Happiness Key (31 page)

She felt sick as she reached over and touched the pile. It seemed to recoil under her hand, and she moved back.

“What happened?” She turned to Olivia and moved her hand to the girl’s shoulder. “Is that the pineapple tablecloth?”

Olivia spoke in a low voice. “Daddy found it behind the house sitting on the trash can when he came home this afternoon.”

“He
found
it? Just like this?”

“When we got home Nana looked all over for it, and she got more and more upset. I didn’t know what to do. She was digging through drawers, taking boxes out of the closet. Daddy brought it in and showed it to her. He said before he left this morning she was upset because she realized she had made a mistake at the beginning. He told her it didn’t matter, that nobody would ever notice, but she got more and more upset. He thought she would calm down….”

Tracy gazed around the room, because she was afraid to look at the girl. “Were you here when all this happened, sweetie? I mean, could you tell how upset she was?”

“No, I was riding my bike, and Nana was waiting in the yard after Daddy left, so we could go to Janya’s. But she seemed fine. Daddy’s so worried about her. He made her take some pills and go to sleep. I’m supposed to stay inside and watch her. He went to get pepperoni pizza for dinner. He said he didn’t want Nana to cook tonight.”

Tracy didn’t know how to phrase the next question. She looked at Olivia and asked it straight out, but softly, as if it didn’t matter. “Olivia, did your Daddy know that we had a party at Janya’s today?”

“I don’t know. He came home after we got back. He didn’t say anything.”

Tracy wondered if Lee had been right all along. Had thoughts of the upcoming party stressed Alice so much that she had ripped out the tablecloth, maybe hoping to fix it, and destroyed it instead? And had she somehow
forgotten?

Alice, the same Alice who remembered the name of the new bar in Cargo Beach that had once been Gasparilla’s. But didn’t dementia work that way? Things from
the past were clear, but things that had happened that morning were enveloped in fog?

She pulled herself back to Olivia. The little girl was clearly troubled. Tracy didn’t want to make things worse, but she had to ask. “Did your grandmother seem okay to you when you walked over to Janya’s?”

“She’s tired all the time lately, but she wanted to go.”

Tracy wondered if Alice had suffered another stroke. She hated to think that might be the case, but again, maybe Lee had been right all along. Maybe Alice did need quiet and rest. And instead they’d been at Janya’s eating unfamiliar food, learning a strenuous Bollywood dance. And at home, the heirloom pineapple tablecloth, Alice’s pride and joy, had been just a hideous pile of tangled thread sitting on her trash can.

On
her trash can. Tracy wondered. That part didn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t Alice have lifted the lid and stuffed the tablecloth inside to hide it? Why would she leave the evidence where Lee would find it?

Find it
before
he even learned it was missing.

Had this been anything else, she might not have felt so unsettled. But Alice had been making the tablecloth for the granddaughter she cherished, as a reminder of all the women in their family who had come before her. The Alice Tracy knew was more apt to use a flaw in the tablecloth as a teaching tool. Not everything was perfect in life, but it could still be beautiful. Tracy had never heard her say those words, but she thought Alice believed them.

“Is she awake?” Tracy asked Olivia.

“I don’t think so. She was crying. A lot. But it stopped.”

Tracy felt sick again. She didn’t know what to believe, and she didn’t know what to do. She pulled Olivia close for a quick hug.

“I’m going to leave, then,” she said. “It’s probably not a good idea for your daddy to find me here, but Olivia, you know where I live. You know where Janya and Wanda are. If anything happens, and you think another adult should know about it, just run to any of us and we’ll help. I promise.”

“Daddy says we can take care of Nana without anybody else.”

“Just remember what I said, okay? Because sometimes…” She tried to think of a good way to say this. “Sometimes daddies are wrong about things. Okay? And sometimes another grown-up can help when a daddy gets stuck. You’ll remember?”

Olivia nodded. Her eyes were huge.

Tracy let herself out.

Rain was beginning to fall, and now the thunder sounded closer. A lollapalooza storm was on its way. Tracy shuddered and wished she could hide.

Chase adored Ken. In a matter of weeks the dog developed a sixth sense about when Ken would come home. Ten minutes before Ken walked through the door, Chase settled himself in front of it like a living, breathing doorstop, and he wouldn’t move a muscle until he heard Ken’s footsteps coming up the walk. Since Ken might show up anytime, this was a complete mystery to Wanda. Unfortunately, asking Chase to explain wasn’t an option.

Ken adored Chase, as well. Or at least it appeared that way when Wanda factored in the subtle signs. He didn’t kick the dog. He didn’t complain about dog hair on his pants. He took him on walks, which was probably the source of Chase’s adoration. Now that Chase was walking—gingerly—on four legs again, he and Ken disappeared for long periods together. Wanda actually missed him.

Chase, not Ken.

On the Monday after Janya’s party, Wanda woke to find Chase in bed beside her and Ken gone. Although he
had been coming home earlier in the evenings—making her second job a challenge—last night Ken had come home so late she had awakened only long enough to register his arrival before falling back asleep.

“Who told you this was allowed?” She put her arms around the dog, who snuggled closer and licked her face. Would there be a custody fight when she left? Well, that was too bad; Ken could rescue his own greyhound. Or maybe a pit bull, to keep people even farther at arm’s length.

“You two look comfy.”

She sat up a little and saw Ken in the doorway, a mug of coffee in his hand. “Thought you’d left already.”

“I figured you’d be waking up in a few minutes.”

She propped pillows behind her. To her surprise, the coffee was for her. Chase sniffed it, decided it wasn’t to his taste and jumped off the bed.

“Well, this is a surprise.” She narrowed her eyes. “Buttering me up for bad news? Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think. Maybe I’m expecting it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You tell me.”

He seemed to consider; then he lowered himself to the bed beside her. “We had an incident last night, that’s why I got home so late. I tried to call, but the phone was busy.”

She didn’t even blink, just inclined her head.

“Man took his wife hostage and held her for six hours at gunpoint.”

She hated these stories. In the old days she’d hated them because they brought home how dangerous Ken’s profession was. Now she hated them because she knew these situations reminded Ken of that night in Cutler Bay. Usually he retreated further after those reminders. He got harder to reach, and one day she’d just stopped trying.

But she couldn’t recall a day in the past year when Ken had told her one of these stories himself.

“Were you involved?” she asked. “Aren’t you more or less at a desk?”

“I’m also a negotiator.”

Ken had trained extensively in negotiation and worked on Miami-Dade’s special response team. But she hadn’t known the Palmetto Grove department had tapped him for this skill, as well as his experience and commendations.

“You never told me that,” she said.

“Thought I did.”

“There’s a lot you haven’t bothered with, Kenny.”

“Maybe I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore.”

By itself, this explanation hardly seemed important. But Wanda realized this was the most Ken had said about his emotional state since that terrible night when a young man died.

“You were afraid it would bring back memories.” She kept her voice devoid of emotion, afraid to scare him off.

“I did okay last night. I liked not being the one with the gun.”

She didn’t know what to say. The world had always been a pretty black-and-white place to her. The drug dealer had tried to kill Ken first. In her mind, that meant Ken’s response was justified; it was necessary. But she was learning that simplifying things to black-and-white meant the resulting world was a pretty stark place. If she had stayed with that vision, she would never have let herself become friends with Janya and Tracy, maybe not even Alice.

“I’ve never walked in those shoes,” she said. “But maybe I can understand a little.”

“I’m seeing the department shrink.”

For a moment she thought she’d heard him wrong. Because the man she married would never have done that. To stay on the force Ken had attended mandatory psychologist appointments after the Cutler Bay incident. Apparently he had convinced that psychologist he was doing okay, because the sessions had ended quickly, even though Wanda had begged him to continue.

“Did you schedule the appointments on your own?” she asked. “Or did somebody notice you’re not all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?”

“I did. Wasn’t getting very far very fast alone.”

She realized how earthshaking this was. Like any man, Ken hated to admit weakness. And asking for help? She wondered just how bad things had gotten. Now Ken was actually admitting it to her. For what purpose?

“Hang in with me,” he said, not looking at her.

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel. A rush of sympathy? A wave of love? She only felt numb. Too much sympathy and too much love had hit a brick wall called Ken Gray, bounced back and spilled all over her.

“I’m not going anywhere. Not yet anyway.” It was the best she could do.

“I know it’s been hard.” He got up.

“Kenny, it’s been hell.”

“I wish it could have been different.” He whistled, and Chase stopped sniffing under the closet door and bounded around the bed to join him.

“The woman from last night. She’s okay?” Wanda asked.

“We talked him into letting her go. Then he put his gun down and came out, and we took him away. It felt good. Seeing something turn out right.”

Man and dog left together. Wanda wondered if some
thing really had changed in their tacky little cottage by the gulf. She was afraid to hope.

According to the tourist literature, Cargo Beach, like Palmetto Grove, had once been a working port, with warehouses and commercial docks, run-down watering holes and cheap vacation rentals. Unfortunately for industry, the beach stretching away from the commercial center was white-sugar sand and the water was shallow enough for easy swimming. Cargo Beach had been a tourist mecca waiting to happen.

Now the town looked like somebody’s fantasy of a Caribbean vacation. Pastel shops lined brick streets, with palm trees in planters and sidewalk cafés blasting reggae music. Wanda and Janya wandered a couple of blocks, and as they started back toward Janya’s car, Wanda was pretty sure she had seen as many tacky Florida souvenirs here as she had in all of O-Town.

“You kind of feel like doing the limbo on every corner, don’t you?”

Janya looked behind her, as if she were worried they were being followed. “I was afraid if I forgot to smile, someone would come out of a shop and insist.”

“It’s like Disney World, only this is supposed to be real.”

“I think it must have been different when Alice came here with her husband.”

The mention of Alice made Wanda sad. Wanda and Janya had talked about Tracy’s discovery at Alice’s cottage. None of the women knew what to do. The story of the beautiful pineapple tablecloth was too sad to contemplate. Wanda couldn’t bear to think Alice was descending so quickly into dementia.

She tried to perk up. “Well, it’s dinnertime. We can
drive over to the Sea Breeze, eat some food and see if anybody remembers Herb.”

“I like Palmetto Grove better,” Janya said.

“Do you think you’ll stay there?”

“The city is kind to business, and Rishi gets tax breaks. So yes, I think we will be there for some time. Do you think about going back to Miami?”

“My life is a work in progress.”

They got into the car and rolled down the windows so the heat could escape. They were three blocks down the road before they could stand to roll them up again and let air-conditioning fill the car.

Janya drove like a pro now, and Wanda found she could stop teaching. She wasn’t sure she wanted to maneuver through downtown Miami traffic with her friend, but here on the open road she could pay attention to the scenery.

As they drove, the landscape changed. “Cute” was replaced by “real.” Funky one-story motels with rusting jungle gyms and No Vacancy signs missing a letter or two. Convenience stores fronting postwar housing developments. Mom-and-pop dry cleaners next to chain video rentals.

She was watching for addresses now. “You can see why a funky old bar called the Sea Breeze wouldn’t fit so well where we were. Not unless they hired a marimba band, and served mojitos and pastel corn chips. But we’re in different territory here. And there it is, just up ahead.”

The Sea Breeze was almost two miles from the center of town. Wanda had seen a million places exactly like it. Pale green shingles covered cinder block, and neon signs in the window advertised Budweiser and Miller Lite. The roof of a concrete patio along one side was held up by metal pillars with paint probably peeling off in strips.
Beach bums and working men sat on plastic chairs at plastic tables and smoked too many cigarettes.

“This is kind of old Florida,” Wanda warned. “There may not be a thing on this menu you can eat except French fries and cole slaw.”

The inside was shabby, too, except no one could smoke. Booths along one wall, a long bar along the other, the same plastic tables in the middle. A couple was dancing to Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee” on the jukebox.

“We ought to start out at the bar,” Wanda said. “Get our bearings.”

Janya seemed fascinated. “I have never been anywhere like this.”

“Consider it a learning experience.”

“What am I supposed to learn?”

“Not to hang out here.”

Wanda walked over to the bar and took a seat on a red plastic stool, and Janya joined her. Wanda had already noted that a couple of men at the end were looking at her friend with appreciation.

The bartender took his time getting to them, cleaning the counter as he went. It was that kind of place. Nobody was in a hurry, because the clientele that came early probably dug in their heels and made merry until they were tossed into the parking lot before the doors were locked and barred.

The bartender was about her age. He had weathered skin and washed-out blue eyes. Judging by his expression, an observer would think the night was nearly over instead of just starting up.

“What’ll you two ladies have?” he asked when he finally reached them.

Wanda wondered if he belonged to the original family.
While Janya thought simply telling the truth about their visit would work best, Wanda thought that was a tad naive.

“I’ll have a Miller Lite. Janya?”

“A Coca-Cola, please.”

He came back in a minute with their drinks. “I’ve never seen you here. You just visiting Cargo Beach?”

Wanda took charge. “My mom and dad used to come, back in the days when the Sea Breeze was called Gasparilla’s. They talked about it a lot.”

“We haven’t been called Gasparilla’s for forty years or more.”

“Well, that would be about right. ’Course, you must have been a kid when it all changed.”

“I was a kid in Michigan.”

Wanda was disappointed. “I heard the same family still runs the place.”

“They do. That doesn’t happen much anymore.”

“But they leave you to do the work.”

He laughed. “The old man’s back in the kitchen. If you know about Gasparilla’s, you know the big draw was soup, more or less a gumbo, I guess, called Pirate’s Puzzle. Ralph’s determined he’s going to recreate it. He’s been working on it for years. Comes in on Monday nights and makes a big batch, and we freeze it for the rest of the week. That’s what he’s doing now.”

“Has he got it right yet?”

“No, but it’s pretty good. Too bad the old cook didn’t leave the recipe.”

“Why didn’t he?” Janya asked.

“He had a big fight with Ralph’s father. Ralph says he died just to spite him.”

“I’ll have a bowl to try it,” Wanda said. “And my friend
here, well, she’s a vegetarian. What’ve you got she can eat?”

Janya ended up with fried mozzarella sticks and zucchini, and an extra helping of cole slaw.

“You go find yourself a place to sit, and I’ll bring it over,” the bartender said. “I’ll tell Ralph. Maybe he’ll come out to meet you.”

Wanda and Janya settled themselves in a corner booth, away from the jukebox, which was now wailing “Islands in the Stream” with Kenny and Dolly. Wanda figured that was a good sign.

“Explain again why you told that story,” Janya said.

“Sometimes a lie’s just a shortcut to the truth. If this guy knew Herb, maybe he’ll want to protect him. And if we just go charging in announcing we have to find his daughter, he’ll clam up.”

“Or maybe he would be so happy we cared enough to find Herb that he would work harder to help.”

“That’s optimistic. But tell you what, my way doesn’t work, you bat those gorgeous eyes of yours and tell him why we’re really here.”

They chatted until the bartender arrived with their food. Wanda thought the soup was fine, but nothing people would flock here to eat. Pirate’s Puzzle might just remain a mystery.

“Eat slow,” Wanda said. “Until Ralph shows up.”

He made his appearance when Wanda was on her last bite. Ralph looked to be near eighty, or maybe he’d just lived a tough life. His apron was a snapshot of ingredients he had used, but he was wiping his hands on a pristine dish towel. Wanda was hopeful she would survive Pirate’s Puzzle unscathed.

“I hear your folks used to come to Gasparilla’s,” he said, without introduction.

“I heard all about you,” Wanda said, and this, at least, wasn’t a lie. “And what a treat it was to have a bowl of Pirate’s Puzzle.”

“Did you like it?”

“Ummm…” Wanda smiled. Something about Ralph was familiar, although she couldn’t say what. Maybe she’d just waited on too many old men at the Dancing Shrimp. “I loved having crab legs in it like that.”

“How come you’re not having any?” he asked Janya.

“I don’t eat meat.”

His nostrils flared. “You like the zucchini sticks?”

Janya looked at Wanda. Clearly she didn’t, since she had eaten very few, but she didn’t want to lie after lecturing Wanda. “They are wonderfully filling,” she said.