Licensed to Thrill: Volume 3

by Diane Capri

  The local news anchor had dressed like a crusty buccaneer and joined the parade. From time to time, he interviewed a few of the half-million or so spectators lining the sidewalks along Bayshore Boulevard.

  Most parade watchers were dressed in heavy coats, hats and gloves. Mother Nature, apparently out of sorts, had decided the high today would be forty-three degrees. What warmth the sun provided was overcome by the gusty, cold wind. I shivered in sympathy, hands folded at the elbows, providing my own warmth and glad to be inside.

  When I turned away from the television, two of my favorite people in the world were standing next to me. “I’m so glad you could come,” I said to Margaret Wheaton as I hugged first her and then her husband. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, Ron. How are you feeling?”

  Margaret, my secretary and good friend, looked tired and older than her sixty-something years. She is a kind person, always helping, never asking much for herself. At work, Margaret seemed to be handling her husband’s terminal illness with compassion and very little fuss. Only someone who knew her as well as I did would have noticed the toll on her.

  “As well as can be expected,” Ron replied to my question. He held my hand, with little strength. “Thank you for inviting us today. I don’t go to many parties.” He said this without self-pity, but it made me sad just the same. “Who knows how many Gasparillas I have left?” Anyone could see the answer to that question was “not many.”

  Ron was dying of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, abbreviated ALS. Often called Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a progressive wasting away of certain nerve cells of the brain and spinal column called motor neurons. The motor neurons control the voluntary muscles, which are the muscles that control movement.

  The disease would eventually kill Ron when the muscles that allowed him to breathe ceased to function. In the meantime, since Ron continued to be fully aware of himself and his condition, Margaret had told me his mental depression was overwhelming them both. I could barely force myself to think about Ron’s illness, and I wasn’t living the nightmare twenty-four hours a day like the Wheatons were. Had I been in Ron Wheaton’s shoes, I’d have been investigating euthanasia.

  “He’s doing much better lately, thank you,” Margaret put in. “If he gets his rest, he can still square dance with the best of them.” I saw the grief she tried to conceal behind the false cheer as Margaret put her arm through her husband’s and he patted her hand.

  Ron was a tall man, once robust but now thin and frail. Leaning against a bar stool for support, he smiled down on his diminutive wife with a deep level of love that was almost painful to watch.

  “Sure, honey, as long as I do it in my chair.” He nodded to a wheelchair sitting in a corner not far from where we stood. “I get tired quickly,” he said to me, by way of explanation.

  My sorrow for him and for Margaret coursed through my body and caused me to shiver involuntarily. There was nothing I could do for Ron. Nothing anyone could do. I felt every bit as helpless as I really was.

  We talked a few minutes longer, until another guest demanded my attention and I was forced to return to my hostess role, when I’d have preferred to stay with Ron and Margaret. I made a silent vow to spend more time with them both as I made my way over to help another elderly guest find a comfortable chair. But I never got the chance.

  Later, I stopped into the Sunset Bar and glanced up to see the television reporter interviewing Gil Kelley, the current King of the Minaret Krewe, outside on the street along the parade route.

  “What do you think of our parade, King Kelley?” the reporter asked him. Gil’s answer was drowned out by an upsurge of laughter inside the Sunset Bar.

  Gil’s makeup, created here this morning, was particularly good. He had a wicked looking slash wound down the left side of his face with fake blood oozing out of it, and one of his front teeth was blacked out, giving him a snaggle-toothed appearance. Gil’s black hat, colorful yellow silk blouse, tight black pants and long sword were realistic enough. His all-too-real shaggy grey hair and paunch completed the expensive, if stylized, version of pirate wear. In his costume, he looked nothing like the president and majority shareholder of Tampa Bay Bank, which he actually was.

  “Isn’t he dashing?” his wife, Sandra Kelley, said when she saw me watching Gil on television. Sandra herself was dressed in the twenty-first century version of a promiscuous wench’s costume, an off-the-shoulder red blouse and a full yellow skirt that matched her husband’s blouse. She wore several strands of cheap red and purple and green Gasparilla beads around her neck.

  “Yes,” I smiled down at her, “he certainly does.” I nodded emphatically. “Or were you talking about Gil?” We both laughed.

  “You and George are so good to have the Krewe here,” she said.

  The comment seemed genuinely pleasant and thus unlike Sandra Kelly. “Are you having a good time?”

  Sandra frowned daintily, a slight downward bend to her plucked black eyebrows over the bridge of her pert nose. The snide Sandra we all knew well resurfaced. “I was. Until he came in.” She inclined her head toward a man I didn’t recognize talking with Ron Wheaton, who seemed more exhausted. He was leaning against a wall and appeared to need the support.

  “Who is that?” I asked Sandra.

  “It’s Armstrong Otter. The one and only.” The disdainful tone conveyed her opinion precisely. There were two famous jewelers from the small beach community of Pass-a-Grille across the bay. One was the highly regarded Evander Preston. Armstrong Otter was the other.

  Not wanting to encourage Sandra Kelly’s brand of vicious gossip, I said, “I don’t know Mr. Otter.”

  “So much the better,” she snapped. “If Otter crawled back under whatever rock he slithered out from, all of Tampa would be better off.”

  Sandra’s ire encouraged me to examine Otter more closely. He and Ron Wheaton appeared to be engaged in a serious conversation, although I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Of course, Ron was one of the kindest souls on the planet. He would have been pleasant to Jack the Ripper.

  The same could not be said of Sandra Kelley. At least, no one who knew her said so. I’d never liked Sandra and every time I saw her, she reinforced by initial distrust. I took her venom with a side order of antidote as I excused myself to attend to our other guests.

  Or so I told Sandra Kelley. What I really did was to escape in the opposite direction when I saw my newly-minted stepmother headed my way. The absurdity of having a stepmother more than ten years younger than me struck me again.

  The onslaught of guests, my lack of sleep and exercise today, and the stress of seeing Dad cozying up to Suzanne finally overcame me. It was only early afternoon but I was exhausted. I figured no one would notice if I ducked out, so I trudged up the stairs to our flat, dodging people seated and standing everywhere, until I reached our bedroom. Thankfully, even though there is a television in our room, no one had camped out there. I locked the door and collapsed on top of the damask comforter, in the mistaken certainty that nothing more serious than my father’s new wife could possibly happen for the rest of the day.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tampa, Florida

  Saturday 7:00 p.m.

  January 27, 2001

  WHEN I RETURNED TO the noisy party, the sky was dark and no one had missed me. I saw as many people in all the gathering places of our flat and the restaurant as had been there hours before. Maybe the faces had changed, but with all the makeup, it was hard to say.

  The parade was long over, but the thousands of people who had come to watch it were slowly finding their way from Hyde Park to downtown Tampa, where the after-parade festivities would reverberate into the early morning. An arts and crafts show, fireworks and the festival, featuring live stage shows would fill the downtown Tampa streets. This day wouldn’t end for hours yet.

  As I descended the stairs from our flat and into the lobby of George’s restaurant, I saw Gil Kelley sitting with my new stepmother, openly flirting with her. Whether S
uzanne was flirting back or not was hard to tell. Her head tilted toward Gil and he laughed at something she said as if he was totally captivated by her. A few feet away, Dad bent his head to hear Gil’s wife, Sandra. Poor Dad, I thought. Sandra Kelley was certainly no substitute for Suzanne Harper

  Steering clear of them all, I moved in the opposite direction. I finally found George sitting at our favorite table in the Sunset Bar with Armstrong Otter. Because the television was now turned off, it was marginally quieter in here.

  Up close, Otter was good-looking for his age, which I guessed to be between sixty and seventy. He appeared fit, lean and quick. He had a full head of grey-blonde hair, brushed straight back and worn in a silly pony tail tied at the base of his skull with a ribbon that made him look like an aging rock star. His eyes were an unremarkable cloudy blue. Whatever it was about Otter that incited Sandra Kelley’s anger, it wasn’t obvious to me.

  I snagged a cup of café con leche and headed toward my husband. George stood when I approached, as he always does when a woman joins his table. One of the things I love about George is that he treats me at least as nicely as he does everyone else, usually better.

  Otter was well back in the booth and made no effort to rise.

  “Willa, do you know Armstrong?” George asked, as I slipped into the booth across from Otter. I bumped his foot on the way in, but he didn’t move it.

  “No, I don’t think we’ve met,” I said, holding out my hand, which he took softly, as if he wasn’t used to shaking hands with women. He had manicured fingers, oddly flat at the tips, like little spatulas. And I noticed a small diamond stud earring in his left earlobe.

  After I was settled, a few moments of uncomfortable silence followed, until George smoothly rescued the situation. “Armstrong was telling me about the new work he’s entered in the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts competition. He hopes to win the grand prize.”

  “Really?” I said, looking at Otter with renewed interest. The art festival was my favorite part of Gasparilla month, partly because it was the end of the festivities.

  “The piece is a pin. I call it Gasparilla Gold.” He pulled a picture out of the pocket of his rumpled tweed jacket and described the pin to me as if dictating copy for a catalogue, holding his cocktail straw in those flat fingertips and using it as a pointer. “It’s quite large, about eight inches long. The pin is meant to be worn on the shoulder of a coat, on the outside of the lapel.” He gestured to a spot on his own shoulder just below the seam in his jacket, above where you’d lay your palm to say the pledge of allegiance.

  “The platinum dagger has semi-precious stones set in the handle, and a gold chain connects the scabbard to the knife.” He glanced up at me and I nodded my understanding. “The dagger sits on top of the open treasure chest filled with gold nuggets.” He handed the picture to me for closer examination.

  I’m not an avid jewelry hound, but even I was impressed. “Can I see it sometime?”

  “Sure. The piece is on display at my studio. It’ll be there until a few days before the art festival. Come over anytime,” Otter said, in haughty tone. His manner was off-putting and I began to have a little more sympathy for Sandra Kelly’s view of him.

  I handed the picture to George, who was about to say something when Dad walked up, peeked at the photo over George’s shoulder, and folded his lanky frame into the booth next to Otter. Dad, ever the salesman, whistled then asked, without a trace of embarrassment, “How much does something like that cost?”

  George looked down at the table and I glanced away, too, so as not to show our amusement at Dad’s trademark lack of decorum.

  Otter, though, was thoroughly offended. “Well, it’s not for sale, actually,” he said, with even more arrogance. “The point is to win the competition, and then I’ll return it to display in my store.”

  Dad wasn’t so easily deflected, though. “No, I mean, really. If you were going to sell it. How much?”

  With no graceful way out, Otter said, “Oh, probably about one-hundred-seventy-five thousand dollars, particularly if it wins.” He inched toward Dad trying to get out of the booth. “Would you excuse me, please? I need to speak with Gil Kelley for a few minutes.”

  As he was standing to let Otter out of the booth, Dad said, “Somebody would pay one-hundred-seventy-five thousand dollars for that thing? Why, that would feed several entire families for more than a year!”

  Dad’s feigned awe was humorous, since he wasn’t half the rube he was pretending, for the moment, to be. Dad knows that people are frivolous with money, even if he’s not. Dad has always made good money and managed it wisely. Over the years, he’d accumulated a sizeable net worth.

  Before Suzanne, Dad preferred the simple life. Yet, I’d noticed all the status symbols she wore and the fashion show she’d given us since she arrived. Suzanne would change Dad’s comfortable modesty. Nor would his quiet living be the only change. I worried anew Dad had no idea what he’d gotten himself involved with when he married his precious one.

  While Dad continued his tongue-in-cheek marveling at the price of jewelry, I glanced over and noticed Armstrong Otter and Gil Kelley arguing in the corner. I couldn’t hear their words, but I saw Otter poke Kelley in the chest several times with his index finger. Kelley’s face suffused with angry color. I nudged George and whispered that he might call one of the on-site paramedics, just in case Kelley stroked out or something.

  Just as I said it, Kelly gestured with his arm in a wide arc and his hand knocked several glasses off the bar. The glasses flew onto the floor and shattered in a cacophony of noise that stopped all conversation in the room.

  George rose to break up the argument, but before he covered half the distance to the pair, Kelley stomped off into the dining room and Armstrong Otter stalked out in the other direction.

  Guests glanced at each other, embarrassed, and then turned back to their conversations. George organized the cleanup and in a short while, the noise level in the room returned to the same low hum I’d heard before the incident.

  I turned back to Dad. We were alone in the booth. It was our first private moment since I’d met Suzanne. I searched my mind’s “social graces” database for something acceptable to say in the circumstances, and could think of absolutely nothing. Everything I wanted to say was simply not appropriate.

  Finally, Dad broke the ice. “How about those Bucs?” he asked, and tension relieved, we both laughed. We’d heard the question fifty times today, or more. That’s been the standard greeting around Tampa since our football team won the Super Bowl. A few moments of uncomfortable silence followed our laughter, and then, for half an hour, we discussed the Bucs, a safe topic that kept us from talking about his marriage or our own uneasy relationship.

  Fatigue and the easy talk relaxed me. I dropped my guard too soon.

  I gulped the last of my coffee in one large mouthful just as Gil Kelley walked over, punched Dad in the shoulder and boomed loudly into one of those awkward silences that sometimes happen in a crowd, “Congratulations, Jim! Suzanne tells me you two are expecting! Didn’t know you still had it in you, you old dog!”

  The surprise propelled the coffee right out of my mouth. I spit caramel colored liquid all over me and began to cough uncontrollably. Which was fine because it gave me the opportunity to excuse myself from the now impossible situation.

  I hurried away and tried to hide out in a corner of the dining room. My attention was focused on blotting the coffee off the front of my blouse, allowing Margaret Wheaton to approach me as she came out of the ladies’ room, a happy smile on her face.

  Giving up on the coffee stain, I studied her as she navigated the crowd. My concerns over Suzanne, my father and now, unbelievably, a new sibling on the way, were trivial by comparison to Margaret’s situation with Ron. I tried to focus on Margaret as a way to avoid my own impossible situation.

  Since Ron Wheaton had been diagnosed with ALS about a year ago, his illness had progressed too quickly. I’d watched Margaret b
ecome more and more exhausted, which I’d attributed to the stress of dealing with Ron.

  In the past few months, Ron had become weaker and less mobile. He was confined to his wheelchair much of the time and they rarely went out. Ron would soon require twenty-four hour care.

  Yet, on the few occasions when I spoke to him on the telephone, he sounded as strong as he had ever been. I could only imagine the horror of knowing you would one day be unable to breathe and would actually suffocate. The thought brought instant tears to my eyes again. Ron and Margaret Wheaton deserved better treatment from life. It seemed at the moment that the Sandra Kelleys of the world succeeded despite their meanness while Ron Wheaton suffered so unfairly.

  When Margaret eventually reached me, I gave her a hug, partly to hide my glassy eyes. She felt small and frail to me and I marveled at how heavy a burden those small shoulders could carry.

  “Can you believe this madness?” I asked her.

  She smiled and her face lit up a little more than usual lately as she nodded. “I love it, though. I’ve lived in Tampa my whole life and I never get tired of Gasparilla. When I was a little girl, the Gasparilla parade used to be held downtown and it was the same time as the State Fair. The parade was actually my very first date with Ron.” She sighed here, giving my hands a quick squeeze “Gasparilla holds many good memories for us.”

  Before I could reply, we heard several screams, as if a thousand marauding pirates had landed at Minaret. Alarmed, I moved as quickly as possible through the crowds toward the noise, with Margaret close at my side. Several other guests joined us enroute.

  When we got to the veranda, I could see Ron Wheaton slumped over in his wheelchair, not moving, while Suzanne Harper, my stepmother, stood near him. Suzanne’s mouth was wide open, head thrown back, resembling the heroine of a horror movie as she screamed repeatedly at full volume.

  But not loud enough to wake the dead.