by Matt Whyman
‘I’ll drink to that.’
Oleg savoured the moment, only for concern to creep into his expression when Priscilla returned the glass to the table.
‘Don’t forget your medication,’ he said, and gestured to the plate of pills that her nurse had counted out for her.
Priscilla tutted, as if reality had just intruded on the moment.
‘Oleg, you’re the only man at Fallen Pine who isn’t propped up on these things.’ She switched her attention from the pills back to him. ‘Are you sure it’s just the warm weather that keeps you looking so young?’
‘Well, it helps that I have something to live for,’ he told her, with a twinkle in his eye and the memory of his last feast in mind.
‘This bar,’ said Titus Savage, who had picked up a call from Amanda to be greeted by a screech of delight. ‘Tell me they don’t serve food.’ He smiled and nodded to himself at her response. ‘Then it sounds like a job for life! When do you start?’
The last to leave the villa for the day, Titus was alone when his cell phone had rung. While Amanda explained that she could be working five evening shifts a week if everything worked out, he took himself to the kitchen window overlooking the rear garden and the inlet beyond. Titus had a boat down there. It was a handsome-looking outboard moored alongside the jetty that he’d picked up shortly after they’d moved in and then barely boarded. That the tarpaulin covering the vessel was still dotted with leaves from the previous season spoke volumes about his commitment to providing for his loved ones. Titus had forged a life here that many could only dream about, only to find himself entirely focused on keeping the roof over their heads, the bills paid and the larder stocked. Despite it all, however, it seemed to him that the really important things in life, the people surrounding him, were somehow slipping away.
‘A midnight finish is kind of late to be out,’ he told Amanda when she had finished bringing him up to speed. ‘I should drive you home at that hour.’
Amanda assured him that she would be fine. She could take care of herself, she said, before telling him she had a bus to catch.
And I know how to take care of family, Titus thought, but chose not to share it with her. Instead, as she closed the call, he found himself focused on the boat and wondering if he could afford to take it out for a day on the water. Then he thought about the effort involved, and all the maintenance tasks that needed undertaking at the apartment complex.
As a compromise, and because Angelica insisted that it was good to spend time with people occasionally rather than slaughter them, Titus headed out that morning with his golf bag on his shoulder and a secret wish that the stupid game had never been invented.
Ivan sat alone in the canteen at lunchtime. Ignoring the orange peel that landed on his tray from afar, he wondered what it would take before people paid attention properly.
‘All I want is some respect,’ he muttered to himself, and dabbed his shirt with a paper napkin when a boiled potato plopped squarely into his bowl. ‘You’ll see, one day. Nobody messes with a Savage. Nobody.’
Ivan often talked to himself during school hours, which didn’t help his cause. Having finished his meal, he made his way towards the corridor, ignoring the names and the looks of amusement. This he did by imagining what each and every pupil responsible would look like served up on a roasting dish, their cooked limbs tucked tight against the torso with string and an apple wedged inside their jaws. Ivan was so lost in thoughts of cooking as a form of justice that he failed to notice the girl on the other side of the door until he had pushed it into her face.
‘Oh, God, sorry!’ he said, coming to his senses.
He had seen her before. She was in his year, with curly auburn hair and creamy skin that made him wonder if she’d taste like milk. He wasn’t aware of her name, just the trickle of blood that snaked from her nose where the door had hit her.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, sounding muffled on account of the fact that she was attempting to staunch the flow with both hands. ‘I’m not dead.’
‘Tip your head back,’ Ivan suggested, allowing the door to the canteen to shut behind him. ‘Pinch the bridge of your nose and wait for the blood to clot. It should only take a few seconds, unless you’re a haemophiliac or type B negative. That stuff can take a little longer.’
‘Oh,’ said the girl, with her neck craned now. ‘I don’t know what blood group I am.’
‘Type B can taste a little bitter on the back of the tongue,’ said Ivan earnestly, and then stopped himself. He glanced over his shoulder, worried that this incident would surely lead to someone accusing him of doing it deliberately. Ivan knew the girl wasn’t one of the most popular, but she had friends, which was more than he could say. ‘It was an accident,’ he said quietly, producing a tissue he had used several times that day to blow his nose. ‘Will this help?’
‘I’m good,’ she told him, still facing the ceiling. ‘I’ve been better, but I’ll survive.’
‘That’s what it’s all about in this school,’ Ivan said, mostly to himself.
Carefully, the girl glanced down. Her eyes crinkled a little, which suggested to Ivan for just one moment that she might be smiling. Then she removed her fingers from the bridge of her nose. Blood glistened on her upper lip, with a streak that ran to her chin, but the breach had stopped.
‘I’m Crystal,’ she said, and then glanced anxiously through the door window into the canteen. Ivan didn’t need to turn to know that the scraping of chairs meant people were gravitating towards the scene. ‘And I think perhaps for your own safety you should make yourself scarce.’
At the gym, in front of his locker, Joaquín Mendez accessed the diary on his cell phone. As he examined his schedule for the afternoon, he dug one hand inside his shorts to scratch himself. Working out under the Florida sun meant jock itch was a hazard of his job. Certainly when the coastal breeze dropped it could become quite uncomfortable. On seeing the first name on the list, however, Joaquín stopped what he was doing and raked the same hand through his hair.
He boasted a long list of middle-aged women in need of a workout, but only one who could quicken his heartbeat. Angelica. The elegant siren who seemed to defy the years she had lived. Joaquín had no idea what her secret could be. Angelica had come to him to keep her waistline in trim, so she had said, but in truth she already looked like she had ingested some miracle pills.
‘OK, Mrs Savage,’ he said to himself, slotting his cell phone into the pouch strapped around his bicep. ‘Today maybe we push things to the next level.’
Joaquín was not the kind of personal trainer who set out to seduce his married female clients. Far from it. He knew plenty of guys in the business who took advantage of their free time and low self-esteem, but not him. The crucifix around his muscular shoulders ensured that he did not stray at times of temptation – and there had been opportunities. Instead, his work was his greatest passion. Turning to head for the gym lobby, which attracted several appreciative glances, Joaquín’s sculpted body was a living advertisement for his drive and determination. He’d experienced his fair share of passes from women, but ultimately he was a good boy who was still blessed with the support of his mother back in Buenos Aires.
Then Angelica Savage had walked into his world, and increasingly he could not stop thinking about her.
This wasn’t just a physical thing. There was a spiritual spark between them. He could feel it in his aching heart at the end of each workout, in a way that had little to do with press-ups or spin cycles. What made it especially tough for the young Latino was that he couldn’t fathom whether Angelica shared his feelings. The lady possessed an armour-plated exterior. Whenever she made eye contact during a session and let it linger, Joaquín had no idea what lay behind it. Was something stirring within her, as it was within him, or could it simply be her way of prompting him for further instruction? Well, in due course he would find out. Joaquín wasn’t sure how, exactly, not without the risk of turning Angelica against him, but with each s
ession in her company his feelings only intensified.
On reaching the door to the stairs, having glimpsed who was waiting for him in the reception area, Joaquín paused and quickly headed back to his locker. There, Jupiter’s most popular personal trainer opened the metal door, faced the laminated picture of the Virgin Mary and quietly asked for her forgiveness in advance.
8
Titus Savage only played golf under pressure. This came in the form of gentle but persistent challenges from the two friends that he had made since settling in Jupiter. Just then, both men were watching from the lip of the bunker where he’d found his ball trapped.
‘Let me do this my own way,’ muttered Titus, dismissing their advice. ‘I didn’t get this far in life from people telling me how to play the game.’
For the third time in succession, Titus swept his club towards the ball only to chip it uselessly into the bank of sand. With sweat pricking the crown of his head, he peered up at the pair.
‘I’m prepared to look the other way,’ said one. ‘We could miss our reservation at the clubhouse restaurant if this goes on.’
‘It seems like your son isn’t the only family member to struggle with sport,’ the other man observed under his breath, and was first to back off so that Titus could toss the ball onto the fairway.
On their journey to Florida, the Savages had gone through several identities. Even so, Titus remained close to his roots. He had never visited Russia, but the few friends he allowed himself in Jupiter included two expats from the motherland. Just then, the pair waited impatiently for Titus to clamber out of the bunker. Lev and Kiril had made a killing shortly after the fall of communism, buying tractor plants from the state at a knock-down rate and then selling for a profit to foreign investors. They had relocated to Florida when the Russian mafia moved in on their market and happily let their lives turn fallow in the years that passed. Facing up to the men now, Titus found some solace in the fact that he did at least have a purpose to his days beyond making the most of his golf membership. Lev and Kiril still maintained a healthy income stream, but didn’t appear to work hard for it. Titus never pressed them on the subject, of course. When it came to keeping some things behind closed doors, such a code of conduct suited him just fine.
‘My boy is committed to the football team,’ he told Kiril, having overheard his comment. ‘Mark my words, by the end of this season his name will be on everyone’s lips.’
All three men wore tropical shirts, slacks and shades. While Titus favoured a repeating pattern of desert islands and blue seas, Kiril sported a floral combination of white kukui blossom and pink roses. Lev, the stockier of the two friends, preferred more restrained pastels for his palm trees, but this was no reflection of his voice, which travelled across the golf course when he chuckled.
‘There speaks a proud father,’ he said.
‘Deluded, but proud,’ Kiril added.
‘I stand behind every member of my family,’ said Titus, who declined his hand in scrambling out of the bunker. ‘It’s what I do.’
‘You need to give your son some space,’ said Lev, as the trio began to make their way along the fairway. ‘Let him make his own mistakes. Don’t be such a helicopter father.’
Titus looked across at his friend, and then swapped a smirk with Kiril.
‘For a man who made his money dealing with the Siberian underworld,’ he said to Lev, ‘you’re surprisingly sensitive towards modern parenting concepts.’
A square-set man whose grey sideburns were at odds with his dyed black hair, Lev shrugged like they could tease him all they wanted.
‘My boy is all grown up now,’ he told them. ‘I like to think he earned his place in the world because his dad knew when to back off.’
Kiril sniggered at this, sounding like a dog with kennel cough. The man had a whip-thin frame, receding hair and high, funereal cheekbones. He also sported a paunch, which from the side made him look as if he was in the early stages of a miracle pregnancy.
‘Lev heard it on daytime TV,’ he said, pretending to whisper. ‘He loves to watch those shows where the families can’t cope with the kids and call for expert help.’
‘So it’s a guilty pleasure,’ said Lev with a shrug. ‘Just let me know when you guys are ready to admit some secrets.’
For the next hour, Titus fought to keep up with his friends. While it appeared as if their golf balls were being drawn towards each hole in turn by some kind of tractor beam, Titus struggled to stay out of the rough.
‘I’m thinking of joining a gym,’ he told them later in the clubhouse, where the maître d’ had made a big show of the fact that they were late for the table. This was something that instantly ceased to be a problem when Lev slipped forty bucks into the man’s shirt pocket. ‘It’s time I got buff.’
‘Really?’ Kiril looked as surprised as Lev. ‘What’s wrong with loosening your belt by a notch at our time of life?’
‘It isn’t healthy,’ said Titus, helping himself to bread from the basket.
‘Nor is it fun,’ Kiril pointed out, who had already tucked into a roll. ‘You can’t give up on us, Titus. We’re the guys, you know? It’s how we roll out here. Mixing business with pleasure.’
It was true that Kiril had been the one to suggest to Titus that he consider the property business when the family first settled in Jupiter. Keen to establish a reliable source of income, Titus came to value their nose for profit ever since he had rented out his first apartment in the complex. With encouragement from the pair, he had gone on to purchase more units as they became available. Unbeknown to his Russian friends, of course, Titus also considered the place to be a convenient pickup for one vital ingredient whenever a feast was on the cards.
‘Getting into shape is top of my list,’ he told them now, mindful of Angelica’s example. He turned to the menu in front of him. ‘So, what are you guys having? The special looks good today.’
For her first shift in the new job, Amanda Dias elected to dress conservatively. Knowing that she would be on her feet serving drinks, she opted for pumps to go with her black jeans and white vest top. As soon as she arrived at the Crankbait Sports Saloon, however – twenty minutes early in order to settle in – it became quite clear to her that flat-soled shoes would not be appropriate.
‘Here,’ said Rolan, having crouched in front of an alcove under the bar. ‘You need these.’
Amanda didn’t take in what had just landed in her arms until she looked down.
‘Roller skates?’ She faced him again with a start. The lighting in the bar was minimal; mostly neon piping that weaved around the interior walls. Amanda noticed that the poles ringing the dance floor were also well illuminated, but for now her focus was on Rolan. ‘You want me to wear skates?’
‘If you still want the job,’ he said abruptly, and returned to unloading the glasses washer.
As he spoke, several girls could be heard chattering and laughing in a back room. Amanda looked around and saw a door in the gloom with a sign on it that read ‘Kitchen’.
‘You told me food wasn’t on offer here,’ she said. ‘Just potato chips.’
‘Potato chips and eye candy. That goes without saying.’ Rolan rubbed the back of his neck. ‘The girls use that space to pretty themselves so they look a million dollars whether they’re serving drinks or dancing.’ He paused there and drew her attention to the poles under the spotlights. ‘Or both, if you’re looking to make a little extra dough.’
Judging by the way Rolan’s eyebrows wagged as he said this, Amanda knew exactly what he was proposing. For a split second she considered just turning right around and leaving. Then she reminded herself of the money, and her pledge to pay her way in the Savage household.
‘You’re the boss,’ she said, in a way that made it sound as if only a total jerk could earn that status. ‘But I’ll dance over your dead body.’
Half an hour later, as the bar steadily filled, Amanda began her first shift serving drinks to the tables. This was no
easy task, given her new footwear, but some experience on wheels as a little girl ensured she delivered each tray without spilling more than a few drops. Most of the men were glued to the baseball game going out live on the big screen behind the dance floor. Those who did make eye contact, she found, only did so fleetingly, before dropping their gaze to her chest. Amanda didn’t like it one bit, and yet she reminded herself that it had to be better than delivering animal flesh to their tables. Ultimately, it was her choice to be here, even if it did put her in a caustic mood. This was evident when she set a beer in front of a guy with a double chin and cigarette breath who promptly asked for pork cracklings to go with it.
‘We don’t have those,’ she said immediately. ‘Never have and never will.’
‘Oh, really?’ said the man. ‘But I’m asking nicely.’
Amanda didn’t blink.
‘I’ll get you some potato chips,’ she told him.
Making her way to the bar, with Rolan looking on disapprovingly, Amanda willed herself once more not to unstrap her skates and walk out. Just then it felt as if her feelings about meat were close to being overshadowed by her distrust of men. Only Titus had her complete confidence. He had he shown her that it was perfectly possible to be a carnivore who made a valuable contribution to the world. What’s more, he was a gentleman at heart who placed his family first.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Rolan, as Amanda stopped herself by bumping the fronts of her skates into the bar. He gestured at the customer waiting at the table. ‘He looks unhappy.’
Amanda glanced over her shoulder.
‘He’s hungry is all,’ she told him, and asked for a bowl of potato chips.
‘Hungry for what?’ asked Rolan, and purposely looked her up and down. ‘You know, a dance wouldn’t kill you. It’s what the customers expect.’
‘I thought they came here for the sport,’ she said.
‘They do.’