Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 03 - When the Carny Comes to Town (2 page)

I nodded, still chewing.  Dr. Welby (who tells you as soon as you meet him not to make fun of his name) is retired and serves on the First Prez food pantry committee.  He’s a take-charge kind of person, which is my favorite kind of volunteer.

Jennifer Stenner sat down next to Scoobie and jumped back up again.  “It’s wet,” she said, carefully adjusting her perfectly ironed capris.

“It’s just iced tea,” Scoobie told her, and winked at me as he leaned over to mop up what looked to be a very small bit of tea.

“Thanks,” Jennifer said as she sat down again.  “I’ve been working at the bake sale tables and I needed a break.”

“Too tempting to eat the fattening food?”  I asked.

“I have plenty of self discipline,” she said, “I’m just tired of standing.”

I did an inside-the-mind eye roll.  Jennifer is precise about everything.  “Why don’t you try the high-striker thing?” I asked.  “Scoobie’s looking for a partner.”

“Am not,” he said, and looked at Jennifer.  “I wouldn’t want to be too hard on you.”

Ramona choked on her last bite and Scoobie gave her a quick pat on the back.  “Come on, you guys, I’m going back to the gong for another try.” 

We picked up our used napkins and cups and headed over, minus Jennifer who said she’d sit a bit longer.  We were almost back to the “High Striker” when Scoobie came to a sudden stop and I walked into his backside.  “What are you…,” I began before I caught a look at his expression. 

Though Scoobie says he doesn’t like being around a lot of people on a regular basis, you don’t generally see him get really mad at anyone.  He’s more likely to leave the Java Jolt coffee shop than argue with its owner, Joe Regan, who seems to like to needle Scoobie.  Right now he looked ready to hit someone and I noticed he clinched his fist for a second.  I followed his gaze to the High Striker, which was now under the watchful eye of different carnival worker.  A worker who was looking directly at Scoobie with a smirk on his face.

Scoobie took an abrupt left.  “I’m tired of that game.  Let’s go bowling.”

Ramona and I looked at each other and followed him to the bowling game.  We’ve both known Scoobie long enough to expect him to work out his moods in his poetry, so we don’t usually ask about what gets to him.  After beating both of us hands down he seemed back to a happier self.  Plus, he had won Ramona and me both medium-size stuffed animals, mine being a spotted dog that looked like a cross between a cat and a Dalmatian. 

THE CARNIVAL STARTS AT NOON and ends about ten o’clock.  I hadn’t been to it since eleventh grade, back when it was held in the large public parking lot by the ocean.  New Jersey beaches are crowded from Memorial Day until well after Labor Day, which is why it’s a spring carnival.  We appreciate the tourists, most of the time, but the carnival is largely a townie event.  Anyone can come, of course.  It’s like bingo.  The Catholics will take anyone’s money, just like the Presbyterians will take it for a quilt raffle or bake sale.

I’d certainly never stayed all ten hours, but since the dunk tank was benefiting the food pantry I thought I should stick around and hand towels to the dunkees.  If Lance could stay that long so could I.  However, I insisted that he not be one of the people on the step ladder to refasten the banner reading “Harvest for All Food Pantry.”  The banner graced the wall behind the dunk tank.  It’s new. We had a contest to give the food pantry a formal name.  Scoobie had several suggestions, all of them printable, none really appropriate.  “Nuggets for Nourishment” was his self-proclaimed favorite.  The winning entry was submitted by a fifth-grader who saw a sign about the contest at the library.

I helped Reverend Jamison steady the ladder while a church member I didn’t know placed the banner’s holes back over a couple hooks.  I kept looking around for Scoobie and Ramona.  I figured they were trying a last round at the High Striker, since Ramona still topped Scoobie’s best effort by almost a foot.  That’s what walking two miles a day on the sand and lifting boxes in the Purple Cow will do for you. 

Ramona wandered over with her sketch pad and pencil box just as I was getting ready to leave.  “Where’s Scoobie?” she asked.

I shrugged.  “Thought you guys were back whacking the mallet.”

“Nope.  I finally let him win.”  She walked toward my car with me.

“Somehow I doubt that’s how he’ll portray it.”

“Probably not,” she agreed.

It was a clear night with little breeze and almost a full moon.  We were a few blocks from the ocean so I couldn’t smell it, but I figured the surf would be calm.  “You want a ride?”  I asked this as I avoided stepping in a blob of hotdog and mustard that looked as if it might have been in someone’s stomach previously. 

Ramona lives about ten blocks from the Purple Cow, the office supply store where she works.  She doesn’t own a car and doesn’t seem to miss one.  However, it was late and St. Anthony’s was almost a mile from her apartment.  I was glad she accepted my offer.  Even in Ocean Alley it’s probably not smart for a woman to walk by herself through town this late when there’s hardly anyone else on the streets.

After I dropped off Ramona I headed for the Cozy Corner B&B and the room I share with my cat Jazz.  When I first came to Ocean Alley from Lakewood, New Jersey my little black cat had been my biggest concern.  Aunt Madge has two shelter-adopted dogs, Mr. Rogers and Miss Piggy.  I was worried that Jazz would be constantly fearful of the two exuberant part-retrievers.  No worries.  She terrorizes Mr. Rogers by jumping on his back for a ride a couple times a day.  Miss Piggy either ignores Jazz or races around Aunt Madge’s great room so fast that Jazz does not enjoy her perch.  Aunt Madge enjoys these antics even less, but she puts up with all of us.

CHAPTER TWO

I WAS UP EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, since I had a couple things to do before going back to the carnival at noon and I had wanted to take a short jog on the boardwalk.  When I got back, Aunt Madge had already served breakfast to her six guests, all of whom were in town for the carnival.  I heard her laughing with them and remembered a couple guests were people who used to live in Ocean Alley.

It was a sunny Saturday.  After my shower I gulped orange juice and inhaled one of Aunt Madge’s date muffins before I thought about checking the
Ocean Alley Press
. 

The paper sat on Aunt Madge’s large oak kitchen table, and it had a long article about the carnival and a bunch of pictures, but none of me.  George had a great one of Ramona whamming the mallet onto the platform, and the caption noted she had done better than any other woman who tried to make the ball hit the gong.  I smiled.  Ramona wouldn’t like the photo, since her face was screwed up in concentration. 

“Nuts.”  I was almost to the end of the article, thinking I’d made George mad enough not to mention me, when I saw the reference to “a spoiled sport” who had pulled “this reporter and his phone” into the dunk tank.  Since the next sentence mentioned the food pantry as the sponsor of the dunk tank I figured anyone who knew me would guess who the spoiled sport was.  “Oh well.”

“Saw the article, did you?”  Aunt Madge came through the swinging door that connects the kitchen with the guest breakfast room.  She was carrying a tray of used coffee cups and I jumped up to take them from her.

“Yep, could be worse.”

“Probably will be at some point,” she said in her usual matter-of-fact tone.

“Who were you laughing with?” I asked.

“Audrey and Jeff Inwood.  Before they moved to Florida she and I played hearts with a bunch of gals every third Thursday.”

“I figured it must be someone you knew pretty well.”  I walked to the sliding glass door to let the dogs into Aunt Madge’s living area, which is a large open space, with the kitchen at one end.  Her bedroom and bath are in a separate area behind the kitchen.  I call the living area her great room and Aunt Madge calls it her sitting room.  “I’ll take them for a long walk on the beach tomorrow,” I told her.

“You don’t do too many appraisals on Saturdays,” she commented as she rinsed the cups and placed them in the dishwasher.

“The owners told Harry they both wanted to be there, and I told Harry I didn’t mind.”  Harry Steele owns the small appraisal company I work for.  I did appraisal work when I was in college and just after that.  I sold commercial real estate the last few years I lived in Lakewood, and hadn’t thought about what I would do in Ocean Alley when I left the town where I had become best known as the wife of an embezzler.  I consider it good karma that Aunt Madge’s friend had just opened a new appraisal business, and she considers it providence.  I don’t think Harry has an opinion either way.  He’s glad to have me and I like him a lot.

I make about a tenth of what I did in real estate, but I don’t have a lot of expenses and Aunt Madge refuses to let me pay rent.  So I weed the small yard and shovel snow, walk the dogs, and volunteer for other odd jobs.  She won’t let me change the guests’ sheets.  Aunt Madge is easy-going in most ways, but she’s very precise about caring for the B&B guests.

I grabbed an apple on the way out, told Aunt Madge I wasn’t sure if I’d be back before going to the carnival, and headed out.  The early morning air was crisp and a little chilly.  You never know what beach weather will be like in the spring.  I turned on the heater in my little Toyota and eased from the B&B’s small parking lot into heavier-than-usual traffic on Seashore Street.

As I crossed Conch Street I noticed two men with a grocery store cart full of what was likely all their belongings.  It reminded me of the first time I’d seen Scoobie when I came back to Ocean Alley last fall.  He was on the boardwalk and had a knapsack on a bench next to him.  He was putting duct tape or something like that on one of his shoes, and at first I had thought he was a homeless person, though it was kind of late in the season.  Most of the people who live on Ocean Alley’s streets in the summer go to a warmer climate after October.

I looked more closely for a moment and saw the grocery cart was from Mr. Markle’s store.  He wouldn’t like that.  I made a mental note to find out how the food pantry reaches out to people who have no kitchen to use to prepare any food we give them.

The house I was appraising was in the middle of Ocean Alley.  The town runs along the Atlantic Ocean for close to two miles, but it’s only twelve blocks deep.  Still, there are a lot of homes crammed into this relatively small town, since most of the originally larger lots were subdivided long before the town had any zoning regulations.

I had driven by the large bungalow the day before yesterday, so I had a sense of what I was about to measure and come up with a value for.  I had already pulled a couple of comparable recent sales to use as benchmarks.  However, when I saw the interior of the house I realized I would have to look for other comps.  Ben and Louise McCarthy had upgraded literally any surface that was nailed down, and they’d added a couple of skylights in the back.  The house looked like a feature in a decorator magazine. 
No wonder they want to be here.  Probably want to make sure even the dust mites aren’t disturbed
.  Not that I saw any dust.

My work took about twice as long as it usually does since the McCarthys followed me from room to room explaining every aspect of the remodeling they’d done over the last eight years.  When I began asking them to hold one end of the tape measure they tired of the job and left me alone for the last couple rooms.  It didn’t take me long to take the digital photos that are part of the appraisal package, and I was out of there by ten-thirty.

I stopped by Harry’s house, a Victorian that is perpetually enduring remodeling, which also hosts his office.  He was out, so it didn’t take me long to enter measurements and other information into the computer and print out a floor plan.  I wouldn’t be able to go to the courthouse to look at recent comparable sales until Monday. 

Footloose and fancy free, as Aunt Madge would say, I drove to the library to see if Scoobie was at his usual table.  He has a room in a sort of permanent halfway house on F Street, but he’s mostly only there to sleep.  His usual haunts are the library, Newhart’s Diner and, when he’s not too annoyed at Joe Regan, the Java Jolt coffee shop on the boardwalk.

No Scoobie anywhere.  I haven’t seen as much of him since January.  Scoobie’s been taking a few courses at the community college to prepare for full-time enrollment in the fall.  He wants to become an x-ray tech, which he believes is a job he can do without being around people every minute he’s at work.  He gets some kind of disability income now because of his long history of depression, and he’ll likely get grants for tuition.  His proclaimed goal is to “get back to the real world,” which seems to mean recovering from what ails him and getting a job.

I decided to bug Ramona for a few minutes.  It has to be only a few, as the Purple Cow’s owner, Roland, gets mildly annoyed if too many people stop in to chat with Ramona.  Half the town does.  He’s not rude about it, of course, as every visitor is a customer at some time or another.  But he gives a pretty good evil eye.

Roland must have given himself the morning off, so I sat in one of the very expensive office chairs on display and gently twirled in circles to watch what was going on while I waited for Ramona to finish with a couple customers.  The store was more crowded than on a normal Saturday.  Newhart’s Diner and the Purple Cow are two places Ocean Alley alums frequent when they are home for a visit.  Neither is elegant, but Newhart’s has great blue plate specials in the off-season and Roland has free coffee in the store.