by Boo Walker
Claire stopped when she reached a first-edition, signed copy of Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters by Whitaker Grant. The cover featured a man staring at a palm tree that had been snapped in half in a hurricane. She opened the book to the inscription.
To David. I hope you pick up your pen again. The finest words always come after breaking through the barriers. ~Whitaker
Though he hadn’t written anything in years, Whitaker was a local celebrity. After they’d turned his award-winning book into a movie, it would have been difficult to find anyone in Florida who didn’t have his or her own strong opinions of whether or not the movie had done justice to his miraculous piece of fiction.
Eschewing anything too popular, David had been one of the holdouts and showed no interest in reading it until Fate played her part. A couple of years after the release of Napalm Trees and Turquoise Waters, Whitaker had begun showing up at her café to write his second novel. Claire hadn’t wanted to bother him but had loved his book and couldn’t help but approach him to say thanks. As they’d talked, she’d admitted her frustration with her husband, who had not yet read the book. She’d joked that David must be the only one along the Gulf who hadn’t. The next time he came in, Whitaker had given Claire an inscribed copy to pass along.
The hardhead he was, David hadn’t picked up the book for a few more years but finally gave it a chance. He’d finished it one night while they were lying in bed together, and he’d rolled over and said, “I can’t believe you didn’t make me read this book! Life changing, really.”
“I know!”
“Makes me want to write again, Claire.”
“You should.”
A month later, she’d heard him muttering in his office, a sound that drove her crazy at the time, but now it was all she wanted to hear. If only she’d recorded him so that she could replay it while lying in bed on the sleepless nights.
Claire smiled sadly at the memory and set the book aside. The little bungalow she’d just bought on Pass-a-Grille didn’t have room for all of David’s books, but she’d certainly find a spot for this keepsake.
After filling and taping up a few more boxes, she turned back to the desk. It was time to face the music. Claire approached David’s ergonomic chair and sat down. His muttering grew louder in her heart. She touched the dark wood of the desk and again felt his presence.
A sound nearly knocked her out of the chair. A cuckoo bird poked its head out of the clock on the wall to signify with a loud chirp that noon had arrived. Another memory fired, and she could see David’s giant grin as he’d unwrapped his Valentine’s Day gift one year to find this absurd clock. The chirp reminded her that she needed to get back to her café to close. She was a manager short.
With gnawing trepidation, Claire rifled through his drawers. When she pulled open the bottom one, she found the composition books resting next to a collection of pencils held together with a rubber band. Her heart kicked at her chest. She’d asked many times if he’d let her read what he was writing, but he’d stood firmly against it. “Only once I’m finished,” he’d said. “Promise me.”
Though she did make the promise, she’d constantly teased him, sneaking into his office and peeking over his shoulder while he was distracted by his craft. It became a game of sorts and always ended with David twisting his head, dropping his chin, and lowering his reading glasses to the tip of his nose, then looking at her with eyes the color of graham crackers, gently reminding her of the promise.
Surely, that promise didn’t hold up in death.
Or did it? What would he have wanted? For her to toss the pages away unread? He’d want her to enjoy his last words, no matter what they might be.
Unsure of how to proceed, Claire hesitantly reached down and shuffled through the stack. There were three composition books, parts one through three of the third draft. She chose Saving Orlando #1—3rd Draft, which was written on the line in the white space in the middle of the cover. With her heart racing, she opened to the first page. She wondered what the title meant, what David knew about Orlando, why he would write about it.
Being an architect and a lover of design, David had handwriting that would be better termed as calligraphy and would rival John Hancock’s finest letters. In his tight black script, it read:
Claire, you’re busted! I knew you’d try to read it. Seriously, you made a promise to me. It’s not ready.
A brief relief from the sadness graced her, thinking of all the times she’d teased him with her clumsily covert attempts to read a line, and the way he snapped his composition book shut and explained that he didn’t have much more to go.
She fingered the letters, felt the indentations in the page. David’s hands had been here. His heart had been here. She bit her bottom lip and held back a cry. “What am I supposed to do now, baby?” she asked silently. “There’s no way I’m not reading it.”
Firm on her decision, she turned the page and read the first line:
The boy first came to me in a dream, a bolt striking from the sky.
Not the typical entry into a whodunit. Claire kept reading. Though there were still corrections and erased passages, the sentences were easy to follow. As her eyes bounced from word to word, beautiful images appeared in her mind. She flew through the first chapter and, at once, felt sad that David wasn’t here but also glad that he had left this treasure. David had written something far from a mystery, taking a piece of his soul and putting it onto the page.
He wasn’t writing about the city of Orlando. Set in modern-day Sarasota, the story began with a single man in his late thirties named Kevin catching an eleven-year-old boy breaking into his car. The boy’s name was Orlando.
How had David never mentioned this story? She was desperate to keep reading, desperate to find out what happened. But she had to get back to the café, the only stable piece of her life. If she let that slip, she was sure she’d lose her last, white-knuckled grip on life.
Chapter 2
UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS
As she crossed from Tampa Bay to the Gulf along the southern end of St. Pete, “96 Degrees in the Shade” by Third World easing through the speakers of her open-topped convertible, Claire stewed over the contents of David’s book. What was she about to read?
At a stoplight, she dug into her purse and found the pack of American Spirit cigarettes hidden in the secret pocket. Setting them in the cup holder, she wrapped a scarf around her hair, the first step in hiding the cigarette smell from everyone in her life, especially her employees. She slipped on the windbreaker she kept for such occasions, zipped it up, and then pulled a latex glove over her hand.
Once Claire was moving again, her hair blowing in the salty breeze, she lit up. Smoke filled her lungs, a sweet taste amid the bitter. Today was one of those days when she could easily justify this nasty new habit of hers.
As she puffed away, she caught herself thinking of the overall unfairness of being human. Sometimes, all you wanted was a good cry, but life rarely gave you the space. Claire should have been able to go home and lie in bed all day reading David’s book, curled up with an arm around a pillow as if he were still there—as if he were that pillow. There were still tears that needed purging.
That was not how life worked, though. Not only did she need to finish cleaning out his office (and read his novel), but she needed to keep her café running. Wasn’t it funny and painful at the same time that in addition to the struggles of life—death, sickness, even simple house chores, the never-ending lack of time—you still had to keep up a day job to survive? Not that her café was just a day job. It was her dream, but sometimes she wished she could push the “Pause” button on it for a few days. As the owner, she couldn’t be gone for long or the whole place would fall apart. That was life. We had to put on our best happy face, close the door on all the troubles that do their best to pull us down, and somehow pretend that everything was all right. One big Bob Marley song.
Claire loved her occupation and probably would have been bored oth
erwise. In fact, on the right day, she’d admit to herself that she had a nearly unhealthy obsession with the café she’d opened almost a decade before. What saddened Claire today, and all these days, was that she knew she wasn’t some strange exception. Her life wasn’t any more painful than the next. No, not everyone had lost a husband or a spouse, but the planet was a jumble of struggling people fighting to keep the roof from falling down on their heads.
Maybe there was some comfort in knowing and remembering that everyone suffered. At least, she thought, amid all the pain, everyone was in it together. Whether you lived in Boulder, Santa Barbara, Santa Fe, heck, even Bangkok, or, in this case, St. Pete, life dealt you blows that sometimes made it hard to get out of bed.
Taking a last puff and dropping her cigarette butt into a nearly empty bottle of water, she drove the Pinellas Bayway over the bridge leading to Pass-a-Grille, a beach town that, for most of the last ten thousand years, had been a Native American fishing village. Compared to its northerly neighbors closer to Clearwater, Pass-a-Grille was sleepy and tranquil, just the way Claire liked it. And just the way she remembered it from when she first came to visit her grandmother here as a teenager. She removed the scarf and glove and crammed them into the glove compartment. After taking off the windbreaker, she stuffed it under the seat. Then, with a deep breath of salt air, she soaked in the view. Surely she could find some energy and healing in the divinity of the Gulf.
Ahead, the grand Don CeSar hotel, the big pink palace that defined the landscape and had served as a beach stay for such legends as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Franklin Roosevelt, stood proud and tall against the backdrop of the various shades of blue water. Like a warm breeze, the beach atmosphere brought Claire a tiny serving of peace.
Swinging a hard left, Claire drove along the beach, passing between the giant palm trees that lined the main thoroughfare. Pass-a-Grille was a peninsula, a tiny piece of land with the Gulf waters on one side and the channel on the other. A decent golfer could knock a ball from the sand over into the channel on the other side from even the widest stretch.
Claire stopped along the channel a block short of her café to perform her typical regimen after sneaking a cigarette. A pelican was sunbathing with open wings on an old wooden post jutting out of the glittery water. No one other than a couple of widows at her meetings knew Claire smoked, and she was intent on keeping it that way. After rubbing her hands together with the organic hand sanitizer made of lavender essential oils, she sprayed two pumps of natural mint freshener into her mouth and then popped in a piece of Spry peppermint gum.
She flipped down the visor and looked at herself in the mirror. Retiring her contact lenses, the oversize designer glasses were part of her new identity, the one she’d adopted upon leaving Chicago in her twenties. A new look for a new Claire. She touched up her shiny lip gloss and dusted her cheeks to give some more color to her sun-kissed skin.
Named in honor of her father’s old diner in Chicago, which she’d helped run until he’d died in her midtwenties, Leo’s South was tucked into a small lot on the channel side of the peninsula. After parking in the owner’s spot, she looked out over the water, out to the stunning houses on Tierra Verde with their long wooden docks boasting gazebos and beautiful yachts at the end. That kind of beauty made her believe she might see David again, even if that meant they both came back as seabirds in the next life.
Ever since opening nearly a decade ago, Leo’s South had been an institution. In the wake of their inability to have children, this café had become Claire’s baby, and she wished her father could have seen it come to life. She wasn’t solving the world’s problems, but she was adding a little light to this already colorful blip on the map. Novelists had penned fine books here. Artists had sold their first works. Eckerd College students had collected their first paychecks. Business deals had been hashed out over avocado toast and huevos rancheros. Countless families had connected for their first meal after arriving for their weeklong beach retreat. No, she wasn’t curing cancer, but she’d created a place that was as much a part of Pass-a-Grille as the dolphins, the seahorses, the stingrays, and even the sand upon which it was built.
David had helped design the building. Though his expertise had been in designing modern condominiums and office buildings for the budding downtown of St. Pete, she wanted beach-town simplicity. Where he was worried about hurricanes and would have designed some sort of Category Five hurricane-proof structure ready to handle anything from weather events to nuclear disaster, she wanted something light and airy with barely any structure at all, a posh tiki hut with sand on the floor.
Her lenses lightened as Claire started into the café. The ping of silverware hitting plates and the laughter of the happy guests met her ears in a glorious symphony. Her father would be so proud of her. Leo had taught her everything, most of all the importance of simplicity. The same one-page menu, along with a fresh catch of the day, was served from seven to two, every day but Mondays, and they were all out the door by three. Keep it simple. Keep it amazing.
She was happy to hear Jimmy Cliff singing through the speakers. Some of the servers had been changing the music when Claire left, and she didn’t particularly share their taste. Leo’s South had a laid-back air, and the music needed to fit the ambience. She played mostly reggae, though she allowed some old-school soul from time to time.
Her café was an extension of her own style: colorful boho chic. The floor was white, powdery sand, and on one wall hung a NO SHOES ALLOWED sign, which Claire had assured the inspector from the health department was a joke. Potted tropical plants filled every available space. One of her favorite ideas to date, an Oriental rug stretched out over the sand, enhanced by an overhead crystal chandelier. The driftwood tables on the rug offered the best seats in the house.
“How we doing?” Claire asked the teenage hostess, who was three days into the first job of her life.
“It hasn’t slowed down once,” she said, wide eyed and short of breath.
Claire flashed a smile. “’Tis the season.” February was the height of snowbird season and was typically one of their best two months.
She walked behind the bar, waved at Chef Jackson frying eggs on the stove and Paulie pulling a tray of biscuits out of the oven. She said hello to Jevaun from Jamaica, who was mixing up a line of screwdrivers, the aroma of fresh Florida citrus rising brightly into the air. His long dreads were tied up and wrapped in a net.
In a heavy accent, he said, “That Jimmy Cliff sounds good, yeah?”
Claire had thought she was a reggae aficionado until she’d hired Jevaun. “It’s definitely brightening up my day. What’s new with you?”
“Oh, just the birds and bees, my dear. Mi life irie.” She knew he was working two jobs to pay alimony for a wife who’d run out on him and child support for twin boys he never got to see. But Jevaun still found a way to smile.
“That makes me happy.” She stole an orange wedge. “I’m gonna go make the rounds.”
He looked at the next drink ticket in line, fully devoted to doing his part well. “Do yu ting.”
Claire glanced back at the kitchen and then bounced her eyes around the room at the servers running around trying to keep the guests happy. She would never have made it through losing David without everyone at the restaurant. This was her family.
Coming out from behind the bar, Claire dodged one of her servers, Alicia, who was ushering a tray of food. Claire glanced at the omelet on one of the plates, a mixture of duck and chicken eggs from a tiny farm in Palmetto, topped with fresh mint and dill from the large herb garden surrounding the perimeter of the patio out back. The plating was just as she wanted it.
Claire visited with each table, staying a little longer with the guests she knew. When she stepped outside to the crowded patio, a friend waved at her from a two-top in the corner next to one of the long, raised garden beds spilling over with herbs.
Didi, an older woman from her widows’ support group, was seated across from a much y
ounger man.
“You’re very sweet to come today,” Claire said, straightening her glasses.
Didi looked stylish in her St. John dress, and her dark hair was pulled back, exposing stunning emerald earrings. Admiring her friend’s clear skin and elegant smile, Claire could only hope she’d age so well. Didi set down her fork.
“Darling, I don’t need an excuse to come eat at my favorite restaurant.” Didi’s dialect stemmed from sixty-plus years living within close proximity to Central Park—a lady who’d enjoyed countless performances in her box seat in Carnegie Hall and who’d sent her children to the same private school she’d attended so many years before.
Claire had met Didi at one of the group meetings, and Didi had become her mentor. Along with Claire’s desire to age as gracefully as Didi, she hoped she might one day recover as triumphantly. Not that Claire wanted to start dating again—she wasn’t there yet—but she at least wanted to get her life back.
Didi gestured toward her table guest. “Claire, meet Andrés. He’s just moved here from Barcelona and is doing some sort of tech-start-up venture.”
Claire turned toward Andrés and took his hand. “Hi.”
“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, señora,” he said in a heavy Catalonian dialect and then confidently drew her hand up to his lips for a kiss. Admiring his arresting eyes and thick waves of brown hair tucked behind his ears, Claire almost broke into a laugh. The man looked like he belonged in a magazine ad for an expensive watch. Didi had outdone herself yet again. Her dark-skinned lover wore a crisp white shirt with three buttons undone, exposing a bare, perhaps waxed chest.
Claire was about to look at Didi with a dropped jaw when Andrés said, “Didi says very nice things about you.” Things sounded more like sings, but Claire could follow him.