She's Not There by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith Page A

off-island merchants who sold postcards in their summer-only souvenir shops, but their protests fell on deaf ears. Jim Lane père was the mayor. Mayor Lane—presently in the Dordogne—bragged that his son was saving his postcard money for college.
    I’d asked Joe, “Where can you go to college on postcard money?”
    â€œUniversity of Rhode Island.”
    Jake was at his usual table, without the constable though. Tommy dropped him there, made his rounds, and then came back to help Jake with his breakfast. Jake wouldn’t eat unless Tommy was there to help him. Now Jake was fiddling with some copper wires and a circuit box while he waited. Willa didn’t care if Jake sat there all day, as long as he didn’t start any fires with her electrical equipment. The story of Jake, according to Joe, was that someone found a baby forty years ago on one of the boats in the dead of winter, and Tommy took him in. By the time the authorities from Providence got wind of it, Jake was already a toddler, and when the social worker arrived and saw the child had an awful lot wrong with him and she would have no chance of finding adoptive parents, he became a foster child in Tommy’s care. What was then called a ward.
    Another thing I’d asked Joe was, “Did anybody bother to try and find the child’s parents?”
    He said, “Who knows? This being Block Island, Poppy, no one asks. People respect one another’s desire to keep private matters private.”
    I said respect wouldn’t have stopped me. Then I asked him about something I’d found curious: “Joe, how come none of the Richard’s Patio folks are landowners? Speaking of boats, how’d they miss the boat?”
    â€œWell, they’re landowners now. Aggie bought the farmhouse. Willa and Ernie bought the store. Billy and Mick bought the Debbie after all these years. And Esther—”
    â€œThe Debbie isn’t land.”
    â€œIt’s a long story. There are always going to be the haves and the have-nots.”
    â€œLike there’s always a wrong side of the tracks.”
    â€œYes.”
    He expected me to respect his desire to keep their private matters private, so I saved it. I’d be disrespectful another time when his heels weren’t quite so dug in.
    Now, Joe stood up and held a chair for me. Fitzy and I sat down. “How’d it go?”
    Fitzy said, “It didn’t.”
    Ernie called out from behind the counter, “Three coffees comin’ up.”
    Fred Prentiss from the liquor store was always the first one there before he opened up. He didn’t like to eat breakfast at home: too many kids. He was not a native, even though he’d married a Block Islander and had lived on High Street for over twenty years. His wife was descended from original settlers, and she’d made it clear to Willa and Ernie that Fred was to be welcomed at the coffee shop. His Red Sox cap, an attempt to be one of the boys, didn’t cut it. He also wore new brightly colored polo shirts with the Sears lizard on the pocket. The shirts fit tight across his chest. He lifted weights. The regulars couldn’t stand him. He was at the counter, an empty stool separating him from Billy and Mick. It would remain empty.
    When Joe told me the history of Fred, I’d said, “Why didn’t they tell Fred’s wife to take a flyer?”
    â€œPoppy, there’s a certain hierarchy here. She’s blueblood. One of the haves. This is really small-town America. You know how it is.”
    â€œNo. I don’t.”
    â€œThen count your blessings.”
    The town’s two taxi drivers would be in from seven-thirty until quarter to nine. First they’d take tourists from the seven o’clock ferry to the inns and then get back to the harbor and be ready for the next ferry at nine. They were brothers. Joe said they worked from April 1 to November 1 and then they took the money