Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 04 - Any Port in a Storm (6 page)

I studied him for a moment.
I don’t really forget Josh and Max are homeless, but they are around town a lot and are more…normal than some of the other homeless guys. I hoped some of the others would stay away from the park tomorrow, and then felt guilty for thinking it.

“Let me know if I can buy you a hotdog tomorrow, okay?” I said this as I opened my car door, anxious not to prolong the conversation.

He beamed at me. “You always help me, Jolie.”

Guilt.

A BANNER with
Harvest for All Talk Like a Pirate Day
and me slicing a loaf of bread with a pirate’s sword blew in the breeze, as did the seats on the park swing set. I stared mutely at the banner for a few seconds and walked toward one of the picnic tables.
I’ll get George Winters
.

Oceanside Park sits at the spot where Ocean Alley’s boardwalk ends and is barely more than two acres.
It’s an area filled with many tons of gravel and then soil, according to Aunt Madge, because it’s kind of a natural cove and used to bring water too close to several small shops and houses. Big piles of stones sit at the edge of the park, and mostly the water doesn’t come beyond the rocks. Mostly. There’s some gritty sand near the rocks, and the rocks are piled high enough that no one can swim in the area.

I felt grouchy from lack of sleep and lectured myself on staying on an even keel for the afternoon.
As if the threat of an impending storm wasn’t enough, I was worried we wouldn’t have enough prizes.
This is where the Serenity Prayer could come in handy.
Was I supposed to ask for courage or wisdom first? “Patience would come in handy right about now,” I said aloud.

I balanced a box containing tickets for door prizes, aprons to hold donated money, my digital camera, and other odds and ends.
It was eight in the morning and Talk Like a Pirate Day (or half-day) would start at one o’clock.

“Five hours and counting,” said George’s voice, from behind me.

“I swear George, if you take any…” I stopped as I turned and looked at him. He had on black jeans and a tee shirt, but had a ruffled white shirt and a violently purple jacket draped over his arm. “Okay, you get six points for trying.”

“Is that a lot?” he asked, as he took the box from me and put his own camera in it.

“Probably.” I nodded toward the sky. “What do you think?” We both looked at the clouds to the southeast, and then at the surf, which was a lot choppier than yesterday.

“I just looked at the radar map.
It’s not coming ashore here. We may need to go to First Prez even before dinner, but you should be okay for most of the day.” George grinned at me over the top of the box. “Should make the pirate flags fly high.”

“You’ll get yours later,” I said, and looked around the park.
Last night Jennifer and several friends had set up the plywood pirate ship with its holes for bean bags. It looked as if they had braced it pretty well. “Hey.” I looked closer at it. “What’s different about her ship?”

“I can tell you.”
Scoobie was balancing a couple boxes of balloons on top of a larger box of small triangular flags that we planned to string around the swings and jungle gym. “Look at the name of the ship.”

I swore and George laughed.
“She made the name of the ship bigger!” George sounded like a kid who sank a spit ball while the teacher wasn’t looking.
HMS Stenner
was now lettered in script about six inches tall.

“That’s okay,” Scoobie said.
“Your posters have been all over town.”

My posters.
“They made Harry happy,” I said.

There were a couple horn honks and Dr. Welby pulled into the small parking area.

“Scoobie!”
Josh had called to him from the edge of the boardwalk. Max trailed Josh, carrying the kind of gray wool blanket church groups pass out to homeless people. He also had a pirate hat, one of the many cheap ones that had been for sale on the boardwalk all week.

I waved at them.
“Max said something about helping?” I asked Scoobie, in a low voice.

“I asked them,” Scoobie said as he waved at Josh and Max.
“I knew they’d come, and it’s better if Max has something to do.”

I repressed a sigh.
“What’s he going to do?” Max’s incessant talking grates on a lot of people’s nerves.
Mine included
.

George grinned.
“He’s going to pick up the bean bags from the other side of the
HMS Stenner
and take them back to Jennifer.”

“Good call,” I said, looking fully at Scoobie.
He was in his usual jeans and a t-shirt, though this one had a pirate’s hat on the front. I had expected him to be in a full pirate costume.

“At the library,” he said, in answer to my look.
“I figured we’d have a lot of dirty work this morning. Daphne said I can change over there.”

“Hey, Scoobie.”
Dr. Welby’s voice boomed, per usual. Scoobie left to help him unload a ladder from the SUV. I assumed it was to hang some of the little flags all over the place.

Lance had ridden over with Dr. Welby, and he sat at the picnic table where George had deposited my box before going to help Scoobie with the ladder.
“You look tired,” I said.

“On rare occasions I remember I’m more than ninety.”
He smiled. “I’m actually going to take a nap about eleven o’clock, then I’ll be ready for action.”

THE MORNING PASSED quickly, too quickly given all we had to do. By noon there were literally dozens of volunteers setting up a real horseshoe pitch and a plastic one for kids, a large inflated children’s jumping house, refreshment stands, and, of course, the bake sale. Aunt Madge and Harry had set a couple of cinderblocks in the middle of each table, apparently in hopes of keeping the lightweight card tables anchored when the wind came up later.

Ramona had borrowed a couple of huge beach umbrellas from the lifeguard stands so she could do her caricatures without the papers scattering in the wind.
Daphne and Joe Regan were helping her pound them far enough into the ground to stay there. I doubted they would. Ramona, however, was ready for anything. She had made a costume that was kind of like an elegant ball gown with artful rips, symmetrical of course, all along the bottom.

Joe had already set up a coffee stand.
He was using the back of a pick-up truck, and I wished we had thought to do that for the bake sale. He had skull and crossbones flags plastered on every truck window and another flying from his antenna. He saw me looking at the truck and grinned. “Would me lady like to board my ship?”

“Only if it will take me far away from here,” I said and moved away.

Aretha almost swaggered in, followed by two pre-teens I knew to be her nephews. The bodice of her pirate costume was low-cut and the flounced skirt had numerous tears, showing more leg than she usually displays. She gave me a big wave and yelled across the park. “Jolie! Can you guess what I am?” One of the boys put his hands over his eyes, and the other one threw back his head and laughed.

“I’m not sure I want to yell it across the park!”
I hollered back. I assumed she was dressed as a ‘ho,’ and figured Sylvia and Monica would probably need smelling salts. There were two wolf whistles and I didn’t have to guess where they came from. “Ignore them,” I said to Aretha.

She knew I meant George and Scoobie and grinned as she began to walk toward the bake sale tables while her nephews went toward Scoobie and George.
I walked toward the pirate ship and listened as Jennifer instructed all of her “game managers” in how to talk to people who tried to butt in line. Jennifer had forgone all effort to look like a pirate and was dressed more like she was going to a formal ball in the late 1800s.

She finished her instructions and I walked up to her.
“And you are dressed as..?” I let the words hang there.

“I’m the fair maiden the pirates plan to kidnap,” she said.

“Good one,” I said, and kept moving before I did a major eye roll.

Aunt Madge had made my outfit.
She had seen a Talk Like a Pirate Day catalog in my bedroom, and before I could order she placed a simple dark blue dress, complete with white bodice, on my bed. It hit me mid-calf, which let me move around easily. I had dressed it up with many strands of the cheap, gaudy beads you can buy for Mardi Gras parties.
I do love that woman
.

Megan and a couple other Harvest for All
volunteers were placing bricks on top of the flyers we made that talked about the food pantry and how to volunteer or donate. I looked at the sky again, noting that the clouds were still billowy-looking and gray. I had decided I wasn’t going to worry until they were solid and much darker.
Maybe I am starting to get that bit about not worrying about what I can’t control.
I’d have to remember to tell Scoobie I got one good thing from the All-Anon meetings.

“Hey, Jolie!
Prepare to be boarded!” It was Lester, barking his usual laugh as he walked toward me.

“Dear God,” I said, not even under my breath.
Lester was dressed like what I thought of as a worker pirate who was ready to swab a deck. He wore a sleeveless white tee-shirt, knee-length cut-off jeans, and a bandana around his head. Even more distinctive was the large pipe that dangled from his mouth in place of his customary cigar. He had a canvas sack slung over his shoulder and a huge grin on his face.

“So, whaddya think?” he asked.

“I think you look ready to lift anchor,” I said, hoping my face was noncommittal. I nodded at his bag. “What’s that?”

“I’m a roving prize giver.”
He reached into the sack and pulled out one of his Argrow Realty whistles and a bunch of gold foil candy in the shape of coins that I supposed he would call doubloons. “Won’t be long and this place’ll sound like a jungle.”

Before I could beg him not to give the whistles out until near the end of the afternoon his eyes lit up.
“I gotta show Jennifer the whistles.”

Good.
Let Jennifer have him.

I had done my best wheedling ever to try to get Dr. Welby to open the event, but he would have none of it.
I had to do it. I saw George and Scoobie talking to him a couple times, and Aretha was now over by them, shaking her finger at them.
They’re up to something
.

At quarter to one a beat-up pick-up truck pulled up to the side of the park and six teenagers, including Alicia, hopped out of the back.
She saw me and gave a wide wave and huge grin, “We did it!”

I suddenly knew what it meant when people say relief flooded through them.
She had been at either the back or front of my mind for two days. Megan started toward them and Aunt Madge called to her to help with something at the bake sale table. I grinned to myself.
Aunt Madge is so smart
. I’d have to remember to tell her that.

The teens were in all stages of dress, with a couple of
the girls trying for the sexy pirate look, wearing low-cut tops that looked as if their boobs would fall out if the wind came up any more. One guy had a tee-shirt with what looked like a vampire pirate on it and he had a lot of white make-up, and two of the other guys had tattoos down their arms and a lot of silver around their ears. I was too far away to be sure, but I assumed that the earrings and tattoos were not part of any costume.

Lester walked up next to me.
“Jeez. The people you see when you don’t have a gun.”

“Lester!”

He grinned. “At least they got into the swing of things.” We watched them for a few seconds, until Lester said, “I gotta get Joe to give out some whistles.” He walked toward Joe Regan’s coffee truck. Joe did not look pleased.

As the teens started to unload what looked like a piece of drywall, painted black, I realized who the driver was.
Hayden’s tall frame and swagger might strike some as intimidating. I wasn’t cowed, but I wasn’t about to congratulate him for helping. Instead I gave a slight nod when he met my eye, and turned to look for Scoobie.

Peals of laughter made me look again in the direction of the game that Alicia and her friends were setting up.
On the black drywall was painted a smiling skeleton, but it was lying on its side, with one hand behind its head and the arm’s elbow resting on the ground, as if it were posing for a photograph. An arrow pointed to the posterior bones, and the lettering said, “Pin the tail on the skeleton or walk the poop deck.” Poop was in capital letters.

I was about to walk to the bake sale table to reward myself when Dr. Welby touched me on the elbow.
“Park’s filling up. I think we better get you in position.”

“Position?”
I looked at him blankly.

He nodded toward the center of the park, but all I could see were the backs of George, Roland from the Purple Cow, Harry, Aunt Madge and a couple other people I thought I’d seen at the newspaper office when I stopped by to talk to George one time.
Only Aunt Madge worried me, especially when she turned to beckon me to come over.

“Dr. Welby…”
I began.

“You’ll love it,” he said, the tail of his long, elegant pirate coat flapping as we walked.

George and Roland stepped back and I saw that they had erected a plank. They had obviously built it elsewhere and carted it to the park in the last few minutes. There were two steps leading to about a three-foot-by-four-foot platform that was about three feet off the ground. A plank extended about two feet. Beneath it was an inflated airbed of sorts that had probably come from the same place where we rented the kids’ jumping game.