the paintings hadn't had a chance to work on her yet.

And they were no longer on Duma Key.

The young people joined us, Ric and Melinda with their arms around each other. "Daddy, you're a genius," Melinda said. "Ric thinks so, too, don't you, Ric?"

"Actually," Ric said, "I do. I came prepared to be... polite. Instead I am struggling for the words to say I am amazed."

"That's very kind," I said. " Merci. "

"I'm so proud of you, Dad," Illy said, and hugged me.

Pam rolled her eyes, and in that instant I could cheerfully have whacked her one. Instead I folded Ilse into my arm and kissed the top of her head. As I did, Mary Ire's voice rose from the front of the Scoto in a cigarette-hoarsened shout that was full of amazed disbelief. "Libby Eastlake! I don't believe my god-damned eyes!"

It was my ears I didn't believe, but when a spontaneous spatter of applause erupted from the doorway, where the real aficionados had gathered to chat and take a little fresh evening air, I understood why Jack and Wireman had been late.

v

"What?" Pam asked. " What? " I had her on one side and Illy on the other as I moved toward the door; Linnie and Ric bobbed along in our wake. The applause grew louder. People turned toward the door and craned to see. "Who is it, Edgar?"

"My best friends on the island." Then, to Ilse: "One of them's the lady from down the road, remember her? She turned out to be the Daughter of the Godfather instead of the Bride. Her name's Elizabeth Eastlake, and she's a sweetheart."

Ilse's eyes were shining with excitement. "The old gal in the big blue sneakers!"

The crowd many of them still applauding parted for us, and I saw the three of them in the reception area, where two tables with a punch-bowl on each had been set up. My eyes began to sting and a lump rose in my throat. Jack was dressed in a slate gray suit. With his usually unruly surfer's thatch tamed, he looked like either a junior executive in the Bank of America or an especially tall seventh-grader on Careers Day. Wireman, pushing Elizabeth's chair, was wearing faded, beltless jeans and a round-collared white linen shirt that emphasized his deep tan. His hair was combed back, and I realized for the first time that he was good-looking the way Harrison Ford was in his late forties.

But it was Elizabeth who stole the show, Elizabeth who elicited the applause, even from the newbies who hadn't the slightest idea who she was. She was wearing a black pantsuit of dull rough cotton, loose but elegant. Her hair was up and held with a gauzy snood that flashed like diamonds beneath the gallery's downlighters. From her neck hung an ivory scrimshaw pendant on a gold chain, and on her feet were not big blue Frankenstein sneakers but elegant pumps of darkest scarlet. Between the second and third fingers of her gnarled left hand was an unlit cigarette in a gold-chased holder.

She looked left and right, smiling. When Mary came to the chair, Wireman stopped pushing long enough for the younger woman to kiss Elizabeth's cheek and whisper in her ear. Elizabeth listened, nodded, then whispered back. Mary cawed laughter, then caressed Elizabeth's arm.

Someone brushed by me. It was Jacob Rosenblatt, the accountant, his eyes wet and his nose red. Dario and Jimmy were behind him. Rosenblatt knelt by her wheelchair, his bony knees cracking like starter pistols, and cried, "Miss Eastlake! Oh, Miss Eastlake, so long we're not seeing you, and now... oh, what a wonderful surprise!"

"And you, Jake," she said, and cradled his bald head to her bosom. It looked like a very large egg lying there. "Handsome as Bogart!" She saw me... and winked. I winked back, but it wasn't easy to keep my happy face on. She looked haggard, dreadfully tired in spite of her smile.

I raised my eyes to Wireman's, and he gave the tiniest of shrugs. She insisted, it said. I switched my gaze to Jack and got much the same.

Rosenblatt, meanwhile, was rummaging in his pockets. At last he came up with a book of matches so battered it looked as if it might have entered the United States without a passport at Ellis Island. He opened it and tore one out.

"I thought smoking was against the rules in all these public buildings now," Elizabeth said.

Rosenblatt struggled. Color rose up his neck. I almost expected his head to explode. Finally he exclaimed: " Fuck the rules, Miss Eastlake!"

"BRAVISSIMO!" Mary shouted, laughing and throwing her hands to the ceiling, and at this there was another round of applause. A greater one came when Rosenblatt finally got the ancient match to ignite and held it out to Elizabeth, who placed her cigarette-holder between her lips.