The Life Of Reilly

“Whatever makes you think I did that?” All of a sudden, Delphine was sitting on the edge of the tub.

“Because I know you,” Lynn said. “There is nothing beneath you when you want something.”

Delphine arched a brow. “Really?”

“Really,” Lynn answered, even though Delphine’s response had been more one of disapproval than question.

“Well, dear,” her aunt said, “I’m a woman on a mission from above. Sorry. I can’t leave. But I really don’t understand what makes you think I’d flood your kitchen. Did I ever treat you so abysmally in life?” Delphine patted her hair, which somewhere between her last appearance and this had gone from gray to bright red. Cherry red.

Lynn felt a pang of conscience. “No.”

“See? What makes you think I’d do it now that I’m an angel?”

Lynn frankly gaped at her, clutching the towel, forgetting about the terry robe on the back of the door that she’d been about to reach for. “An angel? You?”

Delphine sniffed. “I succeeded at life.”

“In your own extraordinary way,” Lynn agreed sarcastically. She draped the damp towel over the bar and reached for the thick terry robe the weather was seldom cool enough to wear. Right now, however, she felt unpleasantly chilled.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Delphine, but I have a kitchen to mop.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s a nice young man doing it for you.”

Lynn gaped. “I told him to leave!”

“He tried to.”

Lynn’s hands settled on her hips and she frowned at the apparition sitting on the edge of her tub. “What have you done now?”

Delphine assumed a look of utter innocence. “I,” she said firmly, “haven’t done a thing. But some of the local fauna seems to have…reached a decision.”

“And you had nothing to do with that.”

“Not a thing. I’m quite sure of that.”

Lynn wasn’t so sure about that, but then she remembered that, while Delphine had mastered the art of misleading through misdirection or omission when necessary, she had never out-and-out lied about anything.

Which made this even more perplexing.

“Do go out and help the lad,” Delphine said. “He shouldn’t have to clean the mess all by himself.”

“I was going to clean it by myself. I didn’t ask for help.”

“But he was feeling so bad about not being able to give it!”

“I’m capable of taking care of myself!”

Now Delphine frowned. “That may be so. But take it as a little whisper from heaven—allowing others to help you from time to time is merely polite.”

Then, in an eye blink, Delphine vanished, leaving Lynn alone in her bathroom. Which, when she thought about it, was one place she ought to be able to be alone.

Grabbing her robe off the hook, she slipped it on and belted it tightly. Then she went out to find out what kind of chaos was now occurring in her kitchen.

She stopped at the doorway as she saw Jack Marks mopping steadily away at her floor. He seemed to sense her, for he looked up, then paused.

“Don’t blame me,” he said. “I know you threw me out. But Buster wouldn’t let me leave.”

Being reminded that she’d thrown him out embarrassed her, but curiosity about what he said grabbed her even more. “Buster?”

“Take a look out your door.”

Jack had already managed to clear a large swath of floor enough that she could cross it without sloshing. “I doubt,” she said by way of apology, “that this floor has ever been this clean.”

He actually grinned. “I guess there’s a silver lining in every flood.”

She couldn’t help smiling back. Then she looked out her door and saw Buster sitting at the very edge of her stoop, grinning with all his alligator teeth. “He stopped you?”

“Quite forcibly.”

Her heart skipped. “Do you think he’s suddenly gotten dangerous?”

Jack came to stand beside her. “Somehow I doubt it. But frankly, I wasn’t going to try and test him.”

“I wouldn’t either. My gosh, look at all those teeth!”

“The better to eat you,” he replied wryly.

It should have been impossible, but Buster managed to look wounded around the edges of his gaping maw.

“Awww,” Jack said sarcastically. “You were the one who kept threatening me when I tried to leave, and now you want me to believe you’re innocent?”

Lynn decided that seeing Delphine might not be as totally weird as she had initially thought. After all, she had talked to an alligator, and now Jack was too, and darned if the gator didn’t look as if he understood.

She spoke. “This could get us committed anywhere else in the world.”

He looked at her. “That’s what I love about this place. So, since I can’t leave, can I finish the floor?”

She decided not to mention the front door as her cheeks reddened. “I’m sorry about the way I acted before. I was rude when you were trying to help.”

“You were upset. But someday you have to tell me about Delphine.”

Lynn’s flush deepened. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

He nodded, wrung out the mop into the sink and went back to work. Lynn couldn’t figure out anything else to do except grab handfuls of old towels to wipe up the dampness and suck water out of crevices.

“Nothing on this island ever really gets dry,” Jack remarked as he swept the mop around. “The heat will evaporate the excess, but the humidity will remain.”

“That’s one of the first things I noticed here, the humidity. It’s odd though because even though it’s there, it’s not real troublesome.”

“Unless it turns really hot. Most of the time, though, it just seems to soften the air.”

“Well, I haven’t needed any moisturizer since coming here.”

He flashed a smile. “One of our many money-saving benefits.”

“Does the island have a plumber?”

“We sure do. I already put in a call to him.”

“Any idea when he’ll get here?”

Jack leaned on the mop handle and grinned. “Well…he said as soon as he could.”

“And that means?”

Jack shrugged. “I guess it depends on whatever else he needs to do.”

“Oh, great.”

“Relax. All things come in their own time on this island.”

Harv Cullinan’s time proved to be about a half-hour. “Caught me just before I left for a day of fishing,” he told Jack as he stepped into Lynn’s kitchen. “There I was, dreaming of a big ’un. All set to go, me tackle box beside me, waiting for Geordie to pick me up.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said.

“Me too,” Lynn said a trifle sarcastically. “Next time I’ll make the pipe wait.”

Harv looked at her. A short, bulky man with a balding head, he might have been a miniature Hulk. “Now, now, teacher, nice of you to worry about me, but there’s always another day to fish.”

Lynn nearly gaped at his response. She’d been churlish and he’d taken it as a kindness. There must be something in the air here. Worse, his response made her aware of how peevish and unpleasant she was being. “Sorry. I’m sorry you missed your fishing.”

“Like I said, always another day.”

Slowly, as if his every joint ached with monstrous pain, he lowered his bulk to look into the open cabinet beneath the sink.

“My, my,” he said, his voice sounding hollow as he put his head inside the cabinet. “That’s a beaut.”

“We thought so,” Jack agreed.

Slowly Harv eased back and sat on his heels. “It’s not gonna be easy.”

“Why not?” Lynn asked.

“Because pipes don’t split like this. Not copper ones, unless somebody’s done something to them.” He eyed her suspiciously from beneath bushy brows.

Lynn felt as if she stood accused before a jury. “I swear I didn’t do anything to it.”

“Someone did,” he said darkly.

Lynn had a pretty good idea who, but she hadn’t gone far enough over the edge to say so out loud. “Can you fix it?”

“Oh, aye. I’ll need me helper and some other tools. Back shortly.”

She hoped shortly was shortly.

“He’ll take good care of you,” Jack said. “I’ve gotta run. I’m meeting a couple planning a wedding. I’ll check back later.”

Buster let him pass this time and slowly returned to the wallow where he settled in with contentment.

As she changed into more suitable clothes, Lynn wondered if she’d come to this island to teach for real, or if she was in some mental hospital totally lost in delusion.

What happened next would only increase her questions.

CHAPTER SIX

THE HULK AND COMPANY returned an hour later, shortly before Lynn needed to leave for school. To Lynn’s horror, a backhoe and two trucks pulled into her yard. The Hulk and three helpers appeared, all of them carrying battered tool boxes.

She jumped out her front door and barred the way. “What do you need all this stuff for? It’s just a little broken pipe.”

“It’s a broken copper pipe,” Harv Cullinan answered, as if that explained it all. His three minions all nodded sagely.

“Wait,” she said again. “Why the backhoe?”

“Because,” the Hulk said patiently, “we need to check all the pipes.”

“But why?”

“Do you want one to split inside your wall?” He shook his head. “Substandard materials. I’ve seen the mess….”

Somehow Lynn couldn’t halt the tide. Four beefy men pushed past her into her kitchen. She followed them.

“I’m not sure about this,” she said.

“We are,” Cullinan answered. “We don’t do jobs halfway, teach. No point in it. Just causes you more trouble and money in the long run.”

“But it’s just one little broken pipe.”

“It’s a sign of worse. I told you earlier, copper don’t split that way.”

One of the men had crawled under the sink while she was protesting, and when he re-emerged, he looked as glum as if he’d just been told life had ended. “It’s bad, Harv,” he said. “Wrong gauge. Too thin.”

Cullinan looked at her. “See? You got a big problem, teach.”

Just then the backhoe started digging up her front yard. “What’s that for?” she asked desperately.

“Gotta check it all out. These places is old.”

“But I can’t afford…”

“Don’t be worrying your pretty little head. We’ll take care of you.”

Yeah, thought Lynn. To the tune of thousands of dollars she didn’t have, most likely. And it was all Delphine’s fault. Her aunt had broken that pipe, sure as she was standing here.

“What if I want to run the risk of just fixing the one pipe?” she asked desperately.

The Hulk shook his head. “I wouldn’t be an honest man if I let you do that.”

With that he ushered her out of her own house, leaving her helpless to do much except watch her front yard being trenched. A few of the neighbors came out to watch, too.

“It’s okay,” said the woman from across the street. “Hi, I’m Betty Denton. I work nights over at the casino.”

Lynn shook her hand. “I just had one little pipe under the sink burst. This seems a bit…much?”

Betty shook her head. “Trust me, Harv is a damn good plumber. He’s had to do most of these houses over because people originally built them themselves, and a lot of them cut corners. He did my place last year.”

“He dug up your yard, too?”

Betty hesitated. “Well, not quite. But he had to rip out a few walls.”

“Walls? Walls?” Rendered speechless, Lynn stared at her bungalow, wondering what she’d have left of it by nightfall.

Betty patted her arm. “Dil Stedman does great drywall. You’ll never know.”

“I’ll never know.” Lynn repeated those words all the way to school, all the way through the day and on the way back home. As she approached her block, however, her trepidation grew so great that her feet dragged. She half expected to find nothing but a hole in the ground where her bungalow had been.

As she rounded the corner, the first thing she saw was the heavy equipment, then the trench running through her front yard and the fact that not a working soul was in sight.

Trepidation gave way to a nub of anger. They couldn’t have left her in these straits.

But they had. The backhoe had dug down to the sewer and water lines, exposing them. Inside the house a tangle of tubing, none of it connected to anything she could see, stuck out from her beneath her sink.

“Gaaaaah!”

She dumped her book bag on the now-dusty table and on leaden feet went to survey her bathroom. The tile wall holding the shower head and faucet had been pulled out, leaving an exquisite view of two-by-fours and pipes.

Hanging from the shower head was a sticky note. She pulled it down and read, “Betty says you can shower at her place. We’ll be back as soon as we have all the parts. HC.”

Slowly, note in hand, Lynn sat on the edge of the tub. “Delphine,” she whispered, “I’m going to get you. Somehow.”

At that, Delphine appeared, sitting on the commode. Her hair was still cherry red, which clashed nicely with the orange dress she was wearing. “I’m not responsible for this.”

“It would have been nice if you had appeared and scared them out of here before they tore my house apart.”

Delphine patted her hair and sighed. “It’s just a minor hiccup, dear. When the plumbers are done, you’ll never have another problem. At least not of this kind.”

That seemed foreboding. “I better not have any more problems at all!”

Delphine sniffed. “You expect too much from life. There are always problems. Plumbing and a ghost are the least of them. You need to alter your perspective.”

“What perspective? How could anyone living in this madhouse have a perspective?”

“It’s really quite easy. Take a deep breath, then laugh. You’ll see.”

At that moment they were interrupted by Jack’s voice calling from the kitchen. “Lynn? Lynn, would you like to go to the tavern with me?”

Lynn was off the edge of the tub like a shot, headed for the kitchen. “Look what he did to me, your plumber.”

“You’re welcome,” Jack said, clearly irritated.

“He tore up my whole house!”

“He must have needed to.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Jack hesitated, then turned a sharp about-face and headed for the door. “Buy your own beer,” he said shortly.

“There,” said Delphine from behind her. “What did I tell you? You really need to learn some manners. People here are at least trying to be friendly, unlike the other places you’ve lived.” She sniffed again. “Ungrateful girl!”

Lynn turned to glare at her, too, but caught only a glimpse of rainbow hair as Delphine faded from view. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do. Lynn kicked the wastebasket.

What the hell did she have to be grateful for?

SOME EVENINGS JACK WENT to the tavern on the edge of town. It was a great place to socialize with the folks of Treasure Island. Men of the sea tended to be a God-fearing lot, as were their wives, so he saw most of them in his church on Sunday. But that wasn’t the same as befriending them, and Jack had long felt he could do a lot more as a friend than as a preacher. Hence, he spent some evenings at the tavern and some evenings at the ever-running poker tournament on the upper floor of City Hall. And every Saturday he shot hoops with the island’s children, male and female. Between the three, he socialized with nearly everyone.

On this particular evening, he chose the tavern where he was warmly greeted and invited to sit at a table with six of the biggest—literally—fishermen on the island. He felt dwarfed among them, but that didn’t especially bother him until one of them punched him in the shoulder. Jack was no wuss, far from it, but these guys’ idea of a friendly tap would have knocked down sheetrock and two-by-fours.

Before long the conversation turned from the day’s catch to the new schoolteacher.

“There’s something whacked about her,” said Jazz Bingle, a guy tall enough to play for the NBA if he hadn’t also weighed close to three-hundred pounds. “The wife says she’s teaching them about global warming.”

Jack’s interest perked. “What’s wrong with that?”

Jazz shrugged. “Nothing. But it’s kinda weird when your kid comes home as says the earth getting hotter could cause an ice age. Now how do you figure that?”

Bart Abernathy nodded. “Don’t add up, do it? How does hot make cold?”

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