I changed to my uniform in the ladies’ room at F&N and arrived at the Vandervort place only five minutes late. The house topped a forested hill south of town, with spectacular views of the south end of Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains to the north. Trudy Vandervort herself, in pink shorts, diamond tennis bracelet, and dangling earrings with some pink gem I couldn’t name, answered my ring of the doorbell.
“Oh, there you are! And don’t you look spiffy! I’ll write you a check for the balance, and then I’ll get the Captain.”
I peered around. The house wasn’t quite a mansion, but probably as close as I’d ever get to one. The foyer was bigger than my living room, a graceful staircase winding to the second floor; off to the left was a living room with an enormous fireplace and impressive oil paintings of what I assumed were rich ancestors.
A moment later she returned with the check in one hand and a huge brass cage in the other. In the cage I was astonished to see an enormous, brightly colored parrot.
“You’re taking your parrot along?”
“Captain, this is Andi McConnell. She’ll be your chauffer today.” She made a little kissy moue at the bird.
“You’re not going?”
“No, of course not. I told you, I’m going on a cruise.” She clapped her fingertips over her mouth as she peered at the bird. “Oh, I didn’t mean to say that in front of the Captain.” In a surreptitious aside she whispered, “I let him think I was doing this just as a vacation for him.”
I blinked. “You want . . . I mean, you’ve hired me to drive a parrot up to Port Townsend?” A parrot you find it necessary to fib to?
Her eyes went a little flinty. “Is there a problem?”
I’d been picturing the Captain as a snowy-haired old salt, her father probably, maybe a retired naval officer. But on second thought, with substantial check in hand, what did I care if my passenger sported feathers instead of hair?
I shook my head hastily. “No, certainly not. No problem. Does he need any, uh, special care?”
“He likes company. Perhaps you could leave the partition open and talk to him occasionally.”
Lightbulb going on. “I could ask my assistant to come along. She can ride in back with him. It won’t cost anything extra.”
She beamed. “That’s very nice of you. I’d appreciate that.”
“Does he talk?” I asked as we trundled out to the limo.
“If he wants to.”
We set the cage on the floor of the limo, along with a box of food and toys, which included a Rubik’s Cube. I decided he probably couldn’t actually work it. But I wouldn’t try to match wits with him, just in case. I drove off with Trudy standing there waving, tissue to her nose, as if she might be having second thoughts about all this.
“Okay, Captain, you want to talk?” I inquired as we headed back toward town, speaking loudly enough to be heard through the open partition. “What’s your opinion on Einstein’s theory of relativity?”
I didn’t want to insult him with Captain want a cracker? For all I knew, maybe he could work that Rubik’s Cube.
Silence. He probably figured I wouldn’t know what he was talking about even if he explained it with equations. I tried another tack. “Can you say your name? Captain?”
More silence, but I had the feeling he was muttering to himself, I know my name, dummy. And I could say it if I wanted to. I just don’t want to.
I made a detour by the Sweet Breeze and ran in to ask Joella if she’d like to come along. She was just getting off work, and I was surprised when she hesitated. Joella was usually so eager for any out-of-routine activity, but she did look a bit frazzled today. She stretched her shoulders and rubbed her lower back.
“Come on out and meet my passenger,” I suggested, thinking the drive might do her good. “I understand he likes company.”
Joella gave me a puzzled look, but when she saw the Captain, she clapped her hands delightedly. “My grandmother used to have a parrot. He liked to ride around on my head and yell, ‘Comin’ through, comin’ through.’”
For his part, the Captain looked at Joella in her long, flut-tery sundress, one of her Goodwill picks, and declared, “Bodacious babe!”
She laughed. “It isn’t often I get a compliment like that. I have to come now, don’t I?”
She checked out with Neil in the bakery, climbed into the limo with the Captain, and off we went. We’d pick up her car when we got back.
“Bodacious babe,” the Captain repeated as he strutted in his cage.
It was cute the first few times, but after about the twenty- ninth repetition, the cute had definitely paled. Then he abruptly switched to TV commercials, first a ditty from some local realestate company, then one about a detergent.
Joella and I both laughed when he did a lusty version of the Oscar Mayer wiener song. Maybe we shouldn’t have, because he did it again. And again. All the way to Port Townsend, over and over, that cheerful, and eventually nervescraping, “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener.”
I was ready to stuff him in a hot-dog bun by the time niece Elaine took him off our hands, although he was back in silent mode when I handed her the cage.
“It’s so hard to get him to say anything, isn’t it?” she complained.
Count your blessings, was my silent advice “You want to sit up here with me?” I asked Joella.
“No, I think I’ll lie down in back, if that’s okay with you. I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
The frazzled look hadn’t gone away, I noticed. “Sure. Take a nap. Want to get a bite to eat first?”
“I’m not hungry right now. I had a big corned beef sandwich for lunch. But maybe later.”
I turned the radio to soothing music and enjoyed the peaceful drive back toward Vigland. Beautiful views of broad Hood Canal, which was actually a natural cut running from the sea deep into the Olympic Peninsula, water like ruffled pewter. The dense forests lining the road, with green underbrush thick as a tangled tapestry. All the interesting names. Quilcene. Dabob Bay. Duckabush. Hamma Hamma.
The curvy road required full attention, but traffic was light. Dusk had settled in now, and I had the headlights on and was remembering that there was a place to get really good oyster soup along here somewhere.
Then came Joella’s voice, a small, thin voice, through the open partition. “Andi, I don’t feel so good.”
I looked up and in the rearview mirror saw her face, pale and ghostly in the dim light. “Maybe you’re hungry. It’s getting late.”
“I’m not hungry. I probably shouldn’t have eaten that corned-beef sandwich at lunch. My stomach doesn’t feel so great.”
“I have Tums in my purse. Do you want a couple?”
“Okay.”
I dug one-handed in my purse and handed her the plastic carton. “How long have you been feeling like this?”
“I wasn’t feeling great even before we left Vigland. My back’s been hurting all day. I’d probably have gone home early, except there was no one to take my place.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
Actually, I could guess why. She was still embarrassed about that rush to the hospital with indigestion. But I felt a jolt of alarm now. Backache. Abdominal pain. Another false alarm? Or could this be the real thing?
“It can’t be labor,” she added. “I’m not due for at least another month. I really shouldn’t have eaten that sandwich.”
“Does it feel like last time?”
“Well, kind of. Except now I get all tight and crampy . . . and then it kind of lets go. It didn’t do that last time.”
That had the scary sound of contractions to me. I pressed down on the gas pedal. Surely there was plenty of time, but it wouldn’t hurt to hurry along. “Are the pains coming regularly, so you can time how far apart they are?”
“About five minutes, I think.”
Five minutes! Wasn’t that awfully close? I tried not to panic. But first babies take a long time to arrive, right? Sarah had been in labor almost eighteen hours when Rachel was born. I just hoped this one knew the proper schedule. Even more, I hoped this was just another bout of indigestion. Maybe the Tums would take care of it. But I wasn’t going to take a chance.
“I think I’ll swing by the hospital when we get to Vigland. We’re only about thirty miles away. You lie down, okay?”
“Okay.”
My eyes kept flicking from the odometer to the clock to the partition into the back. After five miles I said softly, hoping the pains had let up and Joella had drifted off to sleep, “Joella? You okay?”
“I . . . I’m all . . . wet. Maybe we should stop and see if I’m bleeding. I really . . . hurt.”
I spotted a pull-out area on the canal side of the road up ahead. I parked the limo and raced around back. A dim light, along with other pinpoints of light under the wine racks, came on when I opened the door. Just what we needed right now. A romantic ambiance.
Joella was lying on her side on the long, sofalike seat that ran along the side of the limo, sweat beading her forehead even though it was comfortably cool here. I couldn’t see any blood, but I scrunched the gauzy fabric of her dress. Wet.
Did that mean her water had broken? I had no idea how much wetness would signify that it had. A gallon? A tablespoon? “We’ve got to get you to the hospital right now, before—”
“I’m not sure there’s time.”
“Babies don’t come this fast. It’s not like going through the express lane at Wal-Mart!”
She gave a small cry, fists clenched and face twisted with pain. “Wanna bet?”