Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 02 - Riptide Read online

  Harry had been digging for money in the pocket of his khakis. He stopped digging. “Hell, yes.”

  “Was she in your class at school? I was trying to think.”

  Harry pretended that he, too, was trying to think. “Year behind.”

  “I thought it was something like that.” Margene punched numbers into the cash register. “That’s a dollar twenty-nine.”

  Harry paid. He popped the top of his drink and said, “What about her?”

  Margene had gone back to USA Today. “Who? Isabel?”

  “Who else are we talking about?”

  Margene looked up and said, “She was in here today.” She folded her arms.

  Harry blinked, but mastered any further indication of surprise. “Naw,” he said.

  Margene nodded. “She was. Buying groceries. Cereal, milk, bananas—”

  “Are you sure it was her?”

  “Am I sure? I asked her. I said, ‘Isn’t that you, Isabel?’ ”

  “She said yes?”

  “Sure she said yes. It was her.”

  “Did she know you?”

  “No. I was a few years behind you all in school.”

  Harry took a swallow of Coke and bit open the top of his cellophane peanut bag. Once he got it open, he shook out a handful of nuts and tossed them in his mouth. “Humpf,” he said, chewing.

  “She looked different, but I knew.”

  Harry swallowed. Harry had deeply tanned skin and sun-bleached brown curls. He looked like what he was, an outdoorsman gone soft in the stomach. He wore deck shoes without socks, a knit shirt. “How different?”

  Margene raised her eyebrows. “Way too skinny, and white as a ghost. No tan at all.”

  “She never did have a tan.” He took another swallow. “She say where she was staying?”

  “She didn’t say, but she headed off toward the Cape. She was driving Miss Merriam’s old Ford.” Not much got by Margene.

  “No kidding.” Harry stifled a burp. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Yep.” Margene turned another page. “Reckon she’s down here seeing about Miss Merriam. From what I heard, the poor old thing’s in pitiful shape.”

  “Took a bad knock on the head, is what I heard,” Harry said. “Fell or something.”

  “Bless her heart,” Margene said automatically. “But you know, I don’t think Isabel and Miss Merriam ever got along too good, did they? Didn’t Isabel run off with a boy from the air base? Back in high school? You probably remember all that, don’t you, Harry?”

  “That was a long time ago, Margie.” Harry raised a hand in farewell. “I got to go. See you.”

  Harry walked slowly back toward Beach Texaco, feeling the heat from the parking lot warming the soles of his shoes. He finished his drink, tossed the can in the oil drum the station used as a recycling bin, and paid for his gas. When he pulled away from the pumps he sat for a while as if considering something before finally turning right on Cape St. Elmo Road.

  Night hadn’t quite fallen, but it was dark enough for headlights. In a few minutes, Harry was out of town. The smell of salt water filled the truck. On his left were rolling dunes covered with sea oats, and beyond the dunes, waves curled and broke.

  After a few miles, Harry reached the Beachcomber Boatel and Restaurant, a long dock with gas pumps and boat slips attached to a two-story frame building. The roof of the building was ringed with blinking multicolored lights.

  Beyond the Beachcomber, civilization thinned to an uneven row of widely separated cottages on the beach side and woods on the other. Amid the tangle of palmetto, scrub oak, and pine, an occasional magnolia was visible, with pale blossoms luminous in the dusk. Up ahead, the Cape St. Elmo lighthouse flashed rhythmically.

  When Harry reached a nearly obscured track leading off to the right, he pulled onto the shoulder and turned off his engine. Moving over in his seat, he craned out the passenger window. He could barely see the dark bulk of the old Anders place through the cabbage palms bordering the overgrown drive.

  Harry got out of the truck and walked down the drive, the palms overhead rustling in the hot breeze. The big house loomed in front of him. Off to one side, some twenty-five or thirty yards away, sat a small mobile home. Light shone through its curtained windows. An old Ford was pulled up nearby.

  Harry stood with his hands in his back pockets, looking at the trailer. Every now and then a shadow moved behind the curtains. After a while, he returned to his truck and drove away.

  THREE

  The palms woke Isabel at dawn. She sat up straight, listening to the sound that was both alien and dreadfully familiar.

  The palms along the drive. She had forgotten the racket they made in the wind. The rustling was so loud, it almost drowned out the ineffectual churning of the air conditioner.

  Isabel leaned back against the carved oak headboard of Merriam’s bed. The air in the bedroom was tepid and stale. The room was almost filled by the massive bedstead and matching dresser with its tarnished mirror. These two pieces were the only furniture Isabel recognized from the house. The living room suite, rattan with tropical print cushions, must have been included with the trailer.

  Merriam had never told Isabel she had moved out of the house.

  Isabel got up, picking her way around her suitcase. She had not yet figured out how to unpack, since every drawer and closet shelf was jammed with the detritus of the Anders family history. There were starched linen tablecloths, old shotguns, crocheted runners, photo albums, cutwork baby garments.

  In the shower, lukewarm water slid over her body from a nearly corroded showerhead. Headachy and unrefreshed, she pulled on shorts and a shirt and went to the kitchen to make coffee. The dented aluminum coffeepot she had found there could well be the same one she remembered from her childhood.

  Here she was. New York and her life there might as well be on another planet. She had sublet her apartment, said farewell to her friends and good-bye to Zan. She was back at Cape St. Elmo, a place she had hoped never to see again.

  She wasn’t sure why she had changed her mind. Being able to live cheaply was, she recognized, a wan excuse for this major upheaval. She wasn’t convinced she owed Merriam anything, and it was too late in her life to start bowing to convention. Still, she had found herself determined to come.

  Isabel wandered around the tiny, shadowy living room, waiting for the coffee to drip. Although cluttered, and dusty from lack of occupancy, the place had been perfectly clean when she arrived. Knowing Merriam’s ways, Isabel would have expected no less. The magazines were neatly stacked on a shelf under an end table, the standard-issue seascape on the wall hung straight. There was a portable radio but no television set. Merriam had always considered television an unnecessary, possibly even sinful, indulgence.

  Yes, the place was much as Isabel might have imagined, including the shrine in the corner.

  What else could you call it but a shrine? The photograph hanging on the wall, sepia-toned in its heavy frame, was one Isabel remembered well. It depicted a dark-haired man, handsome but running to jowls. He was staring out of the picture, a surprised expression in his bulging dark eyes. The man was John James Anders, Merriam’s father and Isabel’s grandfather.

  Isabel felt Merriam’s fingers digging into her shoulder, anchoring her in front of the portrait. She heard Merriam’s voice: “You know who this is?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Of course Isabel knew. They had been through the catechism before.

  “Who is it, then?”

  “My grandfather.”

  The fingers tightened. “What was his name?”

  “John James Anders.”

  The sainted John James, dead before his time. His photograph had had the place of honor in the front parlor of the big house. Now it dominated this tacky little room. Beneath it, sitting on a tall, spindly-legged flower stand, was a porcelain bottle. The bottle was square, about six inches high, with an airy blue pattern of flowering branches and flying birds on a white background. In the old da
ys, it sat on the mantel under John James’s portrait. Isabel used to dust it very carefully every Saturday.

  The bottle was part of John James’s shrine. Merriam told the story like an incantation.

  “He gave it to me the very day he went away,” Merriam would murmur. Isabel, clutching the feather duster, had watched her warily. It was always best to be still and quiet.

  “I walked with him through the woods to the dock,” Merriam said. “Mama and I begged him not to go. The storm wasn’t even over. I walked with him, and when he was fixing to leave, he pulled this bottle from under his jacket and said, ‘Here’s a play-pretty for you, Merriam.’ Then he took off.”

  John James Anders had taken off in 1922. He never came back. He had left behind failed business schemes, angry creditors, and a shell-shocked family. After his lumber and turpentine businesses were sold to meet his debts, his wife, Polly, daughter, Merriam, and infant son, Johnny, were left with the laughably grandiose house and the few acres of swampland surrounding it. That and a blue-and-white porcelain bottle.

  The coffee must be ready. Isabel walked into the kitchen area, separated from the living room by a waist-high counter. Merriam must have sold the china. The dishes in the cabinet were pink plastic. Isabel poured a cup of coffee and pushed back the curtains on the kitchen window. There, across an expanse of sandspurs, yucca, palmetto, and coarse calf-level grass, was the house.

  The upstairs veranda sagged dangerously and a broad-leaved vine grew out of the tumbled chimney. The columns of the front porch were listing. The downstairs windows were shrouded by curtains, and some had boards nailed across them, as did the front door. The upstairs windows were blank, shaded.

  From an artist’s viewpoint, the colors were muted, subdued: dull gray, dull green, dull brown—except for a spot of red on the front steps. A red metal can sat there, a gasoline container perhaps. The single brilliant blob made the overall spectacle even more depressing. Isabel thought of Merriam standing here, day after day, watching the place fall into ruin while she washed dishes.

  Today, Isabel would go to the hospital. She would see Merriam. The thought made her anxious, as if she were still a girl who could have a switch taken to her legs if she disobeyed.

  She made toast and had another cup of coffee while she ate it with grape jelly. Isabel and Merriam used to eat grape jelly. Isabel never ate grape jelly in New York. She would go to the hospital to see Merriam this afternoon. Tonight, she had been invited to have dinner with E. Clemons Davenant and his sister.

  E. Clemons Davenant, the attorney who had written the letter about Merriam, had been a surprise. Although he wore, as he had in her memory, a blue seersucker suit, he was not the elderly man Isabel remembered, but his son. Clem Davenant— as he had introduced himself when he met her at the airport— was in his forties. He had sandy hair, a sprinkling of freckles on his nose and the backs of his hands, and a somber demeanor. He had arranged for Isabel to stay in Merriam’s mobile home and use her car. He had met Isabel at the airport and driven her to Cape St. Elmo. He had made sure the old Ford would actually start. He had done these generous deeds without a flicker of warmth or welcome. Isabel didn’t think he had smiled once during the couple of hours she had spent in his company.

  Not that there was much to smile about. Merriam was in bad shape. On the trip from the airport to the Cape, Clem Davenant had filled her in: Merriam had been found wandering on the beach, dazed and incoherent. She had had a slight concussion, and her doctor speculated that she had fallen. Although the physical damage was healing, she continued to be agitated and out of touch with reality.

  “She’s being medicated to keep her calm,” Clem had said, his eyes on the road. “I don’t like it much, but they’ve convinced me it’s necessary.”

  It was hot in the car. Isabel’s long-sleeved shirt was much too warm. She unbuttoned the wrists and began to roll up the sleeves. She was finding it hard to concentrate. “Where did she fall?”

  “Somewhere on the beach, I assume.” He glanced over at her. “She used to take a walk in the mornings. Six o’clock or earlier.”

  Yes, Merriam’s morning walk. Isabel remembered her energetic gait, her feet crunching on the crushed oyster shells as she strode up the drive.

  After the meager information had been imparted, the drive wasn’t nearly over. Clem, with punctilious courtesy, seemed determined to make conversation if it killed him. “When did you come to live with Miss Merriam?” he asked.

  “When I was nine, after my parents died. My father was Merriam’s brother, Johnny. He was ten years younger than she was.”

  “Awful shame,” Clem said vaguely.

  He could have been referring to the death of her parents with her hell-raising father drunk at the wheel of the car, the general misery of her years with Merriam at Cape St. Elmo, or Isabel’s running away at the age of sixteen with Airman First Class Ben Raboski of Nutley, New Jersey. In any case, she could only agree. “Yes. A real shame.”

  Silence. She studied his profile: sharp nose, haggard around the eyes. “I’ve been trying to remember you from school,” she said.

  “I was years ahead of you. I was probably already in law school by the time you— left.”

  Isabel suppressed a wry smile and studied her hands. Moths had wheeled in the headlights of the car, splattering on the windshield, as she and Ben Raboski sped away from Cape St. Elmo. They must have been driving eighty-five or ninety, although nobody was chasing them and nobody ever would. “Well, I left in a bit of a rush, and I haven’t been back,” she said.

  He looked surprised that she’d mentioned it. “Whatever happened to… to the man—”

  “To Ben? Last I heard, he and his brother were partners in a Mercedes dealership in Teaneck, New Jersey.” She sat forward as they rounded a curve. The gleaming bay and a curve of white beach came into view. “There it is,” she said softly. An unfocused sensation rushed through her. Yes! There it is! The sand, the water, the dunes. Had she really missed it?

  “Not a great deal has changed, really,” said Clem.

  “No.”

  But of course a lot had, starting with the house, that sad wreck. Clem was already apologizing as they jounced down the drive. “She didn’t have the money to keep it up,” he said. “It was too big for her, there all by herself.” Not for the first time, Isabel sensed his condemnation. Obviously, he didn’t think she had treated Merriam right.

  Whatever his opinions, he had helped her unload her bags, given her keys to the trailer and the car, and, a hospitable Southern gentleman to the finish, invited her to dinner at his home. If he could be believed— and what Southern gentleman ever could be?— his sister Eve was eager to meet her. No Mrs. Davenant had been mentioned.

  Isabel stood up and put her coffee cup in the sink. Today she would go see Merriam, but not yet. She wasn’t ready. It was still too early. She would reorient herself, go for a walk on the beach.

  She put on sandals, stepped out on the concrete block that served as the trailer’s front step, and was engulfed by hot, muggy air. A dirt track led through the weeds to the drive. She walked under the palms up to Cape St. Elmo road, oily ripples of heat rising from its surface. To her right, the black metal frame of the lighthouse rose above the trees. She crossed the road and wandered through the dunes. White sand stretched to pale green water. Far out, pelicans were diving for fish, making mighty splashes.

  She heard singing, a child’s voice:

  He’s got the whole world

  In ’is hands

  Not far away, right at the waterline, a little girl, seven years old perhaps, was twirling a baton. She wore red shorts and a yellow T-shirt. She pranced through her routine, tossing her yellow hair, kicking her bare feet with abandon.

  He’s got the whole wor-hurld

  In ’is hands

  The child was good. She tossed the baton upward and caught it without missing a beat. When she finished, she curtsied deeply to the waves and ran away down the beach toward the
nearest cottages.

  Isabel started to stroll along the beach, but the image of an injured Merriam stumbling beside her was disturbing. After a short while, she turned back.

  ***

  Going to the hospital was not, after all, the ordeal she had expected. Merriam was asleep, motionless, her beaky nose protruding above the curves of the pillow. She looked small, wrinkled, frail. The past fifteen years had aged her considerably, which was only to be expected. “She’s eighty-five years old,” said the doctor standing at Isabel’s elbow. “Remarkable shape, but you don’t come back so easily at that age.”

  Dr. McIntosh didn’t look far from eighty himself. His nose was bulbous, his face deeply lined. A sparse brush of white hair was scattered thinly over his scalp. He had given Isabel vaccinations, treated her when she had strep throat at the age of thirteen. He smelled faintly of cigarettes.

  Isabel wiped her hands on her skirt. She had had an absurdly difficult time deciding what to wear. “What’s the prognosis, exactly?” she asked.

  He shoved his hands in the pockets of his white jacket and studied Merriam’s inert form. “She’s getting better physically, but whether she’ll ever be the same, I don’t know,” he said. “I doubt she’ll be able to live on her own again. She was an accident waiting to happen anyway, out there all by herself. If you’re asking if she’s about to die, well… I’d have to say no. But at her age…” He lifted his shoulders.

  Isabel stared at Merriam’s sunken face. Her lips were slightly parted. Here was Isabel’s oppressor, reduced and subdued. “Merriam, it’s Isabel,” she said.

  “I don’t imagine she’ll wake up. She’s had her medication.”

  “I’ll wait for a while.”

  Sitting in a chair beside the bed, Isabel waited. Merriam did not wake up. She did not even move. When it was time to go to dinner at Clem Davenant’s, Isabel left.

  The Davenant house, just inside the St. Elmo city limits, was red brick, two-story, magnolia-shaded. A rangy, freckled woman with a toothy smile answered the door. She said, “Hi, Isabel. I’m Eve, Clem’s sister. He’s out back getting the coals on.” Isabel followed her through a dim, cool interior to a back patio where Clem, looking buttoned-down despite his cotton slacks and sports shirt, was emptying coals into a barbecue pit. His greeting to her was only slightly less formal than it had been when he met her at the airport, and by the time the coals were lighted and gin and tonics provided, he had fetched his briefcase and was sitting opposite her in a lawn chair, broaching the subject of Merriam’s condition.