Клэр Донелли - Last Licks

“I’m sorry again,” Sunny said. “I don’t have any influence around here. I’m looking for my boss—” She broke off when she spotted Ollie in the large, crowded room. He stood, after a fashion, crouched over a rolling walker. His face was pale and damp with sweat, and his knuckles were white as he clutched at the handles. A husky physical therapist walked at his side, keeping a sturdy grasp on the seat of Ollie’s sweatpants. Bringing up the rear came a kid, a summer volunteer probably, pushing a wheelchair.

A security blanket, Sunny realized. He obviously can’t walk very far, but this setup encourages him to stay on his feet as long as possible.

At that moment, Ollie looked up from taking a step and saw Sunny. He was in the middle of moving his bad leg and staggered, nearly falling back onto the chair. His face was a mask of humiliation and fury as he bawled, “Get out!”

4

The large room went silent, all of the people stopping in the middle of their various exercises to stare at Ollie after his outburst. All that attention didn’t improve his mood, but at least he moderated his voice—slightly—when he spoke again. “Why’d you even come here?” he demanded. “I left the package with the nurse.”

Who of course wasn’t around when I arrived, Sunny thought. “I’ll go and get it now,” she said, heading back outside and just as glad not to have a room full of people gawking at her. Let Ollie handle them in his own inimitable way, that cynical side of her brain suggested.

Gardner Scatterwell and his nephew were still in the hallway, but they’d obviously heard Ollie’s outburst. “I’m afraid Oliver is a bit out of sorts today—he was up late,” Gardner explained. “He and his lawyer were going over those papers well after the normal lights-out.”

Having nothing to say to that, Sunny just nodded and headed for the nurses’ station. Now, of course, there was a nurse on duty, who passed over the thick envelope. Sunny checked inside and found a note in Ollie’s nearly indecipherable handwriting. It instructed her to make copies for his files and his lawyer, then express-mail the originals to Mr. Orton. She headed down the hallway and to the parking lot. No sense risking any more grief from Ollie. She’d get on the job right away.

The scenery was as lush and pleasant on the way back as it had been on her outward journey, but Sunny’s mood ruined the drive to Kittery Harbor. She then spent most of the morning taking care of that monster document, rounding out her time with routine office tasks.

When she answered the phone just before lunchtime, she was surprised to hear Ollie’s voice on the other end of the line. “Look,” he said gruffly. “I—um—I have to apologize. You caught me—this therapy stuff is rougher than almost anything I’ve ever had to do.”

“I know that, Ollie. When my dad was sick, he had a real fight to get back on his feet. And look at him now.”

“Yeah.” Now Ollie sounded embarrassed. “He called to say he was coming up. The old-line folks in town, people like my dad, would do stuff like that, even if they weren’t really friendly with someone in the hospital or whatever. I’d hate to have him hear that I’d treated you badly. I didn’t mean what I was saying.”

“Well, he won’t hear about it from me,” Sunny promised.

“Um. Good. There’s something else you can do for me. Check in the files for a couple of folders.” He described what he wanted—several real estate transactions. “These are other deals I’ve done with Orton. I want to compare them with the one you just copied.”

“Fine, Ollie.” Sunny looked longingly at the sandwich she’d just arrayed on her desk. “When do you need this?”

“We’ll do it like we did yesterday,” Ollie said. “You can leave the office a little early, and when you’re finished up here, you can go home.”

With a longer trip, longer business, and no overtime, Sunny’s unpleasant reporter alter ego piped up.

Still, she agreed, took another note, and hung up. After lunch, she dug the keys out of her desk and went to the bank of tall cabinets that lined the back wall of the office. She took the precaution of copying all the files that Ollie had specified and putting the originals back where they came from.

Don’t want him yelling at me if Jell-O gets spilled on them.

When Sunny arrived at Bridgewater Hall this time, she got a much more enthusiastic welcome. Rafe Warner was on duty now and greeted her with a smile and some chat as she signed in. And who should appear from behind the security desk but Portia, sniffing Sunny’s ankles and then peering around them as if she expected someone else to be standing there.

I don’t think she’s looking for Dad, Sunny thought. I think Shadow sent a message on me—and Portia’s certainly answering.

She spent a little time trying to pet Portia, who seemed more interested in twining around her ankles. So in the end Sunny gave up and headed down the hallway to the rehab wing. Checking with the nurse, Sunny made sure that Ollie had finished his second therapy stint of the day and then went on to Room 114. There, she discovered both visitor’s chairs were occupied. Mike Coolidge sat beside Gardner Scatterwell, and Luke Daconto, the guitarist from the other day, sat with Ollie.

“Well, this is unexpected,” Sunny said.

“I had a bell-ringing class upstairs and decided to stop by on my way out,” Luke said. “Considering Mr. Barnstable’s interest in music, I’m trying to convince him to take some guitar lessons when he’s feeling better.”

“Trying to drum up business,” Ollie said suspiciously.

“I didn’t say I wanted to teach you,” Luke replied with a good-natured smile—at least that’s what Sunny thought was going on under all that foliage on his face. “I’m just saying you could easily pick up an inexpensive guitar and find someone to get you started.”

“I was interested in music, as you put it, around the same age those two”—Ollie gestured at Mike and Gardner—“had their half-assed band.”

“It’s never too late to start,” Luke insisted.

“You think?” Ollie looked hopeful for a moment, then shook his head. “I dunno. When I was sixteen, I saw a guitar in a music shop window—a Gibson. I never wanted anything more, but it was way out of my dad’s price range. Three hundred dollars, if I remember right.”

His eyes went to the ceiling, looking at something only he could see. “I spent a year doing shifts at the Sweet Shoppe for my dad, mowing lawns, shoveling snow . . . I even folded people’s wash down at the Laundromat for minimum wage, which was about a buck-ninety in those days. And when I finally pulled together enough money—”

“You went to the store and the guitar was gone,” Mike finished for him.

But Ollie shook his head, an almost heartbroken look on his big, round face. “I couldn’t bring myself to spend so much money on something so—frivolous.”

“I think you set your sights too high,” Luke offered. “You should have gotten yourself a secondhand acoustic guitar—something inexpensive—and seen how it felt to play.”

“That’s what I did,” Mike said. “Got my Rickenbacker at a pawnshop in Portsmouth for seventy-five bucks.”

“Really?” Luke swung around to look at Sunny’s dad, his eyes shining with interest. “Do you still have it?”

Mike shrugged. “Up in the attic maybe.”

“If it’s in good shape, you might be amazed at how valuable it’s become now,” Luke said eagerly. “Some Rickenbackers from that era go for a couple thousand dollars now—maybe more.”

Mike gawked for a second, then said, “Really? That old bass may be the best investment I ever made.”