by Sharon Potts
Chapter 7
Marylou Madison sat on a bench watching the surf break in the distance. Families wearing bathing suits and sandals crossed in front of her carrying folding chairs and coolers of food. In the nearby grass, a black man with long hair like twisted twine stood by a blanket covered with fake jewelry and watches. He had a sickly parrot on his shoulder. The bird had plucked out most of its feathers. Marylou looked away, disturbed by the sight.
She took a few deep breaths. The sound of the waves settled her. She remembered when she was a little girl, her mother once held a conch shell to Marylou’s ear and told her to listen to the ocean. “Someday,” her mother had said, “I’ll get back there.”
Marylou had stolen the conch shell when her mother wasn’t around and hidden it behind the old furnace in the cellar. Marylou could find it, even in the pitch black, even when she was in so much pain from the beatings that she had to crawl across the cold, damp cellar floor. Then she’d wrap herself in a moldy blanket, listen to the ocean, and try not to think about the darkness and how much she hurt.
Marylou crossed her arms. She was chilled, despite the towel she’d wrapped around her shoulders.
She didn’t like it here in this strange town, but here was where she needed to be. This was the best way she knew to help him, to take care of him. The only way she would finally fulfill her mother’s dreams.
A beach patrol vehicle thundered by. The black man swept up the blanket with the contents intact in one quick motion, then walked away without missing a beat, the sick parrot firmly perched on his shoulder.
Marylou’s little boy was alone in the room. She needed to get back to him.
Chapter 8
Robbie had Kate on her mind when she woke up Tuesday morning. After checking Facebook and finding no messages from her sister, she decided to jog down to the Fifth Street beach, popular with the young crowd. Robbie took off her sneakers, tied the laces together, then hung them around her neck. She spent the next few hours trudging through the sand looking at girls who resembled Kate’s photo. Occasionally she’d see someone who could have been Kate, but when Robbie got closer or talked to the girl, she realized it wasn’t her sister.
Robbie knew this was probably a futile exercise, but she needed to do something to channel her frustration. Like when her mom had been in surgery. Robbie couldn’t just stay in the waiting room. So she’d gone to the medical library and researched and photocopied the latest experimental treatments for breast cancer. Robbie didn’t understand most of the technical medical terminology, and she knew the doctors would most likely dismiss her efforts, but she really believed that she might find something that everyone else had overlooked.
The surf was receding, widening the beach area, and as it got later, more and more people sprawled out on towels in the sand. Robbie looked around her at the expanse of beach, the increasing number of people. A hunched, gray-haired man was walking in the distance. Her father? Was he also out here looking for Kate? She hadn’t heard from him since he’d come by on Sunday.
Robbie could feel the sun burning her skin, even with sunscreen slathered on her arms, legs, and face.
What was she doing? She’d never find her sister this way.
She noticed a child running toward her, zigzagging wildly in the sand. She tried to get out of his way, but he crashed into her, almost upsetting her balance.
“Eric,” a woman’s high-pitched voice shouted from behind her. “Watch where you’re going.”
Robbie looked down at the little boy. Maybe six or seven years old. Straight brown hair, angry eyes, and his mouth puckered like he’d just tasted a lemon.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said, breathless from running down the street. Her long, tangled blonde hair obscured her face as she pulled Eric against her and he struggled to get free. She was wearing a skimpy tank top, which exposed a lot of cleavage, and there was a tattoo of a mermaid on her arm. “Sometimes he gets too excited.” She released the little boy from her embrace, then swatted the sand off his back and legs with a beach towel.
Robbie recognized her. What was her name? Maddy—that was it. Maddy had started recently as a bartender at The Garage, though she and Robbie worked different shifts. Robbie remembered something about Maddy being a single mom.
“You’re Maddy, right?” Robbie asked.
Maddy looked back in surprise. Her hazel eyes were small and naked without her customary makeup, and the way she bit down on her full lower lip made Robbie realize how young she probably was—maybe mid-twenties. “Oh, I know you,” Maddy said. “Don’t you work at the lounge?”
Robbie nodded.
“Yeah, that’s right. I was surprised when I first saw you. You don’t look like you belong.”
“Well—”
Maddy covered a laugh with her free hand. Her fingernails were bitten down. “I mean that in a good way. You look like you own the place, not like a working girl.”
“We all have to make a living.”
“Shit, don’t I know that.” Maddy ruffled Eric’s hair, but he pushed her hand away. “And it’s so expensive here,” Maddy said. “Not like back home.”
“You just moved here, right?”
“Yeah. From up north.” Maddy didn’t seem like she wanted to be more specific.
“You have family in Miami?” Robbie asked.
Maddy shook her head. “Eric and I are all the family we need. Right, honey?” The little boy was squirming, looking everywhere but at his mother. “We can manage just fine on our own.”
That’s what Robbie’s mother used to say to her. Looking at Maddy and her child made Robbie wonder whether that had been the best thing for Robbie. And what about this little boy? Who watched Eric when Maddy was tending bar?
“There’s the boyfriend, of course.” Maddy giggled. “But I’m sure you know about boyfriends. They’re not exactly family.”
Eric was pulling hard trying to break his mother’s grasp on his hand.
“Eric, be good.”
Eric tugged. “Ma, come on.”
“Sorry,” Maddy said to Robbie. “Gotta go. Boyfriend’s waiting.”
“Sure. See you around.”
“Yeah. I’m trying to pick up a couple of extra shifts at the lounge.”
The mother and son crossed the street toward an old hotel with a flashing pink and blue marquee. Was that where they lived? A skanky guy with sunglasses and broad shoulders stood in front of the hotel and flailed his arms as Maddy approached. He sounded angry. Maddy pushed past him, holding Eric in front of her. The guy followed her into the hotel.
Boyfriends. Not exactly family.
What exactly was family?
Robbie thought about the stooped, gray-haired man she’d seen walking on the beach earlier. It probably had been her father, doing exactly what Robbie had been doing all morning: looking for Kate.
His other daughter.
His family.
Chapter 9
Robbie returned home from the beach and was actually relieved when Brett called in the early afternoon and asked her to go with him to an event for one of his public relations clients. Ordinarily, she begged off when Brett invited her to the social scene.
She showered and got dressed in white shorts and a fringed vest that she’d made herself during her sewing phase, which had preceded the jewelry making. Then she French-braided a section of her hair with beads and feathers, tucked it behind her ear, and checked herself in the mirror. Her skin had a pinkish glow from the sun, her blue eyes were large, and her lashes so thick that she never wore mascara. Like her sister’s eyes in the photo.
She stuffed a few flyers in her satchel, just in case she found an opportunity to pass them out.
There was a rat-a-tat on her front door. Brett’s knock. She opened the door and had a hard time controlling her smile.
Brett Chandler had a lopsided grin, big ears, small nose, and blond hair spiking like a grown-up Dennis the Menace. It didn’t matter if Ben and Jeremy’s other frien
ds didn’t like him, there was something about Brett that made Robbie feel good. This afternoon, he was wearing a narrow red tie and an untucked checkered shirt with its sleeves rolled to his elbows.
“Ms. Robbie Ivy,” he said, grabbing her and swinging her around, causing her braid to go flying. He was much taller than she and wiry but strong.
Matilda meowed and weaved around his cuffed jeans and black hightops as he put Robbie down. They had met a month ago at The Garage, while Robbie was tending bar. Brett seemed to know everyone of importance or with money, having grown up on the Beach and gone to private school since kindergarten.
He took Robbie in. “Somebody got some sun.”
“Yeah. I was at the beach.”
“Well, you look like really hot. Fieldstone’s either going to adopt you or have you killed.”
“Fieldstone?”
“Yeah. Gina Tyler Fieldstone. She’s promoting her new book at the event tonight. Her husband’s Stanford Fieldstone. You know, from the tire family?”
“Isn’t that Firestone?”
“Firestone, Fieldstone, whatever. I just know he’s got family money and he’s on some fast political track. He’s probably using Gina and her book to build his people base. Anyway, should be a lot of good contacts there.”
Robbie pushed her braid back behind her ear. “I could use a positive distraction.”
“Oh yeah? Something wrong?” Brett’s face became serious.
“Some unexpected surprises in my life since yesterday. It seems that—”
His cell phone rang. He glanced at it. “Sorry. I need to take this.” He turned toward the front door and lowered his voice. “Hey. What’s up?”
Robbie went into the kitchen, took her satchel from the table, then checked to make sure Matilda had food and water.
Brett was done with his call when she returned to the foyer. “Man,” he said, “I honestly don’t know what those guys would do without me. Ready to go?”
He had probably forgotten that she’d been in the middle of telling him something. But Brett was often like that. She suspected that he had attention deficit disorder and wasn’t on meds for it. She’d tell him about her father and sister later, when he wasn’t so distracted.
Brett leaned against the front door and ushered Robbie outside. Matilda meowed, trying to follow.
“Not you, kitten,” Robbie said, gently coaxing the cat back into the apartment. “You keep the mice away.”
Brett’s shiny black BMW was parked in the loading zone in front of Robbie’s building with its flashers blinking. Its windows were tinted too dark, which made it difficult to see inside. She didn’t quite get why guys thought looking “hood” was cool.
He held open the passenger door for her and she slid in. A year ago, she never would have imagined herself with someone like Brett. But there was something so undemanding about him. And for now, that worked just fine. No pressure to think about commitments. But wasn’t that what Leonard had been criticizing her about?
“I’m sorry I’ve been in a dead zone,” Brett said, pulling into the street. “I never thought public relations was going to be twenty-four seven.”
“Anything particular happening?”
“Just some screwups with a couple of guys who work for us at the clubs. Such idiots. But we’ve got it under control now.”
He joined the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Collins. They could have just as well walked to the hotel from Robbie’s apartment and made it in less time, but Brett was like a lost boy without his car nearby. She thought about bringing up her sister again, but decided it was a bad time. She reached into her bag and made sure the ringtone on her phone was turned to high in case someone was trying to reach her about Kate.
Two blocks down, Brett turned into an alleyway with a valet sign. The valet handed him a ticket. Robbie got out on her side without waiting for Brett to come around.
They walked up the steps of The Pulse Hotel past gurgling fountains, then through the lobby and into the cool, dark lounge area. Ceiling fans with blades shaped like giant lily pads spun above them. The floors were gray stone and there was a narrow, rectangular pool with flowing water.
“There he is.” Brett grinned and strode toward the long, ebony bar with his hand outstretched.
Robbie followed, curious who Brett was so excited to see.
“Mister M.” Brett shook hands with a skinny, freckled, older man whose thin orange hair was combed back in a ponytail.
Robbie recognized Brett’s boss, Mike, or Mister M, as he was known around Miami Beach. The skin around his watery gray eyes was pulled too tight, which gave him an almost Asian look and made it difficult for him to blink.
“Here’s our girl,” Mike said in a tinny voice as he air kissed Robbie’s cheeks. Mike was wearing his usual—a short-sleeved white embroidered guayabera shirt—the traditional Cuban dress shirt. It hung loosely on his emaciated frame. He had a dazzling smile with tooperfect white teeth.
Mike signaled the bartender, who put a couple of drinks on the bar. “Tonight’s specialty. Mojitos. Unless you’d prefer a rum punch,” Mike said to Robbie.
“A mojito’s fine, thanks,” she said.
Brett handed one to Robbie, then clinked his own glass against hers.
“Well, drink up, you two,” Mike said, “and enjoy.” He walked off, waving over his shoulder without turning around.
Brett thrummed his fingers against the bar, watching the groups of people as they came into the lounge.
“Go ahead, Brett,” Robbie said. “Mingle. You don’t have to babysit me. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll be back soon,” he said, reminding her of a schoolboy who just heard the recess bell. And once again she was struck by how different he was from Jeremy.
She pulled out the stack of “Missing” flyers from her satchel and put several down on each corner of the bar. Maybe she’d get lucky and one of the guests would recognize her sister.
She sensed that someone was watching her and turned. Her eyes connected with Mister M’s watery ones. Maybe he didn’t like her putting flyers around at one of his events. Brett’s boss’s tight, unnatural face showed no emotion as he walked toward her.
He picked up one of the flyers and studied the photo. “Call Robbie?” He glanced up at her. “Robbie you?”
“Yup. Hope you don’t mind me leaving them out here.”
“She looks like you. A relative?”
“Kind of.”
He twirled his thin orange ponytail around his fingers as he waited for her to say more. She didn’t. She didn’t want Brett hearing about Kate from Mike.
“I’ll keep an eye out.” Mike folded the flyer and put it in his pocket. “By the way—it’s probably not a good idea for you to give out your phone number like that. Creeps can call you and bother you.”
“Thanks, but that’s the advantage of having a boy’s name.”
He walked away without saying anything else.
Talk about creeps. Robbie wondered why Brett was so enthusiastic about working for someone like Mike.
She left the bar and wandered over to an indoor atrium filled with exotic plants. There was a noticeable change in the affluence and sophistication of the crowd as it got later. The arriving women became taller, skinnier, younger; the men, by contrast, got shorter, stockier, and older.
The room was filled almost to capacity, the noise level deafening. Gorgeous young women in short skirts and hot guys flexing their biceps beneath tight T-shirts moved through the crowd with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres. One of the waitresses had long black hair and blue eyes. There was something familiar in the way she moved. Robbie got closer.
The girl held out a platter of what looked like biscotti. She said something to Robbie.
“What?” Robbie shouted.
“It’s Indian Fry bread,” the girl repeated, louder this time. She was skinny, pale. Her eyes were wrong for Kate—too close together,
no sparkle. Robbie took a piece of bread and a napkin. “Thank you.”
There was no sign of Brett in the sea of black. Robbie sipped her drink. It was too sweet and a mint leaf had sunk to the bottom of the glass. She wiped the grease from her fingers on her napkin, left the half-eaten bread and her drink on a tray, then made her way outside.
She stood on the hotel steps blinking against the strong sunlight. The heat made her sunburn hurt. It was after six p.m. but felt like midday. Tourists walked by in wrinkled shorts, snapping pictures of the hotels and South Beach scene. A black sedan with tinted windows pulled up in front of the hotel and a slender, graceful woman got of the car. There was something odd about the woman that made Robbie do a double take. Although neatly dressed in a black sheath with a white cardigan over her shoulders, the look was wrong for South Beach. In fact, the outmoded style was completely inconsistent with the woman, who was quite attractive. Her dress was too long and her hair—ash brown and streaked with blonde—was in an upswept hairdo that was popular back in the ’60s.
The woman’s driver was a young guy with a blond buzz cut, bloated face, and small eyes. He wore a dark suit that pulled under his arms, white shirt, and a tie that was loosened, probably to accommodate his thick neck.
The guy took a ticket from the valet, then escorted the woman up the steps, passing close to Robbie on their way to the hotel lobby. The woman looked distracted as she adjusted a gold clasp holding the front of her cardigan sweater together.
Strange pair, Robbie thought.
She took her cell phone out of her bag and checked it. No missed calls. It would be another hour before Brett was free to leave. She took a deep breath of humid air and returned through the lobby into the dark, bustling ant pile.
After pushing through the crowd, she found Brett in front of a podium, holding a microphone up to his mouth. An adjacent table was stacked with books—In Search of Self by Gina Tyler Fieldstone.
“Good evening,” Brett said to the crowded room. “And welcome.”
None of the ants paid any attention to him.