Jimmy Headley must have heard the music when he pulled up to his cottage and found no one home and then ventured down the beach path to find someone who might know where the “freeloader”, Mathew Coulter, may be hiding out. He spotted me out on the dance floor before I had any indication he was in town. Rather than just walk in and announce himself, which would have been terribly boring in Jimmy’s estimation, he instead wandered around the periphery of the dance floor making sure I didn’t notice him. Then he found a nice looking young woman, who happened to be Rebecca Bidwell and asked her to dance. Out on the dance floor I was suddenly pushed from behind and turned to see my friend in the arms of the attractive young Miss Bidwell. It was quite a pleasant surprise to see Jimmy there as if it were the most natural thing, as if he had been there all summer. I quickly explained to Lila who this new visitor was and she reminded me she had known Jimmy and the Headley family for some time. I excused myself momentarily from our dance and turned to face my old friend.
“Damn, Coulter,” he said. “Didn’t even recognize the old beach house with that new coat of paint. Did you have half the county out painting the place all summer?”
I moved a few steps over, leaving Lila for a moment and gave him a big hug. “Where have you been all summer?” I asked. “I’ve been out there painting my ass off and you’re nowhere to be found!”
He just laughed and took a sip from a drink he had grabbed from the bar that had been set up in the corner of the pavilion. “Meet my friend…,” he said, turning to look at his dance partner, and it was clear he had forgotten her name. Rebecca held out her hand in embarrassment and said hello. She seemed very intrigued with my friend, James Headley.
“Headley, really, what have you been up to?” I asked in mock accusation, knowing he had been traveling with his family in Europe.
Jimmy turned to look at his new dance partner, Rebecca, and said, “I don’t know why the hell I haven’t been here. Damn, they’ve got pretty women in Grayton Beach. Should have remembered how nice it’s been down here these past years.”
We both excused ourselves from our dance partners and walked back over to the bar and refilled our drinks. “Coulter, what the hell have you been up to all summer?” Headley asked.
All of the events of the past months swirled through my mind. I really didn’t know where to start. It was like a kaleidoscope of people and events, tragedies and surprising delights. “You should have been here, Headley,” I finally said. “You can’t even imagine.”
“All I can imagine,” he replied, looking at his new friend and dance partner, “is young Rebecca there laid out bare in the sand with me in about twenty minutes. Boy, has she grown up!”
“Take your time, Headley,” I said, and then laughed. “You don’t want to sully the Headley name in Grayton Beach on your first night back this year.”
“Hell, she’s a big girl,” he said, and then took another long drink from the moonshine he had poured from the bar table. “We could very likely fall in love tonight.”
I looked over at Rebecca and saw her talking with her parents near the rail of the pavilion. She was particularly striking on this night, tall and lean, her long black hair flowing and wearing a dress that sparkled in the fire lights from around the dance floor. She also held herself in such a confident manner she literally stood out and shined like a beacon among the other guests. Clearly, she was letting everyone know she was moving beyond her mourning for Seth Howard, and I had to agree it was damn well about time. I doubted that Jimmy Headley would have much luck luring her away into some illicit rendezvous on the beach, but then again, as I thought back to our time together at the university in Athens, Georgia, I was never surprised by the audacity of his conquests.
I managed to find my way back to the cottage at a reasonable hour, sometime after midnight, and sipped a short drink and smoked one of Palumbo’s cigars out on the porch, waiting for Headley to return. When the music stopped down at the pavilion and the lights went out and people milled up through the dunes back to the hotel or to their cottages, I finally gave up on Headley and went to bed. In the morning, my first conscious thought was that someone was shaking my shoulders. I managed to open my eyes and then focus in the bright glare through the shades in my room, the ache in my head a quick reminder of last night’s excess. Headley was sitting there on my bed. His mop of hair was in disarray, shooting off in random angles. His face was flushed and tired looking and yet, his ever-present smile was still radiating out from the carnage of the drink and apparent lack of sleep.
“Morning, Coulter,” he said.
“What time is it and where in hell have you been?” I asked.
He looked at his watch. “Just past seven.”
I rolled back over and pulled a pillow over my head. “Find a bed, Headley, and get some sleep,” I said, but he had to tell me about his night on the beach with young Rebecca Bidwell from Point Washington. Apparently, she had arranged to stay over with a friend for the night in Grayton Beach and then she snuck out after everyone else was asleep and met him back at the beach. The details seemed all a bit fuzzy in my half-conscious state, but I did gather they had taken a long walk down the beach toward Seagrove and then a swim in the late-night surf. With that comment, I was awake enough to remind him about the nocturnal travels of big sharks along the shoreline after dark. He just laughed and continued to tell me they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms in the sand and woke when the sun started to show off to the east. He had just gotten her back to the house before anyone was up and then he told me he was desperately in love with Rebecca Bidwell. She reminded him they had met before a couple of summers earlier, but she had certainly matured as Headley called it since then.
I had heard Jimmy express his undying love for a dozen different girls over the years we had been friends, so I didn’t take the comment with much credence. He obviously sensed my skepticism and said, “Coulter, I’m serious. This girl is incredible and I didn’t even sleep with her. I mean I slept with her, but you know, we kept most of our clothes on.”
I just laughed and threw my pillow at him. “Really, you need to get some sleep,” I said. He reluctantly backed out of the room, but was still chattering about the marvelous Rebecca. I heard him go out to the kitchen to pump some water in the sink and soak his head. I fell asleep again almost immediately and woke some time later to the smell of bacon. I stumbled out into the main room of the cottage trying to wipe the crusted sleep from my eyes and scratch in all the places that needed scratching. Headley was there at the wood stove working over a frying pan full of eggs and crackling bacon. The smell was marvelous and mixed with the aroma of fresh coffee. I cleared room on my writing table and Headley served. The food was so good neither of us spoke until it was quickly consumed.
“So, you kept your pants on last night,” I finally said, and smiled at my friend.
“You know it’s not nice to talk about a lady,” he teased. “We’re talking about my future wife, Coulter.”
“Right, until I introduce you to one of my girlfriend’s roommates later today.”
“She has roommates?”
“Gorgeous roommates,” I said.
He jumped up quickly and threw the dishes in the sink. “We need to get cleaned up and on with the business of the day. Come on Coulter, we need to get moving. We’re burning daylight.”
On our drive over to Panama City later that morning, Headley went on to tell me all about Rebecca. I decided not to get into the details of her recent engagement to the now deceased Seth Howard. His undying love paled some as we drove along, perhaps as the whiskey had worked its way through his system or the bright lights of reality of a new day and the prospects of beautiful roommates in Panama City loomed just ahead.
It was mid-afternoon when we got into town. I knew Eleanor didn’t have to be at work until later in the evening. We pulled up in front of her house. The shades were down and there were no signs of anyone around. Jimmy and I got out and st
arted walking up the narrow sandy path to the front door.
“She’s got two roommates, right Coulter?” he asked for the fifth time.
And then the door opened. I stopped and looked on in complete astonishment as Sheriff Lucas Crowe walked out onto the porch, adjusting his uniform and then turning to face Eleanor Whitlock who was squinting in the opening of the door in the bright sunlight with an arm in front of her eyes, her robe half open and untied. Crowe hadn’t seen us and he turned and pulled Eleanor close and hugged her and then handed her a wad of bills. When he pushed away, Eleanor looked out and saw me standing there. Both she and the sheriff stood for a moment in stunned surprise. My eyes met hers and her mouth fell open as if she wanted to speak, but had no capacity to form the right words.
Crowe recovered more quickly and walked down the steps toward us and as he passed, said, “Hell of a piece of ass, Coulter.”
A rage that had just begun deep in the pit of my stomach, now instantly boiled over. I lunged at the man and catching him off guard, knocked him to the ground. I fell on top of him and as he struggled to get me off, I started throwing punches wildly at his face. Headley quickly pulled me off and held me as I struggled to go back after him. I watched as Crowe stood up, a red fury now burning on his face and he came over next to me. I felt Headley free my arms and I stood staring at Sheriff Lucas Crowe, breathing heavily and knowing in my heart at that moment I could kill the man.
“She’s just a damn whore, Coulter,” he said, and then he laughed and started to walk away. I was trying to catch my breath and Headley had a handful of the back of my shirt in case I decided to go after him again. Then Crowe turned and with a malevolent glare said, “I wouldn’t suggest you ever hit an officer of the law again, Coulter.” Then he kept walking down the street. I could see his car was parked about a block down in front of a small restaurant Eleanor and I had eaten in many times.
Then I turned back and saw her still standing in the doorway, her face showing a mottled expression of panic and shame. She had managed to cover herself and held the collar of her robe tightly up around her chin, tears streaming down her face. She started to walk down the steps and I put a hand up to stop her, my own tears now welling up in my eyes. I tried to wipe them away before I simply said, “No.”
She came down anyway, along the narrow path until she was standing right in front of me. Wiping away the tears on her cheeks, she tried to reach out for me, but I pushed her arms away.
“Mathew,” I heard Headley say. “We should go.”
I looked into her eyes for some sense of explanation, but all I saw was sadness and fear. When she spoke, it was in a small and crackling voice I had never heard before and she had to stop several times to fight back the sobs that shook her body. “Mathew, please this just isn’t right…”
“It sure as hell isn’t right!” I screamed back at her.
“You need to understand, Mathew,” she said. “It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?” I asked, and with all my will I had to hold myself back from lashing out at her.
“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.”
I stepped back away from her, letting what she had just said sink in for a moment, and then her next comments sent my emotions into a total frenzy. “It was Palumbo,” she said, and then she looked down at the ground as if this was the ultimate shame of what had just transpired.
“Palumbo?” I asked in complete shock and disbelief.
She came up to me again and put her arms around me and this time I was so off-kilter I let her hold me, my own hands hanging at my side. Then she looked into my eyes and said, “He paid me to get close to you.”
Immediately, my mind started racing back over the sequence of events of our time together and I quickly felt the sickening realization I had been played. Then I started to think through the implications and motives. “Why?” was all I could manage to say.
“I never knew for sure, Mathew,” she replied, “but he often spoke about your family’s business up in Atlanta and how he wanted you to help him get close to your father.”
A lightning bolt of clarity shot through me and all of this suddenly became very clear. Palumbo had ultimately worked his way into position and our family had taken the easy way out in turning over the business. My feelings of rage and frustration welled to the surface again. Then I felt Headley pulling me back toward the car. I let her slip out of my arms for the last time and as Headley drove us away, I looked back at Eleanor Whitlock standing on the front walk of her house with her face in her hands.
Chapter Twenty-seven
We drove in silence back to Grayton Beach. Jimmy had the good sense as a friend not to make some lame joke about not being able to meet Eleanor’s roommates. I kept looking out the side window at the passing landscape and occasional cottage or farm. It all went by in a clouded blur as my mind was focused on trying to retrace the times I had spent with Eleanor Whitlock these past months. She was certainly no saint, but how could I have missed the indications of her true nature and occupation? I was also struggling with my embarrassment at having been duped for so long and now in front of one of my best friends who I had spent all morning telling how wonderful this woman was and that I was in love.
Finally, Headley apparently felt it was time to offer some solace. “Look friend, I don’t know what the hell just happened back there, but from what I could see, you’re damn well better off knowing now.” He let the comment hang there for a moment. “I know you had feelings for this girl, but there are a lot of women in this world.”
I looked at my friend and said, “I know you’re trying, Headley, but just shut up.” He obviously got the message and we went on the rest of the way back to his cottage without speaking. When we arrived, he announced he really wanted to head over to Point Washington before going back to Atlanta, I’m sure with thoughts of Rebecca Bidwell fresh in his mind. I helped him load his car and as he was about to pull out he leaned his head out of the window and said, “Stay as long as you like, Coulter, but I’d stay away from Panama City for a while if I were you.”
I thanked him again for the shelter and sanctuary and then he was off down the dusty road out of town. I turned toward the beach when I heard thunder off in the distance over the water. A heavy bank of dark clouds was moving in from the south and in the last light of day lighting was flashing off behind them, illuminating the sky. I noticed for the first time how strongly the wind had picked up since the morning. The tall pines and live oaks were thrashing about and gusts of wind sent swirls of white sand rushing by. Out along the beach I could see the waves were rolling higher than I had ever seen them and crashing hard down along the shore. And then what struck me was the sound of birds was gone and I wondered about little Champ, the mockingbird.
Going into the house, I closed the door against the wind. I lit two of the kerosene lamps and found a bottle of good whiskey in the cupboard. I heard a knock on the door and when I opened it, Lila Dalton stood there trying to hold her dress down in the strong winds. “Mathew, I just saw you get home. This looks like a big storm coming. You better get everything outside put away.
I was still staggering from the shock of Eleanor and the Sheriff and I thought for a moment about telling Lila her boyfriend was sleeping with prostitutes in Panama City, but decided there would be a better time and place. I had to cope now with the reality of the moment and the coming storm. “Do you need my help with anything?” I asked.
“No, we’re fine,” she said. “Some of the guests decided to leave earlier when the weather started to turn, but the rest of us are pretty well settled in. If it doesn’t get too bad later, please come over and join us for a drink and some company.”
I thanked her and closed the door as she walked back out into the approaching storm. Then the rain started to fall and the lightning seemed even closer out over the water. When the lightning flashed, the sky turned an ugly and ominous purple and bla
ck. I pushed the door closed again and reached for the bottle I had left on the writing table. Somewhere in the back of my mind a random thought caused me to look at all the loose pages on the table. I sorted them and stacked them and took the whole pile into the bedroom. I put them in a suitcase and then shoved it under the bed.
Looking out one of the front windows, rain now slashed against the glass and the old metal roof above creating a deafening clatter. I grabbed the bottle from the writing desk and a glass from the kitchen and then sat down in the old worn upholstered chair in the corner. I twisted the top off the bottle of whiskey and took a long, ragged breath. I knew deep inside there were no answers or relief to the disturbing events of the day in this bottle and yet I felt compelled to believe there was some hope of escape toward the bottom of it, at least for a few hours. I poured the glass half full and held the amber liquid up to the dim light beside me. It glowed golden and warm and welcoming and I threw my head back and swallowed it all. As the liquor burned down my throat and into my gut, images of Eleanor Whitlock flashed in my mind; better times we had shared, moments of intimacy and lust, laughter and tears. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of our time together had been a pretense, a performance, paid for by the gangster, Willie Palumbo. And then I remembered her telling me she had fallen in love with me. I poured another half glass full and just took a sip this time. I laughed to myself as I thought about Eleanor Whitlock’s love; how she must have been thinking about how much she loved me when she was screwing Lucas Crowe and who knows how many others.
Grayton Winds Page 24
