You probably think you know what happened. After the business with Holloway Muldoon, I mean. Huey and Dewey opened a comedy club, Vecchio and Stella moved to Florida, Frannie had a bunch of babies, and Benton Fraser and Ray Kowalski headed north to find that reaching-out hand. Right?
Except, how come you know all that? Because Fraser told you, that's why. But did you ever wonder how he knew all that? He was mushing a dogsled across the frozen tundra at the time, and there is not exactly a whole lot in the way of news up there. Maybe he just continued the stories of his friends the way he thought they'd turn out. The way he hoped in his heart that they would turn out.
Fraser was probably right about Huey and Dewey. As far as Vecchio and Stella go, I don't know and I don't care. But Frannie, she wanted more than just babies. She wanted Fraser, but for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, that wasn't going to work out. He liked her, and he wanted her to be happy - he hoped she would be happy - so he invented this story about her, something that he thought would be all about Happy Francesca. But maybe that ain't what really happened.
Maybe what really happened was something like this.
The 27th was quieter than usual that spring. Not in terms of criminal activity - this was still Chicago, after all - but the station seemed different, somehow. Subdued. Lieutenant Welsh had some new men working the precinct, but it just wasn't the same without Huey, and Dewey, and Ray Vecchio - either of them. And of course without a Ray Vecchio around, there wasn't a Constable Fraser around. The net result of all these things put together was that Frannie's work as a Civilian Aid became a lot less interesting.
Maybe, she decided, what she needed was a change of scene. Her brother Ray had gone to Florida with Assistant State's Attorney Kowalski, the Ray who wasn't her brother was with Fraser someplace way up north where there was still snow on the ground even in June, which as far as she was concerned was no way to treat a month that was supposed to be for flowers and birds and weddings, and there she was, stuck in stupid old Chicago. So she called up her friend Theresa, who worked at a travel agency, and said: "I think I need a vacation."
"Sounds like fun," said Theresa. "Where do you want to go?"
Frannie hadn't even thought about the where part. She'd really only barely thought about the go part, and that was more a get out of town part than anything else. A do something different part. "I don't know. Where do you think I should go?"
Theresa made a little hmm noise. "Well, let's see. There's Europe."
"Too expensive."
"California?"
"Too weird."
"Florida?"
"Nah, my brother's there. If I go to Florida, Ma will insist that I visit Ray, and if I see Ray it means I have to see Stella, and she always looks down her nose at me a little, you know? Like my bra-strap is showing, even when it isn't, although honestly I don't know what -"
"New York?" Theresa cut in.
Frannie sighed. "Look, if I wanted to spend my vacation in a crowded, dirty city with a bunch of rude people I'd just stay home."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Theresa. "I don't mean to be rude, Frannie, but most people who want to travel have some vague idea of where they want to travel to."
"Okay," said Frannie. She thought a minute. All she could think of was Fraser and Ray, up in Canada somewhere; and although visiting her brother was enough to put her off the idea of Florida, Canada was different. Not that she might run into Fraser, because she was not going to spend her vacation anywhere there was still snow on the ground. And anyway, she was so over him. But - she took a deep breath. "I was thinking maybe Canada."
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. "Canada, okay. Where, exactly, in Canada?"
"Hey, you wanted a vague idea," protested Frannie. "I gave you a whole country!"
"Canada is a very big country. Give me something I can work with, Frannie. What kind of things do you want to do?"
What she really wanted to do was meet a nice guy, someone good-looking and smart, someone who would love her for who she was. And it wasn't as though who she was - that being Frannie Vecchio - wasn't a good catch. It was just that she hadn't been caught, or maybe she'd been caught and then thrown back, like she was just a little undersized or maybe out of season, and -
"Frannie? You still there?"
Right. Not like she was going to tell Theresa any of this, so she cast about for something, anything to tell her. "Somewhere quaint," she said. Not that she really knew what quaint was as it applied to places, but when Maria Tucci got married and went to Virginia Beach on her honeymoon she came back sighing about how quaint it was, which sounded pretty good to Frannie. And that made her think of beaches, so she added, "Somewhere by the ocean. An island. But not someplace boring - it's got to have things happening."
"What kind of things?"
"Oh, I don't know. Parades. Circuses. Something - something exciting. Something that will make it better than staying here."
"Hmm. How about a festival?"
"A festival, yeah," said Frannie, liking the sound of it. "Perfect, Theresa, absolutely perfect. Send me to a quaint Canadian island festival."
Which is why, three weeks later, Frannie arrived on Wilby Island just in time for the Second Annual Wilby Days.
In some ways, thought Buddy, a lot of things had happened in one year. And in other ways, nothing had happened at all.
Brent Fisher was still Wilby's mayor, but his term was going to be up in another five months, and true to his word, he wasn't going to run again. Of course it was anybody's guess who the next mayor might be, and sure enough, people had already begun to speculate on election results, even though nobody had yet announced a campaign.
His old high school friend Duck had turned out to be gay, and what a surprise that had been. When he and Dan Jarvis had moved in together, that had set tongues wagging all over town. But eventually everybody had decided they still needed their houses painted and they still wanted to rent videos, and if a couple dozen people still pointedly refused to talk to them, it didn't look like it bothered Duck and Dan one whit.
And the biggest change of all, of course, was that he and Carol had gotten divorced. He didn't know if it had been him or it had been her, if there had been one thing that had changed it all or just a whole bunch of little things, but somehow they'd slowly turned into different people without noticing until it all came crashing down. She hadn't been able to sell his mother's house, not after what had happened there. Instead she sold the house they'd lived in, and he insisted she take all the money from it, and he moved back, back into the house he'd grown up in. Carol's new address in B.C. was still taped to his refrigerator, even though he hadn't gotten any mail for her in several months.
But Wilby was still Wilby. The Watch was still there, unmarred by golf greens or fancy homes, and people still went there and sat on the rocks, making out or looking back at the foggy outline of the mainland. The fishing boats went out in the morning, and the tourists came in on the ferry, and life went on.
Looking at the colorful flags waving from every downtown shop and restaurant, Buddy felt a brief pang of regret that Carol wasn't here to see the festival. It had been her idea, after all. The festival had gone so well last year that they'd decided to do it again, and this year it promised to be even bigger. The bed-and-breakfast and both motels were completely booked for the week, and the ferry had a full load on nearly every trip. Then he caught sight of Duck's old sign hanging across the bridge, brought out from some storage room for the occasion: "Wilby Wonderful." He shook his head with a smile; maybe Carol wouldn't be so pleased. But in his opinion, the backwards slogan suited Wilby just fine.
A dark-haired young woman was getting out of a rental car parked in one of the visitor's spaces as he pulled up to the station, and he frowned. The one problem with increased tourism was increased crime; motel windows were notoriously easy to break into, and a lot of punks figured that stealing something from someone who was just going to leave the next day wasn't the same as stealing something from someone who lived there. Quickly he got out of his car and angled to intercept the woman before she reached the door.
"Hello, miss. Can I help you?"
As she turned to face him, her eyes widened. "Can…are…oh my God," she said. "And you even speak English!"
"We do that here," he said. Smiling, he put out a hand. "I'm Buddy Fr-"
"Fraser!" she exclaimed, grabbing his hand with both of hers and shaking it hard. "Buddy Fraser, how about that? You've got to be brothers or cousins or something, right? I mean, my God! And you're a cop too, just like him. Except how come you're not in that uniform?"
She was young and attractive and dressed in tight jeans and a low-cut top that showed off her figure; her eyes were sparkling, she was nearly jumping up and down with excitement, and it was a pity, he thought, that she wasn't making any sense. He looked down at his clothes, just to make sure. "This is my uniform."
"Get out of here," she scoffed. "It's not red. And it doesn't have epaulettes or that little string that goes around your neck, and you're not wearing those boots or a big ten-pound hat, and I'm sorry, but you just don't look like a Mountie to me."
"Ah," he said. "I'm not a Mountie, actually. Just a city policeman."
"But you're Canadian," she said, as though that explained everything.
"That I am. But the RCMP is the national police service. I'm only a local cop. And, actually, it's French," he added, pointing to his name badge.
"Wow. You speak pretty good English for a French person."
He laughed. "No, I mean my name. Buddy French."
"Oh!" she said, smacking her forehead. "Dumb, Francesca, real dumb. Um, that's me. Francesca Vecchio, but people call me Frannie. Except for Fraser and my ma, who call me Francesca." She looked up at him from under lowered lashes. "I kind of like Francesca, actually."
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Francesca. What can I do for you?"
It really was true, what Fraser had said - that Canadians were naturally politer than anybody else. When she'd explained that she was a Civilian Aid to the Chicago police and just wanted to see what a Canadian police station looked like, Buddy had smiled, taken her inside, and given her the grand tour. She really hadn't expected that; boy, if a Canadian Civilian Aid ever came to the 27th, Lieutenant Welsh would probably just laugh in her face. Assuming they had Civilian Aids in Canada, which she had no idea if they did or not.
As Buddy showed her around the station, she couldn't keep her eyes off him. It was unbelievable, how much he looked like Fraser. Even more than Bernard Fritsch had - and she'd almost married him, just on the strength of those looks. It certainly hadn't been for his conversation. (Although sometimes, listening to her sister and brother-in-law argue, she could see the benefit of not understanding a word of your spouse's language.)
Surreptitiously she glanced at Buddy's left hand. No ring. This was good, this was very good. Okay, she hadn't asked Theresa to find her a place with eligible men, but it was a bonus, right? Eligible Canadian men who looked like Fraser, but lived in quaint island villages instead of towns with names that she couldn't pronounce, towns that were covered with snow every month but August and you had to take sled dogs if you wanted to go shopping. Plus, she knew about cops - what they were like, what they needed. And suddenly she was convinced that this particular cop, this Buddy French, needed her. This particular cop, who was looking at her with a strange expression, like there was something he wanted, something he was waiting for…
Oh. Abruptly she realized that he had asked her a question, and she was just standing there staring at him like an idiot. "I'm sorry. I was…I was just looking out the window," she improvised, "and I was noticing how pretty it was out there, and, and…how hard it must be to work inside all day when you have that scenery," she said, waving her arm vaguely in the direction of the window, "out there, just…just…"
"Just being there," he said.
"Right, right. Just being…scenic."
"I guess I'm lucky, then, because I don't spend a lot of time at the station."
"Lucky for me I ran into you, then," she said, smiling and trying not to look like she was desperately hoping he'd suggest doing something later…that afternoon…dinner that evening…
He looked at his watch. "Speaking of which, I should get back to my work."
"Of course," she said, her heart sinking. She walked with him back toward the station door. "Thank you for the tour. I should get back to…enjoying the, um, scenery. You know, your festival."
"Right." His face changed subtly, as though a shadow had fallen across it, but of course that was silly, they were indoors. He looked lost in thought as they walked outside and over to the parking lot.
Well, if he wasn't going to ask her out, she'd have to take matters into her own hands. You want the best, you got to take it, she told herself, and put a hand on his shoulder just as they reached her car. "Do you want to…I mean, you were so nice to me, giving me a tour and everything, and I could go out, I mean, we could, you know? I could buy you dinner," she said, and she knew she was blushing a little, but you don't ask, you don't get, right?
He looked at her for a moment, long enough that she almost just bolted for her car, but then he nodded. "Where are you staying?"
"The Wildwood, I mean, it's just a motel but the B&B was already -"
"I know. Not exactly a five-star, is it?" He smiled, which did something to his face, made him look younger, maybe. Younger and very cute; not so much like Fraser, who always looked so intent, but cute. "Not much in the way of lodging in Wilby, eh? So I'll pick you up at six?"
"Okay," she said, and got into her car. As soon as he'd turned to go to his own car, she grinned and slapped the steering wheel. Yes! She had a date!
Buddy pulled into the parking lot at the Wildwood and sat there in his car for a moment. My God, he thought, I'm going out on a date. The whole thing seemed vaguely surreal to him, as though he were just acting out a part in a play. He'd spent so many years married to Carol; then when she left him, he'd immediately turned to Sandra, but at that point they were beyond dating.
He wasn't sure why it hadn't worked out with Sandra. Maybe it was the same thing it had been with Carol, but worse: if he and Carol had never been able to admit that they'd changed away from who they'd been when they'd got married, he and Sandra had been stuck seeing each other the way they'd been in high school. To her credit, she was the one who had noticed it, and who had gently broken things off.
When he and Sandra had parted - friends, still friends, and that was good, because she was making a go of Iggy's and it was important for cops to be on good terms with the local business owners, especially when they made the best coffee in town - he had decided that maybe he'd just stay a bachelor for a while. Watch television by himself when he got home, maybe go out for a drink with Stan or Rich after work.
And that had been okay, for a while. But then Francesca Vecchio had walked into his police station, and asked him to dinner, and - how could he say no?
She opened the door as soon as he knocked. "Hi," she said breathlessly. "Is this okay? Am I dressed okay, because if not, I can always change, not that I brought my whole wardrobe with me or anything -"
Smiling, he put out a hand to stop her. "You look lovely," he said. And she did: form-fitting sweater, short skirt, high heels that showed off her legs. Buddy was definitely a leg man.
The Loyalist was smoky, as usual, and Francesca wrinkled her nose and waved her hand in front of her face as soon as they walked in. Regretfully Buddy slipped his hand back out of his pocket, where he'd been reaching for his own pack of cigarettes. "Sorry about the smoke. The only place on Wilby that doesn't allow smoking is Iggy's, and Sandra doesn't serve dinner."
"That's okay. I went there for lunch, anyway. It's just that now my clothes and hair are going to smell like smoke instead of White Shoulders. Here," she said, thrusting an arm in his face. After a moment he realized he was supposed to smell it, so he did.
"Very nice."
"On special at Marshall Field's," she said, looking absurdly pleased. Buddy had to smile back; how long had it been since he'd been with a woman like this? Francesca seemed so bubbly and cheery, and she said what she thought and felt instead of what she thought he wanted to hear.
Myrna seated them and Janice took their order, and Buddy was sure they were gossiping about him as soon as they were out of earshot. Hell, all the islanders in the room were probably gossiping about him; he was sitting at a table at the Loyalist with a pretty woman none of them knew. Probably the most exciting thing to happen in Wilby in months.
Definitely the most exciting thing to happen to him, anyway. Across the table from him, Francesca sparkled, telling him crazy stories about police work in Chicago, about her brother Ray, about this Mountie named Fraser that he supposedly resembled. "I like being a Civilian Aid," she confided, "but sometimes I think I'd really like to be an actual cop, with the uniform and everything. I'd even figure out what to do about the hat." Then she sighed. "But sometimes I think I just want to settle down, get married again, have kids. You have any kids?"
"Well. No, I don't."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't want to have kids?" Biting her lip, she looked down at her plate for a moment. "I mean, not like it's an issue right now, we're just having dinner, but I've sort of got that bionic clock thing, you know."
"No, I'd kind of like to have kids, actually. But Carol - my ex-wife…" He shook his head. He always felt a little disloyal when he thought about it; Carol had loved her career, and been good at it, and who was he to suggest she should quit selling houses and have children? He certainly hadn't been about to offer to quit the police force.
"I understand, believe me. Lot of women are like that. Me, I come from a big family. Noisy, crazy, everyone screaming at each other all the time, never get five minutes' peace in the bathroom. You know what? Here I am in this motel," she said, waving her hand in the general direction of the Wildwood, "and it's so quiet I can't hear myself speak. And nobody bugs me to get out of the bathroom." She dug a fork into her baked haddock. "I had to turn the television on so I could get some sleep last night."
"Quiet can be good," Buddy said.
She shrugged. "I got nothing against quiet. It just has to be the right kind of quiet, you know?"
"I know." Suddenly he had an idea. "I'll tell you what. Let's finish dinner, and then I'll take you somewhere that's got the right kind of quiet."
But after they finished, as he walked Francesca to his car, he frowned. "Maybe I should take you back to the motel first, so you can change shoes. It's a bit of a walk from where we'll have to park."
"Oh, please," she said. "I was born wearing heels. Let's go."
Frannie was beginning to regret having worn her heels, even though they made her butt stick out in a really cute way. Sure, she could walk all the way across Chicago in them - she could probably walk backwards all the way across Chicago in them - but twenty feet across the soggy ground of what Buddy called "the Watch," and she was stumbling like a drunkard as her heels stabbed into the soil. She squinted into the setting sun, trying to find dry places to step.
"It's just a little farther to the rocks," Buddy said as he caught her elbow, keeping her from falling flat on her cute-sticking-out-butt, which would have been a real shame, because she did not want to have to wash this skirt in the sink at the motel.
"Yeah, okay." The next step was fine, and the next, but as she lifted her left foot after the third, she felt the mud grabbing at her foot, sucking her shoe off, and although she tried to balance on her right foot it was impossible: she tipped to the side and touched her left foot to the ground, and mud squished through her pantyhose right up between her toes. The resulting noise she made was one part surprise, one part frustration, and one part, "ooh, yuck," and Buddy turned when he heard her.
"Hey, are you - oh, I should have guessed," he said, returning to her side. "Hang on." Grinning, he scooped her up easily. "I should have done this right from the car, eh?"
She peered over his shoulder. "My shoe?" she said, more plaintively than she'd intended.
"Oh, right." He bent to pluck it from the mud and placed it in her hand. "Sorry about that."
"That's all right. I like the ride," she murmured into his neck. He smelled good, with that guy-smell, sort of like clean sweat and soap under the layer of cigarette smoke. And being carried was like something from a romance novel, like something that happened to girls named Scarlett and Annabelle, who had long hair and southern accents. If she had only known this would happen, she would have broken her damn heel on purpose back at the car.
"Well, unfortunately," he said, swinging her down to a perch atop a boulder, "this is the end of the line." As she leaned down to slip her shoe back onto her foot, he sat beside her. "The Wilby Watch."
She turned her head; he was looking out toward where the sun was already dimming into the fog layer that lay lightly on the water, starting to sink into nightfall. Days out here were even longer than Chicago summer days, she'd noticed. It was cool, with the light breeze, but it wasn't cold. She leaned into him, just a little, and he took the cue and put his arm around her. "So," she said. "This is the right kind of quiet?"
He smiled at her. "Listen," he said.
She listened. Compared to her street in Chicago, the silence was deafening, but as she listened she realized that it wasn't silence, not really. In the background was a noise like traffic on a distant highway; she hadn't really paid attention to it while they were walking, but as she listened she realized it was the sound of the water rhythmically crashing on the rocky shore. A strange sort of buzzing came from the trees they'd walked through, and overhead, birds wheeled and called to one another.
While they were driving there, Buddy had told her the story: about how some unscrupulous developers were going to put a golf course and trophy homes there, and how he'd found out about it, and been outraged - how the whole town had been outraged, and how they'd stopped it from happening. Frannie had nodded and told him what a good thing that had been, because even though she'd lived in a city all her life, she appreciated that the whole world didn't have to be made into one big city, with every square inch turned into shopping malls and golf courses. Maybe it was because she had lived in a city all her life that she knew in her bones that it shouldn't all be like that, even if she didn't really like the dirt squishing into her toes, and the bugs that buzzed by her ears, and the weird seafood-y smell that wafted from the ocean.
The ocean that was right there, stretching out in front of her, big and wide. "I've never seen the ocean before," she said, more to herself than to Buddy. "Of course we have the lake, but it's just a lake. I mean, it's a big lake, really big, you know? But the lake just goes to Michigan." She waved a hand in front of them, toward the blue, toward the sunset, and dropped her voice reverently. "The ocean goes all the way to England."
Next to her Buddy laughed. "I guess if you face the other direction."
She turned her head, but all she saw was trees. "You mean the island?"
"I mean Europe. That way's the mainland."
"Yeah. Well," she said, feeling the color rush into her cheeks. She must have gotten turned around or something. Stupid fog. She glanced up at Buddy, but he wasn't even looking at her. Instead he was focusing on something out in the distance, except he couldn't be, because there wasn't anything out there but fog and the gradually encroaching darkness.
"Carol used to like to come out here," he said quietly. "My ex-wife."
"Well," she said again, feeling stupid and inadequate. His arm around her tightened, which helped a little, and she tilted her head so it lay against his shoulder.
"She said that when you looked out there you could see where you came from." His voice was low and quiet, little more than a whisper. "And if you can see where you came from, you can remember what you wanted."
"That doesn't make any sense." The words tumbled out of Frannie's mouth before she could stop them, before she could think about it, because if she'd thought about it she wouldn't have told Buddy that his ex-wife was talking goatfeathers, even though she totally was, because that wasn't the kind of thing you said to someone who was still sort of mooning over his ex-wife.
She felt the chill air on her back as his arm fell away from her waist, but she couldn't help herself, she had to go on. "I mean, if all you ever think about is where you came from, it's like, it's like…." She frowned, trying to find the right words. "It's like driving down the interstate looking in your rear-view mirror. All that's going to happen is you're going to get in a big wreck."
"You think so?" said Buddy. His tone was non-committal, but his arm slid back around her waist; not tightly, just resting there, like he was waiting to see what she was going to say next. Still staring off into the dusk.
"I know so. You don't need to look at where you came from, 'cause that's what you're going away from. You're done with it. You shut that window. It's over." Yeah, that was it, that was it exactly, she realized. "What you need is, you need to look where you're going," she said, her voice rising with excitement. "Because if you can see where you're going, you can get there."
Buddy was silent for a moment; when he spoke, his voice was almost too soft for her to hear over the swelling noise of the waves. "What if you don't know where you're going?"
"Everybody's got dreams," she said confidently. "You just have to look around and decide where you want to go. Then you can get there. But you've got to stop looking in the rear-view mirror. You've got to look at what's in front of you."
Buddy's head turned toward her. "Fair enough," he said, and kissed her.
After dropping Francesca off at the Wildwood with an awkward handshake - they'd necked out at the Watch, but he felt a little too self-conscious about kissing her under the lights of the motel breezeway to do more than squeeze her hand before she went into her room - Buddy got back into his car and immediately lit a cigarette. Funny how relaxing it was, that first pull of hot smoke, the way it tickled and burned in such a familiar way. He held it in his lungs for a moment, savoring it, before exhaling.
It helped him focus his thoughts as he drove away from the motel. Most of his thoughts centered around Francesca: she was pretty, and she told funny stories with total unselfconsciousness, and she looked at him like he was the best-looking, smartest, most interesting person she'd ever met. And it didn't hurt that she was nearly ten years younger than him; there was something exciting in that.
But she was an American on vacation, and at the end of the week she'd go back home. It was silly to think otherwise, he told himself as he pulled into his driveway. Even though they'd made another date for the next evening, for the Wilby Days Cookout. They were closing off Front Street for it, from the corner by the ferry terminal and down four blocks; he was going to be on duty for the first part of it, but there was no reason he couldn't enjoy himself as well.
The next day was all paperwork and parking tickets, and by the time afternoon rolled around Buddy was more than ready for the cookout. When he went down to where Front Street swung away from the ferry terminal, Stan was already beginning to unload the wooden barricades from his truck. It was mindless work, assembling and setting them up, which was fine with Buddy; Stan kept up a constant stream of inconsequential talk, and Buddy just let it wash over him, listening with only half an ear.
They worked their way down the street, past where people were setting up folding chairs and laying red and white checkered tablecloths on the long tables borrowed from the school, toward where smoke wafted from the grills as they were made ready for cooking. All the restaurants - not that there were many - were helping out with the food preparation, and he waved at Sandra and Emily, who were setting up bottles of soda and beer on a long table in front of Iggy's. When he and Stan got there, Sandra grinned at him.
"Heard you were out with a mystery woman last night," she said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'm allowed, aren't I?" he said in mock outrage, and she laughed. "News gets around, I see."
"First I've heard of it," said Stan. "I don't suppose she has a sister, eh?"
Sandra ignored him and leaned closer to Buddy. "Janice said she was pretty. And young. Mainlander?"
"Tourist. She said she was in Iggy's for lunch yesterday. You might have met her."
"Oh, I did. We had a nice chat," said Sandra, and Buddy, alarmed, almost dropped the barricade he was carrying onto his foot. "Don't worry, I was just fooling with you. Yes, I met Frannie, and she seems perfectly nice. Don't know what she sees in you."
"Mum!" said Emily, rolling her eyes.
"She's right," Buddy told her. "I don't know either."
"Where do you want these?" came a voice behind him; he turned around to see Duck, holding up a stack of signs. The one on top said, "Burgers - $4."
"Oh, good, you're here," said Sandra, coming around from behind the table to take the signs from Duck's hands. She sorted through them, taking several and handing the rest back. "These go to Janice, except for the one about the desserts - those get set up on Linda's table."
"All right," said Duck. He nodded to Buddy and Stan. "How's it going?"
"Hunky-dory," said Stan. "Hey, what if I take those signs down to Janice and Linda, and you help Buddy? My back's killing me," he added, rubbing his lower back.
"All right," said Duck again. He exchanged a smile with Buddy a little tilt of the head that said exactly what he thought of Stan and his lower back, then gave Stan the signs. Turning back to Buddy, he held out his empty hands. "What do you want me to do?"
"I'm setting up the barricades to close off the side streets. Not too many more to go - I can get them myself if you have other things to do."
Duck shrugged and picked up a barricade. "Not really."
"Oh, oh! Am I late? I'm not late, am I?" It was Francesca's voice, and Buddy couldn't help smiling as he turned toward her. Today she had on those tight jeans again, and her dark hair was pulled away from her face, making her look even younger. It was unfair of him to make the comparison, he knew, but next to her, Sandra looked worn-out, her age betrayed by the lines on her face.
"Just a bit early, actually," he said, "but if you -"
"Oh, my God!" Francesca was staring at Duck, who squinted at her and ran an uncertain hand through his hair.
"Something wrong, ma'am?"
"No! It's just - oh, my God," she said again, fumbling in her purse. "You've got to let me - just let me take a picture, okay? One picture of you two?"
"What, me and Buddy?" said Duck, putting the barricade back down.
"I have no idea," Buddy told him. "Um, Francesca, this is Duck, and I guess you met -"
"Duck!" breathed Francesca. She'd found her camera and had it up to her face. "What an interesting name. Could you get a little closer - yeah, that's great, say cheese! Wow." The camera clicked, and she put it back in her purse. "You would not believe how much you look like this guy I used to work with in Chicago. I mean, he's not in Chicago any more, he's in the Yukon Jack Territories or something, but he used to be my brother, I mean, not really my brother, but he was undercover as my brother."
Buddy laughed uncomfortably. At first it had been kind of cute, Francesca going on about his resemblance to someone she knew, but this was just weird. "I thought you said I look like this guy."
"No, you look like Fraser. The Mountie, remember I told you? Ray was one of the cops at the 27th. Now he's up there with Fraser, though, somewhere up north," she said, waving her hand vaguely in the air.
"Huh," said Duck. He hefted the barricade again and jerked his head toward the last intersection. "Guess I'll just put these up. Could do them all, if you want."
"Nah, I'm getting paid for this," said Buddy, and picked up another barricade. "Just a few more minutes," he told Francesca.
It didn't take long to finish closing off the street; Duck was easier to work with than Stan, and he didn't mind carrying the heavier sections. When Buddy got back to Iggy's, people had already started to arrive and were talking in small groups, staking out their places at the tables. Music softly played from a table near the middle, where Ron from the radio station had set up a stereo and some speakers. Francesca was chatting with Sandra and helping Emily stack cups along one side of the long table.
"Would you like a beer?" asked Sandra.
"Just a Coke, thanks. I'm still working." She poured him a cup, and he drained it in one gulp. Setting the empty cup on the side of the table, he pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and felt around for a lighter. "One of you ladies have a light?"
Francesca laughed. "Oh, you don't smoke."
"What?" he said, frowning.
"You don't smoke. Fraser would never smoke."
"The Mountie," he said flatly. "Well, I'm not Fraser."
"Oh, right," she said, hitting the side of her head lightly with her palm. "Ha ha, silly me. I was just talking with Sandra here about Fraser, about how much you look like him, and you're Canadian too, and you're nice like he is, and so I was thinking about him, I guess."
"I'm not Fraser," he said again.
"I know, I just -"
"I don't think you do know," he said, cutting her off. There was something hard in the pit of his stomach, something hard and cold and nasty, and in his mouth the too-sweet residue of the Coke he'd gulped down made him want to gag. "I don't think it's me you're interested in at all."
Her mouth made a little o of surprise. Sandra whispered something to Emily, who headed for Iggy's, then put her hand on Francesca's shoulder. "Buddy, you're not being fair. She can't help it if you look like someone she knows."
Digging hard into his pocket, his fingers finally located the lighter; he pulled it out and flicked it open to light his cigarette, then took a deep pull on it, feeling the warmth of the smoke filling that hollow place inside him. "You think so, eh? Well, that's not what I think." He looked from one woman to the other: they were both the same. Seeing what they wanted in him, not what was really there. Not who he really was. "I'm not who I was in high school. And I'm not a Mountie named Fraser. I'm me. I'm Buddy French. And that's the only person I'm ever going to be."
Francesca bit her lip and looked at the ground, and suddenly Buddy wanted to be anywhere but right there. All he was good at, apparently, was being a disappointment to women. But that was just the way it was going to be, he guessed, because he'd tried being what Carol had wanted him to be, and that hadn't worked. And it wasn't going to work with Francesca, either. He reached out his hand, and after a moment, she took it. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Wilby," he told her.
And then he dropped her hand, and walked away.
It was with a horrible sense of doom that Frannie watched Buddy walk away from her. And it was all totally her own fault, as usual. Her and her stupid mouth, saying the worst things at absolutely the worst time.
"He's still a little upset over his ex-wife," said Sandra, next to her. "They haven't been divorced but for about half a year."
She supposed Sandra's hand on her shoulder was meant to be comforting - Sandra had that hard sort of face that said she'd been through it all before, romance and heartbreak again and again - but all she could hear was that funny way she said "about," the Canadian accent that she had and that Buddy had and that Fraser had had. It reminded her that she was just an outsider here, just a visitor, and when she went home it would all continue on its way without her, and somehow that made her feel even worse. "I didn't mean it that way," she said, fighting back the tears. Darn it, she was not going to cry.
"You like this guy Fraser," said Sandra, with a smile. "Maybe that's who you should be going after."
"I tried that. He just never seemed to notice me. Thick as a board. I mean, Fraser's really cute, and he's so - so - so Canadian, you know? But there's something about Buddy I just like better," she confided, feeling almost guilty about saying it. Almost disloyal, because she had always had a crush on Fraser. But Fraser was Fraser; there was this air to him, something she couldn't put her finger on, that made her suspect that maybe it wouldn't work out no matter what. Even if one day he finally noticed her.
But Buddy, he was a regular sort of guy. Even if he was Canadian. At the restaurant, it was funny how many people knew him, said hello or waved across the room. Well, maybe it wasn't funny, considering that it was a small town. But she knew from experience that cops weren't always the most popular people around - and yet Buddy seemed to have friends everywhere.
And with Fraser, she always felt like he wasn't listening to her - or maybe it was that he was listening, but he wasn't hearing. Buddy paid attention to her like she was…well, like she was worth paying attention to.
"Hey, Sandra." A tall, skinny guy walked up to them. "Have you seen Duck?"
"He was helping Buddy with the barricades," said Sandra. "He might be - oh, I see him, he's over by the desserts." She pointed a finger, and the tall guy smiled.
"Thanks. See you." Frannie watched as he strode over to one of the tables, where the guy who looked so much like Ray was talking with an older woman with a teased hairdo that looked like she had a loaf of bread stuck on the top of her head. When the tall guy tapped on his shoulder, Duck turned, his face lighting up in a huge grin.
Sandra was watching them too. "That's Dan. Duck's partner."
"They're cops, too?"
"No, not cop-type partners," said Sandra. She sounded coy and confiding, and she smiled as she squeezed Frannie's shoulder. "You know. Partner partners."
Frannie shook her head, mystified. "They're in business together?"
"Never mind," said Sandra; her voice had gone all stiff and formal, and her face was blank, like she was afraid that she'd given too much away and was trying to backpedal. She turned away and began arranging things on the table.
Partner partners. Like Fraser and Ray, except not like Fraser and Ray because they weren't cops, except the way Duck was looking at Dan was the same way that Ray looked at Fraser…
And then, all of a sudden, she got it.
Duck and Dan were partners, just like Ray and Fraser were partners, and that was why Fraser had ignored every single one of her hints; that was why Fraser was never going to be interested in her, not that way. He liked her, she knew he did, he even had said he did, in that Fraserish way of his, but he was never going to like her like her, he was never going to want to take her out for dinner and kiss her and have sex with her and get married. He wasn't going to have babies with her.
Maybe that's what it had been, what she had suspected. Why it hadn't been as hard as she had thought it would be, when he had broken her hopes in the hospital outside her brother's room. He liked her, but he was never going to love her, and on some level she'd always known that.
Fraser already had a partner. And it wasn't her.
She turned back toward Sandra. "It wasn't ever going to work out," she whispered.
Sandra gave her a sympathetic glance. "It happens, honey."
"Hey, Mum!" They both turned toward the shout; Sandra's daughter was running toward them, a bag in each hand. "Where do you want the ice?"
"In the big bowl," said Sandra, jerking her head toward the table.
The girl dropped the bags of ice on the table and frowned. "It's not here."
"Honestly, Emily," said Sandra, going to her daughter with a fond, exasperated smile on her face. Bending low, she pulled a large bowl out from under the table. "Would it kill you to look once in a while at what's in front of you?"
Frannie stared at them for a moment. "He was right," she said, more to herself than to them.
"Hmm?" said Sandra.
"I've got to look at what's in front of me. Yeah," she said, nodding, "that's it exactly. He was right - Buddy, I mean. I was still kind of chasing after Fraser. I mean, I knew I wasn't going to get Fraser, but I was thinking like Buddy was, you know, a photocopy of Fraser, not like he was a nice guy all by himself. Which he is. But I get it, now - I know where I'm going," she said confidently, smiling at Sandra. "And if you can see where you're going, you can get there."
There were advantages to having a partner who wasn't particularly bright. All Buddy had needed to do was say to Stan that he had to go; Stan had shrugged and said, "Yeah, sure," and that was that. He hadn't even bothered taking the car, because it wasn't a long walk, and anyway he needed the walk, needed to work off the anger, the frustration, the depression.
Nobody else was at the Watch. He supposed they were all at the cookout; by now the first hamburgers were probably ready. Instead it was just him and the gulls that circled overhead. He sat on the big boulder and smoked another cigarette, looking out at the rolling waves and the distant shore beyond.
"Hey," said a soft voice behind him.
"Francesca." He suddenly felt very tired. Old. "You should go back to the festival."
"No, I have to talk to you," she said. "I want to - I have to apologize. You were right." She paused, and he knew she was biting at her lip, putting her thoughts together, trying to say it the way she wanted it to come out. "You were right. I was looking at you, but I was seeing Fraser. I was looking in the rear-view mirror. Of course I got into a wreck, huh?"
He shrugged. "It's all right."
"No, it's not all right." He could hear the determination in her voice as she stepped around the rock to sit next to him, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, watching the waves. "I took a look at what was in front of me, and I figured out what I want. I don't want to keep chasing after something that wasn't really for me in the first place. It's like Diefenbaker running after a car, right?"
"Diefenbaker?" he said faintly. He couldn't help it; he turned to look at her, but her face gave no clue as to what she was talking about.
She nodded. "Fraser's dog. I mean, what would he do if he ever caught it?"
"Caught…the car?"
"Yeah. What would a dog do with a car?" She laughed. "Probably the same thing I would do if I caught Fraser. Show off my prize to all my friends and then go try to find something I could do more with than just look at."
He looked away again, and she put a hand on his shoulder. "No, wait, that was stupid of me. I keep talking about Fraser this and Fraser that, and you're probably getting sick of it, aren't you. When what I actually meant to talk about when I came out here, what I wanted to say…" She took a deep breath. "I wasted a lot of time chasing after something that wasn't going to work out anyway. Now I'm looking at what's in front of me, and okay, that might not work out either, but at least I know what it is. Who it is, I mean. It's not Fraser. It's you."
So much sincerity in her voice, Buddy thought, and something inside him twisted and pulled at his heart. She probably thought she meant it. But Carol had been like that too, blinded by what she wanted, unable to see what he wanted. Unable to see who he really was. He looked out at the gray-blue water, at the waves that built and broke and built again. "What do you see," he said softly, "when you look at me?"
For a moment there was only the sound of the water lapping on shore, the counterpoint of his own heartbeat, pounding in his ears. Finally, Francesca spoke. "I see a police officer who might be busy, but he still takes the time to show a visitor around his station, just because she wants to see it. I see a man that knows the name of everybody in town, not that there's so many of them, but they all know him, and they all respect him. I see a man that won't let them put houses on the land where he likes to look out at the ocean, because he thinks everybody should be able to look out at the ocean if they want to. I see -"
"Francesca," he said, turning toward her.
"I see a man who keeps looking at what's behind him, because nobody ever told him he was allowed to have his own dreams, to do what he wanted to do, to reach out and grab them," she said, looking him in the eye. She took his hand, squeezed it. "I see you, Buddy French."
The twisty feeling in his gut vanished, replaced by something lighter, something fizzy that wanted to bubble up out of him. Maybe at first she had been seeing someone he wasn't, but now she was seeing him; and maybe he was a little guilty of that too, of thinking about Carol and the past, instead of about what might happen in the future. Looking where he came from, instead of where he wanted to go. "Yeah," he said, nodding, squeezing her hands right back. The fizzy feeling bubbled up onto his face, and he grinned. "All right. Let's go back to the festival, Francesca."
"Please, Buddy," she said. Her eyes shone, and her sudden smile was as dazzling as the sun. "Call me Frannie."
Okay, that ain't exactly your standard happy ending, the kind of ending where everything is tied up with a bow. More like a hopeful one, where you don't know for sure what's going to happen next. But you can figure it out, right? It's like with Fraser and me, when we headed off on our adventure together; you don't know what happened after that, but you can draw the logical conclusion - or maybe you just have a hunch.
So with Frannie and Buddy, maybe it was like this. Frannie had to go back to Chicago at the end of the week, but she kept in touch with Buddy by email, and sometimes he'd call her on the phone. And maybe after a couple of months Buddy took a week off to visit Chicago. Did the tourist thing, went to the zoo, you know. And dinner with the Vecchios, of course. So they could check each other out.
Maybe Frannie went out to Wilby Island that winter, just to see if she'd like it okay when it was all cold and raw and windy. (Not even as bad as a Chicago winter, she decided, although she thought it was cheating to measure the temperature in Celsius, because it sounded colder that way.)
Maybe the next time Buddy came to Chicago was for his wedding.
And maybe Frannie had those six kids, just like Fraser said. Except she had them in the hospital on the mainland across the water from Wilby Island, where she lived with her husband, who was a policeman, in the big old house he grew up in. And if she ever thought that any of them looked a little like a Mountie she used to know, she kept it to herself.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: how come you know all that? Because if Fraser was just making things up, on account of how he was mushing a dogsled across the tundra at the time, why would the guy he was mushing the dogsled with know any better?
Fraser always teases me about my hunches. He says I jump to conclusions based on nothing but instinct - no logic, no reason, none of those Mountie-things he does like listening to the wind or licking the ground, which I would not do in a million years. But I got evidence backing me up, here.
I got this postcard from Wilby Island, with a lighthouse on it. I got this photo Frannie sent, with two guys on it that she says look like me and Fraser, although personally I don't see much of a resemblance. I got this email from some chick named Cindy at the 27th, asking for some info on an old case for Lieutenant Welsh, and by the way she's the new Civilian Aid because the old one's moving to Canada, just like you did, Mr. Kowalski. And I got this wedding invitation - well, it was to both of us. We didn't go, but we sent them this really nice carving that Fraser made.
So, okay, maybe it didn't really happen this way.
But maybe it did.
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http://hieroglyfics.net/wwds.htm | written March 2006 by Isis