The instant the words were out of my mouth, I regretted the offer. I had no right to intrude on another woman’s family, even in this mild way.
“Mama hates the water,” the girl said. “She hates Florida, too, because of the bugs. Not me. I love the water. I’d live in the water, if I could. Daddy says I swim like a fish.” She studied me a moment in the wise way some children possess. “Did I say something wrong?”
She had correctly gauged the wistful change in my expression. I forced a plastic smile. “A lot of people don’t like Florida. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your mama’s right. Sometimes the bugs and heat are hard to live with.”
“If you don’t like it,” the girl said, “why do you live here?”
“I wasn’t talking about myself.”
“I sure would love to go for a ride in your boat. Are you afraid of sharks? I’m not. Daddy took me to the beach once, and I swam way out past the waves. When I’m old enough, I’m going to learn to scuba dive. Do you scuba dive?”
“I’m like you,” I said. “I could live in the water.”
As we talked, I finished with the bumpers, then stepped up onto the dock. I had to stop myself from doing what seemed natural—offering the girl my hand. Instead, we walked single file to shore.
• • •
Kermit swung out of his Chevy Silverado when Sarah was safely inside, her seat belt buckled, and closed the door. We exchanged polite greetings and shook hands in a business-like way. “Talk to you for a moment?” he said. “I wanted to ask you about dock rentals.”
It was an excuse to move away from the truck, which was running, with its windows up. As we walked, he spoke in a low, confidential voice. “I know I should apologize for last night, but I can’t. I don’t regret a thing, Hannah. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
“Not another word,” I said. My eyes were on the truck, where Sarah was fiddling with the radio. “It never happened. We both agreed, remember? That’s the way it’s going to stay.”
“Come on, Hannah. Talk to me. Please?”
“I am talking to you. You’re not listening.”
“Admit what happened and I will. You can’t pretend—”
“I’m not pretending. We’re done with this. I don’t blame you, I blame myself, and that’s all I have to say.”
I started toward my boat. He took a step and blocked my way. “Okay, okay. I keep telling myself it was just a one-night thing, but . . . why do you think I was in a rush to leave before you got here? I knew if I saw you, I would—”
I said, “Bring the subject up again, Kermit, we’re done even as friends. I mean it.”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes, I am.” With my chin, I indicated the truck. “That girl’s more important than any six of us, and I won’t play a role in hurting your child. I’m sorry about what went on between us, I truly am. Don’t make it any worse.”
His face flexed with sun lines. “Worse? I can’t imagine it getting any better—but I’m coachable.”
The humorous way he said it was so unexpected, I softened a bit.
“Finally,” he said. “A smile.”
“You’re a mess, Kermit.”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking about me, too.”
“You don’t want hear what I’ve been thinking about,” I said, and shooed him toward the truck. “Go on, now, and behave yourself. It was just a kiss, for heaven’s sake.”
That was nearly true. One polite kiss had led to a much longer kiss that spanned long, foggy minutes of consent, then a few woozy seconds of exploration, before I had finally said, “Enough,” and sent him away.
Kermit, serious now, said, “It meant a lot more than that and you know it. Can I call you tonight?”
I looked at the ground, then into his eyes. “I won’t answer if you do.”
“Even if it’s to talk about that?” He meant the orange I was holding.
“Kermit, I’m all wrung out—you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. Please don’t push. Why can’t you let things go?”
“Tonight, around seven,” he said. “You can tell me about your day, and a thousand other things I want to know about you.”
“I’m not going to warn you again,” I said. “Don’t stop here again, and don’t call me. Give us both a month to realize how stupid it was, what we almost did.”
“Almost?”
“You heard me!”
He said, “A month’s not going to change anything. We’ll discuss it tonight. After that, if you don’t change your mind . . . But you will.” He looked toward the truck, Sarah inside. “She likes you, I can tell. You’re both beautiful tomboys.”
This infuriated me.
“Don’t you dare play that card,” I said, and strode away.
• • •
Loretta was on the porch, watching. I didn’t have to see my mother to know. Even from the dock, I could feel the tension created by her presence, and the critical workings of her mind.
A phone call to Birdy spared me for half an hour. After telling her about the run-in with Yosemite Sam, my deputy friend said, “Text me the photo of the guy and I’ll run the numbers on his boat. Legally, I can’t share what I find out, but who knows what I’ll do after a bottle of wine?”
“There’s something else that happened,” I said. I gave her an edited version of my evening with Kermit and the conversation we’d just had. I answered a dozen questions before asking her to promise to intercede if I weakened.
“Why would I?” Birdy said. “Pick the right married man, it’s like owning a puppy you don’t have to babysit or muzzle on Saturday nights. Let him talk oranges all he wants; the whole time, you can use him like a sex toy. That’s advice from the only friend you have who knows how badly you need to get laid. Besides, you wouldn’t ask for help if you weren’t already a lost cause.”
“We sure are different, the way our minds work,” I responded, yet conceded the truth of every word she’d said.
Loretta wasn’t so easily dealt with. She was still on the porch when I entered and had spent the delay fuming. “You might warn me in advance before inviting strange men onto the property,” she said. “If it’d been night, I might’ve shot him for stealin’ our citrus.”
“Or invited him in to share a joint,” I replied, picking up an ashtray. “Did Mrs. Terwilliger give you your afternoon pills?”
“The moon-eyed look on that man’s face when he got in his truck—my lord. Who is he? I bet he didn’t mention he was married, did he? Of course not. They never do.”
“Loretta,” I said, “maybe you would’ve found an exception if you’d bothered asking the married men you dated. His name’s Kermit. His daughter and wife are both as nice as they can be.” I glared for a moment. “Kermit was hired by Mr. Chatham. Remember Mr. Chatham?”
“What’s her name?” my mother responded, which was unexpected. It threw me for a moment.
“Sarah,” I answered. “She’s starting to lose her baby teeth . . . They’re so grown-up, at that age. I might take her for a boat ride.”
“Not the daughter’s name. She brung me a bag of sour oranges, god knows why. What’s his wife’s name? You said you met her.”
I had made no such claim. It was another attempt to rattle me. “I’ll introduce you when she brings Sarah back for that boat ride,” I countered, which came off smoothly enough to attempt a change of subject. “How about a nice glass of sweet tea?”
When I returned from the kitchen, however, I was reminded why I’d moved out of the house while still a senior in high school. Loretta wouldn’t let the matter go.
“Kermit, huh? Wasn’t that the name of a frog?”
“A wealthy one, as I recollect,” I said, removing a wad of bills from my shirt pocket. “That reminds me. My clients gave me a hundred-dollar tip today and
booked me again for Monday. You should’ve seen the snook they landed. I’ll stick your half in the jar.”
That’s what I paid Loretta, half of my tips, for the use of “her” dock.
“More rich Yankees. If taxes get any higher, they’ll own the whole damn state.”
“They’re from Nashville, and you’ve never met a finer couple. If you don’t want their money, just say so.”
“Are they rich as Kermit? I bet he told you he was rich, too. Don’t believe it. No one with money would stoop to stealing citrus.” Using both hands, she took a sip of her tea. “What’d you put in this? It ain’t sugar. We too broke to buy real cane sugar now? Bet if you made tea for him, it’d be sweet enough.”
Ignoring the woman only made her meaner, but I ignored her anyway. I went through the kitchen to the mantel over the fireplace, where, beside the clock, was a vase with a lid. I made sure the lid clanged good and loud after I deposited a fifty. But easy profit wasn’t enough to derail an interrogation.
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“Hard to keep track,” I said, spooning more sugar into her tea. “I average about seven men a week. Which one you talking about?”
“Might as well said seven hundred. You’d be walking different if that nonsense was true. I mean, the married man just now! He looked at you like something served with gravy on a plate. Don’t tell me you two ain’t having carnal relations. Lie all you want, but I know the signs.”
“You’ve had plenty of experience,” I said agreeably.
“None of your sass. I know, because I watched your face when he got out of the truck. And the way your body acted—that’s something a woman can’t hide. Hannah, the way you perked up, pilots could’ve seen your nipples from an airplane. It ain’t that cold out, sweetie. You think the frog-named man didn’t notice?”
I straightened my collar to allow a quick glance down. My shirt was frost gray with buttons and vented sleeves from L.L.Bean; a size too large, for that’s what I prefer. Beneath was an Athleta sports bra, designed for modesty and comfort. Fishing can be wet work, so I’m careful about such things.
“I believe I’ll speak with Tomlinson about the weed he brings you,” I said. “You’ve either got the eyes of an eagle or you’re hallucinating. Loretta”—I held up a warning hand—“I don’t mind insults in private, but if you ever speak like that in front of others, I’ll . . . I’ll—” I couldn’t think of a threat I hadn’t made, nor one that offered the hope of working.
“In front of Kermit, you mean?” she chimed in. “You’re a fool if you think he came here just to steal a box of oranges and a citrus tree. You know how I hate a person who nags, but—”
“Mr. Chatham trusted him,” I interrupted. “He hired Kermit to save his groves from disease. I’m helping out of respect for a man who was good to us—” Midsentence, I stopped and backed up. “What do you mean, ‘stole a tree’?”
“Because he did. I saw him do it. Well . . . saw it in his truck. This was just before your skiff pulled up.”
“It would take a backhoe and a trailer to cart off one those trees,” I said, and studied my mother’s face. Was this an exaggeration intended to badger me or did she believe it had actually happened?
Loretta sensed my seriousness. Always careful not to cross the line—it would have meant a night nurse—she decided to retreat. “Guess you’re right,” she said in a careful, uneasy way. “But Hannah? Personally? I wouldn’t trust the bastard—even if he didn’t steal a tree small enough to hide in that Silverado he drives.”
Now I didn’t know what to believe.
I heated up the dinner Mrs. Terwilliger had prepared and left wrapped in foil, then returned to my boat to shower and change.
Sunset was around six-thirty. It would be dark by seven, which is when Kermit said he would call. If he called . . . if I answered—or even if I didn’t—I needed the truth about Loretta’s claim. As tired as I was, I changed into boots and hiked back to the citrus orchard. Sarah had left a book there on a towel, which I collected, but there was no sign of a missing tree, including seedlings I hadn’t noticed.
I felt better . . . but then remembered the wild orange seeds my Uncle Jake had planted on land that was no longer ours. Kermit had seemed keenly interested. I hadn’t revealed where the tree was (only one had survived), but he might have assumed it grew on an adjoining property, which it did.
The sky was a swirl of saffron and arctic blue, but there was still some light. I skirted the remains of a canal dug by the same ancient people who had built mounds in the area, then slipped through a fence. It had been five years since my uncle had died, or since I’d tried to find that young tree, but I knew the acreage well. Childhood memories of building secret huts or dreaming away in secret places are slow to fade. Even so, I found a dozen spots that looked familiar, but not what I was looking for. Possibly, the new owners had cleared the land for building or pasture.
It was nearly dark. There was comfort in the fact that a five-year-old citrus tree would be too big for one man to handle, so I headed home.
At seven sharp, Kermit called. I was alone, sitting in my cabin’s settee booth by then. I don’t know why the ring startled me so—perhaps because I’d thought about little else while the minutes dragged past. Sarah’s book—which, in fact, was a sketchbook—was an acceptable excuse to answer. The drawings inside, however, provided a dozen reasons why I should not. Her stick-figure people showed angry women, but only smiling, oversized men. Trees exhibited anger, too, with canopies that boiled like smoke. Sometimes, beneath Sarah’s pencil, the paper had torn. When a girl with stick-figure braids was the subject, she was always by herself, and dwarfed by trees or a smiling man. Only when the girl was swimming, or paddling a canoe, did the artist grant her a beaming, stick-figure smile.
I didn’t answer the phone. I chose to sit immobile and stare as it buzzed on the same table where I had shared the married man’s touch last night. When the buzzing ceased, I waited through several more slow seconds, hoping for the ping of a voice message.
There was none, but I grabbed up the phone and checked anyway.
It was Saturday night. On every island where lights blossomed, people weren’t alone and lonely. They were living their lives, having fun.
I began to pace . . . until I realized I could call Kermit back. That was perfectly acceptable—as long as I didn’t wait too long. There were many believable excuses: I’d been in the shower, the phone was buried in my purse, I’d switched it off and forgotten the darn thing. If it was business he wanted to discuss, then returning a missed call was the polite thing to do. Oh—by the way, had he stolen the young tree my uncle had planted?
My finger hovered above the Redial button . . .
I couldn’t do it. The drawings of a lonely child prohibited the risk of confusing her more. No one understood that better than I.
He’ll call back, I thought, then scolded myself for entertaining such a thought as hopeful. Worse, how would I react if, tonight, he surprised me yet again by truck?
No more tests for me. A wiser choice was to reactivate my plan for the previous evening. This time, I made it to my skiff, and my skiff carried me safely to Dinkin’s Bay on Sanibel, where I found the biologist playing chess with his friend Tomlinson. With me, I brought a sour orange for discussion, along with questions about the drug my mother had been smoking.
Fearing that Yosemite Sam and his boat might still be stranded in the backcountry, I stuck to well-traveled channels both ways.
That story was something else I shared with my friends.
ELEVEN
Monday afternoon, after another enjoyable charter with the Gentrys, I drove inland to the Agricultural Research Station in Immokalee and presented a box of tree leaves and fruit to citrus pathologist Roberta Daniels. We’d gone to high school together—one of those pleasant coincidences that wasn’t so coincidental. We�
��d also been in the same 4-H club.
“I was little surprised to get your call,” she said, greeting me in her office. “Farming never struck me as an interest of yours.”
My interest in citrus had blossomed during the last two days but was still secretly fueled by suspicion. Profit, however unlikely, was another motive, thanks to my fishing clients. The Gentrys knew a great deal about genetics and biotech patents.
I accepted a chair, saying, “I raised leghorns my first year in 4-H, then rabbits, but switched to clams. It’s what the state wanted us island kids to do, but, fact is, I got so attached to those rabbits, I couldn’t bear to sell them to a butcher. Eat a clam, though, it’s almost like you’re doing them a favor. Can you imagine the monotony of hanging underwater in a bag?”
Roberta had turned into an attractive, confident woman, yet still had her easygoing manner and farm-girl laugh. “That’s why I quit showing Holsteins and took up that—” On the wall, a photo showed her as a teen in the cockpit of a crop-dusting airplane. “We got free lessons, and flying got me interested in Ag science. You know, ways to protect crops without using poisons. There are days, I don’t know whether to thank the program or cuss it.”
“Four-H, you mean.”
“Head, heart, hands, health,” she nodded. “I bet you still remember the oath.”
We both did; the hand gestures, too. We were still laughing when Roberta pulled an orange from the box I’d brought, then inspected a couple of leaves. “What do we have here?”
“That’s sour stock my grandfather planted way back. There’re a couple of grapefruits in there, too, I picked on one of the islands. They grow wild, some places.”
“Feral citrus,” she said, correcting me, while she viewed the leaves under a light. “Well . . . these have a few canker lesions, and some leaf-miner activity—see the wormy-looking tracks? There’s psyllid damage, too, but not bad . . . not bad at all. The yellow dragon blotches jump out, if you’ve toured as many dying groves as I have.” She consulted her phone. “That’s why I don’t have much time. There’s a grove near Arcadia I have to inspect. The owner’s battling his butt off to save his crop. He knows this will probably be his last year in business if we don’t come up with an answer fast.”
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