Key West Heat

by Alice Orr

  “If you say so,” he finally agreed, but not without adding, “I’ll be at the Beachcomber if you need me.”

  Then he was gone. Taylor turned to face Winona and whatever she would reveal.

  * * *

  BAHAMA VILLAGE was west of Whitehead Street. The differences here from the rest of the island were subtle but always apparent and welcome to Des. He had spent a good deal of time in the Village as a boy, at the same house he was headed for now. The sidewalks were dusty and sunbaked. A nearby mural celebrated Caribbean life in bright, primary colors. Cocks crowed here throughout the day. A particularly handsome specimen emerged from under a bush to watch Des step down from the Jeep where he had parked near the corner of Thomas Street. The rooster’s dark, beady eyes looked Des over as if from a great height. Then the bird turned with an unimpressed squawk and strutted away.

  Violetta Ramone had been the housekeeper at Stormley when Desiree Bissett was alive. Violetta’s house on the corner of Thomas and Olivia Streets had been Des’s refuge on many occasions after Desiree died. He’d been looking for trouble in those years, anything on which to vent his anger. He was a rebel teen all the way, but it had only been a pose. He knew that now. He had to stay that angry on the outside so nobody would see the pain on the inside from the loss of the mother-protector Desiree had been for him. It wasn’t a good idea to let anyone know you were hurting. That meant you were soft somewhere, ready to be picked off. Des saw life that way more than ever after Desiree was no longer around to urge such thinking out of his head. So, he stayed hard-shelled and in trouble. When that trouble got too far out of hand he would come here to Violetta’s for spicy chicken and homey comfort.

  The house was cottage-size, one story surrounded by a white picket fence and full, green shrubbery. There were sun shutters on the windows and a low sitting porch across the front. No matter how often the rest of the houses on the street might go in and out of disrepair, Violetta’s was always freshly painted, white and shining in the sun. It was shining that way today, like a beacon beckoning Des to put into harbor and rest at anchor. He might have heeded that call and let down his guard for a while if it hadn’t been for the reason he was here.

  Violetta came to the door with her arms already open to greet him. “Destiny Child,” she said, calling him the pet name she had used since he was a boy. “If you aren’t a sight to make my old eyes young.”

  Des let her enfold him in her sturdy, brown arms that barely reached around his chest. She was so much shorter than he was that he had to crouch to return her embrace. They stood for a long moment hugging hard, a longer moment than was usual for Des. Violetta would be sure to notice that. She noticed everything.

  “What’s troubling you, chéri?” she asked with a hint of the patois of the islands and the delta. She had lived in both of those places before settling in the Keys.

  “I need you to talk to somebody for me,” he said.

  “And what would you want me talking about?”

  They had walked through the house into the kitchen with its screened porch and the exotic perfume of the aromatic vegetables and cayenne that were the staples of Violetta’s cuisine.

  “I’d want you talking about the past.” He lifted the lid from the white-speckled porcelain kettle simmering on the stove, the same kettle he’d been peeking into since he was a kid. “What’s cooking?” he asked, just as he always did, taking a sniff deep enough to make his eyes water from the potent spices.

  Violetta took the lid from his hand and slapped it back on the kettle. “Never you mind what I’m cooking. What part of the past do you mean to have me talking about, and who exactly am I supposed to be talking it to?”

  Des had expected her to react this way. Violetta’s mind was as sharp as a witch doctor’s bite, as she would put it. She’d no doubt guessed that he was referring to Desiree and Stormley. Violetta didn’t like to talk much about either.

  “I need you to tell the truth about Stormley and the Bissetts to somebody who needs very badly to hear it,” he said.

  “Mon Dieu.” Violetta faced the shrine to the Virgin on the wall in the corner and crossed herself quickly with her right hand.

  There was a shrine like this in every room of Violetta’s house, even in the bathroom, and the candles were lit day and night. Alongside the statue of the Blessed Mother, various mass cards, votive candle holders and crucifixes, Violetta also kept symbols of another faith—darker, more secret—that she refused to speak about, even in whispers. Des knew vaguely what those ribbons and small bones were about, but he had learned better than to ask more.

  “Nothing about that time can do anybody any good by being dug up, now or ever,” Violetta said.

  She shooed Des to a chair at the Formica-topped table by the window. Years ago, he had built rows of shelves across this window for her. Pots lined the shelves, each with its own fragrant herb. The bottom shelves were cooking herbs. The middle shelves were medicinal herbs. The very top shelf she wouldn’t explain, and those plants weren’t as pleasant in fragrance. Des had picked up enough of Violetta’s superstitions over the years to keep him from sniffing that top shelf very deeply.

  “I don’t like thinking about back then any more than you do, Violetta,” he said as she poured coffee into the hand-painted crockery bowl in front of him. “But you’re wrong about one thing. There is somebody who could be done a lot of good by knowing what really happened at Stormley.”

  “Who might this body be?”

  Violetta had turned almost belligerent. Her ample bosom rose high as she pulled her shoulders back and looked down her nose at him as if she were towering yards instead of inches above where he sat. Des told himself he’d better proceed cautiously. With Violetta, belligerence could signal an approaching temper surge. He didn’t want that. Her health wasn’t what it had been in her younger years. The doctor had told her that too much agitation was bad for her heart. In Des’s experience, Violetta losing her temper was the ultimate in agitation. He took her plump, smooth arm and held it gently so she wouldn’t dart away. He looked up into her face and hoped she would see the urgency as well as the affection in his eyes.

  “Taylor Bissett is here on the island,” he said softly.

  “Oh, no,” Violetta gasped and sank into the chair next to Des’s. “Taylor child, ma petite chérie. Why did she not stay away as she was told to do?”

  The look of distress on Violetta’s usually cheerful face couldn’t help but cause Des alarm. “Why is it so important for her to stay away?”

  “Oh, Destiny Child. It is not good for her here. Nothing is good for her here.”

  Des’s natural skepticism warred with the concern caused by something in her voice that suggested more than just superstition.

  “Tell me what you mean by that, Violetta. I need to know. She needs to know.”

  “There is only trouble here for her. There is even trouble in your heart for her, chéri.”

  Des was taken aback by that. Violetta was a woman of uncanny insights. Could she know somehow what he was feeling for Taylor? But why would that mean trouble?

  “You resented that child, lovely as she was,” Violetta went on. “She was what you would have given anything to be, the babe of sweet Desiree’s bosom.”

  Des did remember thinking of Taylor as a pest, when he had bothered to think about her at all. “I don’t resent her now.”

  “I am most pleased to hear that. I am not most pleased to hear that the special child has come back here. So much was done to keep her away all these years, while the caring ones were in this world.”

  “Are you talking about her aunts?” Des had been listening to Violetta long enough to be able to interpret some of her ways of saying things.

  “Yes, Destiny Child. God gave the aunts that work to do in life, to protect the special child.”

  “Is there some particular reason you call her that? The special child?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed.” Violetta glanced once more toward the corner shr
ine. “She had the light on her, like her mother. She was touched by God.”

  Des sighed his disappointment. He had hoped Violetta would tell him something real and important. Instead, this was just mumbo jumbo. She was talking about Taylor having powers of some kind. He had always been tolerant of Violetta’s superstitions. Right now, however, he was feeling more impatient than understanding.

  “I will speak to her as you ask,” Violetta said, though she didn’t sound eager to do it. “You are right this time. Truth is what that child needs. I must tell that truth as best I can and pray for only good to come of it.”

  Violetta clutched the spot between her breasts where Des knew from years of acquaintance she had hung a small, snakeskin bag beneath her muumuu. He could only guess what was in that bag, but he knew she was entreating its power now, as supplement to the power of the cross on a chain suspended higher and more visibly at her throat. A shiver ran through him. What if there was something to Violetta’s superstitions after all? What if Taylor really needed that much power to keep her safe from the danger she could be in? He took a gulp of Violetta’s coffee. The chicory edge was strong and dark, like the taste of dread and the sense of unbidden spirits in the air.

  Chapter Six

  Winona had put on her sunglasses as she stared across the porch at Des. She still had them on now that he was gone, and Taylor would have liked to ask her to get rid of them. It wouldn’t be polite to reach over and take them off as Taylor had done with Des earlier. She wasn’t in a particularly courteous mood right now. In fact, she was feeling downright grumpy. Still, she wasn’t ready to be openly belligerent, at least not quite yet. All Taylor knew was that the questions about her past had been mounting for two days now till their combined bulk threatened to bury her in confusion. She suspected Des could be correct in his opinion that Winona had at least some of the answers. It wouldn’t make sense to alienate this information source, especially since there appeared to be few others. Nonetheless, Taylor couldn’t help wondering how people down here figured each other out. At least that seemed to be a problem out-of-doors, where they all hid behind black glasses, hat brims and even gobs of sunscreen, like players in a masquerade.

  “What is it that you feel so compelled to speak with me about, my dear?” Winona asked.

  “I want to find out more about my childhood here on Key West. I have reason to believe you can help me do that.”

  “What specifically do you want to know?” There was no visible change in Winona’s facial expression or tone. Of course, her eyes were hidden.

  “I grew up believing I left here as little more than a baby. Now, I’m told I was actually six or seven years old. Is that true?”

  “Let us determine entirely what it is you want to know before dealing with individual questions. That way we can seek out the truth of all at once.” Still no alteration in her calmly modulated tone and noncommittal half smile.

  Taylor recalled that Winona was some kind of therapist by profession. She certainly acted like one, enigmatic to a fault.

  “What I really need to find out is why I don’t remember those missing years here. If I was living on this island till I was six or seven years old, I should have retained some of those memories. Isn’t that true?”

  “Memory is a curious thing and most fascinating. It is, in fact, a particular interest of mine, especially the subject of memory repression.”

  “Do you mean when a person deliberately blocks out something from their past?”

  “I would not refer to such behavior as being deliberate. That might make an individual feel responsible for, even guilty about, something over which he or she has no control.”

  “Then who is responsible?”

  Winona smiled a bit wider. Taylor wished she could feel the warmth that smile was obviously meant to convey. Unfortunately, she was too agitated to register reassurance just yet.

  “Most often,” Winona said, “no one is responsible. We are speaking about involuntary psychological behavior. It simply happens.”

  “Is that what happened to me?”

  Winona hesitated before answering, “Perhaps.”

  “What did happen to me? Do you know?”

  “Actually, you were under my care then. Let me go to my office and find my journal for that period.” Winona rose with a rippling of white material, like curtains gently moved by a breeze. “Then we will be certain to have the facts correct, without depending on my memory which can, of course, be as faulty at times as anyone else’s.”

  She smiled once again before gliding across the porch and into the house, leaving Taylor to think about how difficult it was to imagine someone with such grace being faulty at anything. Meanwhile, the porch and the soft sunshine were pleasant and should have been relaxing, but Taylor was in no mood to relax. The minutes of waiting felt more like hours. She tried to be patient. Patience with inactivity had never been one of her virtues, even when she wasn’t worked up as she was now. Her restlessness had begun as a child in northern New York. She could remember being so unsettled by that restlessness she thought she might perish from it.

  Aunt Pearl had kept Taylor close to home most of the time, and there never seemed to be enough going on there to occupy the mind of an active little girl. Keeping her mind occupied had always seemed essential to Taylor. She had learned to invent activities to fill her thoughts, no matter how busy and sometimes lacking in real substance those activities might be. She had spent the rest of her life that way. She doubted she could stand it for long, here in the tropics where everything was geared much too low for her usual pace. Yet, she wondered, why was that so? Why did she find it almost impossible to relax, even in this luxuriant place where relaxation was such a natural part of life? Why could she never simply sit and let her thoughts drift wherever they might? It occurred to her that the problem might be precisely this—where those thoughts might drift to and what she would find there.

  The house door opened, and Winona stepped out onto the porch. Taylor was relieved. She didn’t like the direction her thoughts were already taking, into a realm of questions with no apparent answers. She had enough of those to deal with. She was happy to turn her attention to the hardbound ledger Winona was carrying. The faded fabric of its gray-green cover suggested that it could definitely have dated from Taylor’s childhood.

  “I regret that I cannot let you read my notes directly,” Winona said as she sat and placed the volume on the table in front of her. “I have the cases of several patients besides yourself recorded here from that period. I would not care to risk violating their privacy in any way. I expect you understand that caution on my part.”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t think I would want you to show anybody else confidential information about me, either.”

  “Precisely.”

  Winona removed her dark glasses and smiled again. This time Taylor could feel the warmth of that smile. In fact, the longer she gazed into Winona’s eyes, the more powerful was the impression that this woman truly cared. Taylor actually did begin to relax a little within the comfort of that reassurance. For the first time in two days, she dared to think that everything could turn out right. The gentle ebb and flow of Winona’s voice suggested that might be true, and it was a suggestion Taylor was more than willing to embrace.

  “Some of the things I am going to tell you will not be easy to hear,” Winona said.

  Taylor felt her short-lived sense of well-being begin to slip away until Winona’s gentle touch on her arm stemmed the flow of that departure.

  “Have no fear, my child,” Winona said. “We will travel this memory path together. I will be at your side every step of the way, to help and to explain whatever may require explanation. You are not alone. You may be assured of that.”

  Taylor hadn’t been spoken to in such a kind, soothing tone since Aunt Pearl died. The thought brought a small sob to Taylor’s throat. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she missed being spoken to that way. Winona must have heard the
sob, or sensed it, because she moved her touch from Taylor’s arm to her hand. She let her fingers entwine with those of this woman who seemed suddenly so much older and wiser. Winona was speaking softly now, murmured words of comfort and support. It occurred to Taylor that maybe she could relax here, after all, and learn to fill her thoughts with something besides restlessness, especially with such a wise, gentle woman to teach her how.

  * * *

  AN HOUR OR SO LATER, Taylor wandered out onto Elizabeth Street when Winona wasn’t looking. She had told Taylor to take a nap, and that was what she’d meant to do. Then, she found herself walking down the street with the white sun beating on her from twelve o’clock high. Tourists buzzed by on mopeds, pink and white and black ones. Taylor thought she might rent one too, but it was only a whimsical notion to distract herself from what she didn’t want to think about. She would have been a collision waiting to happen in any vehicle right now. Dazed as she was feeling, walking was about as much as she could manage.

  She told herself she had no specific destination, but that was only true on a conscious level. Her deeper instincts knew exactly where she needed to be. Still, she was on the block of Duval Street between Eaton and Caroline Streets and almost to the Beachcomber before she recognized where she was headed. The bar was already open with customers on several of the stools. The bartender might have smiled or even made a joke about her urgency, but he must have seen the bewilderment in her eyes because he simply directed her to Des immediately.

  Des was in the café adjacent to the bar, an outdoor-indoor restaurant, which he also owned. Taylor had been surprised to hear that. She wouldn’t have guessed him to be the restaurateur type. The café was a charming place. The tables in the courtyard were small and not too close together. More than half were filled with chatting customers as the lunch hour moved toward its busiest time. The table settings were of island design, with plates and cups painted in bright colors and patterns. Lush tropical flowers were everywhere, on the tables, in wide window boxes along the front of the café building, nearly covering the tall bamboo fence that bordered the courtyard and shielded it from the noise of the street.