by Nancy Rue
His eyes bulged so far from their sockets that I thought they’d been pushed from his head by the impact. But the moment the bike was upright, he was up and twisting toward escape. Chief stopped him with one hand on the back of his shirt.
“Girl,” Ulysses said to me, “you can’t even keep your bike vertical when you aren’t on it, can you?”
“I’d shut up if I were you,” Leighanne said. I heard her add to the Hispanic woman, “She’s going to kill that kid.”
I might have, at least verbally, if Chief hadn’t lifted him up by the scruff of the collar like a puppy so he could talk right into his half-frightened, half-thrilled face.
“You think you’re all about risks, don’t you, son?” He didn’t wait for the answer Desmond was obviously too stunned to give. “You’re gonna learn real fast that there’s no risk that doesn’t come with responsibility. You can’t be a biker unless you learn responsibility first. We clear?”
I was sure Desmond didn’t understand a word of that, that it was Chief’s gut-grabbing intensity that made him nod his head.
“I don’t believe I heard you.”
“Yeah.”
“That’ll work for now.”
Chief set the kid on the ground and turned his head halfway to me. “You better get him out of here, Classic.”
Rex’s presidential duties apparently included damage assessment. “Your kickstand is bent,” he said. “He didn’t hit any of the other motorcycles, so that is good.”
“You have no idea how good,” Ulysses muttered.
The group around us drifted back to their tables and hot dogs, and I grabbed my helmet from the handlebar.
“Let’s go,” I said to Desmond.
“You still gonna let me ride with you?”
“How else am I going to get you home?” I straddled the seat and started the engine. “Get on. And I’m adding a new rule: Don’t talk to me until we get there.”
He followed that order to the letter.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The day just kept getting better and better. Bonner was parked in my driveway when we pulled in. I could feel Desmond’s back straighten when he saw the Jaguar.
“Forget about asking for a ride in it,” I said as the Harley’s engine grumbled to a sullen silence. “You and I have some business to take care of. Get off, please.”
Desmond swung his long, lanky leg over the back of the bike and tried the grin on me. The ride had evidently wiped away the image of Chief dangling him in the air like a rag doll. Either that or he thought I couldn’t hold a candle to the big guy.
Maybe I couldn’t, but from now on I was going to try. It was no longer a matter of me threatening to do this kid bodily harm. It was about him doing it to himself, and now I knew that he was perfectly capable of making that happen—and that he didn’t care if it did.
With Bonner looking on openly from the Jag, I said to Desmond, “Give me the helmet.”
The grin vanished. “It’s mine. The Chief bought me it.”
“You can take that up with him next time you see him. Right now Big Al is taking it away from you. Give it.”
I held out my hand until I thought my arm was going to break. He tried to outstare, outglare, and outwait me, but I didn’t move until he finally undid the strap and pulled the helmet from his head. His hair was matted down like a wet doormat, which made the scene all the more wretched for him, I was sure. I could have predicted, though, that he would suddenly laugh and do some kind of Michael Jordan wannabe move with the thing before depositing it into my hand.
“When I’m gonna get it back?” he asked.
“When you do what the Chief said and show me some responsibility.”
“What I gotta do?”
I shrugged. “I’ll know it when I see it. And just so you know, Florida law says no one under eighteen can ride without a helmet, so your biking days are over until I see that you’re ready to take the risk in a responsible way.”
He couldn’t cover his disappointment, not even with an “it’s all good.” When he opened his mouth, I said, “Every cuss word puts you further behind, Dude, so don’t even start with me.”
Lips pressed together, he tried to swagger to the house. Halfway there he broke into a run and disappeared through the front door. I sagged onto the seat of my Harley and listened to Bonner’s car door open and close.
“Gee, that went well,” he said.
“I’m not in the mood, Bonner.”
“I can see that. Why don’t you let me buy you lunch?”
I shrugged my jacket off and shook my head. “I can’t leave him here. His mother’s not ready to handle him yet.”
“And you are?”
I scalded him with a look.
“Sorry.” Bonner’s voice softened. “Why don’t I come in and make you some lunch while you put your feet up. You look like you’ve been caught in a stampede.”
“Boy, you’re just full of encouragement today, aren’t you?”
He looked stung, and I closed my eyes to it. The truth was, I didn’t want him to come in the house. I couldn’t imagine him sitting at my bistro table and not shattering Geneveve with a disapproving look he didn’t even know he was giving.
“I don’t get you, Allison. You say you want support, so I come over here to give you some and you slap it down. What is it that you’re asking for?”
“You could start by accepting that this is a God-thing, and that I’m going to do it.”
“Do what exactly?”
“Get this woman healed somehow so she can take care of her son.”
It was his turn to close his eyes, in relief, it seemed.
“Okay, that sounds doable. I think you need to talk to Liz Doyle, then.”
“Who’s—oh, that woman you dated?”
“You said you knew her from high school.”
“Vaguely. I don’t get why—”
“I told you she works for the county Family Integrity Program—she’s a social worker.” He put up a hand. “I know you’re determined to do this all yourself—”
“No, I’m not! I need all the help I can get.”
“Then talk to her. She knows about services you can get for the kid, free counselors, all that stuff.”
I slowly folded my arms. “You two sure had an in-depth conversation about her job description on your two dates.”
“Okay—so I called her and told her what you had going, and she said you should come in tomorrow.”
“Before you even mentioned it to me.”
“Does it matter?” Bonner’s voice went high. “Have you even thought about what could happen if that kid gets hurt riding around with you on this thing?”
I patted the seat on either side of me. “‘This thing’ is the only leverage I have with him.”
“Which means you’re in way over your head. Go talk to Liz, okay?”
“If I need to,” I said. It was the only way I could think of to get him to go away.
He pulled a card out of his shirt pocket. “Here’s the reminder. Ten o’clock.”
I took it and tried my hardest to smile. “I appreciate your trying to help, I really do.”
But as he drove off, I wondered why his kind of help made me feel less competent than I did before he offered.
Lonnie called me at eight a.m. Monday to tell me I had a special group tour at ten. “The kind you’re good at,” he said.
“What kind is that?” I said.
“The uppity kind. Five syllables in every word. That crowd.” I imagined him switching the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Probably tip good, which you need since you took so much time off last week.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. I tucked the phone in my neck so I could get the
half-and-half out of the refrigerator. The carton was empty. That kid was never getting that helmet back at this rate.
“We’ll have a lot more tours now that the school groups are back on St. George Street in droves,” Lonnie was saying. “The rich tourists don’t want to deal with them hangin’ out of the trolleys. You spend more time on the Bay Front, you’ll get you some nice fares.”
“Point taken.”
“Huh?”
“That means I get it already. I’ll be there till three.”
“Why three?”
“Because that’s when I have to pick up my—I just need to leave then.”
Lonnie snickered through the toothpick. “Don’t tell me you found a guy that’s willing to put up with you.”
“Something like that,” I said.
As I hung up, I considered the fact that, despite my unwillingness to invest in a me-and-a-male relationship ever again, it might be easier than the “guy” I was investing in right now.
I wrote out a plan for the day for Geneveve and went over it with her while I packed a lunch for Desmond, who still wasn’t speaking to me. When I got him out the door and into the van we were already late, but I had no choice but to stop for the police cruiser who blocked my driveway when I was backing out.
“What now?” I said into the rearview mirror.
Desmond looked back and his eyes widened. I looked at him straight on.
“Before he gets here, I need to know if you did anything I should know about. Just so I don’t look like an idiot in front of this guy.”
“I didn’t do nothin’—I swear.”
“Lie to me and you’ll never ride a Harley again.”
I looked at him long and hard, but he didn’t give. By then the freckled officer—what was his name? Kent?—was at my window. I was still giving Desmond one last chance as I lowered it.
“Morning, Miz Chamberlain,” he said. “Sorry to hold you up.”
I could feel Desmond opening his mouth and I stuck my hand over it. “What’s up?” I said.
“I have to issue you a warning.”
“For what?”
“For violating the city noise ordinance. According to your neighbors you haven’t been cooperative in muffling your motorcycle.” He cleared his throat, and I realized he was trying not to laugh. “If you don’t mind my asking, what kind of bike do you have that would make the kind of noise they’re—”
“It’s a Harley Heritage Softail Classic,” I said.
“Oh.”
I removed my hand from Desmond’s mouth and gave him a warning look. He turned on the innocence. To Officer Kent, I said, “I promised I’d keep it in low until I got out onto St. George, but I got in a hurry yesterday and I forgot. It won’t happen again.”
“I still have to issue a warning. If you’ll just sign here to indicate that you’ve received it.”
I sighed and took the pen from him. “Does this go on my record or anything?”
He shook his head and watched me write my name. “It just means if they complain again, they can press charges.”
“I won’t give them a reason to,” I said. “Is that it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
But he didn’t move. I lifted my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just have to ask—do you really drive a Harley?”
“Yes,” I said between my teeth. “I’d take you for a spin, but I really have to get going.”
“Right. Sorry. You have a nice day.”
I barely had the window up before Desmond let out a hoot. “You are smooth, Big Al. You show him who the real Mack Daddy is now.”
“I did not,” I said. “I was polite, I took care of business, and then I—told him to get lost.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. I’ma have to try that next time I get busted.”
“I thought you said you’d never been busted.”
“I ain’t. I’m just sayin’ if I do.”
“If you do, I’m selling your helmet.”
“You ain’t never gonna have to do that.” He twisted in the seat so he could look at me, so earnestly I almost laughed out loud. “I’ma get me some responsibility—you’re gonna see that. You ain’t never seen the kind I’ma get.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said.
“First thing I’ma do is apologize.”
“To who?”
“You. For all actin’ the fool, takin’ your bike. You shoulda throwed me out right then.”
“Desmond,” I said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Give it up. I’m not feelin’ it.”
“Man,” he said. “That’s cold.”
The October day was already sticky hot by the time I got Bernard hitched up and down to the Bay Front. He was so lethargic I calculated that today’s fifty-minute tour was going to take an hour and a half.
When the “uppity” party pulled up in a white limo, Caroline turned in the driver’s seat of her vis-à-vis and shook her head at me. “You catch all the breaks,” she said.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “That’s me.”
Five people dressed in business suits climbed into the carriage. One of the women clearly had stock in Mary Kay and told me how charming this all was. The other one seemed to think stress was a trend she had set, and proceeded to fit her earpiece beneath her sleek brunette bob and into her ear. The three men gave me grudging smiles. I couldn’t imagine whose idea this had been.
“Welcome,” I said, my own smile just as grudging. “What brings y’all to St. Augustine?”
“Business,” the tallest man said.
“Most of us are investors,” Mary Kay Lady said. “We’re told some exciting new developments are happening in the city.”
“Well, we won’t be talking about new developments today.” I picked up the lines, and Bernard rolled the carriage forward. “We’ll be all about the old.”
The shortest man stopped mopping his magenta face with a Kleenex. “I’d like to be all about a Long Island iced tea.”
“Can’t help you there.” This was going to be an endless gig. I urged Bernard to step up, but he, too, was grudging.
They listened politely to my spiel about the City Gates and the Spanish Quarter and the Huguenot Cemetery filled with victims of the 1821 yellow fever epidemic. That took all of fifteen minutes. By the time we reached Spanish Street, they were chatting among themselves. I could have launched into the Sermon on the Mount and they wouldn’t have known the difference.
“The beautiful yellow building material that you see is coquina,” I said, “which is our native shell stone.”
“He says the properties will all go for under a hundred thousand,” Kleenex Man said. “Which means they’re piles of junk.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I said.
“I’m still not clear why Chamberlain is interested in that,” said the Mary Kay consultant.
Chamberlain. Of course. I should have known.
I glanced back to see the second woman cease texting and pull out her earpiece to sweep them all with a hurried gaze. “Because Troy sees the potential,” she said. “That’s where his genius lies.”
I picked up the lines and Bernard took the left onto Cordova at a virtual trot. Both women made conservative squealing noises. I was sure one of the men swore.
“Sorry,” I said over my shoulder. “Bernard hears the name ‘Chamberlain’ and he gets a little crazy. Now we’re coming up on the famous Love Tree—”
The tall man looked through me and turned back to Stress Woman. “I still want to see some strong projections—”
“You will. I’ve seen some of what he’s going to show us this afternoon.”
“You’re pretty cozy with Irwin. Troy this and Tro
y that—”
“—and the Catholic Tolomato Cemetery,” I said, “where the first bishop of St. Augustine was laid to rest and where I personally would like to see Troy Irwin buried, and the sooner the better. He isn’t Catholic, but I’m sure he could pay somebody off.”
“Did she just say—”
“The lovely Grace Church here on your left was funded in part by the infamous Henry Flagler, of whom you are undoubtedly aware if you’ve spent more than seven seconds with the equally infamous Mr. Irwin.”
“What in the world?”
“And here we are at Scarlett O’Hara’s, where good food and drunkenness are served nightly to a packed crowd of tourists and students from Flagler College and other real people, which means you won’t be dining there as long as Chamberlain Enterprises is footing the bill.”
There was complete silence in the carriage.
“We’re now turning onto King Street, the original site of the golden age of Flagler St. Augustine. They say, by the way, that the town was discovered twice—first by Menendez and then by Henry Flagler. Normally I would stop here and regale you with tales of the robber baron who founded Standard Oil and then came here to save St. Augustine from oblivion. But instead …”
By then we’d crossed Ponce de Leon Boulevard, where I could just hear the gasps above the traffic noise as I slowed Bernard in front of Titus Tattoo. West King and Davis Street to our left both yawned at us as he made a mincing stop. I turned all the way around in the seat.
“So you folks are being wooed by Chamberlain Enterprises,” I said.
The tall man was glowering. “You want to tell us what’s going on?”
“What’s next on the agenda? Lunch at the Café Alcazar? A cruise on the Intercoastal in the company yacht? Cracked stone crab claws?”
Mary Kay blinked at me. “They’re not in season, are they?”
“No crustacean stands a chance with Troy Irwin. He’ll convince them it’s in their best interest to make an exception. Now”—I picked up the lines and Bernard edged nervously forward—“around 1738, African slaves fled from the Carolinas and found refuge in St. Augustine. We’re now entering the section where their descendants still reside. On your right you’ll see the city’s oldest crack house, and just beyond that a Dumpster that is popular with the homeless. Fortunately one of the state’s oldest police stations is just one block back—that lovely white building with the columns upholding justice. Although that doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference, due to law enforcement’s focus on the areas that Troy Irwin, CEO, wants them to focus on. Money talks almost as loud as history in St. Augustine. Anyone interested in seeing some of the back streets? Things you won’t see on the regular tour?”