Heroes Are My Weakness(61)

Jaycie tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Sometimes I think I’m going to suffocate if I have to stay here another day.”

Lisa McKinley came through the doorway from the kitchen area. She wore jeans and a V-neck blouse that showcased a Victorian-style necklace, a present—she was quick to announce—from Cynthia Harp. Annie drifted off so she and Jaycie could catch up. As she moved among the tables, bits of conversation swirled around her.

“. . . five hundred pounds behind where my catch was this time last year.”

“. . . forgot to order Bisquick, so I have to make them from scratch.”

“That’s more than the price of a new helm pump.”

Annie studied a black-and-white print hanging crookedly on the wall. It showed figures in seventeenth-century garb standing by the sea. Naomi came up behind her and nodded toward the print. “Lobsters washed right up on the beach during colonial times. They had so many they fed them to their pigs and the prisoners in jail.”

“They’re still a treat for me,” Annie said.

“They are for most people, and that’s good news for us. But we have to keep the crop sustainable or we’re out of business.”

“How do you do that?”

“With a lot of regulation about when and where people can fish. And breeders are off limits. If we catch a breeding female, we cut a V in its tail fin to identify it and throw it back in. Eighty percent of the lobsters we catch have to be thrown back either because they’re undersize, oversize, V-notched, or they’re carrying eggs.”

“Hard life.”

“You have to love it, that’s for sure.” She tugged on one of the silver studs in her earlobes. “If you’re interested, you can come out on my boat. The weather looks like it’ll be fairly decent at the beginning of the week, and not many city people can say they’ve worked as a sternman on a Maine lobster boat.”

The invitation took Annie aback. “I’d love that.”

Naomi seemed genuinely pleased. “You’ll have to get up early. And don’t wear your good clothes.”

They’d just made arrangements for Annie to meet Naomi at the boathouse dock on Monday morning when the outside door swung open bringing a fresh blast of cold air. Theo walked in.

The noise level in the room dropped as people grew aware of his presence. Theo nodded, and the chatter picked up again, but most of the crowd continued to watch him surreptitiously. Jaycie paused in her conversation with Lisa to gaze at him. A group of men with weather-beaten faces gestured him over to join them.

Annie felt something tug on her skirt and looked down to see Livia trying to get her attention. The child had grown bored with the company of adults, and her attention was fixed on a group of children in the corner, three boys and two girls, the youngest of whom Annie recognized from her library visit as Lisa’s daughter. Annie had no trouble interpreting the entreaty in Livia’s expression. She wanted to play with the children but was too shy to approach them by herself.

Annie took her hand, and they approached the group together. The girls were putting stickers in a book while the boys argued over a handheld video game. She smiled at the girls, their round cheeks and red hair clearly identifying them as sisters. “I’m Annie. And you know Livia.”

The older one looked up. “We didn’t see you for a long time. I’m Kaitlin and this is my sister, Alyssa.”

Alyssa gazed at Livia. “How old are you now?”

Livia held up four fingers.

“I’m five. What’s your middle name? Mine is Rosalind.”

Livia dipped her head.

When it became obvious Livia wasn’t going to respond, Alyssa looked at Annie. “What’s wrong with her? Why won’t she talk?”

“Shut up, Alyssa,” her sister admonished. “You know you’re not supposed to ask about that.”

Annie had grown used to thinking of Jaycie and Livia as being somehow separate from the community, but they weren’t. They were as deeply entrenched as anyone here.

The video game tussle between the three boys was getting out of hand. “It’s my turn!” one of them shouted.

“Is not! It’s my game.” The largest boy landed a hard punch on the one who’d complained, and then all three of them were on their feet ready to swing at one another.

“Avast, ye ragged curs!”

The boys froze, then gazed around, trying to find the source of the Captain Jack Sparrow voice. Livia was way ahead of the game, and she smiled.

“Stop yer caterwaulin’ or I’ll throw ye all in the bilge.”

The boys slowly turned their attention to Annie, who’d formed a puppet from her right hand. She eased down and settled her weight back on her calves, moving her thumb to make the puppet talk. “A good thing I left me cutlass on the poop deck, ye sorry excuses for sea dogs.”

Boys were the same everywhere. One mention of “poop,” and she had them in the palm of her hand.

She directed her makeshift puppet toward the smallest boy, a cherubic little towhead with a black eye. “What about it, bucko? Ye look strong enough ta sail on the Jolly Roger. Searchin’ fer the treasure of the Lost City of Atlantis, I am. And ’oo wants to go wi’ me?”

Livia was the first to raise her hand, and Annie nearly abandoned Cap’n Jack to give her a hug. “Are ye sure, me beauty? There be fierce sea serpents. It’ll take a brave lass. Are ye a brave lass?”