Authors: Bella Cruise
“Stop!”
I’m pulled from my reverie by Marcie’s ear-splitting
shriek. “What’s wrong?” I panic, wrenching the
wheel.
“Here! Right here!” Marcie points. It’s the
‘Welcome to Pelican Key Cove’ sign, stuck in sand by the
side of the road. “Pull over!”
I do as she says, my heart still racing. “What’s the big
emergency?”
“This will be perfect for B-roll.” Marcie grabs her
phone. “Hey, Nick? Keep an eye for the sign and stop the car.
It’ll be perfect for the sizzle reel.” She leaps out of
the car and begins pacing, making more calls.
OK then.
Soon, the limo pulls over, too. Pixie and Clyde emerge. Clyde’s
got a chilled bottle of sparkling water in one hand and a plate of
fresh fruit in the other.
“That ride is bloody great!” he exclaims, munching a
slice of mango. “Did you know they have a PlayStation hooked
up? I’ve been beating Nick at Grand Theft Auto.”
“Not for long, mate!” Nick calls. “Beginner’s
luck.”
Marcie takes over corralling Pixie and Clyde in front of the sign.
The camera guys set up, shooting footage of them kissing and playing
around.
I smile. Everyone in town’s taken that photo in front of the
sign. The summer before senior year, it was my turn. The whole group
was hanging out: me and Luke, his buddy, Wes, and my best friend,
Jules. The graduating class was holding their annual scavenger hunt,
and we were determined to take the crown. We stole garden gnomes from
the mayor’s house, planted weeds on the fifty-yard line, and
followed the clues all the way out here.
“What does it say?” I’d called, laughing, as Jules
opened the envelope.
“Take a photo with the pelicans,” she read aloud.
“Is that it?” Luke had laughed, his arm slung around my
shoulders.
Jules winked. “Topless.”
Wes hooted. “Aw yeah! Get it off, girls!”
I’d flushed and giggled, but I wasn’t about to back down
from a bet. And neither was Jules. We stripped down to our cut-offs
behind the sign then posed, hands cupping our bare chests, at the
guys hollered for more. Jules always said she destroyed the Polaroid
from that day, but Jules always said a lot of things.
I wonder what she’s doing now. After I left town, I tried my
best to stay in touch: phone calls, and emails, and even letters, but
she drifted out of touch during college. I haven’t heard from
her since. She’s probably miles away by now, off living in a
big city somewhere, big enough to contain her wild personality.
I snap back to reality. The crew looks like they’ll be here a
while, so I pull Marcie aside. “OK if I go on ahead?”
“Sure,” she drags her gaze away from the shoot. “Just
be at the meeting by six. It’s on 3
rd
street—”
“I know where it is.”
“Great. Wait, Pixie, do that again with your arms around him!”
Marcie turns back, striding over.
I get in the car and drive on alone. Without Marcie to overrule me,
I roll the windows down and turn the radio up loud, letting the warm
ocean winds tangle my hair as the road leads me closer to home. I
cross the last bridge and suddenly, I’m here. It’s
strange to see how much things have both changed and stayed the same
in town. The wide Main Street is clustered with faded old stores and
newer tourists joints. There’s the hardware-slash-grocery
sitting next to a new ice-cream parlor, a fancy new coffee shop on
the corner by the library. There’s the church, the trampled
green of the town square. I see the old gazebo and make a mental note
for wedding locations. I’ll have to do a thorough search before
I can really plan this thing. We’ll need a venue for the
service, another for the reception, plus photos and parties. I can’t
imagine the crowd Pixie and Clyde will have coming. As far as I
remember, there’s just the B&B for out-of-towners, or the
motel up the highway. Somehow, I don’t picture the rest of the
Park Avenue Princesses sleeping four to a room on those loose-spring
beds with nothing but a broken ice machine for refreshment.
I keep driving further down the coast. Out of town, I can see more
evidence of development. Some big, shiny beach houses sit along the
shore, and a small complex of townhouses and vacation apartments are
arranged around a pool. The scenery turns rural, until I finally turn
off the highway and down a near-dirt road into the trees.
‘Xanadu’, the sign above the rusted gates reads. My aunts
are both artsy and, well, eccentric is the polite way to put it. They
were just a little older than I am now when my mom died and I arrived
on their doorstep, but they never skipped a beat. They quit their
jobs and moved here so I could have some sense of continuity to my
life. They found this old ranch and gradually fixed it up, adopting a
whole menagerie of animals along the way. Now they live in rustic
bliss, with plenty of space for whatever creative projects strike
their fancy.
I drive on, keeping an eye on the road for stray wildlife. This
time, I just see a couple of llamas munching in the undergrowth –
from that time Bettina decided to start selling their wool –
and some tropical birds circling overhead. I pull around the bend in
the road, and there’s the ranch: peeling paint, a bright purple
shed, and a daisy mural all along the far wall.
Home.
“Watch out!” I hear a cry, and slam on the brakes just
as a squawking bundle of feathers bounds across the road. It’s
a pelican – with a sling?
“Get him!” my aunt Rae calls, racing out of the house.
She’s dressed in a bright yellow kaftan, her hair dyed red.
“We’re trying to fix his wing.”
I climb out, and join the chase. My other aunt, Bettina, circles
around from the left. She’s wearing denim overalls with her
hair up in a bun, banging two saucepans together and trying to scare
the injured bird back towards the house. “A little to the
left!” she calls.
“Try singing!” Rae urges. “He loves that!”
Bettina begins to sing a familiar song.
“What is that?” I ask, dashing to block the pelican’s
escape.
“Freebird!”
“Isn’t that giving him the wrong idea?” I laugh.
She bangs louder. “That’s it! He’s moving!”
Whether it’s the singing or the sight of Bettina doing her
percussion, the pelican decides it’s not worth the fight. He
turns and hops back into the house. Rae slams the door behind him
with a cheer.
“Phew,” she gasps. “I could use a drink. Mai Tai
time?”
“Sign me up, sugar,” Bettina agrees. I’m catching
my breath when they both grab me for a hug.
“Welcome home!”
Inside, everything is the same as I remember: eclectic woven hangings
on the walls, and Rae’s sculpture pottery displayed on every
surface. She’s actually well-respected. There are galleries all
the way up the Keys displaying her weird fusion of ceramics and found
objects.
“Want see my new centaur?” she asks, heading for the
kitchen. “I call him George.”
I wonder for a second if my aunts have started taking in mythological
creatures in addition to emus and injured pelicans, but then Rae
shows me a rather dashing looking terracotta centaur. “I based
his face off Colin Firth and his horse body off Secretariat.”
I laugh. “Physical perfection.”
“A centaur aficionado out of Key West wanted one for his
sculpture garden. I’m also making him a Burt
Reynolds/Seabiscuit as a fountain.”
Bettina joins us and pours some sweet iced tea from the pitcher in
the fridge. “What are you working on?” I ask her. Bettina
is a composer and musician, and keeps her studio out back. “Any
more TV jingles?”
“Just a couple. I’m mainly doing background scores,”
she says. “You know, the ‘duh duh duh’ music for
when the cops catch the bad guys.”
“She’s also working on an opera, composed to the music of
Prince,” Rae pipes up. “It’s really coming along.”
Bettina nods. “I’m on the fifth part already.”
“How many parts are there going to be?” I ask. I should
know better than to be surprised by their latest projects.
“Oh, at least twenty-two,” Bettina says, pouring a
liberal dash of something from a flask into her iced tea. “I’m
taking him through the ‘artist formally-known-as’ years,
through the squiggle era, and back.”
“Sounds… ambitious. I’m sure it’ll be
great.”
We head out to the back porch, and take a seat on the rickety wicker
furniture. I sit back, relaxing after the drive.
“It’s so good to have you home, sweetheart.” Rae
leans over and squeezes my shoulder. “We’ve missed you.”
“It’s good to see you both, too.” I smile at them.
“Coming back here, it’s like nothing even changed.”
“Sure it has,” Rae protests. “Did you see that new
café on the square? People were lining up when it opened.”
“Poor Gil down at the Quick-n-Pick can’t give his coffee
away.”
“Serves him right,” Rae snorts. “Watered down
swill. Give me a non-fat mocha any day.”
I laugh. “And there I was thinking Pelican Key Cove was back in
the dark ages.”
Bettina smiles. “The more things change, the more they stay the
same. Did you hear that Wes Lansing is police chief now?”
“Wes-from-high-school Wes?” I can’t believe it.
“He used to be the one getting in all kinds of trouble!”
“Yep, he turned into quite the pillar of the community. He
married Becky Sheridan and they have two adorable little girls,”
Rae elaborates. “They come by to visit the goats sometime.”
I try to stop myself, but I can’t help it. “What about
Luke?”
My aunts share a not-so-subtle look.
“What? You can tell me,” I promise. “Is he married
now? A congressman?”
“None of the above, but I hear he’s doing just fine,”
Rae says. “We don’t see him in town too much.”
I try to ignore the relief.
My relief is cut short when I feel something slither over my feet. I
yelp. My aunts laugh. “It’s just Lancelot,” Rae
reassures me, as the old snake slithers past. “He’s
excited to see you again. Look at the way he’s sticking out his
tongue. He only does that when he’s happy.” Bettina
strokes the snake’s head as if he were a fuzzy Yorkshire
terrier and not a boa constrictor.
I recover my breathing. I forgot that staying at the ranch means
things crawling, slithering, and waddling through the house at all
hours.
“Do you know how long you’ll be staying?” Rae asks,
looking hopeful.
“I’m not sure.” I take a sip of iced tea and
splutter.
“Whoops, mine.” Bettina switches the glasses with a wink.
I laugh,
“It all depends if they can get the permits to film. Then I
guess they’ll stay in Miami for a few weeks while we pull the
wedding together. I can’t imagine Pixie and Clyde setting up
shop here for long.”
“We’re happy to have you for as long as you can stay,”
Rae says warmly. “Your room is more or less the same. There
might be a few more centaurs than you’re used to,” she
adds.
“Thank you.” I smile, look around, and feel a warm glow.
“It’s good to be home.”
My phone beeps with a text.
“
Where r u??? meeting in 15.”
“It’s Marcie,” I sigh. “I better get going,
before she manages to piss off the whole town.”
Bettina and Rae get up. “Well, we’d best get going!”
“Y’all are coming, too?” I hear myself say y’all
and shake my head. Old habits.
“You know we never miss them, honey. Ooh, Betts, get the Chex
Mix, you just know this one is going to be a show!”
Rae insists on driving, so we all pile into the cab of her ancient
red pickup truck and head over to the Town Hall. The parking lot is
almost full by the time we arrive. I see Marcie up on the front
steps, gesturing furiously as she talks on her cell phone. I don’t
envy whoever’s on the other end of the line, so I slip past
with my aunts before she notices me.
Inside, it looks like half the town has turned out. I’d
forgotten what a tradition these meetings are. Even when we were
teenagers, Luke and Jules and I used to turn up to enjoy the show:
neighbors bickering, crazy new requests, the mayor going off on a
monologue about when he was a boy. Sure, maybe we were starved for
entertainment, but it was always a fun time.
Now I see Pixie and Clyde sitting up front, drawing stares and
whispers. “I’ll see you guys after,” I tell my
aunts, making my way to the front. It seems every few steps, somebody
recognizes me.
“Is that little Ginny? Oh my, you’ve grown ten feet!”
“I never thought I’d see the day! How’s life in the
big city treating you?”
“You must drop by for a slice of pie. Your aunts showed me all
the photos of your weddings, and my niece Brandy’s getting
hitched next June—”
“Great, thanks, it’s nice to see you too!” I manage
to duck away and join the crew in their row. They definitely look out
of place. With Clyde’s leather pants and Pixie’s bright
white romper, they look ready for a fashion shoot, not the general
business of Pelican Key Cove.
“Hi guys.” I slide into a seat beside them. “Where’s
the rest of the team?”
Pixie beams. “Hey Ginny! Isn’t this cute? This whole
town, it’s like something out of a TV show.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Hey, is there, like, a vending machine around here?”
Pixie asks. “My blood sugar’s super low, and you don’t
want to see me when I’m hangry.”
“Hangry?” I echo, confused.
“Sure, like hungry plus angry. I can be a real beast,”
she says, her blue eyes shining sweetly.
I laugh. “I don’t believe that.”
Clyde leans over. “She’s not pulling your leg. One time,
she was trying a new cleanse, and got so angry she shaved my
moustache off in the middle of the night.” He sadly rubs the
place it used to be. “It was getting right full and bushy too.
Real manly.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” she coos, rubbing his arm.
“You know I can’t control myself without calories.”
Pixie gives me a discreet wink, and I have to snort to hide my
laughter. Maybe she’s not so spacey after all.