Lydia headed toward the galvanized tin buckets in the corner. She opened one, pulled out four cobs of corn, kicked off her sandals and crossed her back lawn, reveling in the freedom of toes in soft grass. A tall oak tree, unusual for the Pacific Northwest, stood solitary guard thirty feet away. Lydia cracked the corn cobs, tossed the pieces around the tree’s roots, and retreated several steps. “Come and get it, boys.”
The dense leaves shook above her. She smiled as four squirrels, frisky despite the warmth of the August afternoon, danced down the trunk, threw her a fearless glance, and pounced on the corn.
Lydia crossed back to the deck and carried the second galvanized bucket to bird feeders nestled among bushes and perennials. She scooped seed into tubes and trays, checked the water level in two bird baths, and made sure a suet carrier was full before returning the much-lighter bucket to the deck.
An eagle riding an air current over the passage distracted her. It hovered there, suspended fifty feet above the water’s surface, but just a few yards above her line of sight. No wings flapped. No head turned. Perfectly positioned to surf the invisible force. Impervious to danger. Looking for its next kill.
She went inside and made dinner. Baked potato, broccoli, breast of chicken. A dinner guaranteed not to add an ounce to her five-foot-seven, 130 pound, thirty-six-year old body. Lydia set the dining room table, lit two candles, and ate while the setting sun turned the mountains first pink, then blue. By the time she finished washing her dishes the view disappeared into inky emptiness as the night clouds blocked any starlight.
Nine o’clock. Lydia went to her bedroom and exchanged her jersey skirt and white cotton tank for grey sweatpants and a t-shirt. She laced on her running shoes, pulled her light brown hair into a pony tail, and headed downstairs. Twenty minutes on the treadmill. Twenty minutes with free weights. Twenty minutes with the heavy bag.
A long shower later, Lydia was in bed, trying to relax by focusing her concentration on an image of a white sheet billowing on a clothesline. Drifting. Waving. In her mind’s eye the white sheet began to bleed. A spot of red in one corner. Oozing now. Covering the fabric. Weighing it against the breeze. Finally sodden and heavy.
Lydia snapped her eyes open. She threw off the covers and marched into the kitchen. She pulled two ice cubes from the freezer. One in each fist. Hold them, she told herself. Tight. Feel the pain as the ice freezes the flesh of the palm. Focus. Relief is in the pain.
Morton Andrew Grant placed the bucket of yellow chrysanthemums in front of his wife’s tombstone. Edie always wanted her mums as early in the season as possible; her signal that the University of Washington Huskies would start another football season. He’d brought her a bunch home exactly one year ago. Mort remembered her eyes lit up when she discovered the two opening game tickets tied to a stem. She kissed him and danced through the kitchen waving them over her head. He’d left her celebration and gone upstairs to change. Less than fifteen minutes. Strip off the sport coat, hang up the trousers. Pull off the tie, put away the gun. Toss the dress shirt into the hamper. Pull on a pair of sweat pants and reach for his Cougar’s shirt just to tease her. Hell, probably more like ten minutes.
He bounced down the stairs humming the Huskies’ fight song and smelling Edie’s spaghetti sauce. They’d make it a good evening, he remembered thinking. They deserved one.
She was on the kitchen floor. Grandmother’s big sauce spoon in one hand, tickets in the other. Mort stood frozen, unable to comprehend. A heartbeat later his cop instincts kicked in. Fingers to her neck, praying for a pulse. Calling her name as he lunged for the phone. Puffing into her mouth. Pumping on her chest. Fooststeps on the porch. Paramedics loading his wife of thirty-five years onto a gurney. The endless ride to the hospital. The physician walking toward him. Sad eyes. Shaking head. Trying to explain what an aneurysm was.
Mort squeezed the bridge of his nose and brought himself back. It had been the longest and worst year of his life. He didn’t want to revisit its inaugural.
“How you doing, Baby Girl?” His eyes scanned the words on the black granite slab.
Edith Swanson Grant
Beloved Wife and Mother
Go Dawgs!
Her dates of birth and death were noted below her eternal salute to the Huskies. Mort focused on the dash that separated them. Fifty-six years. Most spent with him. An action shot of Edie rushing into freshman orientation thirty-seven autumns ago ran through his memory. She was late. One of the few vacant seats was next to his. She hurried down the aisle, slid in, and gave him the once over.
“You look as lost as I feel,” she said. They were married two years later.
“Remember the ruckus we caused, Baby?” Mort touched the rough edges of the tombstone. “Your mother said I’d ruin your life. Mine said you’d do the same for me.”
His eyes went back to the headstone, to the dash between the dates. Countless nights in each other’s arms. Fighting as though the holiness of Christ depended upon the outcome. Two kids. Scraping the money together so she could rent a rundown storefront on Fourth Avenue. Turning it into the best dance school in King County. The problems with Allie. The pride with Robbie. Two grandkids.
“You filled your dash up good, kiddo,” he said. “I miss you like crazy.” He blew her a kiss and walked out of the garden of death.
Gordon Halloway flew in two days before, looking for a break from the cluster fuck that had become his life. A place away from the lawyers and holier-than-thou politicians screaming to any bouffant hairdo with a microphone, demanding his head on a stick. He wanted to shake the blood suckers’ stench off his skin. Find a way to fix things.
Gordon knew he was flying solo. That god-damned board of directors he so carefully put in place abandoned him at the first hiccup. He wanted to throw each one against a wall and enlighten them as to what a special breed of spineless asshole they were. Eager as hell to stand next to him when he was building the company. Winking and nodding as bankers put together jumbo loans secured by promises and a three-color prospectus. Lining their pockets with stock windfalls based on whispers shared while sipping his top-shelf liquor. First sign of a dust-up and they all hopped on their moral high horse, rode out of Dodge, and left him holding the bag.
He considered his investors another subspecies of pond scum larvae. They all loved old Gordon when he was promising nine percent and returning eleven. Couldn’t get their money to him fast enough. Begging him to take their retirement accounts and grandchildren’s college funds. Their only question was where’s my next dividend check. Elbowing each other for a chance to smile into the camera standing next to the man with the Midas touch. Did they really think their hands were cleaner than his?
He could have made it work. They just came at him too fast. With a little more time he could have raised the money he needed to keep the party rolling.
But the cowards balked at the first whiff of trouble. Brought the regulators in before he had a chance to line things up. That got the politicians’ attention which dragged the media in and that was all she wrote. Eighteen months ago it was chartered jets, private islands and blow jobs from Vogue cover girls. Now it was depositions, grand juries, and frozen assets. They could all go fuck themselves. He told his wife and his lawyers he was headed to Palm Beach, but he snuck a little farther south. Ten days of sun and surf and a little time to chart his next move.
No one knew about this place. Not even his wife. Gordon bought it eighteen years ago. Before the rock stars and eco-tourists discovered the beauty of Costa Rica and got busy turning it into any other roadside attraction. He owned twelve hundred feet of sandy coast line. Two thousand acres. Six miles to the nearest village. He could get three hundred for each dollar he’d paid. Gordon buried his ownership so deep in nested companies he was sure he’d be able to hang on to his piece of heaven even if the stateside scavengers got a chance to pick his bones. Over the years he’d quietly improved the property. A small house two hundred feet off the beach and a larger home deep in the jungle. One dirt road in. Solar generator. Fresh-water well. Nothing as elegant as his Palm Beach house or his Park Avenue duplex. More rugged than his place in Vail. This was a place where a man could hear his thoughts. Away from the mother-fuckers waiting to castrate him.
Gordon spent his first two days in Costa Rica alone. Hiking and thinking. Swimming and planning. The jungle humidity sweated the worry out of him; the coastal beauty fueled his genius. He’d figure out how to spin this. He’d be on top again. Hell, maybe he’d even work a deal to get some of that money the feds were handing out like samples of Sam’s Club tuna. He felt brand new. It was time to celebrate.
Gordon was heading for the bar of the most expensive hotel in Papagayo when he spotted her. Two Louis Vuitton bags next to a pair of alabaster legs that looked like the stairway to heaven as they climbed from silver sandals to a white silk mini two centimeters short of illegal. Strawberry blonde hair caught in a clasp at the nape of her neck before cascading halfway down her slender back. Black tank top revealing perfectly toned arms. The kind of arms Gordon imagined pinning down before doing any number of wet and wicked things.
He wanted to see her face. If she looked half as good up front he’d have to change his plans for dining alone. He walked up to the counter as the manager placed a key in the beautiful woman’s hand. She turned and flashed him a polite smile. Eyes the color of an Irish valley. Pale pink lips. Ivory skin. One deep purple brush of color on the side of her neck. A birthmark. One flaw accentuating her perfection.
“These two bags, please.” She looked down at her luggage. The hotel manager began to speak but Gordon cut him off with a wink.
“No problem, boss. I got this one. The elevators are this way, madam.” Gordon picked up her bags. “What floor are you on?”
“Six. Room 642.” She entered the elevator, turned, and faced the doors. Gordon was impressed such a gorgeous woman ignored the floor to ceiling mirrors walling three sides of the car. He pressed six on the key pad. She stared straight ahead, silent. He traced her profile with his eyes. Firm jaw. Graceful neck. Up-turned nose dusted with freckles. He breathed deeply and inhaled her scent. Lilacs in spring.
The elevator glided to a stop and she stepped off and aside, waiting to follow him. Gordon looked to his right and then to his left, hoping for a hint of direction to room 642.
“Are you lost?” she asked. Definitely American. Gordon heard the clear clip of a Midwestern accent. “642’s got to be around here somewhere.”
Gordon took her humor as permission to play. “One would think, wouldn’t one?”
The beautiful woman blinked at his haughty retort and for the first time really looked at him. Tan silk trousers. Exquisitely tailored linen jacket. She brought a hand to her lovely mouth and wrinkled her brow. “Oh, my God. You’re not the bellman, are you?” She spun around and looked at him again, sheepish grin, twinkling eyes. Gordon was charmed by her embarrassment.
“I’m a good Samaritan here to help a woman in need.” He bowed his head. “Now, which way?”
Her laugh was tinkling wind chimes in a soft summer breeze. “Please,” she said. “Leave the bags. I’m so sorry for my blunder. I can take it from here.”
“Wouldn’t hear of it. I leave no job half-done.” Gordon smiled the same smile that inspired thousands of investors to reach for their wallets. “First time in Papagayo?”
She hesitated. Looked down at her feet and sighed before answering. “First time in Costa Rica, actually.”
Gordon heard a note of sadness. “Travelling alone?”
The woman ran her lovely green eyes over him. When she spoke Gordon knew he’d passed inspection. The hook was set.
“I am,” she said.
He held her gaze and softened his tone. Time to reel her in. “Then may I ask you to join me for a drink? The bar here is quite remarkable.”
She waited a heartbeat before smiling. “Is this part of your bellman’s duty?”
Gordon transferred both bags to his left hand and reached for her arm with his right. “Oh, yes, ma’am.” He led her down the hallway. “This is a full service hotel.”
Drinks led to lobster and salad on the dining room terrace. He learned the beautiful woman was Anna, a gallery owner from St. Louis. He pretended to be Alex, an attorney from Fort Lauderdale. They passed the evening discussing art and books and travel. They discovered a mutual love of William Faulkner and Lyle Lovett. She told him she recently ended her engagement to a dentist she’d dated since her freshman year at Columbia. He told her he’d never been married. They finished their bottle of Pinot Grigio with the chocolate mousse. By the time Irish coffee was served they both knew her room would be their next stop.
Gordon was enjoying the buzz, naked in her queen-sized bed, reflecting on his amazing ability to get what he wanted. Yes, sir, he thought. Things are going to turn out just fine. He grinned as he stretched against the cool white cotton sheets and waited for Anna to join him. She stepped out of the bathroom, ambled across the room, and dimmed the lights. Gordon reminded himself to breathe. She wore a floor length black gown, gossamer sheer, with wisps of lace masquerading as thong and bra. Her hair tumbled free. She crossed to the foot of the bed and stood, letting him examine her.
“Come here.” He patted a spot beside him.
“Hush.” Anna began to sway. “It’s been a long time since the dentist.” She ran her right hand slowly from her shoulder to her hip. “Do you mind if I play a bit?”
Gordon felt his erection growing as he stared. He swallowed hard and tried to find his voice. “Baby, you do what you gotta do.”
Anna moved to unheard music. Gordon imagined a gentle samba. He pulled himself up and sat against the headboard, not wanting to miss a minute of her show. He’d play Alex from Fort Lauderdale more often if it got him this kind of action.