by Nancy Rue
“I told you it wouldn’t kill you,” I said.
“It was all right.” He looked wistfully at the Classic. “Where we goin’ now? Home?”
“Home is not a good place to celebrate a new look,” I said. “I’m thinking we should go for a ride out to—”
He didn’t seem to care where we went. He was already on the bike.
I’d heard new mothers say that sometimes the only way they could calm a colicky baby was to take the child out in the car. Some claimed they drove around for hours just to keep their sanity. I felt that way when I had Desmond behind me and we cruised without purpose. All his wire uncoiled, and so, for that matter, did mine. I never came close to dumping it when he was with me.
That day we wound up at the Bay Front, far enough from the carriages so that I wouldn’t have to see Bernard or answer Caroline’s questions if either of them showed up. We were just in time for the dolphins.
They came into the Bay by the north seawall every day around noon to feed. Mullet was the most popular thing on their menu, and the mullet knew it.
“Have you ever seen this action?” I asked Desmond as we swung our feet over the wall. I’d have sworn his had doubled in size since I’d known him.
“What action you talkin’ about?”
I pointed to the water, where the mullet were coming up in mobs and running across the surface of the bay to avoid being eaten. It was a scene that never failed to make me clap my hands and cheer them on. Desmond was on the side of the dolphins, who lazily rolled beneath us and occasionally opened their mouths to take in the unfortunate fish who couldn’t quite get up to speed. A few feet below them a large turtle quietly treaded, waiting for the lunch rush to pass.
“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this,” Desmond said.
As he coaxed a small notebook and a piece of chalk out of his pocket, I didn’t point out that he’d spent most of his life only twelve blocks away. I said instead, “Where did you get that stuff?”
“It’s mine. I didn’t take it from nobody.”
“Did I say you did?”
“Mr. Shots give it to me. So I can work on my technique.”
He sketched happily for a while, glancing up at the mullet leaping for their lives across the water, then down at the notebook that puffed with chalk dust. It wasn’t even close to ordinary.
“What do you draw mostly?” I asked.
“Stuff I see. Stuff I think about.”
“Have you ever drawn Sultan?”
His hand halted on the page, and if I could’ve sucked the question back, I’d have been on it like a Shop-Vac.
“You don’t have to answer that,” I said quickly. “It’s none of my business.”
“I don’t draw nothin’ that I hate,” Desmond said.
He didn’t have to draw it—it was there in his voice, in the mean edge that sharpened the softness we’d played in moments before.
“Why do you hate him?” I wanted to say. “What did this jackal do to you and your mother?”
I didn’t. Because I wanted the cocky, gawky twelve-year-old to come back and chase away the hate nobody was old enough to feel.
“That’s a good policy,” I said. “It’s always better not to dwell on it.”
“Dwell on what?” he said. The grin was already loping across his face, once again hiding whatever was behind it.
As we drove home, I wondered if we’d ever get there.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The women went off to their meeting, and Chief came by with a few more items he’d collected, and an unexpected offer.
“Why don’t I hang with Desmond for a couple hours?” he said. “Give you a night off.”
“Do I look like I need one?”
“Everybody needs one.”
“You must be one slick lawyer,” I said, and I took him up on it.
To Desmond’s utter delight—as in, he was speechless, and that never happened—Chief suggested they go for a ride on the Road King. I was sure he grew two inches walking to it.
I was just breathing in the silence as my phone rang. When I saw that it was India, I almost didn’t answer it. But there was always the hope that she’d had a change of heart. If anybody in that group was going to, it would be her.
“Hey,” I said.
“I miss you,” Her voice was thick, and sounded nothing like the boutique owner saying you looked marvelous in that $300 outfit.
“I miss you too,” I said.
“Have dinner with me? Tonight? It’s still nice outside at O. C. White’s. We won’t have many more evenings like this.”
I hesitated, but hope won out. “Do I have to put on lipstick?”
“I don’t care if you come in a burlap sack. And don’t you dare put one on just to spite me.”
“None of my burlap sacks fit me anymore,” I said. “I’ll see you in ten.”
O. C. White’s, a seafood restaurant on the Avenida, was only three blocks from my house, and I walked there with a light heart. October was the perfect time to be in St. Augustine—the humidity had gone south for the winter, the summer storms had passed, and the brick streets were less crowded with tourists on the weekdays. I loved walking down them and remembering why I’d come back here. Even though so much of it looked different to me now, nothing could change the history that had fought so hard to make it safe and free. I had a fleeting glimpse of somehow doing my part to keep it that way.
I must have been smiling when India waved to me from a back table on the O. C. White patio, because when I got there and accepted her customary holy kiss, she said, “You look happy. What does that mean? New man in your life?”
For some reason unknown to myself, my face went hot.
“Ah, I know that look.” She patted the chair. “Do tell.”
“It’s not what you think,” I said. “Uh, and what is this?”
She pushed a frosty glass full of something orange toward me. “It’s a virgin mango margarita. Closest I could get to something that looks like autumn. It’s glorious out, isn’t it?”
I agreed, but I snuck a closer look at her as I sipped what turned out to be a sickeningly sweet concoction. She was way too up, even for India. Between that and her eyes darting toward the entrance every thirty seconds, I knew this wasn’t just about two girlfriends coming together to discuss their love lives.
“You a little on edge, India?” I said.
“Why?”
“Just a feeling.”
I took another sip and hid a cringe. They must have put a cup of sugar in that thing.
“We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms last time I saw you,” she said. “I wasn’t even sure you’d meet me.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I said. “Unless you’re going to start in on me about how naïve and irresponsible I am.”
A server brought a plate of crab cakes. She waited for him to go. I waited for the prepared speech. It was there, all over her face, and I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen it from across the patio.
“I don’t think you’re either naive or irresponsible,” she said. “I just think you’re trying to be a good person—and Lord knows you’re a better one than I am.”
“But …”
“But there’s being a good person, and there’s taking it to the extreme, to where you’re in danger.”
“I’ve heard this from you before,” I said.
“Not since you took in two more whores.”
I spit a mouthful of my drink back into the glass, and I might have thrown it in her face if I hadn’t felt a tentative touch on my shoulder. A touch I’d have known anywhere.
“What are you doing here, Bonner?” I said. “Let me guess—you’ve got Frank with you.” I twisted around, almost touching Frank’s vest with
my nose. “You didn’t bring Mary Alice?”
“Mary Alice didn’t think she could handle it, Miss Allison,” Frank said.
I didn’t ask what it was we were handling. I didn’t intend to stay long enough to find out. Glaring at India across the table, I tried to stand up. Bonner held me there.
“Let me go,” I said.
“I think you better stay and hear this, Missy,” Frank said.
He took the chair next to me, face grave.
“It’s Allison, Frank,” I said. “Not ‘Missy,’ not ‘little Missy.’ Just Allison, and Allison is not going to sit here and listen to the same—”
“Hear us out,” India said, “and then if you still want to, you can go do whatever—”
“I’ll do that anyway. Since when did I need your permission to behave like Jesus?”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” she said.
It was now.
Bonner let go of my shoulders and sat down on the other side of me. I stared at him until he lowered his eyes to the table. Okay, so this wasn’t his idea. He was clearly just there to make sure I didn’t break any restaurant crockery over someone’s head. So it was Frank I turned on.
“Is this some kind of intervention?”
“You can call it that if you want to.”
“I want to call it a setup.” I tried again to stand up and this time India grabbed my wrist. When I wrenched it away, I hit the plate of crab cakes and sent it sliding across the table and crashing onto the patio. Silence fell among the other diners, and Frank’s face blazed in gentlemanly embarrassment. India’s blazed in anger.
“That is just enough, Allison,” she said between her teeth. “We’re here to keep you from wrecking your life.”
“Wrecking my—”
“You have not one, not two, but three drug-addicted prostitutes living in your house and an at-risk kid. You’ve had the police over there. You’re driving up and down West King Street at all hours of the night on that death trap you bought. It’s not going to end well, Allison, and we wouldn’t be your brothers and sisters in Christ if we didn’t tell you that.”
I turned from her to Bonner. “Well, well,” I said. “I guess you’ve been playing a lot of golf with Owen Schatz.”
“None of this came from him, or from me,” he said.
“Well, let’s see. Since I walked in here, I’ve been blindsided, ridiculed, and patronized, so why should I be surprised that I’m now being lied to?”
“I’m telling you the truth!”
“He is,” Frank said. “I got that information myself.”
I whirled to face him. “How? How did you do that, Frank?”
“I hired someone.”
He drew himself up with all the dignity of a plantation patriarch, but it didn’t keep me from shaking my head at him and saying, “How dare you!”
India leaned across the table. “The fact that someone has been watching you without you even knowing it proves you’re in way over your head.”
“Are you done?” I said. “Because I am.”
“No.” Frank reached inside his suit coat and drew out a manila envelope. “We’ve put together some materials for you. Why don’t you look them over, and then I’ll be glad to—”
“Materials,” I said. “My commitment papers?”
“Names and phone numbers for the various social services that can take care of the boy. Brochure for the St. John’s rehab center and a check made out to them to get your people in. And a check for you.” He had the gall to pat my hand. “We know you lost your job over this, and we thought you might need some help getting back on your feet.”
“We care about you, Allison,” India said. She had tears in her eyes now, and all I could think of was that the mascara soon would be trailing down the sides of her face.
“Too bad your paid snitch didn’t work his way into my house somehow,” I said to Frank as I pushed the envelope back into his hand, “because then you would also know that in there, three times a day, we pray together. Once a week we have a worship service and communion. Twice a week we’ve got Bible study going on. And every day—every day—we practice telling the truth and treating each other with respect and supporting each other in our decisions. You ought to stop in—you could all use some work in those areas.” I stood up and shook my head. “Oh, wait—you wouldn’t come in my house now, because it’s full of people who’ve made huge, ugly mistakes, and even though they’re repentant and forgiven—gosh—you might catch something from them. Like, I don’t know, humility. Courage. Yeah, that would be a whole lot harder than sitting in a pew saying ‘amen’ and spying on your sister. Forget my invitation. Pharisees aren’t welcome in our house.”
When I left the Watchdogs this time, stitching my way among the tables of people pretending not to look at the woman who had just unloaded in the back corner, I wasn’t heartbroken. That part of my grief was over. It was time to fire it up and move on down the road.
Still, I wrestled with a hideous mood all the next day and was still doing battle with it when I made my way through the hundreds, maybe thousands, of Harley riders to the Galleon on Friday morning. They were gathering for the Florida State HOG Rally—“Rendezvous With History,” they called it. I had my own rendezvous with Hank, who saw my face when I walked in and said, “Patrice, we’re going to need another cup of black coffee right after she finishes this one.”
“Is it that obvious?” I said.
“You are the most transparent person I have ever known, and that is a compliment.”
“You sure you want to hear all this stuff?”
“Oh, knock it off, Al. We’ve already established how we are with each other, and making sure you aren’t too much for me isn’t part of that. Come on, dish.
I did. She didn’t have much to say about it because what was there to say? Her gaze sort of drifted over my head, and then she leaned across the table, voice low.
“I think the guy in the doorway is looking for you.”
“Is it a cop?”
“No.”
“Does he look like a private investigator?”
“I don’t know. Does a PI wear Ray-Bans on black Croakies and dress like the cover of GQ?”
I turned around. Bonner stood just inside the doorway, looking miserable as a whipped dog.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake come over here,” I said. I looked at Hank. “Do you mind if Bonner joins us?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said.
Bonner hesitated at the edge of the table, but I told him to sit down and introduced him to Hank.
“She’s a friend,” I said. “Whatever you need to say, you can say it in front of her.”
“Or I can leave,” Hank said, not too convincingly.
Bonner shook his head at her. “Looks like she’s already told you—whatever.”
“Coffee?” she said. “Muffin?”
He started to shake his head again but I said, “Order something. She won’t leave you alone until you do.”
“Just coffee,” he said. “Black.”
Hank rolled her eyes. “I can see why you two are friends.”
“Are we?” Bonner said to me. “Are we still?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you were there last night purely to make sure things didn’t get out of hand. Which by the way you completely blew, but I’m not going to hold that against you. I guess it needed to happen.”
“I told them I didn’t think they should do it that way, but they knew you wouldn’t come otherwise.”
“And what about the content?” I said. “Did you agree with that?”
“Not entirely. I have a suggestion for you.”
“Another welfare check?”
“No, just a thought. Do you want to hear it
or not?”
I sat back and folded my arms. “Go for it,” I said.
“I think what you’re doing is good, I really do. I just wonder if it wouldn’t be better, considering all that you’re up against with your neighbors and for the sake of your own safety, if you rented a house for the women to live in, instead of having them live with you on Palm Row.”
I looked at Hank, who appeared to be listening intently to Bonner. She nodded at me, and I told him to go on.
“I can help you find something reasonable, probably get you a good deal.”
“Bonner’s a real estate broker,” I said to Hank.
“Ah. Well, listen, I’ve got to get going—I have a private lesson this morning—Al, talk to you later? And Bonner, it’s been a pleasure. Really.”
Bonner let out a sigh when she was gone.
“Did you think she was going to bite you?” I said.
“No—I’m just glad you have somebody like that as a friend. You’ve got to feel like India and Mary Alice have betrayed you.”
I was surprised, and I felt bad that I was surprised. Bonner was a good man, and I’d lost sight of that. But there was one thing I had to know.
“Why are you making this offer, Bonner?” I said. “Be honest.”
“It’s partly because I want to see you be able to do what you think is right, even if I don’t totally understand it. I certainly don’t think it’s wrong.”
“And the other part?”
The tops of his cheeks reddened. “Ever since the first woman moved in—”
“Her name is Geneveve.”
“Ever since Geneveve moved in, I haven’t felt comfortable coming over and hanging out like I used to. I miss you.”
He then gulped down half a mug of coffee, which, knowing how Patrice made the stuff, had to scald his throat, not to mention his esophagus. But it was his heart I was concerned about. It had taken a lot for him to admit that, just as it had been a huge thing for him to break ranks with the Watchdogs and make me this offer. I could return at least offer that much decency.