Barefoot Beach by Toby Devens

Author:Toby Devens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-18T15:45:15+00:00

chapter twenty-two

It was Dr. Dirk DeHaven, Donor Dude’s Delivery Day. And it was a dreary one. Not a respectable rain, but a laconic drizzle grayed the sky and washed everything a dull monotone. I was out early Saturday on the side path with my pruning shears, clipping away, when Jack found me.

Poor kid was desolate. “Can you believe this weather?” he said. “I mean, sunny for the whole last week and today it’s a mess.” He took in the scene. “What are you doing out here?”

I’d decided that since I might have to sell the house, I’d best get it in order before I called in a Realtor to check it out. I didn’t mention the Realtor idea to Jack. He had enough on his mind, and if I got a hit from the networking I planned on doing that morning, the last resort might never come to pass.

“Just trying to clear the path. It’s wildly overgrown,” I said. “Better to work in a light rain than with the sun beating down.”

He nodded, backed off two steps, and, arms out, palms up, asked, “So, what do you think? Am I presentable?”

He was wearing an open-collar knit shirt with the Duke Blue Devils D embroidered in navy on its pocket. The chinos were recently purchased—I’d seen him ironing out the manufacturer’s crease—and now I reached over to snip off the plastic thread that dangled its price tag. His hair, even without the glint of sun, shone a streaky blond. My son. So handsome.

I knocked off the “so,” which would have made him squirm. “Handsome,” I said.

“Casual enough for crabs?”

“You’re doing steamed crabs for lunch?” It was hard to imagine the doctor with a crust of Old Bay Seasoning lodged under those pristine fingernails.

“Yup. Dirk got hooked on them when he interned at Johns Hopkins. He even has them shipped from B’more to Frisco. San Francisco,” Jack corrected himself. “But he wants the real thing today. The whole nine yards. Beer. Paper on the table.”

Servers dumped the hot, crimson-shelled crustaceans leaking succulent juices on tables covered with sheets of tan butcher’s paper that at the end of the feast looked like a battlefield strewn with the skeletons of the vanquished.

“I figured The Claw is authentic.”

A local dive, not yuppied up, the real thing. On second thought, maybe crabs weren’t an odd choice. Maybe Dirk realized the diversionary potential of steamed crabs. All that shell cracking and picking sweet meat from crevices and prying it from tunnels would give the men a task to focus on if their conversation lagged. Plus he was a surgeon; maybe this was designed to show off his skills. In any event, they’d both have something to do with their hands. Jack’s were in constant motion now, flexing, drumming against his thigh. He caught me noticing him cracking his knuckles.

“I’m nervous,” he admitted. His left eyelid was twitching. “Dumb, huh?”

“Understandable. It’s a first meeting. No one knows what to expect.” Or what to want, I thought but didn’t say.

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