Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  Randy held his hand out to pull me into the house, but I refused. For just a moment, I wanted to breathe in the briny scent of Gulf, to watch the mullet do their mystery dance in the air, navigating between water and air in a way we humans weren’t designed to do. Randy’s cheeks were flushed red, and I could smell the scent of his cologne. Something intangibly Eastern, like frankincense. It was as cedary and wise-man and biblical as he did not want to be. Our deep past was a comfort, but our nearer past so fractured, so fragile.

  I began shivering and just wanted to warm up and welcomed heading into the warm but sparse house. Exhaustion pulled all the way to my bones, but in a good, relaxed way.

  Randy heated up some water for herbal tea while I wandered around the house. No furniture in any room, a mattress on the floor of his bedroom, a laptop beside it, with papers all over the floor in piles. There was one other piece of furniture—a desk with fat law books where he did his freelance work.

  In the second bedroom, he had carpeting and a bookcase. I lay down on the carpet and began to study his books, picking up one called A Land So Strange about the explorer Cabeza de Vaca from Spain. Shipwrecked in Mexico, he and the remaining sailors traveled through the Gulf region learning survival skills in the wild place. He passed right through what later became our town, but was then a fort. He went back to Spain changed, saying conquering others wasn’t the answer.

  Next thing I knew, Randy was shaking me awake by the shoulder, holding a glass of wine and an open bottle in front of me.

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “I let you sleep through tea, then decided to pull out a bottle of this. Hope you don’t mind. I’ve got a stash of pinots from California.” He headed to the kitchen to get his glass.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I grinned when he returned. He sat cross-legged across from me. It felt good to know that Tay and Daisy were okay, freewheeling for a change. After a glass each, we were remembering when . . . school dances both of us sat as wallflowers.

  “I’d have asked you, but you were so intimidating!” Randy said, his eyes going wide.

  “I was terrified,” I said. “No guy would ask me to dance, tall as I was. You chicken,” I said, kicking him in the leg and laughing. We’d never have gotten this playful without the wine.

  We remembered the time a brawl broke out at a pep rally just before a big basketball game between the future oystermen and the future crabbers. “Remember how ole Red Bird thought he could get into the middle of it and break it up?” I said.

  “He was so old, they tossed him aside like a set of tongs,” Randy laughed. His face had begun to relax and flush.

  He lay across from me, and his face softened. He asked, “What year was it that the hurricane drove all but four residents off the island?” I shrugged. He went on. “Those old coots stuck it out while the hurricane flooded Main Street. I don’t know whether to salute them or walk a mile around folks like that.”

  “Yeah, how about the year school closed down for a week when that tourist lady was found dead in the water face down,” I said, looking for the bottle.

  “You mean that woman who’d gotten so drunk she’d tried to walk the sea wall on the dock street and fell into the Intracoastal water?” Randy added.

  “Crazy times,” I said, pouring us both another glass.

  Randy leaned in, toasting to those days.

  We polished off the next glass, and so began the talk about how BP thought it could change CEOs and make us believe that everything would get back to normal. How the earth was out of balance.

  I said, “The Native Americans—not just Granny, I read this somewhere—say that the earth has a crack in it, deep inside. Because we’re taking so much from her and not giving back. Sounds corny, the “her” stuff, the crack in the middle, but who knows?”

  “I don’t think it’s corny, LaRue,” he said. “And I think you don’t give enough credence to your grandmother, and you worry too much about Tay.” His eyes showed sympathy and concern, even if his words felt a tad preachy. “Know what Tay says about you?” He emptied his glass, set it on the ledge of the bookshelf and leaned his back against the wall.

  “Do I want to?” I said, staring into my empty wine glass, and setting it down next to his.

  “He thinks you’re a cool mom,” he said. “He knows how hard you work for him and Daisy.”

  I looked at him. Warmth spread over me. My son did think I mattered. Randy’s lips were tinted dark red from the wine. The day was waning, and outside a purple-blue resolve had taken over the sky. The sun had set, but twilight wasn’t yet radiating its absolute purple blue. I crouched on my hands and leaned over and placed my lips on his. Peaches just picked off the tree in August, I thought. Or pumpkin pie in late fall. He pulled me towards him and then on top of him.

  CHAPTER 26

  I WOKE UP WITH A START at 3 a.m. half asleep, and rose in my nightgown to reach the bedroom chair, grabbing the blouse I’d taken off before I’d crashed into bed. The smell—it was haunting me. I had driven home before I got myself or Randy into a drowning-in-kisses problem. I had been exhausted. Boat riding wore me out—wind, sun, salt water, the push back of boat—they all take their toll. I took in a deep whiff of the shirt.

  Oh, my god, I thought, that was it—the shirt smelled of that distinctive deodorant. Kind of sharp pine, but softened by something else. The scent of Randy. The same smell I caught on the boat the night Madonna and I had found the knife and blood. The tall, thin shadow of a man searching. I’d blocked it before now—Randy and the way he moved his arms, the way he stood on a boat. He was the one. But why? But a lot of people wore deodorant or cologne, and not enough fishermen, if you asked me. Still, I knew in my bones the man on Mac’s boat had been Randy.

  What had I done with the photos we took from the boat that night?

  Instinctively I went to the kids’ bedrooms first. Daisy’s bed was full of stuffed animals, but otherwise empty, of course. She’d probably twisted her grandfather’s arm to let her stay up late and watch bad TV. She had most likely drifted off only a couple of hours before, which meant a cranky Sunday for her. Taylor slept quietly in his bed, the moon milking his face sweet, light, and angelic, his long-jawed, Indian seriousness.

  Then I scrounged around my bedside table and found the photos—Trina’s son! Had Fletch murdered that child? We had clear evidence of a possible murder on the boat far more recently. But as Jackson would say, the court didn’t know I’d gotten it through inadmissible evidence, and what did it prove anyway? Too bad Madonna and I had taken things off the boat without a warrant. Sleep had fled me, but I flung myself back into bed anyway.

  And then there was Preston Edwards, the funeral parlor guy who had reason to kill. His mom had amassed a small fortune, probably, being a smart accountant. Maybe it had nothing to do with ECOL at all, or couples who couldn’t be couples until certain spouses were out of the way. Or with Mexican mistrials. But what was Randy looking for on that boat?

  I was glad I had taken Monday off. I had a trip to make to a funeral home in Wellborn to see a certain Preston Edwards. Early Monday morning, I’d catch the guy off guard.

  “Mom,” I heard. “Hey, Mom.” I woke up Sunday morning to Taylor looking down at me frowning. Outside, it was full daylight. “We’re supposed to have lunch at the pit, remember? It’s eleven already.”

  I sprang up. Taylor began practicing tai chi in the living room. Daisy was already out at the pit expecting us any minute. Tay’s slender body suddenly looked vulnerable. He’d always been short until ninth grade when he zoomed up, taller than most kids in school. Suddenly, he’d become extremely thin, tall, and fit.

  “Tay,” I said. “I’m so proud of you.” He stopped mid-pose, and his face lit up.

  “You are?” he said. The surprise in his voice stabbed at me.

  “Of course,” I said. “I know school is hard for you. I know the teachers confiscated your knife. And I know you’re not doing your schoolwork.”

  “M
om, school is so fucking stupid,” he said. “I’m so bored! You don’t know how stupid kids act. Or how teachers make you just practice the same stuff over and over. I took my knife—I’m just trying to protect us. Weird stuff’s happened, and I want to be prepared.”

  “I know,” I said. “I understand.” He came and plopped down beside me. I put an arm around him. Maybe I had a laissez-faire attitude with my kids, but who’s their ally in this world if not mom? I understood in a very specific way why my son disobeyed the school rules.

  “You’ve been in such a bad mood lately,” he said.

  “So have you,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said, sighing. He draped his arm awkwardly around me. We sat watching the sun strike like liquid metal off the Gulf.

  IT WAS RAINING AGAIN. Tay and I were headed in my car out to the pit. This time the winter brought a misting. The temperatures were getting more warm and humid by the minute. Tay wore headphones, listening to his hip hop standards. He wanted me to hear it too on the radio. Oh, joy, I thought, turning the AC on low to chase out the damp. But I kept my mouth shut. Some hip hop, I was all about it, as Tay would say. And some needed incineration. But I would keep these strong opinions to myself.

  The swamp brush along the sides of the state road had a burnished look, an abstract of browns and beiges to match the grayish white of sky.

  “’Zat Great Happy?” Tay said, pulling his ear buds out. That’s what he called his great-grandmother. He pointed in the distance along the side of the road. A lone and tiny swath of blurry but bright turquoise and pink moved along slowly.

  “What the hell?” I said. There she was, Grandma Happy, carrying what appeared to be a big blue bucket in one hand and old Bank of America umbrella in the other, wearing her pink overshirt and her long turquoise skirt with black rickrack. The billowy skirt reminded me of the skirts of jellyfish floating. I pulled the car up beside her.

  “Well, damnation,” she said. “It’s about time I got some help.” Tay stepped out and picked up the bucket and heaved it sloshing into the front seat.

  “Gosh, this is heavy,” he said. Then he helped Grandma shut the umbrella. He situated her in the back seat.

  “Water?” I said staring into the bucket. I knew better, but sometimes she needled me.

  “Damn right, water,” she said, breathing heavily. “Poison in the drinking water from the faucet. It ain’t good. It’s killing water.”

  “Grandma, where’d you get this water?” I said. Tay shut her back car door and rode shotgun.

  She looked at me and tilted her head. “At a spring. At my special place.” She looked away and frowned as if I’d asked her when her last bowel movement had taken place.

  “But where?” I said. Tay sighed. She took a bit to catch her breath.

  “Oh, I got a place,” she said, vaguely. She would never tell me all the elements she put in her potions either.

  “Why didn’t you get Dad to take you?” I said. “You’ll get sick walking out here like this.”

  “Let’s go,” Tay whispered.

  Grandma replied, “Your father got enough to do. Got Daisy while you’re off gallivanting with some man. She can’t be drinking that poison water.” Grandma pointed a slightly crooked finger out the window, south. “Them people down the road, they got the swamp water all turned upside down.” How could she know about this?

  “What people?” I said, pulling the car back onto the road. No one came or went on the rural road cut through the swamps.

  “White people. Make a mess of everything. Can’t trust a one of them,” she said.

  “Grandma, I’m white,” I said.

  “You ain’t. Stop talking like a white person,” she scolded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, young damn know-it-all.” She continued to slow her breath down. “It’s time you learned to speak Seminole. And get your son learning it, too.” Tay was smiling next to me, silent. She stared out the window at the sky. “Going to go to tornado winds in the next hour or so.”

  “Grandma, we’ve never had a tornado here,” I argued. A small group of black skimmers sailed overhead with their akak, ak akak sounds.

  “You watch, smart tart,” she said. I watched the skimmers’ colors, like distinguished gentlemen in tuxedos. Long red noses and long red stockings to match. A colony must live nearby on the river shallows or in an estuary in the river. Their habitats were endangered because of coastal development.

  Taylor was absorbing everything Grandma said. So when we got to the pit, he offered to help her over to the trailer with her bucket of water. Grandma Happy told him she had a special concoction that he could use to make loud explosive noises.

  “I’m not so sure that’s a great idea,” I called out behind them as they walked to her trailer. I stood at the small pond between the house and pond, watching them ignore me.

  “You mind your business,” Grandma said, not looking back. “This boy won’t hurt nothing unless he has to.” Tay turned around and waved, grinning, the water in the bucket sloshing.

  “Nothing at school, Tay. Hear me?” I said. Just then Daisy raced outside and almost knocked me into the tiny pond between Dad’s and Grandma’s with her hug. Grandma and Taylor saw the moment as their opportunity to escape further scrutiny. Daisy was already saying her mantra of “There’s nothing to eat in the house.”

  “Let’s see what we can find for lunch,” I said as we opened the screechy screen door and entered. I heard a mourning dove starting up outside.

  Dad gave me a long hug and said, “I tried to stop your grandmother, but you know you can’t stop her.”

  “I know, Dad,” I said. “You doing okay?” The TV was on low.

  “Good as I can,” he said. “Better than the alternative. By the way, your friend Madonna called here. Something about a Tiffany?”

  “Right,” I said. “But first, what’ve you got to eat?” I went to the refrigerator and grabbed the butternut squash and spinach and turned on the oven. Then I pulled out some cheese and started a pot of water on the stove.

  When lunch was just about ready, I heard some pow explosions next door.

  “Dad, check on them, will you?” I said. He nodded and headed over to Grandma Happy’s. A couple of minutes later, Taylor and Grandma followed Dad. All of them piled into the cabin talking about how windy it had gotten. Taylor washed up, and he and Daisy set the table. Grandma watched the Miami Dolphins heaping onto the New York Jets.

  We were just sitting down to eat when Dad looked at the TV and whistled. “What do you know. Big tornado just off the west coast of Florida.” Grandma chuckled and sat at the table, nibbling at her food.

  “Is it headed this way?” I said.

  “Naw, gonna hit just east of here near the Wassacoochee River.” You could hear the sudden gusts that precede a big windstorm outdoors. As I looked out the window, pines bent deeply towards the pond water. “Ain’t gonna say I told you,” Grandma said. The kids ate fast and heartily and then ran outside, their arms lifted, twirling around, open to the sky. I demanded they come back inside, that they could get hit by branches and who knew what. Reluctantly, they trudged upstairs to watch a movie.

  Happy returned to her football game. Dad settled, stretching out on the sofa to pretend to watch, but really to catch a nap. I tiptoed upstairs to my old bedroom, which hadn’t changed much. The same late-seventies bedspread with red poppy curtains to match. I picked up the landline and called Madonna. I told her about the wind at the pit.

  “Really?” she said. “I want to come out and play in it. It’s nothing but gray over on the Gulf. Lots of sloshing water, and the birds have disappeared.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be where you are on a Sunday this quiet with a tornado on the Gulf. This is when most of the restaurants start thinking about closing up for the day.”

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Speaking of days, Tiffany came in last night. We talked for a long time. She was in the juice last night. Told me she’d been in Juvie for a while.
Wanna know why?”

  “Juvie? Juvenile detention? I’m all ears,” I said.

  “Forging prescriptions for scheduled drugs,” she said.

  “How convenient,” I said. “I knew she was shifty. I’ve had a weird sense about her. And after hearing that she did tricks, I’m so not surprised.”

  “She also told me she feels for Fletch.” I could hear her opening and shutting the freezer at work. Someone had come in ordering drinks.

  “Fletch? She hasn’t got a clue, does she?” I said. “Hey, by the way, do you remember any pine scent, some exotic smell on the boat? That night we sneaked on? And someone came onto the boat?”

  “God, LaRue,” she said. “I was terrified. No. Why?”

  “Never mind. Just a stray hunch,” I said. I didn’t want her to know I thought Randy was on the boat. I was afraid she’d discourage me from seeing him again.

  “Hey, how was your big date?” she asked.

  “The date was okay,” I said carefully. “It . . . man, the boy can kiss.”

  She laughed. “Kiss where?” I knew the road she was headed onto. “On the study floor.”

  “Aw, Panther kisses and don’t tell,” she teased. “Anyway, what smells like pine, exotic pine?”

  “I don’t know. I was just wondering,” I said. I couldn’t face telling her my silly hunches. “Anything from OV?”

  “I didn’t see our witness, the garbage man OV, last night,” she said. “Okay, I’m thinking about closing up. There’s no one here but one tourist couple who just came in to get ice.”

  I heard the door slam and the kids arguing in the room next to me, the room Taylor used. I could hear, “You’re cheating.” They must be playing Clue, I figured. Soon, they settled in and started murmuring. I quietly picked up the landline again and called Laura.

  “How was your night?” she said, quietly.

  “Oh, interesting. I don’t think he’s a candy man, maybe. You want it, but that one bite is plenty.” I hadn’t known I felt that way until I said it.