But the location was cool. Weather permitting, it was an easy walk to the bars and restaurants downtown. From the top of my stairs I could see the eccentric, pink-and-white spire of the Vinoy Hotel. It jutted into the sky like a whitewashed Greek temple encircling a pink, amputated stump, capped with an improbable terracotta tile roof. In the last twenty years, this fallen sister of the famous St. Pete Beach Don Cesar Hotel had transformed itself from a twenty-dollar-a-pop flop house for degenerates into a fancy destination resort commanding around three hundred bucks a night. The surrounding neighborhood and downtown area were being dragged along for the gentrification ride in fits and starts of redevelopment.
At the moment, restored turn-of-the-century mansions sat next to run-down concrete duplexes from the 1960s. New, million-dollar condo towers butted up to dubious liquor stores and weed–infested vacant lots. St. Petersburg’s schizophrenic state left it harboring places where people of all economic strata could feel both at home and ill at ease. Given my questionable standing in the social hierarchy, the confusion was a perfect fit.
Like most of Florida’s beautiful places, I knew St. Pete was doomed to be pounded and pulverized into a sanitized Disneyland for the rich. I figured she still had a few good years left before she gave up the struggle and became a generic, chain-store smoking ghost of her former self. I already saw it happening before my eyes. The certainty made me determined to enjoy St. Pete’s final funky days while they lasted, and while I could still afford the rent. After that, well, I guess I’d just have to wait and see what life sent my way.
I held back the rickety screen door to my apartment with my right foot. I balanced the garbage bag on my left shoulder while I fiddled with the key in the front door. When it finally cracked open, the air-conditioned breeze emanating from inside felt like an arctic blast against the sweltering heat and humidity of outside. I pushed my way in, set the garbage bag down on the couch and kicked off my sandals.
Thirsty, I opened the rusty door on the fridge. A lonely jar of olives stared back at me through bloodshot, pimiento corneas. Their only companions were a pint of half-and-half, a bottle of tonic water and a banana on the verge of imitating the ones I’d seen earlier today at Tony’s house. I fished around in the vegetable drawer and found a plastic bag amongst the dried-up potatoes with their spindly white shoots. Inside the bag was a tiny key lime not much bigger than a grape. My lucky day! I opened the freezer and pulled out the half-gallon jug of Tanqueray. My green goddess of goodness. The one real splurge I still allowed myself. I poured a generous portion in a glass, added two ice cubes, a squeeze of lime and some tonic. Presto! Instant TNT. Life is not that bad.
Libation in hand, I turned my attention to the shoeboxes. I pulled them out of the garbage bag one by one. They weren’t labeled. I figured Tony just kept throwing stuff into a box until it was full, then sealed it with duct tape and started a new one. That theory in mind, I was surprised when I peeled the tape off the first box and found it neatly arranged inside. Everything was sorted by year with index cards, like a homemade filing cabinet. The index cards in the first box spanned from 1945 to 1974.
I took a long drink of my TNT and pulled out the papers for 1945. A yellowed newspaper clipping from April 24th 1945 edition of the Hancock Clarion announced the birth of daughter Gladys Kinsey, firstborn child to Mr. & Mrs. Roy G. Kinsey.
Hmmm. This must be Glad’s stuff, not Tony’s. A faded, black-and-white picture was paper-clipped to the article. It showed a surprisingly old couple for the time, probably in their early forties, proudly holding a bundled baby. I presumed they were Glad’s parents.
The next index card skipped to 1950. It housed a small collection of grade-school mementos. A photo of a girl about age five, standing in front of her parents in a fancy petticoat dress, tiny white gloves, ankle socks and patent-leather shoes. The hat on her mom’s head and the basket of eggs hanging on her father’s arm made the occasion obvious. The back of the photo simply read, “Easter 1951.” A faded, red, construction-paper valentine from a boy named Timmy nearly fell apart when I unfolded it. Scrawled in a child’s hand was the inscription, “I love you, sis.” Another picture showed a gangly, blonde girl around age ten holding a kitten in her arms. Even at that young age anyone could tell that Glad was destined to become a tall, classic beauty.
I put the pictures back in their tidy filing space and pulled out the contents labeled 1964. There was just a single letter addressed to Miss Gladys Kinsey, postmarked December 12, 1964. I unfolded the letter and a black-and-white photo fell onto my lap. It showed an exhausted-looking girl lying in bed holding a tiny baby. The sad, desperate look in the girl’s eyes didn’t jive with it being a happy occasion. Her tired, drawn face reminded me of Glad’s – the day I found her dead on her beach lounger.
The letter itself was written on the official stationery of a boy’s academy in Huntsville, Alabama. It read:
My Dearest Gladys,
I wish I could be there with you now. My parents have seen to it that I can’t. I am virtually a prisoner here. I have no money and no phone privileges. My father’s influence over the faculty here has me under tight surveillance. I’m even escorted between classes. I hope this letter reaches you. If it does, it will be because my roommate Jacob was able to smuggle it off campus and post it.
But my worries are nothing compared to yours. I don’t know what to say, Gladys. I love you doesn’t seem to be worth much. I’m sorrier than you can know about the situation I’ve left you in. I hope you know that I would marry you today if I could. I vow one day to make up for what I’ve put you through.
I’m hoping against hope that I will be able to get your letters, if you choose to write me. I’ll leave that up to you, Gladys. Just know that you have my love no matter what you decide. I only ask, if you do write to me, that you let me know if it’s a boy or a girl.
Forever in my heart,
Anthony
Holy mackerel! Glad and Tony had a child together? I flipped the envelope over to check for a mailing address. It was sent to Miss Gladys Kinsey in care of Mrs. H. E. Wannabaker, Coolidge Street, Hawesville, KY.
I took out a notepad and wrote down the address, along with Glad’s full name and date of birth from the newspaper announcement. I also noted a general date of birth for her baby. Sometime in the fall of 1964, most likely. The math told me Glad was no more than nineteen at the time. Back then a single girl rarely got to keep a so-called illegitimate baby. It usually became a shameful secret, shipped off to a faraway family member or an adoption agency. I hoped Mrs. Wannabaker was still alive to tell the tale. But probably not. After all, this had happened nearly a half century ago.
Chapter Eleven
I woke the next morning to the sound of my cellphone buzzing. It was Jamie. I already knew what she wanted, and I had been dreading the call. Still, I owed it to her to pick up. I practiced saying her name out loud a few times to kill the hangover frog in my throat. “Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,” I croaked, then punched the green button on my cellphone.
“Hey Jamie,” I said.
“Hey Val,” she said back.
I bit my lip through about ten seconds of silence, then cracked. “You just calling to see if I’m still alive? Nice of you.”
“Come on, Val. You know why I’m calling. You’ve got to deliver a synopsis for your story by Monday if you want to have a chance at being awarded a book contract.”
Damn! I truly was a master of self-sabotage. During the last few months with Glad, I’d let idleness creep into my soul and eat away most of what had remained of my tattered ambition. Uninspired and unemployed are two situations a writer can’t afford, and here I was staring both in the face like evil twins. I needed a lie, and I needed one quick.
“You’re in luck, then. I’m working on a new idea based in Kentucky,” I said, winging it. “About a girl who had a baby back in the 1960s and had to give it away.”
“What’s the plot line?”
“It’s set in modern d
ay. The bastard kid has grown up and is set to inherit a fortune, but first he has to be found.”
“How did he get lost?”
“I’m still working on that.”
“Is that it?”
“That’s what I’ve got so far.”
“Then you’d better get your ass in gear!” Jami coughed out a single, sharp, cynical laugh. “Remember, synopsis by Monday.” Then she hung up.
I padded over to the kitchen and made myself a double espresso with the help of Mr. Coffee, the only truly reliable man in my life. I took a sip and thought about Jamie Diesel. She really did deserve better from me. She’d pulled some strings to get me a shot with her publisher nearly three months ago. I’d had all that time to get a storyline together and I hadn’t come up with squat. I guess Tanqueray wasn’t as inspirational as I thought.
Jamie was the sole person who still acknowledged my professional existence when I returned from Europe almost a year ago. She had been the only one to throw me a lifeline and a chance to climb back aboard my floundering writing career. She was a writer, too, and had a desk job with a small, independent publisher in New York. She kept me up-to-date on publishers looking for novels in my genre – mysteries with a strong female lead. I should have been more grateful. After all, I may have been pillaged by a German pirate, but I wasn’t sunk yet. With any luck, maybe I could turn Glad’s story of Blowjob Betty into a novel and help her heir and myself at the same time. Double Booty. Hmmm. Not a bad working title.
I looked over at Glad’s boxes, then back at the blank screen of my computer. Maybe there really was some way to make this work….
***
When I arrived back to the States, my eight-year-old laptop might as well have been a dinosaur turd. I crawled out on an optimistic limb and forked out $600 on an all-in-one touch screen computer with a plug-in, full-sized, real keyboard. I was an old-school, ten-finger typist. On-screen keyboards and tiny laptops were for two-finger peckers. Amateurs. The call from Jamie had turned up the heat. I needed to deliver a five-hundred word book synopsis. I still had almost a week to do it. I hoped digging into Glad’s history would provide some interesting plot points. Kill two tough, old birds with one lazy-ass stone.
I drained my coffee cup and flopped onto the worn-out old sofa sagging against a wall in my tiny living room. I’d found the unfortunate couch abandoned here by the woman who had the apartment before me. Looking at it now, I couldn’t blame her. It was truly hideous – coffee-stain beige with shit-brown cushions that hung over the back like lumpy, misshapen bags of garbage. But my butt didn’t care. Truth be told, I was actually grateful. It sure beat sitting on the floor.
The prior tenant had also left a microwave, some mismatched dishes, an old full-sized bed and a lawn table with four chairs. Arriving with nothing, at the time I’d felt like I’d hit the jackpot. The only things I had to buy were a towel, a set of sheets, Mr. Coffee and a computer. Truth be told, the simple life had its charms. I owned next to nothing, so I had next to nothing to lose.
I reached over and grabbed the shoebox of memories I’d been sorting through last night. The first thing I pulled out of the box was a marriage certificate dated January 3, 1965, legally joining Gladys Kinsey to Robert C. Munch in holy matrimony. Bobby! Holy my ass! Geeze. That marriage date wasn’t more than a few weeks – a month or so tops – after poor Glad had given birth. Her parents must have wanted her gone, big time.
The yellowed news clipping I picked up next erased that thought. Dated December 26, 1964, it was the obituary of Mr. Roy G. Kinsey and Mrs. Roy G. Kinsey. They, along with their son, Timmy L. Kinsey, had been killed December 24 in a car crash while away visiting relatives in Florida. They were survived by their only daughter, Gladys Kinsey, and Mrs. Kinsey’s cousin, Mrs. D. B. Meyers of Tallahassee.
Poor Glad! Tragedy heaped on tragedy! A lost love. An illegitimate baby. Parents and brother dead. Left to cope alone with some woman named Mrs. Wannabaker who probably wasn’t even a relative!
I wracked my brain. In all our beachside talks, Glad had never mentioned a baby to me. She must have had to give it up. Or it died. Could it have been this baby – and not Tony – that was Glad’s lost love?
Life must have been pretty bleak for Glad to run off with Bobby so soon after giving birth. But as harsh as it was, Glad was probably lucky Bobby would have her. Back then, women with a past like Glad’s didn’t have a lot of options. Actually, neither did women in general. Looking through those old letters and clippings made me realize that until a few decades ago, no part of a married woman’s name was used in official correspondence. Instead, her identity was overwritten by her husband’s, leaving only the tiny letter “s” in Mrs. John Doe to distinguish her from him. That wasn’t going to make tracking down Glad’s relatives any easier, and it was starting to annoy me. I decided it was time for a break.
***
I pulled into the parking lot at Water Loo’s at 10:15. Through the glass I could see the three melon heads of the stooges bobbing around in the dirty brown corner booth. It was already over 90 degrees and as humid as a sauna in Botswana. Sweat trickled down my back as I walked across the parking lot and up to the greasy entrance door. I reached for the handle and something in my mind clicked awake. How did I get here? It was as if my body had driven me on autopilot. Maybe even against my will. What am I doing here? I felt disoriented. Then I remembered. I chose to come here. I have nowhere else to go. I have nothing else to do. I have no one else to talk to.
I took a deep breath and wondered how my life had sunk to this moment. Worse still, I worried if I might look back at some point in the future and call this the good old days. A thread of panic stitched my throat tight. God, if that’s true, kill me now. I swallowed hard, opened the door and stepped inside.
“Val Pal!” shouted freckle-face Winky as he caught sight of me coming through the door.
I grimaced out a smile. Welcome aboard the SS Sphincterville. Bend over and crack a smile.
“Hey guys!” I said with faked, exaggerated enthusiasm. I walked over and slid into the booth next to Winky. I tried to maintain a bit of space between us, but he reached over and gave me a one-armed bear hug. Suddenly my face was an inch from the curly muff of ginger hair sticking out of the armhole of his sleeveless, neon-orange tank top. I held my breath and struggled to get free.
“Always glad to see the Val Pal!” he chortled, squeezing me tighter against his freckled armpit. I was just beginning to think I might asphyxiate when he finally eased up on his grip.
“Yeah, always a pleasure,” I said sarcastically as I pulled out of his headlock. I smoothed my hair and the front of my dress. I wanted to report my findings to Goober and Jorge, but I needed to get Winky out of the way. I glanced over at my grinning wrestling buddy and plastered on a fake smile. “Winky, could you go ask the waitress to get me a cup of coffee?”
Winky jumped at the chance to speak with Winnie, just like I knew he would. I got up and let him out of the booth, then slid over next to Jorge. We waited for Winky to get out of earshot.
“So what’d you find out?” asked Goober, a spoon clicking away in his mouth.
“You’re not going to believe it, but I think Tony and Glad had a baby together.”
Jorge, who had been sitting silent as a stone, suddenly burst to life. “A little muchacha! Or is it a muchacho?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “And that baby would have to be in its mid-forties now.”
Goober stopped clicking his lollipop spoon and straightened his back. “Wow. That means there may actually be somebody to claim Tony’s will.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So Glad and Tony had a baby. But that’s not all I found out. I’m not sure she kept it. Long story short, Tony got sent off to some boy’s military school or something. Glad’s parents died in a car crash not long afterward. A couple of weeks, maybe a month after the crash Glad married a preacher named Bobby Munch and left town.”
“What happened to the kid?�
� Goober asked.
“I don’t know. She could have given it up for adoption. Her family may have taken it to live with relatives. It could have died for all I know. But I hope not.”
“Via con Dios!” exhaled Jorge. “Poor, poor Glad. We have to find that kid. Her kid.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” I confessed. “I’ve got Glad’s birth date and a few names of people that could be friends or relatives. I was thinking you could get your friend Lieutenant Foreman to run some stuff for us through the police computers. What do you say?”
“Jes, of course!”
“Great!” I pushed my notes across the table toward him. I glanced around for Winky and saw a fly buzz around Goober’s bald head. He swatted at it absentmindedly, nearly backhanding Winnie the waitress as she came up from behind, trailed by lovesick Winky. She slammed a cup of coffee on the table in front of me, shot me a bitchy look and left. Winky snorted out a laugh and climbed back into the booth, sandwiching me between him and Jorge.
“What’s up with her?” I asked Winky.
“She’s yell us,” said Jorge, cocking his head toward Winky.
“Yell us? What the blazes you talkin’ about?” demanded Winky.
“Jealous, you idiot,” said Goober. “You just gave our lady friend here a hug. Winnie didn’t like that. Better watch out you don’t get any special sauce in your coffee, Val.”
I looked down at my cup. A line of fine bubbles swam around the edge of the coffee. Maybe it was always like that. Maybe not. I didn’t feel like taking the chance. I shoved the cup away, causing the guys to roar with laughter.
Glad One: Starting Over is a %$#@&! (Val & Pals Book 2) Page 7