Seduced

by Randy Wayne White

  Melancholy is an emotion I occasionally suffer and its weight blossomed within me. The chill of Mr. Chatham’s dead lips on mine when I did CPR; Reggie’s stories of lost love, tragedy, possibly even rape and murder—all kited through my head, then taunted my heart.

  It was a Friday night. To the west, across miles of black water, a halo glow reminded me that people were having fun on the islands of Sanibel and Captiva, yet I was alone.

  The only person to blame, I decided, was me.

  It was still early, just a little after eight. Thanks to my uncle, I grew up fishing the backcountry waters of Southwest Florida, so running a boat at night was safer than risking drunks on the highway. I stepped aboard my fishing skiff and confirmed it was set to go. Unlike the 37-foot Marlow that is my home, it is a fast little boat, built flat as an iron to run shallow yet is as stable as high ground.

  After I’d transferred some safety gear from the Marlow to my skiff, I returned to the house to check on Loretta. She had moved from her bed and appeared to be asleep in a recliner, but the lingering sweetness of marijuana proved this was a ruse to shoo me away.

  “I know you’re awake,” I said, gently. “Smoke what you want, I don’t care, but open flames are a danger in a house this old. It’s your safety I worry about.”

  She pretended to be startled by the sight of me standing in the doorway but soon dropped the act. “It’s your snooping that worries me. Your holier-than-thou attitude, too. First, I can’t attend bingo; now you accuse me of doing god-knows-what.” Her eyes followed mine to a nearby ashtray, where there was half a joint and a lighter. “Where’d that come from?” she asked. Said it with a theatrical innocence that would’ve fooled anyone else.

  “I’m going out for some dinner,” I responded, “but not until you’re in bed and the doors are locked. Keep the phone close. Just hit the Redial button if you need me. Come on . . . back in bed, and stay put this time.”

  It took some mild bantering; the typical back-and-forth, during which I was seldom sure if her mind actually wandered or if her rambling oddities were said for dramatic effect. Insults aimed at me were typical subject matter, as were her tangents that embraced the supernatural. My mother has always had a witchy side. There is a reason. Our old house sits on the remains of a shell mound that, according to archaeologists, dates back two thousand years. The previous inhabitants were a favorite topic of Loretta’s, particularly their king. She claimed the king often spoke to her; that they had long conversations, and he sometimes even slipped into her bed at night—uninvited, of course.

  Thankfully, my mother’s stories always ended there. As she is aware, there is a fine line regarding details of the king’s visits not to be crossed or I might believe she truly is crazy, which would mean I can no longer leave her alone.

  Loretta hates having a nurse in the house after sunset. As a result, she proves her sanity on a daily basis by editing her ramblings with care.

  Tonight, she chose the ghosts of Indian maidens as a topic. “They were singing to me earlier; prettiest wood flutes I’ve heard—beautiful flutes, carved from bamboo—while the men danced around a fire. Naked as jaybirds, they were. God only knows what might’ve happened next—if you hadn’t barged in.”

  I listened patiently. She was in bed, sitting up, a sheet and blanket over her legs, while I fluffed pillows.

  “I wish you’d respect my privacy. Just because you don’t date, or can’t keep a man in your life, doesn’t mean there aren’t normal women who enjoy good singing and a fire. There’s nothing in the world wrong with socializing with friends, even if they are members of the opposite sex.”

  “Was the king dancing, too?” I asked.

  “What king?”

  “The Indian chief. You know who I mean.”

  “The hell I do. I got no idea who you’re talking about—and keep your paws off that man, whoever he is. Where’s the channel changer?”

  On the dresser was a small TV with cable reception. I found the History Channel and placed the remote within reach. “I think I’ll run my skiff across to Sanibel and get some dinner. Loretta . . . Loretta”—I had to say her name twice—“pay attention in case I have motor trouble. I won’t, but you never know. The tide’s flooding, so I’ll cut behind Chino, then cross from York Island to Dinkin’s Bay. Can you remember that? If I need a tow, you’ll need to send someone.”

  “If I knew where the damn channel changer was, maybe I could think straight. Do you listen to a word I say?”

  I placed the remote on her tummy. While I was neatening up and checking windows, she spun through a dozen channels until she found a Cary Grant movie, black-and-white, with Katharine Hepburn in a sequined gown.

  “That’s the way a woman is supposed to dress. I met her many’a time—Miz Hepburn lived on Boca Grande, you know. Your uncle would bring her by in the boat after they’d shucked a mess of oysters. She was a true lady, that one, but Miz Hepburn loved her a mess of raw oysters as good as any man.”

  “I remember her,” I said, which was true. “If you need me, all you have to do is call or walk down to the dock. Bang on my boat’s cabin, so you don’t scare the fire out of me. I should be back before midnight. You got all that?”

  “When I was dating,” Loretta replied, “gentlemen would pick me up in a car. A decent girl wouldn’t be caught dead buzzin’ around in a boat at night alone, especially dressed in those Boy Scout clothes of yours. Often, the gentleman would come in a limousine—the most beautiful black Lincoln you’ve ever seen. I have dated a king or two, now that you bring the subject up.”

  I stopped messing with the curtains. Until then, she hadn’t said a word about Harney Chatham’s death, nor referenced what had happened today.

  “How is the king getting along?” I asked in a gentler way.

  My mother’s sharp blue eyes blazed, then dulled as she blinked and thought back. “He’s dead,” she said. “The king’s dead as he can be.”

  “Is that right?”

  “You known damn well he is.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, still unsure. “When did he die?”

  She blinked and stared. “Don’t matter. We all die before our time. It came to me in a dream—this was before them beautiful wood flutes and singing. I don’t want to talk about it.” Her eyes returned to the television, blinking faster. It was a while before she spoke again. “The king went out happy. I can guarantee you that much.”

  I refused to respond to that.

  “Happiness is a rare thing, Hannah. Especially for a man or woman who suffers this life alone. That’s another reason I worry about you so.”

  The woman had a knack for offering the kindest advice in the meanest ways. This told me she was wide awake. I resumed what I was doing. “Suffering is a choice I’ve yet to make,” I countered. “Should I bring an extra bottle of water? I’ve heard smoking grass makes people thirsty, if they can stay awake long enough.”

  “It’s your smart-aleck ways and prudishness, too, that worries me. Has the law been snooping around?”

  “They’ve got no reason,” I lied. “How about that water? Tea would keep you awake.”

  “Tell me the truth.”

  I stood to leave. “If you’re talking about Mr. Chatham, isn’t it a little late for the truth?”

  Bleary blue eyes blinked up at me. “Don’t be cross about something you can’t understand. He loved me, you know.”

  I replied, “Yes, he did, Mama,” and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  Melancholy followed me out the door.

  Outside, I glared at the stars while a dark wind stirred the mangroves with the distant hooting of owls. The idea of a trip across the bay, alone, had lost some of its luster, but I wasn’t about to give in to self-pity.

  Who could I phone to urge me on? My best friend, a woman sheriff’s deputy, was visiting her wealthy aunt in Palm Beach�
��she would have been my first choice. Nathan Pace, a weight lifter, was my second, but he was traveling with his boyfriend. Then Marion Ford came to mind. Never had I met a man who disappeared, then reappeared, without so much as a warning, but he might be at home, working in his lab tonight.

  No, I decided. In my current state, I couldn’t be trusted. The two of us were like gunpowder, if left alone in a room. One touch of his hand, I would be guaranteed a lengthy search for my underwear and shoes come morning. A safer choice was his friend, Tomlinson, who also lived alone on a boat. On the other hand, unlike me, Tomlinson was seldom alone.

  While I stood there battling indecision, the lights of a pickup truck angled around the curve, where a giant mastic tree shields a view of docks and miniature cottages known as Munchkin Land. The truck wasn’t local. It was traveling slow like someone lost. When the vehicle stopped in front of the house, I walked toward the road, eager for the distraction of a driver in need of directions.

  “Hannah?” a man called out the window. “I thought that was you.”

  I recognized the voice, and the face.

  “Kermit!” I replied.

  “This is embarrassing,” he said, getting out. “I was restless, and was hoping some of the old orange groves were close to the road. Turns out, I was right, so don’t think I’m stalking you.”

  I laughed at that.

  Under the circumstances, I was as pleased as if I’d chanced upon an old friend in a foreign land.

  • • •

  I could lie to myself, as I often do, and pretend I felt no physical attraction for the grove manager until after we were in the cabin of my boat, me elevated in the captain’s chair with a glass of white wine, him in the settee booth with a Diet Coke.

  This was not true. We had spent an hour hiking around, inspecting citrus trees, both of us with flashlights. By day, there would have been no need for the occasional hand-on-elbow contact that darkness and bad footing require. By day, that small familiarity would have seemed less intimate, and unacceptable.

  After dark, though, the briefest contact can become a secret communication—all deniable, of course, depending on the message and the response.

  Among trees my great-grandfather planted a century ago, that’s where I first felt a chesty, respiratory tension and an awareness of Kermit Bigalow. It was easy enough to hide, of course, because our conversation remained strictly on a formal, friendly plain.

  “See these little bastards?” He was pointing out microscopic bugs that peppered the underside of a tangerine leaf. “They carry the bacteria from tree to tree. Under a microscope, they resemble moths, but they’re bizarre-looking. More like they have the head of a catfish.”

  This struck me as amusing. I should have known then what was happening and sent the man on his way.

  “Psyllids, they’re called,” he said, pronouncing the word sill-ids. “There are three types, mostly from Asia, and they’ve been spreading around the world since at least the late eighteen hundreds. I don’t think the connection is accidental. Citrus, the earliest forms, originated in the Orient, too.”

  “Spray doesn’t kill them?”

  “Depends on what country you’re talking about. Brazil produces three times the citrus we do because its EPA restrictions aren’t nearly as tough. I worked down there for a while with a man who owns more groves than all of Florida combined. At the first sign of these”—he ground the insects to paste with his thumb and dropped the leaf—“they literally nuke every plant and tree for miles. We can’t get away with that here.”

  That brought South America, and the story of Raymond Caldwell into my mind. For an instant, I came to my senses. “How’d you like Brazil?”

  “People are great. But with all those chemicals in the lakes and water, in the markets on everything you touch? It’s no place to raise a daughter. You’ll understand, Hannah, when you have kids.”

  I found his fatherly concern and caring tone attractive. Kermit was fit, with veins showing in his forearms, but not large enough, it seemed to me, to be a college linebacker.

  He took my elbow while our flashlights led us to the oldest citrus trees in the field. They were as squat and gnarled as Halloween, but loaded with fruit, beneath a starry sky with clouds.

  That was a high point—the surprise of seeing oranges plump and ripe, not withered with disease.

  “I’ll be darned,” Kermit said. “You might be on to something, young lady. Hang on . . . I’ve got a knife.”

  I said, “The leaves don’t look so good, but you’re the expert.” By then, I could recognize the telltale yellowing and see for myself that psyllids were matted like ticks on the undersides of the leaves. There were signs of canker, too.

  “It’s the fruit that matters. Whoa—lots of juice in these. That’s a good sign. Here, have a taste.”

  He handed me a freshly cut wedge, then pawed around in the limbs, using his light for a closer look. “Once the bacteria enter the tree, they attack the inside layers of the bark. The phloem—that’s the tree’s vascular system; what blood vessels are to us. The trunk can’t transport water or nutrients the tree needs. It’s like being starved to death and strangled at the same time. After five or six years, they’re dead, but the fruit’s no good long before that.”

  I took a taste. The pulp was tart as a lemon and caused me to pucker, but good. “They’re called sour oranges for a reason, I guess. My mother used them for marinade on the rare occasions she cooked, and I’ve had chefs ask permission to pick a bushel. Do you really think this older rootstock might help in what you’re doing?”

  “Dunno.” He stepped clear of the branches. “This one has the disease. No doubt about that, but it seems to be holding up a lot better than our modern trees. Did you say some original Spanish seed stock grows on an island around here? From now on, I need to listen when you have something to say.”

  That pleased me. So did the intensity of his interest, but he had misunderstood. “Not if you’re talking about trees planted by Ponce de León, explorers like him, who brought the first citrus to Florida. That was four hundred years ago, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Longer,” he said. “It’s not the age, it’s the purity of the genetic stock that matters.”

  “I’m not sure what that means. The places I know, they’re islands that used to be farmed, but they’re deserted now. Always where there are Indian mounds. There has to be high ground. I look for gumbo-limbo trees; that’s the first sign citrus might grow wild in the backcountry. I’ve found sour oranges, and key limes, and there’s at least one place where there are good white grapefruit.”

  “Indian mounds?”

  We started back, and talked about history for a while, before returning to the subject of citrus planted in the 1500s. The Spaniards had done it to provision returning ships in a land where they’d hoped to find gold.

  Kermit said, “I was picturing some remote spot where trees reproduced without being grafted, or cross-pollinated, or genetically altered in some way. Even those back there”—the old trees, he meant—“are varietals and hybrids. They’re old, don’t get me wrong, but they’re at least four hundred years removed from the original stock. It’s a silly idea, probably. The idea of seed banks came way too late—why save something you’ve made better? Now there’s no going back . . . unless you believe in time machines.”

  “I don’t,” I replied, “but there are a couple of spots on this coast that might be just as good. My uncle used to load up the boat, and we’d go camping for a week at a time. Machete islands, he called them, because we had to cut our way in.” I thought for a moment. “Years ago, he brought back seeds—a sour orange, and some guavas, too—from a place that was pure hell getting into. I know they sprouted; a couple were doing pretty well, but I haven’t bothered to check in a while. My mother sold that piece of land a while back.”

  “Wow, that would be somet
hing to see.” He sounded enthusiastic. “Tomorrow, when I bring Sarah, would you mind pointing those trees out?”

  We were near the house by then, and I could see his face in the porch light. Not a handsome man in the Cary Grant way, but solid-looking and healthy, a man who was at the peak of his confidence after forty years of earning it.

  In hindsight, I would like to believe it was the threat of melancholy on a Friday night that caused me to do something I normally wouldn’t.

  “It’s not even nine o’clock yet,” I said to the married man. “How about something to drink while we talk? I can show you around my boat.”

  EIGHT

  In the morning, my charter got off to a rocky start—which is only fitting, I suppose. My clients, a husband and wife, were staying at Jensen’s Twin Palms on Captiva Island, and it wasn’t until I arrived that I realized I’d gone off and left the lunch I’d packed and my landing net behind.

  “You seem distracted,” the man, whose name was Gentry, observed. “Is everything hunky-dory in your world?” He and his wife said things like this; old-fashioned and humorous, always in a caring way.

  My world wasn’t hunky-dory, but I wasn’t being paid to discuss personal affairs.

  “I’ll buy you lunch at the Collier Inn,” I said, which was on nearby Useppa Island, one of the most beautiful places in the world. I borrowed a net, and shoved off, for I was eager to leave my self-recriminations behind.

  I had fished this couple before. They were both competent with fly rods in their hands—not always the case in the charter business—and I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. It was one of those rare days when a fishing guide wants be at a dozen different spots at the same time, which is exciting. The air was cool but warming beneath a high blue sky. After a week of wind, it had flattened, and the bay was slick as glass, and as clear.