Katie caught it in the look on my face. “Something bothering you?”
I waved my hand across the charade. “This might have more to do with their loss—than yours.”
She nodded, then whispered in measured sarcasm, “You ever looked up the definition of the word ‘idol’?”
I shook my head.
She turned her back to the circus. “I did.”
We circled wide of the other boats and disappeared into the mangroves. Katie looked cold and yet it wasn’t. I was learning that her minute facial expressions often said what her mouth did not. Right now, it was asking where we were going. I supposed that trait came with always being in control. I unrolled a map. “Here. I call it ‘the Hammock.’ It’s a cabin… of sorts.”
“You mean you have an actual house with walls and a floor?”
A shrug. “Depends on how you define ‘house.’ ”
A slightly raised eyebrow mixed with an even slighter tilt of the head.
“Several years ago, I was fishing on a full moon. Snook everywhere. Heard a plane sputtering above me. Saw it go down. Trailing flames. The next morning, I found it several miles away on an island deep in the Glades. Both wings broken off. Nose stuck in the ground. No pilot. Just a lot of white powder in clear plastic bags. I didn’t care much about the plane or the drugs but the island was another matter. Just two or three acres in size, it was nothing but a huge piece of limestone sticking up through the muck of the wiregrass. Surrounded by trees, hidden both from the sides and the air. I found several old Indian mounds, old pottery shards, a few broken arrowheads. I found a clear spring bubbling up in a little pool and some high ground. So, I began hauling in wood and other things as they drifted up onshore around the Gone Fiction or as I bought them in town. Over the years, it’s become my winter getaway.”
“Why winter?”
“ ’Cause,” I laughed, “I have a limited supply of blood.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mosquitoes.”
A few hours later, the water grew shallow. I raised the jack plate, lifting the engine completely out of the water, stepped out, grabbed the bowline, picked my way through the tree branches, and pulled Jody up a small creek that only flowed during high tide. I walked maybe an eighth of a mile as the limbs closed behind us.
She said, “So, is there a story to how you found this?”
“I stumbled upon it while looking for a place to stash the airboat.”
“You have another boat?”
I pointed at the airboat sitting to her right.
My airboat is ten feet long and six and a half feet wide powered by a two-hundred-and-forty-horsepower Lycoming four-cylinder airplane engine with a seventy-inch propeller. I call it Evinrude after that character in the Disney movie The Rescuers. It’ll do sixty miles per hour but it gets pretty squirrelly after that, as you lose the ability to steer at high speed. Maybe life is the same way. An airboat is little more than a fancy johnboat with a four-foot lip angling up off the front that hovers over the grass. The bottom, or hull, is covered in a half-inch sheet of stainless steel, which is tough, glides over most anything—including asphalt—and comes in handy in the dry season.
I stowed Jody, and sparked Evinrude to life. Minutes later, we emerged out of the trees and began skimming across the tips of the grass at forty and fifty miles an hour. Airboats don’t turn as much as they slide. Or glide. She sat in front of me. Her hands were white-knuckled around the base of her seat. I slowed, tapped her fingers, and mouthed the words, “Let go.” She did, although uncomfortably. As the miles passed and her comfort grew, her arms relaxed. Eventually, she sat up straight, and let the wind pull at her hair. For a second, she closed her eyes. Deep in the mangroves, she spoke over her shoulder. I slowed, cut the engine. Her eyes were wide. “The roots—they tangle with each other. It’s as if they make their own floor. Each holding each.” She looked around. “They need each other.”
From the Ten Thousand Islands we moved into the wiregrass of the Glades. At the sight of the first alligator she pulled her feet up beneath her, tucking her heels beneath her bottom, but after the hundredth, she let them back down. Seeing her enjoy the ride, I took the long way. Winding in and out, around. I sat behind her, watching layers disappear, peeled off by the wind. I would not describe her as happy, but it was the furthest I’d seen her from unhappy since we’d met.
Toward sunset, I slowed. Cut the engine. A crimson sun setting on the treetops. Seagulls filling the air and the background with noise. A few sandhill cranes perched in treetops. A single osprey floating high in the distance. I whispered, “Steady says riding in this boat is like walking on water.”
The sun dropped. She nodded, whispered to herself, “He would know.”
We reached the Hammock late in the afternoon. I tied off the airboat and she stepped onto the dock. Her eyes followed the walkway. Cabin. Screened porch. Wood-burning stove. Half a plane. Red hand pump indicating a freshwater well. Her eyes scanned the trees around her. “Where’d all the fruit trees come from?”
Around us stood a dozen or more orange, grapefruit, tangerine, and kumquat trees. I shrugged. “Indians, I think.”
She peeled a tangerine. Juice dripped off her chin. “Sweet.”
I grabbed a bar of soap and an unused razor. “Come on.” I led her through the woods. She followed closely yet didn’t cling.
Beneath a sprawling live oak, she tapped my shoulder and pointed at a single orchid hanging at eye level. Her own private discovery. I asked, “You like?”
She nodded.
I pointed up.
Scattered high up in the tree were fifty or sixty orchids.
She inhaled, smiling. Eyes wide. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I planted them.”
It was one of the first things I’d said that got her attention. “Really?”
“They like this environment, so whenever I’m in Miami, I stop at one of those roadside vendors, buy a couple and then plant them up there. Most of them make it. Some don’t but I think that has more to do with the vendor.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“No. If you climb up there, you’ll see the tags are still tied around the base to remind me what kind they are.”
Moments later, we were twenty feet up in the tree reading the tags. One lay flat across her hand. “You weren’t kidding.”
I shrugged.
“You get more interesting the more time I spend with you.”
I pushed away a branch, peeling back the canopy. “This is one of my favorite views.” We could see for thirty or forty miles. All the way to the gulf.
She didn’t say a word. Which said a lot. I pointed across her field of view. “Your boat blew up out that way.”
She half smiled. “You mean you blew it up out that way.”
“Yes, I did that.”
After a few moments, she whispered, “How far from here to the nearest road?”
“Dirt or asphalt?”
“Whatever.”
I pointed. “There’s a dirt road about twenty miles that way.”
“Talk about being in the middle of nowhere.”
“I suppose we show up on some military satellite but they’d have to be looking.” I smiled. She smirked and appreciated the image. “And if you want to find a dead person, you look in a cemetery.”
We climbed down and I led her to the spring, where I stepped into the God-carved limestone bathtub big enough for ten people. A few leaves floated on top of the water. It was clear, about four feet deep, and a shelf rose on one side serving as a seat. She stepped in and we soaked in the lukewarm water for over an hour as I told her about the island, how I’d built the cabin and how I dumped all the cocaine in the water.
She tried not to smile. “Tell the truth—you didn’t sample just a little for yourself? Maybe stash some for a rainy day? It was probably the best of the best, straight from Colombia.”
“No. Never did.”
She waved her hand through the water. “Ever done any drugs?”
“No, although I still enjoy a good gin and tonic.”
“Hmmm…” She smiled knowingly. “Liquid courage.”
Once my fingers and toes were pruney, I stood, left the soap and razor and pointed toward the cabin. “I’m going to fix some dinner. Take your time. Nobody’s watching.” I turned, then turned back, waving my hand across the backdrop of trees. “Biologists estimate there are over a hundred and fifty thousand Burmese pythons in the Glades, slithering this way and that. Most are the offspring of escapees from aquariums after hurricanes flooded the pet shops. Some were released when they grew too big for the family aquarium. Just, FYI.”
“What do I do if I see one?”
“Run real fast.”
When I left, she had backed away from the edge and was slowly scanning the rim of the spring.
She returned a while later, smelling of Irish Spring, her legs shiny. Proud that she didn’t get eaten by a snake. She set the soap down on the side of the sink, then nudged it closer. Watching me out of the corner of her eye.
I looked up from the pasta sauce I was turning. “That bad, huh?”
She nodded. “ ‘Ripe’ would be a better word.”
“Sorry.”
After dinner, I returned from bathing and found her standing alongside the twin bed she was to sleep in, rubbing the sheet along the side of her face. I poked my head in. “Everything okay?”
She held the sheet in both hands and nodded.
Her face did not convince me. “You sure?”
She said nothing.
“I have other sheets if you like.” I started digging through the closet. Some were mildewed. A few had been nibbled on by moths. Mice droppings covered those on top. “Maybe a different color.”
“No, really, these are fine.”
“Then why are you looking at them like they have cooties?”
She almost smiled. “When I traveled, on location, shooting a movie… my contract stipulated that I would not sleep in a bed with less than seven-hundred-count Egyptian cotton. That the mattress was a king-size Tempur-Pedic Rhapsody complete with seven pillows, each of a certain make and size, and that my room temperature would be held constant at sixty-eight degrees. Not sixty-seven. Not sixty-nine. Bottled water from Italy. Champagne from France. Bagels from New York. Salmon flown in fresh. Lobster. Caviar.” She shook her head. “Do you know how heavy that mattress is? I once had it flown into the deserts of North Africa and then the top of the Alps just so I could get some sleep.”
“Did you?”
A quick shake. “No.”
“I realize this is getting toward personal, but how much did you make for your last movie?”
“Twenty-five million.”
I’m no expert on actors but somewhere I read that screen actors must relearn how to make facial movements because the camera picks up every little thing. The good ones learn how to say volumes with barely a twitch. In contrast, stage actors must make dramatic movements—almost overacting—so as to be seen by folks in the cheap seats. Katie gave away only what she wanted. Every movement, every breath, every thought, was thought out before it was acted upon or carried out. Acting was in her DNA. She’d have made a good poker player. “Lot of money.”
“It’s out of order.”
“How so?”
“I have a—” She tilted her head to one side. “I had a townhouse in New York. Upper West Side. Central Park out the window. I used to stand on the back balcony and watch the street below. Waiting on the guys picking up the trash. They could empty every can on the street in less than eight minutes. Lot of trash, too. I used to wonder what would happen if they didn’t come around. Then one day, they didn’t. Went on strike. Piles spilled out into the street. Flies. Maggots. The smell. I, or rather somebody that worked for me, checked into what they made. Their salary.” She paused. “Thirty-six thousand. Thirty-six thousand lousy dollars a year to pick up filth unknown.” She stared out her cabin window. “I made that in less than one minute on my last film. Just for standing there and looking pretty. But if he doesn’t pick up the trash, stuff stacks up. Stinks. Disease. Not a pretty picture. If I don’t come to your movie theater, what’s lost? Nothing. Seems out of whack. Out of order.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I watched that street for almost a year. Same guy. Every Tuesday. Clockwork. He liked to sing while he worked. No teeth but great voice. I walked out one morning. Sunglasses. Scarf. So he wouldn’t know me. Handed him an envelope with forty thousand cash.” She teared up. Looked away. “When I got back to the balcony he was dancing in the street, singing at the top of his lungs.” She shook her head. “Twenty million didn’t make me as happy as forty thousand did that man.”
I shrugged, pointed. “Those sheets you’re holding, started at about fifty-count polyester but with seven or eight years of wear and tear, they’re probably down to twenty-five threads per inch. Which is a bonus when it gets warm ’cause you get better ventilation.”
She made her bed and said little else.
An hour or so later, I was reading on the porch when she appeared around the corner. She asked, “Do you have any scissors? Like, for cutting hair.” I reached in a drawer and offered them to her. “Thank you.” Two hours later she reappeared.
With short hair.
As in not a hair on her head was longer than a few inches. It looked perfect. The only problem with it was that it highlighted the burn around her neck.
“You did that?”
She leaned against the door frame. “When I was first starting out, I knew exactly how I wanted my hair to look—”
“How?”
“The Sound of Music meets Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” A pause. “So… I worked at it. Once I figured out how to use two mirrors, it got easier.”
I hadn’t had a formal haircut since I started living on the water. When it needs cutting, as in grown down past my shoulders, I simply cut the end. All of it. At once. And I shave every few weeks, whether I need it or not.
I looked at myself in the mirror. Sun-bleached hair past my shoulders. Split ends. Several days’ stubble. Unrecognizable. Perfect.
She swept up her hair and walked out, carrying it in a makeshift dustpan made from a piece of paper. She held it aloft. Chest high. “A busboy in Germany once stole my underwear and sold them online for nine thousand dollars. If you bagged this up you could sell it on eBay. Probably buy another boat.”
“Thanks. Three is plenty.”
She turned, spoke over her shoulder. “In my experience, men with hair long enough to be in a ponytail aren’t all that trustworthy.”
I nodded. “Good policy.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Around midnight, she blew out her gas lamp and shut her door. Saying not a word. I sat up, a notebook on my lap, listening to the alligators bellow us to sleep.
The next morning, she woke to find me sitting where she’d left me. She saw my mug. I pointed. “It’s on the stove. A little old, but old and strong is better than none at all.”
She rubbed her eyes and lifted a mug hanging on a nail. She milled around me as the caffeine hit her veins. Always a safe distance. Moments passed. I noticed she was standing on her toes. More fidgety than usual. After a few sips, she set down her mug. “Okay, I don’t think I can hold it any longer.” She proffered with one hand.
“Oh, sorry. Follow me.”
I walked out back, fifty yards through the trees to the outhouse. I opened the door and showed her the roll of toilet paper hanging on a nail. She eyed it, weighed going versus holding it indefinitely, then slowly stepped inside and shut the door.
I got about ten steps away when the door cracked and she said, “Sunday?”
It was the first time she’d called me by that name. “Yes?”
She stepped outside, spoke through terse lips, and pointed. “A roach.”
I nodded. “Yes.” I opened the door. Wider. Showering the walls
in light. Fifteen roaches crawled up the back wall. A few scurried along the wooden floor. One poked its head up over the toilet seat. She gritted her teeth. “Is there any other option?”
“Sure. Anywhere on the island, but if you want a seat…” I pointed.
She eyed the white seat, glanced at the crawling wall and the two tentacles fluttering like windshield wipers along the rim, pulled the paper roll from the nail, and disappeared down the trail toward the back of the island.
When she returned, she sat at the far end of the porch, finished her coffee then returned from her bunk with my shears in one hand and a towel over her shoulder. She stood behind her chair, turning the chair slightly toward me. She cleared her throat. I set down my pen. She said, “It’s not often that I offer to do anything for anyone else. I’m used to being served. Not serving. It’s not in my nature.” She patted the chair.
I shook my head. “I’m good. Really.”
She shaded her eyes against a growing sun. “You open for another opinion?”
I tapped the pen on my journal. “Thanks, but—”
She set down the shears. “What are you doing when you write in that book?”
“Record the tides. What we caught. Water temp. What’s biting. Bait choice. Wind direction. Barometric pressure. I look back on it year to year.”
“But we didn’t fish yesterday.”
“I record that, too.”
“Can I see?”
I offered the journal. “You don’t trust me?”
She glanced at the first page. “Your handwriting is the fanciest and neatest I’ve ever seen in a man and better than most women I know. Like John Adams or Thomas Jefferson.”
“I’ve practiced some.”
“I’ll say.” She returned the journal without reading it. I was learning that she liked to lob atomic-bomb questions to catch me off guard. To judge my immediate reaction. Her next question was one of those. “Can I trust you?”
“You can trust that what I tell you is truthful.”