1 Margarita Nights

by Phyllis Smallman

  “Jimmy was living on his boat. Of course, you’d find clothing.”

  “Come daylight, we’ll search for his remains.” Remains, what a horrible word, like something leftover and unwanted. Like what was left between Jimmy and me. I rubbed my forehead to clear away the ugly thoughts. “It just doesn’t seem possible. Jimmy is the most alive person on earth.”

  “What can you tell me about the explosion?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did you have anything to do with your husband’s death?”

  “No.” I shifted my body away from him and stared out the window into the blackness over the water. On this stretch of Beach Road only sand dunes and the odd clump of palm trees separate the road from the Gulf of Mexico. Come May, sea turtles lumber ashore and lay their eggs on the beach. The town removed all the street lights where Beach Road is exposed to the gulf, ensuring newly hatched turtles will head for the moon over the gulf instead of coming inland to the street lights and dying under the wheels of cars. But there was no moon now, only dark. Were there pieces of Jimmy floating out there in the blackness, being eaten by fishes and crabs and other unnamed creatures? I shivered and huddled deeper in the seat. Styles exhaled heavily, a sound of bone-weary frustration.

  Chapter 4

  The lights were still on in the Travis mansion. No worry about nature there. Maybe they left them on all night because it looked so pretty all lit up. The mansion was a fairy-tale castle, with a steeply pitched roof and a round turret like the castle I saw Sunday nights on Walt Disney when I was a kid. Covered in pink stucco, it didn’t belong on a beach in Florida.

  Just pulling into the pink concrete drive made my stomach contract into a hard knot. I didn’t even have to go in or see Jimmy’s parents to feel the panic.

  The drive led to a curved flagstone path edged in tightly clipped geometric shrubs. Ground-hugging lanterns set among bushes to cast small puddles of brightness in front of us.

  I rang the doorbell and we waited in silence while my courage melted like the ice cubes in some forgotten drink. “Maybe it would be better if you break the news,” I suggested.

  “I’ll wait in the car.”

  Before Styles could answer, more lights flicked on and a disembodied voice demanded, “Who is it?”

  Detective Styles and I looked at each other, waiting for the other to respond.

  “Who’s there?” the impatient voice demanded.

  I leaned towards the grill set in the wall and said, “It’s Sherri. May I come in, please?” I hoped he’d say no, so I could run away and let him read about Jimmy in the morning paper. Instead the door swung open on an older version of Jimmy.

  Dr. Travis was dressed in crisp chinos and a blue dress shirt, open at the neck with cuffs neatly turned back at the wrist. The gray hardly showed in Dr. Travis’s fair hair and his good looks surely made checking into his clinic for plastic surgery a whole lot easier.

  He held the door open for us without speaking and extended an arm in the direction of his study off to our left, but before we could reach the safety of Dr. Travis’s lair, the wicked witch of the South flew out from the back of the house. Rings sparkled on each finger wrapped around the highball glass.

  “What’s she doing here?” Jimmy’s mom hissed. Her given name was Bernice but I’d never been invited to call her that.

  I hadn’t seen Mrs. Travis in a couple of years, but she was still blond and beautiful. Of course she would never have accepted anything less. The only imperfect thing in her life was me, and she didn’t like to be reminded of this temporary failure of the system. Tall, at least as tall as my five seven and a half, she was so skinny she looked like a prison-camp survivor. The close-fitting knit top and pants, in bands of hot pink and raspberry, clung to her and accentuated her thinness.

  Bernice marched forward, intent on getting to me and doing some damage, but Dr. Travis shot an arm across her shoulders and held her back saying, “Bernice, please,” in a tone of voice that said he already knew his request was useless.

  “This is Detective Styles,” I said quickly. “He has something to tell you.” Well, I’d done my part. Take it away Detectives Styles.

  Styles frowned. “I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

  They exhaled in unison, reaching out for each other, clinging together, their faces saying they’d known as well as I did how Jimmy would end. “There’s been an accident.”

  The veneer that made them special—special and above mere mortals—melted, and they sank down into middle age, becoming just ordinary people in the midst of a tragedy.

  “I’m sorry,” Styles said.

  Bernice gave a whimper and sagged at the knees. She would have collapsed on the floor but her husband grabbed her under the arms and lowered her gently onto a high-backed antique chair. Then he turned horrified eyes to us.

  I raised my eyes to the gilded mirror over their heads as Styles began, “Your son’s boat exploded. His truck was in the parking lot so it’s believed he was on board at the time.” The crystal high ball shattered on the parti-colored marble floor.

  “How . . . ,” Dr. Travis started, but Mrs. Travis came alive.

  “It’s your fault,” she hissed at me.

  “Trash, nothing but trash . . . if he hadn’t married you . . .”

  My feet were moving with her first words and the door closed behind me before she finished the last.

  The unmarked police car was locked so I leaned back against it, taking deep breaths and fighting for control.

  The smell of the Gulf of Mexico, a hundred yards behind the house, mingled with the smell of fresh-cut grass. The sprinkler system came on, adding a soft mist to the air. The rains didn’t come last summer and now, deep in winter, we were under a drought watch, with water strictly rationed. Drought doesn’t matter in South Beach, where the thick Bermuda grass, up to the ankles, must be maintained a tall costs.

  I watched the beads of water form on the black leather boots I’d just blown a week’s pay on and tried not to think or feel. Instead, I concentrated on cataloging my litany of injustices at the hands of the Travis family. Anger, always my refuge in times of trouble, was easier to handle than other emotions. And the rage at being blamed for one more of Jimmy’s screwups was easier to deal with than the creeping sense of loss and pain that was trying to beat down my defenses.

  Styles emerged from the house and the door closed quietly behind him. He came to the passenger side of the car and unlocked the door. I lounged back against the car, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of my coat, as he swung the door open. “Well,” I said brightly, “I think that went rather well.” His eyes opened wide and his mouth followed before he closed it, in a hard thin line. He went around to his side of the car. Looking at me over the roof of the car, he said, “Your in-laws . . . ,” he paused, searching for words.

  “Feel I leave a little to be desired in a daughter-in-law?”

  He opened his door.

  “I think they feel you led their son astray.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “I’m not sure if I led Jimmy a stray or he led me. I only know we both enjoyed the ride.”

  He slid in behind the wheel and softly closed his door. I followed, slamming my door hard and imagining the witch’s pained wince.

  “What changed?” Styles asked. “Why did you separate?”

  “I decided to grow up.”

  Styles backed carefully out the drive. He pulled slowly away. Everything about this man was cool and deliberate, not flashy or quick, just relentless. I wrapped my arms around my chest and hugged myself tightly against an inner chill.

  “Mr. Travis said that your husband carried a rather large insurance policy and you were the beneficiary.”

  I laughed. “Not likely. I remember Grandma Travis making Jimmy take it out when we were first married. She even paid the premiums for a while. Grandma Travis was the only one in the Travis family that liked me. ‘You’ll be the making of my boy,’ she said. Well, I guess she got tha
t wrong.”

  “So there isn’t a life insurance policy on your husband?”

  “Jimmy never wasted a dime on insurance. He lived for now, not the future.”

  “And you no longer had a future together?”

  “Not anymore.” I rubbed at the goose bumps on my arms.

  “Tell me about it.”

  My family motto is “The police are not your friends.” That and a well-honed survival instinct, learned from a thorny childhood, screamed at me to shut up, while a need to explain, if only to myself, pushed me on. “There were some really great things about Jimmy.” I leaned back against the headrest. The voice of caution whispered in my ear. I ignored it. “Life with Jimmy was exciting and almost enough fun to make the agony that always came after the fun worthwhile.”

  We rolled slowly to a stop at a red light. The streets were deserted but still we sat there waiting for the light to change.

  “Was your husband into drugs?”

  I turned to study Styles in the dim light.

  “Why?”

  “Just a question.”

  “He was a chipper. A tweaker.”

  “Occasional user?”

  I nodded. “He tried everything. First in high school and then in college.”

  “It was a flirtation with him, not a commitment. For a few months, when he was first in college, all the money his father sent Jimmy went up his nose. It scared the hell out of me. But it ended.”

  “People don’t just quit doing drugs.”

  “He did. It just stopped, unlike the job in a bar I got to keep us alive while he was experimenting. I wasn’t even legally old enough to drink.” “Why did he quit?”

  I lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “Booze, drugs, sex and gambling . . . the only thing that Jimmy liked better was golf. Drugs interfered with his game and at the level he was playing he needed everything he had to win. He’d have quit anything that interfered with getting his pro ticket. Golf was the only thing he took seriously. He dreamed of leading the pro tour, but ended up a club pro instead.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a bad place to end up, playing golf for a living.” he said in a wry voice. I suppose playing golf for a living sounded like a whole lot more fun than talking to next of kin or hunting for body parts in the mangroves.

  “A club pro spends most of his working hours teaching or doing office work. Jimmy was a super teacher but he still talked about trying to get on the tour again, talked about practicing and getting his game in shape and going on the pro tour.”

  “Lost dreams,” Styles said. “We all have them.”

  When I let myself into the apartment the little red light on the answering machine was doing the chicken dance, but I didn’t want to think about the daily dose of reality waiting for me on the machine. All I wanted was oblivion. Later, I wished I’d listened to my messages.

  Chapter 5

  The slamming of a door down the hall brought me instantly awake and I watched the dust motes dance in the sunlight coming through the Venetian blinds while I searched for the thing I should remember. The ache was there but not the why. Slowly memory crept in and slammed me in the gut.

  Jimmy was dead. I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them with the pain of it.

  How could he be dead? How could all that joyous energy that was Jimmy just cease to be? I turned it over and over. It didn’t feel right, didn’t feel true; even dead drunk, Jimmy would never make the mistake of turning on the engine before clearing the bilge of fumes. And the accident happened at four-thirty in the afternoon, early even for Jimmy to be blitzed, although I’d heard around town that Jimmy was drinking heavily.

  So where had the mistake been made? I could believe the Suncoaster was gone. After all, as Styles had pointed out, people had seen it burn from a mile away, but I couldn’t believe Jimmy was dead. Couldn’t believe he had screwed up like that. Slowly a new conviction grew in me. My lying, cheating, scam artist husband was up to his old tricks. Jimmy wasn’t dead! That son-of-a-Bernice! If he’d been there in the room with me I would’ve killed him. Enraged, I kicked off the covers and jolted out of bed cursing and raging until the first wave of fury passed, leaving me shaken with the violence of it.

  Too many times I’d believed Jimmy had changed, that he’d never do what awful thing he’d just done ever again, and too many times I’d been disappointed. I just wanted to be free of his craziness. I didn’t want to be sucked into another of Jimmy’s disasters. No matter what was going on, it didn’t involve me. I had my own life now.

  Evan Beckworth, my friend and next-door neighbor, let himself into my apartment with the key I kept under the mat. “Lucy, I’m home,” he called as I came out of the bedroom, dressed in my newest golf outfit in black and red. I’d pulled my long black hair into a pony-tail and now I unsnapped the back of a baseball cap and fitted it around the elastic holding my hair.

  Evan’s hands were full of fresh donuts and coffee. “How are you doing?” he asked. His face said he thought I might crumble into a hundred pieces if he wasn’t careful.

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  Evan is drop-dead gorgeous. All the women I know want him . . . and quite a few of the men. Blond hair, soft hazel eyes and, I swear to god, a cleft chin like some bloody cartoon superhero. Tall and bronzed, he has a body that could advertise the gym he spends most of his free time at.

  “I don’t have to go into the paper today if you need me.” I’m sure Evan could’ve worked for a better paper than the Jacaranda Sun, but he’d followed Noble here after college and stayed to be near Noble.

  I opened the refrigerator door and took out a carton of orange juice. “It isn’t as though I’m going to cry my eyes out over a guy who cheated on me the night before our wedding and as quick a she could after.” I yanked open a cupboard door, “. . . someone I’d have divorced if either of us could have afforded it. A guy I have more restraining orders against than I have tax returns. It isn’t as if I still loved him,” I explained and poured the juice right over the rim of the glass and onto the floor.

  “Shit.” I slammed the cardboard container down on the counter and more juice slopped over the top. I grabbed the paper towels, pulling off great lengths until toweling spilled over the counter and followed the juice onto the floor.

  Evan came and took the roll of paper towels out of my hand, pushing me towards the living room. “Go and sit down.”

  I slumped on a stool at the bar separating the living area from the kitchen. The Jacaranda Sun was beside the takeout coffee. Jimmy smiled up at me from the front page. “This was taken when Jimmy became the pro out at Windimere Golf Course.” You couldn’t see the blue of his eyes in the picture but the square jaw and broad forehead came through just fine. Even the small scar, high on his left cheek, where I’d caught him with a fishhook, showed up. The smile on his face said, “Isn’t life grand?” Even from a picture, he could melt your heart.

  I turned the paper over so I couldn’t see his face and watched Evan finish wiping up the juice. He sprayed cleaner and wiped it down again, scrubbing away like a demented housewife.

  “The floor hasn’t been this clean in years,” I told him. Evan asked, “Where were you last night?” “Here.” I pulled one of the coffees out of the cardboard container and took off the top.

  Evan stopped mopping and looked up at me. “But your car wasn’t in the lot when I got home.” I told him about Jeff and blew waves across the black liquid. “I know how hard this is on you,” he said. “I would have come over if I’d known you were here.”

  I slipped off the stool and headed into the living room. “I’m so over Jimmy. Besides . . .” I didn’t go further. My survival instincts were working just fine now. There was no reason to explain to Evan that my lying, cheating husband likely wasn’t dead. Evan was the press. He might be my friend, but he still worked for a newspaper and the story of the Suncoaster blowing up must be the biggest headline Evan ever covered in Jacaranda. What a coup to report
that Jacaranda’s favorite son might not be dead. What a temptation! And I knew all about temptation. I’ve given into it way too many times to expect others to resist.

  I rooted around under the couch for my runners.

  The lid slammed on the trash container. “If you are so over Jimmy, how come you’ve been sleeping alone this past year? You’re beautiful and single, yet there’s no man in your life,” he said, coming into the living room.

  “Men are like going to the dentist. I want to know how much pain and trouble it’s going to be before I get involved.” I threw myself down on a wicker chair and pushed my feet into the runners. “Besides, a tattoo on your butt that says ‘Jimmy’s’ puts you a bit off your stride.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could get past that.” He sat down on the couch across from me. “And anyone can afford a divorce. Is it so hard to admit you still cared for the guy?”

  I made a face. “Jimmy and I had our moments.” I planted a foot on the coffee table and yanked hard at my shoelaces. “It wasn’t all bad. Just mostly bad.” The laces were probably going to cut off my circulation. I’d go lame and be crippled for life. “Jimmy did teach me to play golf. I’m grateful for that. Well . . . ,” I gave him a broad wink, “. . . that and the other fun thing he taught me on the Suncoaster the summer I turned fifteen.” I slumped back against the cushions. “She was thirty-two feet of ivory fiberglass and mahogany trim. Her name was on the prow in elegant black script.” I sketched the name in the air.

  “And as Katherine Hepburn said about another boat, ‘She was yar.’ What the hell do you suppose yar means anyway? But that’s what she was. Yar. And watching the Suncoaster fly before the wind out on the gulf was pure joy.” I sat up straight. “Now the boat is gone and so is Jimmy. I’m really going to miss that boat. But hey, look on the bright side, I still play scratch golf.”