Twenty-Eight
After Hester stormed off from the happy hour, Al came home much later humming “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Hester was trying to sleep so she put a pillow over her head to block out the sound of his voice, but it didn’t work. She waited for her husband to flop into his chair and turn on the boob tube. His humming was replaced with muffled electronic chatter. Hester rolled over and thought about the rumor that the park might be sold. The possibility made her shudder. If it is, the trailers will be demolished, the whole place will be dug up. Dug up?
Dear God, why hadn’t she immediately picked up her cell phone when she found Al and Nina? Why hadn’t she dialed 911? Hester knew she was in for another sleepless night, and, unfortunately, she was right.
In the morning Hester moved her chaise lounge under the Bo tree and laid in it for the better part of the day. She studied the tree. It was like an old friend to her. New bark was growing over the scar, and new branches were budding out around the broken stumps. Fresh leaves were quivering in what little air there was.
Why couldn’t she bounce back like the old tree? Why wasn’t time healing her wounds?
But being so close to where Nina was buried, Hester imagined she was keeping the girl company and decided to start reading aloud. Perhaps the ghost of Nina was hovering, lying right next to her on the lounge, wanting desperately to hear the sound of Hester’s voice. It didn’t make a bit of sense, but imagining Nina’s presence eased Hester’s inner turmoil. The first book Hester chose, probably since Eliot Carruthers and she had discussed it, was The Scarlet Letter. She hadn’t read it since college, but it was a novel she always wanted to teach, and it was the kind of story that would be right up Nina’s alley.
After a week of listening to what Hester was doing, Al informed his wife that he hated listening to her read aloud, to her precise pronunciation, her dramatic intonation, her breathy delivery. It reminded him of her schoolteacher voice, which wasn’t like her real voice at all.
When Hester ignored him, a few days later he lowered the volume on the television and hollered out the trailer window, “Hey, wife, would you please cut that bullshit out. You’re killing me. I can hardly hear myself think.”
Later, after a few beers, he brought it up again and asked her why she kept it up.
“I like to read out loud,” she serenely answered.
Al laughed and warned her that if she was getting wacky, he’d put her in a nursing home. Hester smiled weakly; she wasn’t going to fight with him.
After that, when he was around, she whisper the words so quietly she looked crazy, like she was talking to herself. So she was glad when Al began getting involved in Pleasant Palms’ business, because then he was around less, and that was fine by her.
The third Wednesday in February, an important community meeting was scheduled. Al said he wasn’t going to miss it for the world. The bulletin was direct: “All shareholders are strongly encouraged to attend.” The gossip mill was still churning out the rumor about a big real estate development company purchasing Pleasant Palms. The offer was supposedly incredible; but since everyone who owned a trailer in the park also owned shares in the Pleasant Palms Corporation, the majority would have to vote to sell. It they did, supposedly they’d become millionaires.
Al planned to get to the community room early to get a seat. He got up at six, showered, wolfed down his hardboiled eggs and toast, and was about to leave when he turned to Hester and said, like it was an afterthought, “Do you want to come?”
“No thanks, I couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time,” Hester said, but the truth was she didn’t want to find out the rumor was true. She looked up from her coffee at Al, and behind him through the window, she saw the tops of the palms swaying in the breeze like giant feather dusters. Al leaned down and brushed her cheek with his lips. It wasn’t exactly a kiss, but Hester hadn’t expected it, and where he’d touched her, her skin tingled. Now why did he have to do that? She put her hand on her cheek and pressed to stop the sensation. Most of the time they were like two planets in the same galaxy, but thankfully relegated to distant orbits. They talked back and forth about what was for dinner or what had to be gotten at the store, but the only important thing they’d said to each other lately was about the sale of the park.
Al had asked Hester whether she would vote to sell since they only had one vote between them. And Hester, knowing that selling Pleasant Palms would mean she’d have to do something with Nina’s body, had almost shouted, No! Never! But thought better of it, saying only, “Al, who needs a million dollars when we’re already living in paradise?”
“Exactly, Hester, you are exactly right.” Al had agreed with Hester so quickly and easily, she didn’t believe him. At first, she thought, maybe he’s trying to make me happy, but Al wasn’t the type to say anything just to make someone happy. No, Alexander Bruno Murphy was blunt when it came to offering his opinion, and stubborn when it came to getting his way. There was no limit to what Al would do when he wanted something, and no limit to what he wouldn’t do if he didn’t want something. In other words, he was Machiavellian, but with the moral grit of a barnacle.
After Al left, Hester got up and went out to the patio. Through the top branches of the bo, the moon in the sunny sky was an incongruous, transparent disc. What dat moon doin’ up in dat sky? Her mom use to make her laugh saying this whenever they noticed the stubborn moon hanging on into the day, which made the world seem topsy-turvy. Everything was topsy-turvy. Hester’s life was topsy-turvy, one slow-motion inverted dream. She walked to the beach. Still in the sweats and T-shirt she’d slept in, she rolled her pants up and waded into the surf. Her feet sank into the cool sand. She watched shells tumble in the tide and spent the next hour or so looking for unbroken ones.
“Hey, there!” Hester recognized the voice and looked up. Dee was walking toward her.
“Hester, you should’ve been at that meeting!” Dee said breathlessly. She smelled of coffee and coconut lotion.
“Why, what did I miss?”
“Holy shit, it was a sideshow, and your husband was the two-headed cow. I never knew he was like that.”
“Like what?” Hester took the bait.
“I’ll get to that in minute, but first let me tell you what happened. Ralph Trotman—you know him, the board president, read the letter from the attorneys, Ripsome & Newton. When he finished, there was nothing but dead silence for about two minutes. Then Bing Fagan, the treasurer, says, ‘Folks, you know what this means? If we sell this place for three hundred million dollars, and there are three hundred units, then we’d each walk away with one million dollars.’
“The arteries in Bing’s neck looked like they were going to burst. He could hardly talk. ‘One million dollars each, people, we can’t turn this down.’ Well, practically everyone stood up and clapped and cheered, ‘Sell! Sell! Sell!’”
Dee threw her arm around Hester’s shoulder. “You should’ve been there.”
Hester, in an attempt to extricate herself from Dee’s grasp and compose herself, bent down to pick up another shell. When she stood up, she said, “Wow, so it wasn’t just gossip? Wow.”
“No, praise God, it’s true!” Dee was jubilant.
Hester, knowing it would be futile to try to change Dee’s mind about something she was obviously in favor of, reluctantly asked about Al, “So what did Al do to come off like a two-headed cow?”
“Jesus, Hester, I don’t know how you put up with him.”
Hester felt like saying, tell me about it, but didn’t. “What did he do now?” She tried to sound light-hearted.
“Well, he waits till the hoopla dies down and gets on the microphone. ‘Not so fast, let’s calm down and take a look at this thing,’ he says. But Clayton, the project manager from Sea to Sea Development Corporation whose on the stage with the board of directors, says, ‘Listen, folks, you’ve got a topnotch board of directors here, some of the smartest people I’ve ever dealt with. They’ve gone over the con
tract with a fine-tooth comb, and so has your law firm. So there really is nothing else to take a look at. Sea to Sea has made deals like this all over the world. We are the largest oceanfront development corporation in the world. We know what we’re doing, and I can tell you, you can trust that we are offering you the opportunity of a lifetime. How many of your friends would’ve ever lived in a trailer park? I’ll bet a lot of them looked down their noses at you, called you trailer trash behind your backs. You stayed here anyhow and now it’s going to pay off. This deal is going to be national news. You are going to be national news. So enough talk, let’s celebrate. The vote is scheduled for next Monday; but at this point, it’s clearly only a formality…’
“Al, whose face is as red as a beet, hollers into the mike, ‘Excuse me, what in the hell are you talking about, only a formality? This whole thing stinks. Listen, people, we’re being railroaded. Think about your shares. Not everybody is going to get a million dollars. In fact, nobody is. What about taxes? What about capital gains? What about…’ Then Clayton says, ‘Now, now, why don’t you and I—what was your name and unit number, anyway?—sit down over a martini or something, and I can answer all of your questions privately, so we don’t waste everyone else’s time here. Remember, I’ve been down this road before and it’s very simple, very…’ Then Al screams, “Simple, my ass, this place is a paradise and you know it and that’s why you want to rip it out from under us. Is there another place on the planet like it? No. Will a million dollars buy us what we have here? No. What’s your answer to that, asshole?’
“That’s when Trotman started pounding his gavel, telling Al to leave the meeting if he’s calling people names. So Al gives him the finger and walked out.”
“No kidding? What did this guy Clayton do?” Hester looked back down at the water swirling around her ankles.
“He invited the whole park to a cocktail party on Friday night at the clubhouse. And he told us to dress up. We’re all going to be rich and famous so we might as well look the part now. The press will be there too.” Dee looked in Hester’s eyes. “You’ve got to get Al to get off his high horse about not selling. Hester, this the best chance someone like me has ever had to be rich.”
Hester thought. She wants to get rich, and I want to…stay out of jail. Al, who knew he’d be on the same side as she was? Al might not be found guilty of anything, might walk away scot free if Nina’s body were discovered, but not Hester. Hester was the one who put it where it was. Hester was the one who lied.
“I’ll talk to him, Dee.” Hester wanted Dee to drop the uncomfortable subject. She extended her hand to help the large woman maintain her balance as they walked out of the waves and across the hot beach.
When they stepped into the shade by the clubhouse, a golf cart pulled up, and Dee shrieked, “Clayton!” She rushed ahead of Hester, who could see even from a distance that Clayton was young and handsome. His blonde hair was parted on the side, the bangs swept across his forehead. His blue eyes sparkled like the ocean he was surveying. His pale pink Oxford had a crest embroidered on the right pocket, mother-of-pearl buttons. An alligator belt circled his thin hips and held up his perfectly pressed linen slacks. He wore a pair of kidskin tasseled loafers, no socks. When he saw Dee charging at him, he stepped out of his cart, spread his feet wide, and folded his arms across his chest. Probably to steel himself for the blow, thought Hester.
Dee was running and panting and waving both hands in the air, like she was batting flies. Hester reluctantly followed her.
“Clayton, oh, Clayton, yoo-hoo!”
Slowly, coolly, he turned his face in her direction. His expression at first was contorted, almost, Hester thought, full of dread; but as Dee got closer, it change into a purposeful gaze, until he was beaming at her, his smile, full of chalk-white teeth, at once gorgeous and intimidating.
Dee placed her fat hand on his bare forearm, as though she were claiming him. She smiled up at him. She’s flirting, thought Hester, who’d never seen Dee act like this, who sometimes wondered if Dee went for men at all, but here she was fluttering her eyelashes. Hester watched as Dee squeezed Clayton’s arm, and it hit Hester—it’s not Clayton, Dee cares about, it’s the money…she’ll do anything to get it. Clayton placed his well-manicured hand patronizingly on top of Dee’s. He could care less about Dee, it’s her shares he wants.
Hester turned and headed back toward the ocean, which she really felt like drowning herself in now…again. And for the first time in a long time, she had Tom Buchanan on her mind.
Twenty-Nine
It took a long time, but eventually Al’s rage about Hester’s abortion and how she’d kept it secret subsided. Hester, too, excused away Al’s possible dalliance—probably, it was only a kiss, maybe a few stolen kisses, but nothing more—with Jennifer as a foolish and immature attempt to hurt Hester back. And so they made peace with each other, and the years passed. Hester and Al traveled to, and bought things back from, all the ends of the earth. It became their thing to do. They didn’t have a perfect life because a perfect life would’ve included a houseful of noisy little Murphys; but it was a decent life, and they got along decently, or so it seemed to Hester.
Then Nina came along.
Thirty
Rather than listen to Al rant about how stupid everyone at Pleasant Palms was, Hester got in the Odyssey, drove to Saint Maximillian’s, and lined up for confession. How long had it been? She couldn’t remember. Two people were in front of her, and damn it, they were both from the park. She hadn’t wanted to run into anybody she knew.
Norman Colter stood behind Elizabeth Hanky. They were waiting for whoever was in the confessional to come out.
Elizabeth, a large woman with a grey gamine haircut, was married to Hurley Hanky, who looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and was the guy who invented the automatic pin replacer for bowling alleys and then sold the patent. He bought a chain of roller rinks and managed them until he retired ten years ago. The Hankys lived a few rows over from Hester on Royal Palm Way. Elizabeth kept to herself, but Hurley was always out and about, always into somebody else’s business. He was the type who couldn’t resist telling other people how they should do things. His totally unsolicited advice forced most people to cross the street to the other side when they saw him coming. Hurley never got the hint.
Norman Colter, on the other hand, seemed to be popular. His good looks might’ve had something to do with it. Even the Pleasant Palmers weren’t immune to falling under the spell of the beautiful people. Norman was slender but broad chested, and he still had a full head of sandy hair streaked with platinum. His skin was tan, a little wrinkled, but who at their age cared about wrinkles. He wore stylish board shorts and liked to surf and snorkel. Hester spent more than one afternoon following the yellow crook of his breathing apparatus maneuvering around beyond the break, waiting for him to surface, swim in, and emerge dripping wet onto dry land. It was how Hester imagine Odysseus must’ve looked when he washed ashore in Phaeacia. The man was a shimmering specimen, and the last time Hester watched him toweling off, she surprised herself by fantasizing about following him home.
And another thing Hester liked about Norman was that, unlike a lot of other people, Norman actually looked right at her on the few occasions when she’d had the opportunity to talk with him, his merry eyes actually making contact with hers. Gossip had it that he’d been a plumber or construction worker or something manly like that in New Jersey. Hester wondered about that cause Norman really didn’t seem like the type to get his hands dirty.
Mr. Colter lived in his spacious unit on Bottle Palm Place with another man whose name Hester didn’t know yet. And there seemed to be some mystery to this arrangement. Hester had been introduced to Norman, though, by Eve and, question marks or not, immediately liked his affable smile and rugged good looks. Ironically, lately, all the good looking men seemed to be gay. Eve wasn’t so sure Norman was gay. She really didn’t know and there wasn’t any sure way to find out since Norman and his housem
ate seemed to pretty much keep to themselves.
Well, gay or not, in Hester’s opinion, Norman Colter was the handsomest old guy in the park, and that was including Al. Hester wasn’t finding her Irish-Italian stallion all that enticing these days.
Hester got in line behind Norman. His verbena cologne filled her nostrils. Somebody came out of the confessional, and Elizabeth went in. Norman turned and smiled at Hester warmly, and the thought popped into her head, if I do leave Al, I want Norman to want me.
Elizabeth came out of the confessional and left without kneeling down in a pew to say penance. Norman went in. Hester wasn’t purposely trying to listen, but some words reached her ears. She thought she heard “computer porn,” but she wasn’t sure. Whoever said it could’ve been saying, “other morn” or something like that. If it was Norman or the priest, she couldn’t say, the voice that spoke was muffled.
Then Norman came out, and Hester went in.
As soon as she blurted out her most grievous offense, Hester knew she’d made a mistake trying to confess; but the past kept pounding away at her, and she thought being forgiven for her iniquities would enable her move on. She barely got the words out when the priest rudely interrupted.
“And so you’re tellin’ me a terrible t’ing, you are.” She recognized the Irish brogue of Al’s favorite priest, Father O’Hannon. “I regret to tell ya, they’ll be no forgiv’n ya, no absolution, not from this priest nor any fine servant of God in the holy parish of Saint Maximillian’s. You can count on that, can’t you now?”
On the Edge of Dangerous Things (Dangerous Things Trilogy Book 1) Page 15