6 Martini Regrets

by Phyllis Smallman

  Running along the highway on the right was a deserted housing complex, abandoned in the collapse of the housing market. I took another quick glance at the subdivision. It looked much like the one Clay and I were camping out in until he could sell it for the owner. As in our subdivision, the odd house still looked lived in, but most of the structures, in various stages of construction, were abandoned. Florida weather isn’t kind to man-made things, and it’s cruel to unoccupied buildings and equipment. Within months, houses can become unlivable, places you wouldn’t want to reside in at any price.

  The bulk of Clay’s listings were in places like this, subdivisions the swamp was slowly reclaiming, along streets that were bordered by tall grasses with traffic signs and street signs poking out of them. The signs all had bullet holes in them, just like the signs where we lived. Failed developments all over Florida were being used for target practice and as garbage dumps. Some were also used for racing cars or landing small planes full of drugs. All of which made this a good place to get hijacked again.

  I drove on. The next off-ramp offered a safer slice of civilization, nothing remote or lonely. I pulled into a strip mall at the junction of the main road and didn’t even take time to find a parking spot, just slammed on the brakes and turned in my seat. The boy raised his head. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder and yelled, “Get out.”

  He got to his knees, searching my face with eyes that implored, waiting and hoping I’d change my mind.

  “Get.” I banged on the rear window with the flat of my hand like I could scare him away—the way you’d use a loud noise to drive off a wild animal. Still he was slow to go over the side. I lifted the gun.

  When his feet and the duffle hit the pavement, I hit the gas. Looking back, I saw him raise his hand, saying goodbye. Or maybe it was the salute of the dying. I neither knew nor cared. I banished him from my mind.

  I wanted a restroom, coffee and food, in that order. I also needed to take care of my broken blisters and raw flesh.

  CHAPTER 11

  Down the road was a cluster of fast-food businesses. Gold and red and orange, they were temples of normal, high art to me, and the everyday things I longed for most. Right now ordinary was as precious as air. There was comfort in knowing what to expect, knowing exactly how they’d be laid out, what they would serve and how much it would cost. I wanted the grease-stained cardboard box of fries, the paper packets for the salt and pepper, and the too-hot coffee, wanted to be back in the real world, away from danger I couldn’t see and evil I didn’t understand.

  I wheeled in and parked as close to the door and its reassurance as I could get. I stretched my neck and had the phone in my hand, intending to report what had happened. I punched in the nine and the first one of the emergency number, and then I hesitated over the third digit. Calling the police meant interrogation. I needed food and coffee first. I’d eat and then I’d inform the police I’d been robbed.

  But I’d gotten my truck back. Not much to report or to investigate. Still, I needed to tell them about the dead man. My stomach roiled at the memory. And it wasn’t just recent memory that bedeviled me. Whenever I’d tried to do my duty as a citizen in the past, it had turned out badly. My inner self, always looking for the easy way, said, “Don’t think about that now. You need to eat and get yourself under control. Besides, he’s dead; you can’t help him.”

  Later, I promised myself, I’ll tell the police what happened, tell them about a dead man and the guy with lightning bolts in his hair. Already the whole thing was starting to feel impossible, like something fantastical that I’d dreamed.

  I did call Clay. I barely got to tell him I was on my way before he said, “Fine,” and ended the call. I folded the phone and tucked it in my bag. I paused for a second and then I put the gun in too. No way was I going anywhere without it.

  I looked in the mirror before I went in. I was not a pretty sight. My eyes were bruised and blackened by exhaustion and red bites covered my face and arms. My blouse was soiled from the bottom of the canoe and dotted with blood from my hands. I was too tired to actually do anything about the way I looked, but I did run my fingers through my hair, clotted from the foul water in the bottom of the canoe, before I declared it good enough. I’d picked up my purse and started to slide off the seat before I realized I was barefoot. I remembered one flip-flop bobbing in the water at the station, but where had I lost the second one? I had no idea. Maybe it was at the nursery. It didn’t matter.

  I dug around in my overnight bag for runners, not really caring but aware that I already stood out. If someone came looking for me I didn’t want the staff in the fast-food joint to remember me, and they would if they’d refused to serve me because I was barefoot, shoes being the minimum dress code necessary for service. I glanced at the brightly lit interior of the restaurant as I laced up the runners. Seeing as I was going to be the only customer in the place, it was unlikely they would refuse to serve me even if I came in naked. I wished it was packed with diners, a crowd I could disappear into.

  I grabbed a baseball cap out of the back seat and tucked my damp hair up inside.

  I jammed my keys deep in my pocket where they’d be safe, and picked up my purse, eager to be in the too-bright protection of the fast-food joint. As I turned to push open the door, the blood smeared on the driver’s window made me hesitate, but only for a second. He wasn’t my problem.

  Inside, the smell of grease and stale coffee comforted me. The counter guy’s face was filled with end-of-the-shift tiredness and boredom. He yawned when I stood before him. He didn’t seem to notice that I’d been dragged through a ditch and eaten by an army of bugs. But then, working here, he’d seen it all. I could have been a walking zombie and it wouldn’t have mattered to this guy. I even liked that.

  I delivered my starvation order with saliva gathering in my mouth. It had been a long time since the conch fritters and sea bass I’d had for dinner. The coffee he shoved towards me was too hot, the full breakfast on an English muffin was too salty, but I adored it all. I wanted to stay there, out of harm’s way and without the need to make any life-shattering decisions, forever.

  I waited for my second coffee to cool enough to drink and stared out the window. With the passing of time my fear lessened, but not all of it. The night’s events had left a residue of anxiety. Now it was over, and I was certain I would survive; I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me.

  But there was a new worry buzzing in my head. Experience had taught me that it is a bad thing to be a witness to a crime. Not long ago, I’d witnessed a man die, a man some thought I could have saved, so I knew what to expect when you become a witness. Long interviews, going over the same material again and again, days of work missed for court time only to have it rescheduled—just the thought of the tedious and sometimes terrifying process had my face twisting in a grimace of distaste.

  Worse than the inconvenience were the gossip and rumors that would start when it got out that I wasn’t at the Sunset because I was in court. My past was colorful enough that volumes would be read into my involvement in another crime. Murmurs would start that there had to be more: she must have done something to get mixed up in this. Even my best friends would grill me on how and why. I didn’t want to go through any of that again.

  There was another thing. I didn’t want those guys out in the Everglades to ever know I was there. Angie and the boy knew, but they had no idea who I was or where I lived. I could just slip away and never be connected to any of this. And really, what details could I offer? I had no names, no why, not even a when. The police would learn about the dead man soon enough, and the crime scene would say more than I ever could. This was one mess I didn’t need to stir my stick in. I pushed my cold coffee away. I wanted to be home. I left the fast-food place eager to wipe out all memory of the previous night. This time I drove cautiously, not wanting to attract attention. When I hit Alligator Alley and civilization disappea
red in the rearview, I was well within the speed limit.

  Night was breaking up and the sun rose behind me. Clouds of ibis and white egrets flew up from their roosts in the Brazilian pepper trees beside the highway. I was alone on the road. I stopped gripping the steering wheel like it was the only thing between me and certain death. It was all right now. I took deep breaths and let my shoulders relax. And then I heard it, the faint scream of a siren. Were they coming after me? Surely not!

  But the siren kept coming, and I was the only person crossing the Alley. Why were they chasing me? Had something happened to Tito after he jumped from the truck?

  And then I was sure I knew why they were after me. The blood on the window, someone had seen it and reported it. I should have wiped it off before I went into the restaurant.

  In the rearview, lights spun and flashed. Blinker on, slowing and pulling off to the edge of the pavement, I was already working on my story. I put the truck in park and slumped forward on the wheel and started to cry. I should have made that call.

  A police car and then a line of fire trucks screamed past me. I jerked upright and watched them go. They weren’t after me.

  I took a deep breath. Carefully, I pulled back onto the highway and scanned the road ahead, expecting to come upon an accident, but before long I saw the reason for the emergency vehicles. Flames and a black plume of smoke climbed into the sky on my right. The nursery. I was certain the fire was at the nursery. It had to have started there, but it would affect more than just that property now.

  Fires are part of the normal life of the Everglades, and the muck of the swamp is black from long-ago infernos, but a grass fire at this time of year was a catastrophe. In these drought conditions, a fire could burn for days, fed by the peat left behind when the water in the Glades dries up. A fire would consume thousands of acres and close down Alligator Alley.

  “Please, not today.” I didn’t want to have to turn back because of smoke or, even worse, be stuck on the highway for hours, waiting for the visibility to improve so traffic could move again. Already, up ahead on the long flat stretch of highway, thick smoke was piling up. I rolled up my window and turned off the air, shutting it out as I drove into the cloud. More quickly than I thought possible, the road became enveloped in smoke. I thought I could smell burning meat. Ridiculous, I told myself, but the lecture didn’t stop me from gagging.

  I couldn’t hear the sirens anymore. I slowed to a crawl, fighting to find the pavement and hoping no one had stopped in front of me, praying that anyone coming behind me and entering the thick wall of smoke wouldn’t plow into me. I turned on the radio and searched for the Everglades information channel at 107.9. When I found it all I got was a loop of facts about the Glades and static, nothing to tell me what was happening on the road in front of me.

  I drove on blindly. It was foolish but stopping felt more dangerous. Besides, if I stopped on the road in the truck I could get rear-ended. Pulling off the road wasn’t an option either. No way was I going to hover on the edge of the tall prairie grasses with slithery things crawling up into the cab. Besides, sitting there the fire could reach me, surrounding me before I even knew it was near. I compromised by driving on the shoulder, half on the verge and half on the pavement. The feel of the concrete beneath my right tires was the only way to follow the highway.

  I crept along until at last the smoke grew wispier and I could see the road again. On the opposite side of the road, a police cruiser blocked oncoming traffic. Another likely blocked traffic behind me.

  I sped up, going home, going where I’d be safe.

  CHAPTER 12

  My business partner and life partner, Clay Adams, and I were living in a new development where only a third of the planned houses had been built before the economic crisis hit. Over the last couple of years half of those homes had been repossessed or abandoned. Living two miles from the Gulf of Mexico should have been wonderful, but this development was no longer anyone’s idea of gracious living. Streets led nowhere and weeds reclaimed the scarred land.

  We were there in splendid isolation in the burbs from hell because someone had defaulted on a brand-new house. At least with us living in the house and paying rent it would keep the vandals out. There had been more people when we first moved in, but one by one they’d lost the battle with a bank or a mortgage company and moved on. And then the builder of the subdivision had gone bankrupt, leaving unfinished homes where the weeds grew high and the plywood grew black. Piles of lumber meant for homes had been left behind to blow about when the next tropical storms hit us. Two-by-fours turn into projectiles with the forty-mile-an-hour winds that come with our summer storms.

  Now, in March, our neighborhood was silent and empty and just too damn depressing. There was one exception, one good thing on our block. Every morning before work a man biked slowly by while his small daughter pedaled furiously behind him on a pink bike with training wheels and silver tassels flying from the handlebars. I watched for her glittering pink helmet and warned Clay that when she left, so would I. I’d rather make the hour-and-a-half drive out to Clay’s ranch every night than live here without those silver tassels.

  Clay was waiting at the open door when I pulled up in front of the double garage. Escaping down the canal, I’d become intensely aware of all the things that were important to me. At the top of the list was Clay.

  I sat there with the engine running and considered his rigid body, trying to read what he was feeling. Beside him the pot of annuals that I’d planted with such hope back in January looked bedraggled and thirsty.

  Normally, when Clay saw me his eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he knew the most delicious secret, but not today. There was no lifting of his mouth, not even a brow wrinkled in concern or annoyance . . . nothing but a silent mask of waiting.

  Slim and muscled, Clay made women turn and take a second look when he walked by. His black hair and those black eyes over a hawk nose told of the far-off native ancestor who mixed with the English transplants back in Georgia before the civil war.

  I stopped hoping he’d come to me. I turned off the engine and opened the door. Leaving my suitcase behind, I stumbled for him.

  He didn’t move towards me and didn’t speak even when I stood in front of him. Trembling with exhaustion and emotion, I said, “Hi,” before I reached out to hug him. His body was unyielding and as stiff as a store mannequin.

  I didn’t even try to break down his anger. I just said, “Fine,” and walked past him into the house. I dropped my purse on the small half wall that divided the living room from the foyer. Behind me Clay quietly closed the door.

  An enormous bouquet of red roses was on the coffee table in the living room. I turned away and walked down the hall to my right. Clay didn’t follow.

  In the bedroom, a tray of candles waiting to be lit sat on each of the night tables beside the king-size bed. The homecoming Clay was planning had been destroyed, but I was too whacked to give a shit about any of it. I just headed for the bathroom medicine cabinet and poured everything that might be the least bit antibiotic over the blisters that had broken on my hands. After I’d showered, I slathered them with more ointment. Then I went back to face him.

  I seldom lie to Clay. I avoid telling him lots of stuff, but when it comes down to the line in the sand, he pretty much always gets the truth. He didn’t like what I had to tell him about that final martini and where it had led. My story ended with heated words over what he called my “reckless behavior” and my “inability to plan.”

  I tightened the belt of my housecoat and turned away. “How is any of this my fault?”

  His chair scraped back on the hardwood and he said, “Let me count the ways.”

  I threw myself on the couch and covered my eyes with my forearm. “It was just bad luck, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” He came to stand over me. “If you ha
dn’t been there you wouldn’t have been involved.”

  I lifted my arm from my face. “If you had come with me like I asked you to, it would never have happened. So who’s to blame for that?” Blaming someone else always seems like a good starting point for a defense.

  He frowned before turning his back to me and saying, “I’ll make you some breakfast. Then we can decide what you do next.”

  I raised myself on my elbows. “What do you mean, next?”

  “You have to call the cops. You have to decide if you want to call the cops here or the ones in Homestead.”

  I stuffed another pillow behind my head. “I’ll think about it.” But I’d already made up my mind.

  “So while you think, I’ll cook.” He headed for the kitchen without looking back.

  When he returned he didn’t wake me, just put a blanket over me and left me on the couch. When I awoke in the middle of the afternoon, my hands were swollen to double their normal size. Angry red and hot to the touch, they hurt like crazy.

  Clay said, “You should go to the walk-in clinic and have them checked.”

  “Later,” I said, not at all sure I was done sleeping.

  “Later they’ll only be worse.”

  “I’ll put on some more salve.”

  His jaw hardened. “Call the police.”

  “I can’t right now. I’m too tired.”