"Sssh. Joey had a restless night. Didn't get to sleep good 'til nearly four." I shifted painfully. When had my thirty-eight-year-old back started to ache from nights in a recliner?
"Ben, wake up!" Miriam was so close to my right ear I could feel the heat off her red lipstick. "I want to talk to you about Karen. Wake up. She'll be in the kitchen in a few minutes. We ain't got much time."
"Awright, awright." I sat up, curling the recliner upright. "Talk."
"She's good luck, Ben. Teegee knows this psychic over in Daytona Beach. They call her the NASCAR psychic because she's predicted the winner of the Daytona 500 for ten years straight. So me and Lula and Teegee went to see this psychic the other day. And she says your whole aura has changed from dark to light since Karen came. She says Karen's got a lot of murky energy about her but even so it's clear she's a pure-T human rabbit foot of good luck for you. Hell, if we could get Karen into a stock car I bet she'd win a race or two. You awake?"
"Yeah, yeah." I rubbed my eyes.
"Ben, admit it. Karen's not a Saturday night girlfriend. She's a keeper. She's got what it takes to be your best friend and partner in this dog-eatdog-eared ranch business. Since she came here we've had a run of good luck the likes of which nobody can doubt. Do something. Win her with your ways. Wiggle your waggle. You got to keep that gal here. She's good for what ails us. And you."
Miriam was mighty talkative for a middle-aged mermaid who worked the day shift starting at six a.m. "You think I don't want her to stay? The kitchen's never been cleaner. The snakes and lizards all smell like organic lemon soap, and I'm comin' to like seven-grain biscuits with free-range turkey sausage."
"You lying sack of shit. You know it's not about what she does in the kitchen."
Yeah, truth was, Karen coulda smeared dirt on the table and fed me lawn clippings and I'd still love her. The kiss after the mermaid show had been on my mind a lot. On my mind and wrapped in the sweaty palm of my hand, if you know what I'm sayin'. "I know," I admitted to Miriam.
Miriam sighed. "So? You ain't shy. Go about winnin' her over."
"She's different."
CCUy?"
"She's got good taste."
"Since when? She put on a spangled mermaid tail, didn't she?"
"I can't dog her. It ain't right. I'm her boss."
"Who says?"
"Isa " Y•
`Ben, you need to let your harem know about her. Just because you ain't been with `em in a while don't mean they're not expectin' you back.."
"There's nothing to tell `em."
She snorted so loudly Joey opened his eyes. I stood. Miriam followed me as I headed for his bedside. I waved her off with a groggy hand. She prodded me one more time with a fingernail so sharp it hurt. "You better wake up and smell the coffee, hon. Or you gonna have a bunch ofwomen ready to skin you alive and make pocketbooks outta your hide. And Karen'll be at the front of the pack." She stomped out.
Joey stirred. "Benji?" he moaned. "My feet feel full."
Instant worry. I turned the sheets back and stared at his swollen feet. The doc had warned me to look for signs.
The beginning of heart failure.
Like always, I stared out over the St. John's River from the doc's skyscraper view, keeping my eyes occupied. A hot wind kicked up a dust devil against the hot blue sky. Clouds the size ofwhole worlds sailed across that sky.
If you go to the beaches south of St. Augustine, where the Spaniards sailed up it their big warships nearly fifty years ahead of the English at Jainesto,ml, and you stand on a little finger of land called Anastasia Island, just stand there on the edge of the edge of the continent on a summer day, and you watch the sky, you'll see white ghost ships the size of mountains sail in from the eastern horizon, that silver-blue line on the rim of the sky. You'll feel like you're watching souls sail past in Heaven.
After Joey died I'd look up at those beach clouds and pretend he was floating by at the wheel of the biggest ship in God's Armada. I'd think. of Karen's harp music keeping him company. Elvis tunes. And I'd try to find some meaning beyond loneliness. That was what I'd see. Loneliness, grief and faith, right and wrong.
And nothing else.
The doc put a hand on my shoulder. "It's a slow process, Ben. He's still got months ahead of him. We can manage his heart condition with another drug or two, which will keep him comfortable. Take him home, enjoy his company, and make some memories."
A nod was all I could manage.
When I wheeled Joey out of the exam room he was all grins. A dose of diuretics had gotten his feet down to normal. "I'm all better, Benji. Right?"
"Right." I chucked him on the shoulder. "Good as new."
"Let's go get some ice cream! Yea! Now Karen gets to have ice cream with us!"
Karen was in the waiting room with Mac and Lily. Joey insisted she come along so he could treat her to ice cream on the way home.
While Mac and Lily made a fuss over Joey for havin' skinnier feet, Karen gave me a slit-eyed once-over. She knew I was hidin' something. I ignored her and she finally gave up. She smiled at Joey and held out his Star Wars comic book.
He didn't let just anybody take care of his comic books.
Kara
Ice cream is one of the simple joys that sets life aside for a few minutes. Surely there must be some tribal deity, somewhere, who holds waffle cones and double-dip cups aloft in her stony, serpentine arms, wooing the prayerful to forget all earthly woes as they chant softly: Chocolate fudge ripple. With nut sprinkles.
I tried to forget the tired and worried look in B en's eyes at the doctor's office as I meditated on my frozen yogurt. It wasn't easy.
"Hmmm, I like peach milkshakes," Lily sighed. She sipped from an oversized straw and held her large cup in both hands. Mac nodded as he carefully carved tiny divots from his scoop of cherry vanilla.
The three ofus perched awkwardly on heart-backed metal chairs on a pink patio outside the Cold N'Creamy. Across the street, large bulldozers and graders rumbled over a stark sea of sand. The summer sun glared down on the eviscerated landscape.
"What d'ya think of the ice cream parlor's new neighbors?" Ben asked when he pulled into the handicapped space in front of the shops.
"Greedy and despicably short-sighted," I said.
He smiled. Sometimes, my save-the-whales philosophy agreed with his.
Ben wheeled Joey to a restroom inside the ice cream parlor. "Joey has to have help when he goes wee wee or takes a poop," Lily whispered to me, blushing.
I thought of Ben, large and strong and deceptively sardonic, patiently tending to his brother's intimacies among the cramped and antiseptic confines of a public restroom. As I watched Lily and Mac eat their ice cream with childlike enjoyment, I wondered if I could ever take care of them so selflessly.
A sleek, silver Lamborghini whipped into the handicapped space beside Ben's truck. A decidedly non-handicapped blonde stepped out, flashing golden legs that began under safari short-shorts belted with an ornately silvered belt and ended at exquisitely tooled, high-heeled cowboy boots. She was small and muscular, with a gymnast's body. Her perky little breasts paraded, sans bra, in a thin-strapped white camisole. The rest of her was all gleaming arm bangles and wrap-around sunglasses. Not to mention the phone remote riding her ear like a pet leech.
Lily gasped. "Mac, it's that mean rich girl. The one from the auction." She bent her head near mine and whispered, "She made fun of us. And she said Ben had a nice ... behind. Only she didn't say behind." Lily and Mac straightened anxiously.
My warning antennae sprouted like fast-growing bamboo. Ifyou listen to bamboo, you can actually hear its woody joints pop as they expand.
I popped.
The blonde slung a tiny, absurdly jeweled purse from one golden shoulder, then strode our way with her shaded attention on the spa and tanning salon next door. Apparently, her self centered brain had forgotten meeting Mac and Lily. They were, after all, inferior beings not worthy of remembrance. As she sashayed past our tab
le I said loudly but politely, "I'm sorry, you must not have noticed the handicapped markers on that parking space. I'm afraid you'll have to move your vehicle."
The blonde pivoted like a cobra and stared down at us. "My daddy owns everything on both sides of this street for two miles. You just go ahead and call somebody who gives a shit where I park. Oh, and in case anybody asks, fuck you."
Lily, unnerved, fumbled her milkshake. On occasion, Lily's left hand spasmed. On this occasion, it launched her cup sideways. Peach milkshake splattered the blonde's left cowgirl boot. Lily shrieked. "Oh, no. Oh, no. I didn't mean to."
I stood quickly, bringing a handful of paper napkins to the fore. A part of me was mortified at Lily's clumsiness. Even under the best of circumstances I felt threatened around slender, adorable blondes. As a teenager I had hidden in a bathroom at Buckingham Palace rather than risk being seen by Princess Diana. I held out the napkins. "We do apologize. But there's no harm done to your boots. Here you go."
The blonde's mouth drew into a glossy slit over pearly teeth that probably hid small, ventilated fangs. "Keep your spastic idiots away from me."
She turned on her high heels and walked into the salon without a backward glance.
I froze, hand still out, napkins still proffered, however insincerely. A thousand options fought for balance inside my brain. Here was the crux of reality; I wasn't the daughter of brilliant and powerful parents who commanded respect, tolerated no insults and, indeed, had projected such a near-royal air that no one ever so much as thought to call them derogatory names. I was the daughter of two gentle, easily mocked souls who now sat with downcast eyes, hurt and embarrassed.
"I'm sorry I spilled the milkshake," Lily whispered tearfully.
Mac patted her hand. "You d-d-didn't mean to." He looked up at me, or rather, in my direction, shamed and avoiding my eyes. "It's okay, K Karen. We've been called n-names b-before."
I laid the napkins down carefully, wiped my yogurt-dewed hands on my khaki skirt, and picked up the truck keys Ben had left on the table. "Mac?" I said calmly. "Precisely 'where does Ben store that towing chain?"
Ben
I heard Tami Jo Jackson screechin' even through the ice cream parlor's walls. "What in the hell?" I muttered.
"Bad words!" Joey said loudly and giggled. By the time I wheeled him outside Karen had towed the Lamborghini a good hundred feet past the end of the parking lot. Mac unhitched the chain. Tami Jo's car sat in deep, dirty, gray sand. Weeds and construction trash sprouted around its wheels.
Mac coiled my tow chain back in the truck's bed. Lily huddled behind Karen, who stood hipshot in front of Tami Jo with her arms crossed and one all-natural, earth-sandaled foot angled out to the side. Cool as a cucumber. She listened to Tami Jo Jackson spit fire without so much as blinking a blue eye.
Snakes blink more than Karen did.
"Y'all get Joey loaded up," I said to Mac and Lily.
When Tami Jo saw me, she pivoted my way with a vengeance. She called me names, insulted my manhood, insulted my taste in womenmeaning Karen-and said me and Karen were now banned from every J.T. Jackson development in north Florida. And so on and so forth, ending with a jerk of her head toward Mac, Lily and Joey. "And that includes your drooling retards."
At which point, Karen drew back a freckled arm and punched her in the mouth.
Tami Jo bounced off the Lamborghini and sat down in the dirty construction sand. She clutched a hand to her bloody lower lip. I picked Karen up as she drew back an earth sandal to kick Tami Jo in the shins, toted her to the truck, set her scrambling feet on the running board and ordered, "Git. In. Now." And she did, though not without a last glare at Tami Jo.
I drove. Everybody got stone quiet except for wheezy breathing on Joey's part, small moans of worry from Lily, and some delicate puffin' from Karen. I kept checking the rearview mirror for a police car. Towing Daddy Jackson's car was one thing. Towing Tami Jo's car then punching her in the teeth was another. My mind chewed over ways to keep Karen from gettin' arrested for assault. "B-Ben," Mac said gruffly. "W-what if that mean girl c-calls the p-police?"
Lily burst into tears. "I won't let them take Karen to jail."
"I'm not going to jail," Karen assured them urgently, patting hands and shoulders all around.
Joey sighed. "I think I'm givin' up ice cream," he said.
Ben
I punched the sheriff's number and put my phone to one ear. "Elton? Ben."
"Howdy, Ben."
"Glen's not gonna be any help this tune."
"Nope, Ben, I don't `spect so. Let's just hope I don't get a call from the Jacksons. So far, so good."
"I don't want Karen Johnson in jail. If there're charges, you let me know ahead of time. I'll get the bail money together before I bring her i n."
"Ben, considerin' how she sliced the Pollo brothers back in the spring, I'd just as soon not put her in a cell. She might scare the other prisoners."
"Thank you, Elton."
"Ben?"
"Yeah?'
"Leave the towing chain at home from now on."
Kara
I wished Ben would simply yell at me and get it over with. He barely spoke to me that entire evening. Joey, Lily and Mac, convinced that I'd escaped criminal charges since the sheriff hadn't come to arrest me by suppertime, happily regaled the other hands with the story of my theatrics. But Ben just sat there, hardly eating from my platters of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and macaroni with three cheeses-my culinary mea culpa. He looked not only tired and grim, but miserable.
I shoved my fruit salad and shrimp stir- fry around my plate with listless shame. Mother and Dad had preached non-violence, a philosophy with which I had always agreed, and yet since arriving in Florida I had knifed a Pollo brother, attempted to assault Glen Tolbert via horse attack, and now had punched Tami Jo Jackson.
After dinner I sat at the kitchen table jotting down the weekly shopping list, my right hand twinging and aching, covered with small bandages over two knuckles. Ben walked out of his office bedroom. I tensed. He lounged by the kitchen silk with a glass of water in one hand, the thin gray material of his aged jogging pants as intimate on his thighs as ever, a faded Florida Seminoles t-shirt molded to his torso. He came from a Seminole Indian heritage but had no bone to pick with sports mascots.
After some effort at ignoring him, I looked up grimly and said, "Please. Just state your case and be done with it. I was foolish and reckless and could have caused you a great deal of trouble and embarrassment. I ruined Joey's visit to the ice cream salon. I should have battled Tami Jo Jackson with my pithy vocabulary, not a tow chain and a fist. Yes. You're absolutely right. And I apologize. I don't believe in violence except in self-defense, and so, no, I can't justify striking the oh-so-endearing Ms. Tami Jo Jackson, although it would please me greatly to pummel her and everyone with her casually cruel mindset to a bloody pulp and then feed their carcasses to wild boars. However, I believe in the rule of law, and thus..."
He moved so fast I didn't have time to react. He simply leaned down, took my bruised hand, and kissed it lightly. Then he kissed me on the forehead, and then, on the mouth. Once, twice, three times. Lightly. I kissed him back. We heard Miriam's footsteps leaving Joey's room. He straightened. "You fight for what's right. I'm proud to know you. I ain't lettin' you go to jail. Let's just hope Tami Jo forgets the whole thing. But don't you worry."
He headed for Joey's room, leaving me sitting there in a universe of tingling surprise. Miriam sidled into the kitchen. "So," she whispered. "Is he pissed?"
"Hardly," was all I managed to say.
Ben
I talked to Sheriff Arnold the next morning. He was laughing. "Ben, Tami Jo Jackson's got a suspended license. She could get in trouble for admittin' she was anywhere near a car." Just as I was heaving a sigh of relief, he added, "But you better watch your back. Her daddy is hoppin' mad. I think he's out to get you."
"Bring it on," I said.
Big talk.
I hoped he was wrong.
Chapter 16
Kara
"Aw shit," Miriam said, peering out the open front door. "There's Tom D. Dooley talking to Ben. Looks like trouble."
I looked up from my kneeling position next to the living room's aged couch. I held a toilet brush in one hand and the fireplace poker in the other. Lily stood nearby, armed with a broom. We had been attempting to shoo a small raccoon outside. Apparently, he'd slipped in during the night to help himself to Rhubarb's dry food, then gotten cornered and decided to hide beneath the couch.
"Out, out, damned spot!" I saidwith Shakespearean command, then whacked the couch with the poker. The raccoon bolted across the floor's faded Navajo rug and out the front door. Lily gaped at me. "How'd you luiow he's named 'Spot?"'
"A lucky guess."
I tossed my weapons and hurried to the door. Ben stood in the yard, arms crossed, head down, listening to a fervent-looking older man who gestured broadly. We couldn't hear his words, but he was clearly agitated. "Who's Tom Dooley?" I asked Miriam.
"He ova-is the land on the other side of the marsh. Property Ben's always hoping to buy. And it's `Tom D. Dooley.' Call him `Tom D.' He hates it when people sing that old song to him. `Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley.' So he uses his middle initial." She huffed. "Shit. Tom D. holds his cards close to his chest. Don't talk to many folks. He trusts Ben to keep things to himself, or he wouldn't be here talkie' to Ben, either. I'll have trouble gettin' the skinny on this."
"Does Tom D. like sweetened iced tea?"