Giulietta said something in Italian Els couldn’t catch.
Els gave her a warning look. “Mum, I’ll take care of this.”
“She with you?” The policeman looked at Els. “Ah, yes, Jack’s,” he said with a little smile. “We heard you had a foreign visitor up there.”
“Wired in to immigration, are you?” Els said.
The officer’s smile tightened.
“Bad business you let a bum like him insult the turisti,” Giulietta said.
“I just sweeting up Tishiana in there, and she starts comin’ with her fatness into my affairs,” Mr. Heat said.
“Throw him in jail,” Giulietta said.
“Mum, wait in the car,” Els said.
Clasping his hands behind his back, the officer said to Giulietta, “We apologize, madame, for any unpleasantness. But I suggest you refrain from starting arguments with our citizens.” He waved away Mr. Heat, who hesitated before thumping the logo on his shirt, grinning at the crowd, and hurrying off. Giulietta sauntered to the Jeep.
“The Cotton Ground station has received complaints,” the officer said, turning back to Els.
“About Mum?”
“About disturbances at your establishment.”
Probably fewer than when Jack was alive, she thought. “I specifically have permission to fire Bessie—the cannon—at sunset,” she said. “Otherwise, we’re positively sedate.”
He looked at her. “It is unwise to contribute to disruption,” he said, and walked toward the police station.
By the time Els returned to the Jeep with their groceries, Giulietta had refreshed her lipstick and was filing a fingernail.
Els slammed the shift into reverse. “If you’re going to get me and my business in trouble, Mum, I’ll leave you home from now on.”
“You brag to be so tough in your bank,” Giulietta said. “What makes you shrinking flower all of a sudden?”
“The government could close me down in a heartbeat.”
“Because I refuse insults from un nero?”
“It’s their island, Mum.”
CHAPTER 40
Jack’s had been busy all of Thanksgiving weekend. On Saturday night, Els was frantically doling out drink orders when she spotted Paul Salustrio and a familiar-looking man coming up the drive.
She intercepted them in the court. Salustrio, cigar in hand, flicked his eyes over her.
“You’ve changed,” he said. “Or is that stiff little investment banker still under there somewhere?”
She was wearing a strapless batik sundress and the blue bead necklace.
“I believe you know each other,” Salustrio said, pushing his companion forward.
Franklin Burgess. She’d failed to recognize him because a sunburn had replaced his normal pallor except for patches around his eyes. A raccoon in negative.
“I snagged him right after the Standard Heb debacle,” Salustrio said.
“What do you think, boss,” Burgess said, “can Lady Eleanor, the legendary Fire and Ice Queen, have mellowed a bit?” He stuck out his hand.
She crossed her arms. “Did that deal you stole from me nail your promotion, Foghorn?” she said.
“It would have,” Burgess said. “But Paul hired me away—as a managing director—the minute the shit hit the fan.”
“Are you here because Goldman’s throwing some group grope over at the Resort?” she asked.
“A private cruise,” Burgess said.
“Not on Iguana.”
“Wouldn’t charter anything else,” Salustrio said.
Glass shattered on the patio. Genevra bent over the dropped tray. Pinky bolted from the kitchen, dustpan in hand.
“Without your families at Thanksgiving?” Els asked.
“They’re resting up tonight,” Burgess said. “It’s a hell of a trip to your little paradise here.”
“Keeps out some of the riffraff,” she said.
“I wondered where you’d disappeared to,” Salustrio said, “until I saw that Condé Nast Traveler bit.” He tapped cigar ash onto the gravel.
“We can’t seat you until at least nine o’clock.”
“How continental,” Salustrio said. “We’ll wait in the bar.” He scanned the restaurant. “Who’s the voluptuous vision?”
“My mother.”
Giulietta, in a flowered silk dress with ruffles at its deep V-neck, a glass of red wine in hand, was visiting each table, laughing and speaking her English-Italian mix and telling people what to eat. Salustrio watched Giulietta cock her hip and flirt with a patron.
“So I was right about the red-hot mama,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear her take on Sir Harald, rest his dour soul. Sorry for your loss, by the way.”
“Talk to her about Father at your peril,” she said.
“A little protective of family secrets?” Salustrio said.
“She parts with them harder than I do with my virtue.”
Salustrio’s Diet Coke was watery and Burgess was on his third scotch and they’d consumed a platter of coconut shrimp and two orders of bruschetta. The lounge stank of cigar, Salustrio having challenged the men to sample Els’s supply of top-of-the-line Cubans and Dominicans. Cigar sales alone would make it a decent night.
She finally got the bankers seated, and when she’d reeled off the remaining menu choices, Burgess said, “Some career shift you made, Gordon.” In the year since she’d seen him, he’d put on a stone and switched to contact lenses. The contacts had turned his stare glassy, but the real change was in his air of entitlement, the way he lifted his chin and looked down his nose.
“That strapless number would knock ’em dead back home,” he said.
“It’s a relief not to have to dress for success,” she said.
“And those nifty cashmere sweaters were, no doubt, a large part of your success.” He exchanged a look with Salustrio. “Tell me, is waiting tables an improvement over M&A?” With his voice at its customary blare, he broadcast this question all over the restaurant, causing other patrons to stare.
A burst of laughter rose from the table at the back of the garden. Els imagined they were laughing at her, but it was Giulietta charming them, leaning in to flirt with the host, her bosom brushing his shoulder.
“It beats having my chain jerked night and day,” she said.
“I bet the pay’s fabulous too,” Burgess said. He was sporting a Patek Philippe watch that might have set him back the pub’s annual gross. “Paul’s given me free rein to build my own London team. I could use someone like you. If you haven’t lost your deal edge, that is.” He produced his card with a practiced flourish. “No hissy fits, though, eh, Paul?”
She put the card on her tray. At one time she’d have jumped at a chance to work at Goldman—even under Burgess, even under Salustrio. “My life is here now,” she said.
“Finding yourself any local action?” Salustrio said.
“None of your fucking business.”
“Bet she’s got her pick of refugees from civilization,” Burgess said. He smiled at Salustrio. “The Ice Queen might have to lower her standards. I’ll have the lobster.”
Salustrio ordered spaghetti puttanesca, emphasizing each syllable as he stared at her breasts.
When Giulietta floated down the kitchen stairs, replenished wine glass in hand, Els said, “Mum, stay away from those two guys in the garden pavilion.”
“What is harm?”
“Either of them will turn any morsel of information to his own advantage somehow.”
“I can handle them.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
Giulietta swanned out the door, and Els imagined her making a beeline for Salustrio and Burgess, even agreeing to go sailing with them on Iguana. Salustrio wouldn’t be above making a pass, and she wondered what her mother’s response might be. She threw her tray into the sink, shattering a plate and sending Burgess’s card into a pan of suds.
“That make two plates and six glasses we down tonight,” Eulia said.
“Fuck the dishes. Fuck them all.” Els sat on the steps and rested her forehead on her knees. “I’ve got a restaurant full of assholes.”
Eulia pulled Els into the storeroom and closed the door. “If you can’t handle assholes, we ain’t goin’ have no restaurant,” she said. She’d been more assertive lately, but the vehemence of this statement took Els aback. Eulia pointed her finger at Els’s chest. “Who you tink dat money Jason invested in us come from?”
“Somebody besides Liz.”
“Jack leave me half a’ this house,” Eulia said. “It more money than I would see in two lifetimes. He make Jason exactor to watch over my inheritance. Peanut can go to college—Harvard, even. I axe Jason to buy me into our business. He declare the risk okay.”
The condenser clicked on, making the room hum.
Els stared, agape. Her own inheritance coming full circle. “You could have told me.”
“Jason say mus’ be confidential.” Eulia’s eyes narrowed. “You gotta understan’ you ain’t the only one gotta lot at stake. I ain’t takin’ orders from no Resort boss again.” She opened the door. “But we still got to take shit from them Resort guests. Think whatever you want, as long as you paste on that smile.” She returned to the kitchen.
Els backed against the chilly walk-in door and stared at the bare bulb over her head. Though she was irked at Jason’s secrecy, the flood of relief that his mysterious co-investor had real skin in the game, was a partner in every sense, made her break into an astonished grin, which she wore back into the kitchen and out into the thronged restaurant.
Els hadn’t yet tamed the new espresso machine, and on her first attempt, it spewed coffee slurry all over the bar. She bit back her curses and made a joke with the patrons in the lounge. On her second attempt, she managed to make four decent cups. When she delivered the coffee to patrons in the garden, Giulietta was standing at Salustrio and Burgess’s table, laughing, and all three of them were watching Els. At the same time, she saw Liz jogging up the drive.
She reached the court too late to head him off into the privacy of the sago palms. He kissed her quickly, his two-day-old stubble prickling her lip, but she felt many eyes on them and avoided his embrace. He smelled rank and his T-shirt was streaked with grease. “I expected you by Wednesday night,” she said. “We even made a Yank Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Radar problems,” he said. “I thought I could get the parts in St. Maarten and fly right over, even beat them home, but everything got screwed up by the holiday, and I had to wait for a shipment and take whatever flights I could get as far as St. Kitts. I came straight here from the ferry.”
“And three of your four days home are gone,” she said. “Do I need to give you lessons in how to use the telephone?”
“My making-it-up-to-you list just gets longer and longer.”
“Go get a beer. And something to eat, if there’s anything left.”
“You look done in,” he said.
“Mum had this grand idea of doing an Italian Night,” she said. “It’s been mad here since six o’clock.”
“Mama G seems to be holding up.”
“Belle of the ball.” She tipped her head toward Salustrio’s table. “You might have warned me that he was back, and with that toady Burgess to boot.”
“I just found out myself,” he said. “We had a cancellation and Mr. S jumped on it. Some kind of bonding trip with a new star on his team.”
“They deserve each other.”
“I’d better say hello.” He walked over to their table. When next she looked, he was pulling up a chair.
She climbed up to the lounge with a tray of checks and credit cards, her sandal straps digging at every step. Giulietta was chatting with a couple nursing cognacs, and when she whispered something, the man rocked back in his chair, pointed his cigar at her, and guffawed.
Smoke burned Els’s eyes. Someone, probably Liz, had changed the music to a frantic calypso, and the steel pan music pinged in her throbbing head.
Liz was busy behind the bar, boogying as he poured. He’d showered and was wearing one of Jack’s shirts.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Els said.
“Making sambuca con la mosca,” he said.
“How dare you help yourself to Jack’s shirt?”
“I couldn’t lend a hand wearing something I’d worn 24/7 for two days.”
“Nobody asked you to lend a hand.”
The couple stared.
Liz frowned. “You wear his shirts all the time.”
“He left them to me.”
“He left them, period,” he said. “Okay, so I invaded your privacy again. Didn’t know your goddamn space included Jack’s effects.” He unbuttoned the shirt, tossed it into the big chair, and walked out, letting the screen slam behind him.
She sank onto the ottoman and pulled the shirt onto her lap. The couple looked at one another, finished their cognac, and slipped out the door.
Giulietta rested her hand on Els’s shoulder. “Cara,” she said. “Go catch your sailor.”
Els looked down at her tray.
“Girls can finish this.” Giulietta pulled away the tray and held out her hand for the shirt. “Go, cara. Bad business, sleeping on top of fight.”
Salustrio and Burgess were climbing into a taxi van at the gate. “Hop in,” Salustrio said. “We can all go in hot pursuit.”
“You can go fuck yourselves,” she said, and headed down the hill toward Oualie, the lights of the van casting her shadow far ahead on the empty road.
The harbor was calm, the ensigns hanging limp. She tossed her sandals onto the Maid and cooled her sore feet in the water while she scanned the beach and dock for Liz.
He was sitting at the bar, slouched over his beer. Barrett Cobb said something and Liz shook his head, grabbed the beer, and headed for the dock. She expected him to jump into Iguana’s zodiac, but he walked to the end of the planks and stood there facing the sea. The running lights mounted on the last pilings glinted off his bare shoulders.
The wharf planks were rough under her feet. When she was about ten feet from Liz, she hesitated. He chugged the rest of his beer and turned.
“That wasn’t about the shirt,” she said.
“You think I don’t know that?” He tossed the bottle into the dinghy, where it clanked against the gas tank. “It’s real easy to love a ghost.”
“Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she said.
“Make that two ghosts.”
She’d long realized that her feelings for Jack were a kind of love. Denying it now seemed cowardly, but necessary. “I love one memory,” she said.
While she dreamed of him, Mallo had never appeared to her, taken on form, or made demands like Jack. She wondered how it would be if he did, if she could switch him for Jack, perhaps become a batty old maid, living alone in exile, visited by the specter of her first and truest love.
Liz cupped his hands and shouted toward the moon, “This woman loves the ghost of a guy she’s never even met.”
She imagined the sound waves gliding among the boats and wondered if all men were out to embarrass her publicly this night.
He buried his fists in the pockets of his shorts. “You’ve made Jack more of a legend than he was in real life. Don’t you think you’ve done enough for his immortality?”
“Fuck you.”
“Now you’re talking.” He crossed his arms. There was just enough light for her to see his chipped smile. “Unless you’ve been prowling Sunshine’s, you’ve had quite a dry spell. Or maybe old Jack can service you from the great beyond.”
“He said he’d be game,” she said.
“He said? What are you doing, communing with the spirits of the dead? Never worked for me.” He stepped into the zodiac and kicked the beer bottle into the bow. “Go ahead then, get yourself a little action from the self-proclaimed Lover King of the Caribbean. In case you haven’t heard, he was a little prone to exaggeration.” He started the e
ngine and cast off.
“I’ll let yi know how it goes,” she yelled.
“You think I care?” he yelled back, revving the engine, and skimmed over the sea toward Iguana.
She scrubbed the night’s frustrations away in a long shower and tied a pareo above her breasts. Although it was nearly half midnight, she poured a generous rum and sipped it, staring at her portrait of Jack.
“‘Make use of time, let not advantage slip,’” he said.
She jumped and knocked a vase of agapanthus flowers, but caught it before it toppled off the bar. He was lounging in the big chair, dreamily watching the ceiling fan twirl. Susie glanced in his direction, sniffed, and rolled onto her side.
“‘Beauty within itself should not be wasted: / Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime / Rot and consume themselves in little time.’ Shakespeare,” he said. “‘Venus and Adonis.’ You should take her example.”
“Pursue an unwilling man?” She crossed her arms to hold the pareo closed. “Why court humiliation when it seeks me out?”
“I bet he’s more willing than you think.”
“He’s unwilling enough, and I can’t manage to avoid being a complete bitch.” She looked at him. “It’s all your fault, Jack.” She sipped the rum, the ice cubes resting against her lip. “I should banish you. Become as unreceptive as Eulia.”
He sat up straight. “Eulia has good reason.”
“And I don’t?”
“Only if you decide it’s him or me,” he said.
They looked at each other. The ice in her drink shifted.
“You’re the one who demanded I choose life over ghosts,” she said.
“You know perfectly well I meant your childhood chum, never moi.”
“Our relationship is getting in the way.”
“And what exactly is our relationship?” he said.
“I’ve allowed my house—”
“Our house.”
“My house to be haunted,” she said. “I’ve allowed you into my head.”
The Moon Always Rising Page 27