“Always thinking,” the bird sang out, followed by a whistle that sounded a little like a fizzling firework.
Maybe it was just as well Methuselah couldn’t talk. That would get on Maeve’s last nerve eventually. Since Jarvis had passed, she’d learned to like her quiet life. Actually, it had taken about ten years to feel that way, but finally it had crept in like a comfort.
Tug walked over and unlocked the front door of the diner. A few regulars spilled inside, taking their usual seats at the counter and in booths. The tourists were easy to recognize, always fumbling around trying to figure things out and asking a bunch of questions.
Maeve sipped her coffee, enjoying the clatter and conversation. It kept that needling feeling of something on her mind at bay, and that was a relief.
“Are those shells from around here?” A woman dressed in a Whelk’s Island T-shirt and white jeans pointed toward the shadow boxes on the wall. “Someone down at the surf shop told me about those shells yesterday. She found one.” The woman clomped across the diner floor in what looked like flip-flops on top of two-and-a-half-inch wooden platforms. Not exactly beachwear.
“Really?” Tug handed her a menu. “Yes, those have all been found around here.”
“How’d you get them?” Her head bobbed with each word, but her short overbleached hair didn’t budge.
Tug moved closer, pointing to the shell and news article framed right next to the woman. “Well, some were in articles in the local paper here. I talked the people who’d found them into selling them to me so I could display them with the newspaper clippings. Beachcomber magazine picked up a story about that one. And when folks heard I was hanging them in the restaurant, well, they just started sending them to me. It’s kind of cool. I mean, something nice like that happening right here in our backyard. People who find them say the shells always have the right message at the right time.”
“How is that?”
He shrugged and wiped down the counter. “Just happens that way. Some things are meant to be. Some think its divine intervention. I don’t know. I like how happy it makes people when they find them. Who cares how?”
Her mouth pulled to one side, almost a smirk.
Maeve noticed the young woman’s bad attitude.
“Are they always found at the same place?” the woman asked.
“Are you a reporter?” Tug slung a towel over his shoulder.
“No. Just wondering.”
“They’ve been found all over the island. Heard one was found over in Beaufort one time. Someone sent a shell from St. Augustine, Florida. Can’t say if it was carried home by a tourist who’d visited here, though. Could be from all over, for all I know.”
The woman scanned the menu.
“What can I get you this morning?”
“I’m not usually a breakfast person. Do you have a protein shake?”
He sputtered at the comment. “No. I could make you an egg-white omelet. Plenty of protein in that.”
“Okay. I’ll have that and a glass of water.”
Maeve slid off her stool and approached the woman. “So, you were over at the surf shop? Were you talking to Kimmy, the owner? Is she still working? I’d think she should be having her baby anytime now.”
The woman turned to Maeve. “Hi. Yes, at the surf shop, but actually I talked to her mother. She said her daughter is in the hospital, getting ready to have twins.”
“Oh my. I hadn’t heard. Twins?” Maeve lifted her chin and motioned toward Tug. “Twins. Little Kimmy is having twins. Did you know?”
“Yeah. Heard something about it.”
Of course he knew. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
Tug was whisking eggs in a bowl. “I forgot. Becky mentioned it when she was here last week. She’s been having some trouble with swelling.”
“Swelling? Becky or Kimmy?” Maeve asked.
The young woman spoke up. “Her daughter was on bed rest, but now they have her in the hospital as a precaution. Becky said she found that shell on the beach right after they put Kimmy in the hospital.”
For a tourist, that woman was a bit of a know-it-all.
“Becky must be worried.” Maeve hadn’t spoken to her in quite a while.
“She couldn’t stop talking about that shell. Like it was a sign or something. Then she was telling me about how lots of people have found them around here.”
“What did it say?” Maeve asked.
“The shell?”
“Of course the shell.” Maeve pasted what she hoped resembled a polite smile on her face. That last comment