Sanibel Scribbles

by Christine Lemmon

  “Holy shit,” said Evelyn as she followed Vicki downstairs to Miss Juanita. The women quickly ran the burning sage under the faucet and then tossed it in the trash.

  “I know you couldn’t have opened the Bible to that page on purpose,” mused Evelyn as they walked back upstairs. “Your eyes were closed, and you did it with one hand,” she said, glancing back at Vicki.

  “Evelyn, I’ve got to ask you something serious. Have the cards ever really helped your life in any way?”

  “My life. Ha. Let me tell you ‘bout my life, my endless cycle of Hell. Just name it and I’ve experienced it—rape, abuse, near starvation from no money and no food, and divorce. Did I mention spouse abuse? Got so bad I had to have surgery. It happened with both husbands and two boyfriends.” She plopped down on her bed.

  “Evelyn, you take advice from a deck of cards, or the spirits working through the cards, but who are these spirits?”

  “How am I supposed to know who they are? They only give me information that I interpret. They don’t talk about themselves.”

  “This is why it’s far safer to just talk to God.”

  “God doesn’t want anything to do with me. I can guarantee that.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that at all. God loves you no matter what you have done.”

  “No, he doesn’t love me. I mean, I don’t even know how to talk to Him.”

  “It’s easy. It’s the easiest thing in the world.” Vicki started praying to God, and Evelyn closed her eyes and listened.

  “Amen,” said Vicki a few minutes later.

  “Amen,” said Evelyn. “Amen.”

  The women talked and Evelyn shared how she had been abused by men in several different relationships. They cried because these men that abused Evelyn were like pirates, enemies to all of womankind.

  “What about your fiancé and your engagement?” asked Vicki.

  “I can’t marry that man. He hurts me all the time.”

  “But Evelyn, the proposal, the tears?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tears of fear! It was all an act to save my life, babe. You’re such a naive romanticist. I didn’t want to disappoint you by telling ya that the men in my life are as dangerous as worldwide ozone depletion. You were happy for me. How could I tell you the good old truth? You couldn’t handle it.”

  “Why’d you say yes to his proposal?”

  “Call it acting, my dear, acting. I’m good, aren’t I? Yeah, that was all a big act. I came to the island to hide from him. He said he was going to kill me because I tried breaking up. Believe me, he will kill me! I escaped to this island without telling a soul, not even my daughter. I hoped to stay out here long enough—I don’t know how long, just long enough for him to get on with his life. But he found me. I don’t know how. The whole proposal scene, it was done publicly because he knew it would be the only way to get close to me. As he swung me around, he whispered in my ear that he’d kill me if I didn’t return. I told him I had to finish my week at work in order to get any pay at all.”

  “Do you think he might show up here again?” asked Vicki.

  “Yes, with his gun! I’ve seen his gun close up. Believe me, I’ve almost felt its bullets. It would be just like him to charter a boat out here and show up at night when we’re all sleeping. There’s no way I’m gonna sleep tonight, and neither should you—for your life’s sake, keep your eyes open all … night … long!”

  With no locks on the front door of the staff house, or on her own bedroom door, Vicki didn’t need Evelyn to tell her to stay awake. She finally understood Evelyn’s anger, her attitude, the toughness of her voice, and the lines on her face. She remembered all the case studies of domestic violence that had been discussed in her psychology class, and knew the potentially life-threatening situation it often posed for anyone involved.

  Hours passed, and Vicki tried returning to her room, but Evelyn begged her to stay. “I’m scared to death to go to bed, babe. He might kill me while I’m sleeping. Oh, this is probably all so strange to you. Tell me more about God.”

  Dear Grandma,

  Everyone has fears in life. Some fear the future. Some fear not measuring up to what this world declares a success. Some fear not making their dreams and goals come true by the exact age at which they fantasized them to be a reality. Some fear not having a fortune in the bank by the age of thirty or not owning a house by thirty-five. I have been meeting some new fears, some I have never been introduced to before. Now I realize that some fear physical threats. Some fear addictions. Some fear love. Some fear financial starvation or homelessness. At first, I was afraid of these strangers I had to live with on this island. Now, I like them. We are meant to be here, living and breathing together at this time and place. There’s nothing more exciting in life than converting strangers into friends. It’s worth staying up late for.

  Instead of relying on Tarot cards, I need to patiently live out God’s timeline in my life. Why would I let a deck of cards, or the unknown spirits at work in them, dictate my future? What if they told me one thing when in reality another thing was supposed to happen? As a result, their advice could make me stray from my real destiny. The cards, or the person reading the cards, might predict some pretty strong things, and it might change the whole course of my life. The joke would be on me then, because I let them steer me.

  P.S. I know you’re not dead. How dare I conceptualize you as dead? Oh Grandma, you are more alive than ever, I’m sure!

  “Wake up, child! We gotta get ready for work.”

  “Are we late?” asked Vicki, looking around to reorient herself.

  “No, not yet, but no time for dillydallying.” Evelyn’s eyes searched out the round window of her attic room, the one facing the sunrise and the trees, like a child watching for Santa Claus.

  “Evelyn, how did you wake up without an alarm clock?”

  “Never slept,” she announced matter-of-factly, pacing back and forth from window to window. The pillowcase that had hung on the west window the night before now rested on the floor, and the Bible lay open.

  “Did you read more of the Bible after I fell asleep?” asked Vicki.

  “Yeah, but if you really wanna know why I couldn’t sleep, there was this enormous lizard sitting on your back. The thing was huge.”

  “An iguana? Bright green?”

  “Yep. I took it upon myself to keep an eye on it for you. Who knows what it could have done to you while you slept.”

  “You do think of anything to stay awake, don’t you?” mused Vicki.

  Vicki could still feel the puffiness around her eyes that night when she waited tables for dinner. A couple had chartered Simon’s boat out to the island’s rustic kerosene-lit restaurant for their thirtieth wedding anniversary.

  “This may sound strange,” the man said to Vicki as she handed him a plate with a piece of key lime pie. “I don’t know why I am supposed to tell you this,” he added.

  “Yes? What is it?” asked Vicki.

  “Do you have a Bible out here?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “I’m supposed to tell you to read Jeremiah, chapter forty-four, but I don’t know why.”

  Vicki stared. She held the woman’s plate with the key lime pie long enough for the woman to reach up and take it from her.

  “Have you been talking with Evelyn, the other waitress? Did she tell you to say that to me?”

  “No, dear, we haven’t spoken to anyone,” said his wife.

  “Then why did you tell me that? What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I was praying to God during the boat ride over here, and when you first walked over to our table to take our order, I felt an overwhelming urge to blurt that out to you, but I didn’t.”

  “My husband kept asking me if he should say something to you. I told him he should. Does it make any sense to you?”

  Vicki sat down and explained the burning sage story to the couple. “Yes, it makes a lot of sense. Thank you,” she said. “The name Jeremy
now means something to me, and I’ve heard the warning three times now.”

  Toward the end of their dinner, she felt tempted to leave the island with the nice-looking, normal couple. They resembled lifeboats, and she would feel safe getting a ride back to the mainland with them. They could take her to shore. But, no, she couldn’t go back. She had to stay.

  “Hey, Vicki,” said Evelyn after closing. “I’ve got a decision to make.”

  “Oh? What is it?”

  “It’s private. Usually, when I have this kind of a decision to make in life, I ask my tarot cards. Now I’m wondering, what to do. Do I ask God?”

  “Absolutely. You can go to God in prayer about anything at all. Remember, it’s simple. Start by saying anything, just talking. Be yourself. You don’t have to be formal.”

  “I’ve got to remember that,” said Evelyn. “Does He like certain prayers best?”

  “Here, come with me and we’ll write something out for you.” The women sat down at a table and Vicki wrote out the “Lord’s Prayer” on the back of a paper placemat.

  “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven,” they read together.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  LIKE READING ENTRIES IN her journal, the days flipped by quickly. Some days hardly got the descriptive entries they deserved, but recording life in the form of a letter was becoming a preoccupation for Vicki. Just how obsessive could a diary or an ongoing letter to her grandmother truly become? Well, for the detail-oriented perfectionist that she was—as a creator of daily lists of things to do that had to be artistically and grammatically correct—any correspondence, no matter how short and insignificant, became a novel in the making.

  So much of life never got put down in ink and as a result was forgotten as soon as one’s memory faded or the person who experienced it died. Vicki wrote about the things that mattered most to her, of the personalities and issues facing the strangers on the island. In doing so, she could feel her circle of comfort growing wider as did her worldview. This was reflected in her collection of shoes.

  Some shoes fit. They weren’t necessarily her style or from stores she’d ever shop at, but they did fit. She made them fit. If it meant putting on eight pairs of socks, this she would do. But some styles felt so out of proportion to her own feet that she couldn’t get them on even when she tried, socks or no socks. These were the times she wore wooden shoes, not minding that others wore flip-flops.

  Why write of shoes? Grandma would surely relate to such a metaphor, Vicki wrote. Her tile sandals, allowing her toes to get wet, walked her down the beaches of Sanibel Island each spring when Vicki and her sister came for a visit. Her red satin slippers escorted her to plays at the Red Barn Playhouse in Saugatuck, easily sliding off when the lights were dim and her toes requested freedom. The Indian moccasins slowly and silently walked her to Loaf-N-Mug Deli for coffee each summer morning in Saugatuck and then quickly walked her home, fueled by caffeine. Those thick rubber white gym shoes that matched perfectly with her bulky gray jogging suit trekked her comfortably to the family reunion in Michigan one cold Christmas. The grandchildren had wanted badly to rescue Grandma’s tiny body from that oversized sweat suit. Finally, her furry pink slippers—they went to Marro’s for pizza and danced to Elvis in her apartment. Perhaps they took her the farthest.

  Nights passed swiftly, as fast as it took to tie a shoestring. Vicki wore cream-colored sandals for a date with Ben. He picked her up at her grandmother’s condominium, and they packed snacks and sandwiches, then continued on to catch a sunset near Blind Pass Bridge.

  Once they found their spot in the sand, she slipped her sandals off and spread the blanket out close to the water. The waves looked like white-winged planes smoothly flying across the low, flat horizon, landing on shore one after the next. And small flocks of sanderlings were there to greet those waves and to pick up the colorful coquina clams. Every new rush of water brought more clams and they were as colorful as tourists wearing tropical shirts.

  “I’ve come to a significant conclusion regarding my job, my life,” said Ben, as he picked up an Olive Shell and rubbed its smooth exterior. “I think I’m going to take time off. A year or two.”

  Carefully packed sand and a few seashells into the shape of a building on the beach next to the blanket.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, what would you do with that time?” Vicki opened a package of wheat crackers and started spreading one with dip.

  “A lot of significant things.”

  “Like what?” She stared out at the sun. Only half of it left.

  “My part in preserving this awesome world we live in,” he laughed, popping a grape in his mouth. “Just things like that.”

  “Ben, what are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been researching save-the-planet-type organizations and projects. There are all kinds of interesting opportunities out there, and it’s something I feel compelled to do.”

  “Compelled?”

  “Sure. Did you know that in some countries people are required to put one year’s worth of time in the military?”

  “One year is a long time.” There were only minutes left before the sun would be gone completely.

  “One year is nothing. It’s nothing,” he said dryly.

  “But you have so many career aspirations. You said you wanted to start your own firm and -”

  “I know, and I will probably reach that goal, but life doesn’t start once you reach your goal. It starts now. Who knows what the future holds? We can set endless goals, then die before reaching them.”

  “Thanks for the morbid reminder. You didn’t have to say that.”

  “That is why we enjoy the process leading up to our goals. That is why we must enjoy the journey toward our goals as much as and perhaps more than the moment we reach them. More people die on the way down from the mountain than they do going up.”

  As he leaned over and sweetly kissed her, she couldn’t help but think about the complexity of Ben and his newly revealed idea. Just as a good beer offers more flavors each time the glass is raised – one moment dry and the next sweet – Ben too continued to surprise her. And like a great beer, his kiss left a long, lingering aftertaste.

  “So you’re not worried about taking a year off from your career?” she asked, pointing to the horizon and the descending sun.

  “It’ll always be there, and who would dare not hire me simply because I took a year off to help preserve part of our planet?”

  “Can you afford that much time off?” Only half of the sun was left, and before he answered, only a quarter was left.

  “No, but these sorts of things are never convenient. If I go through life saying I can’t financially afford to help generate awareness over ozone depletion, or I don’t have enough vacation days to help preserve the rain forest, I would go through life doing absolutely nothing for this world in which I live.”

  They watched a green fringe appearing on the upper edge of the sun. “You sound like a commercial on public TV.”

  He laughed. “Just call this my own little secret. I’ve been pondering it for a long time now.”

  Just then, the last of the sun vanished and a brilliant, greenish light could be seen on the horizon.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I saw it. This planet is amazing!” exclaimed Ben.

  “If you pursue your idea, where would you go?”

  “There are projects I could do locally, in the Everglades. I could stay right here.”

  It was a busy morning, and she had much to do before catching the staff boat back to Tarpon Key. She spent a couple of hours cleaning the condo, then rushing to the bank to cash her check, shopping for amenities, followed by dropping her dresses off at the dry cleaners before heading to the travel agent to pick up her round-trip plane tickets to Madrid. They cost twelve hundred dollars, and she paid with her own cash—her summer goal met.

  Ben had tried getting together with her
several times throughout the morning, but she kept telling him she would call him back once she finished her errands. Eventually he showed up at the condo, right as she was ready to leave for the marina. He offered to drive her there, and she accepted.

  “Ben, you’re quiet. Is everything okay?” she asked as they waited under the bamboo hut for the boat to arrive.

  “I’ve been thinking about you on that island. Are you okay living out there?”

  “Ben, I love it out there. We’ve discussed this before.”

  Just then, she could hear the distant sound of the boat’s motor making its way to dock. There were two bodies standing on it, probably leaving for their days off, but she couldn’t decipher who it was.

  He took her in his arms and held her close. “The closer I get to you, the more I dread the horrible good-bye ahead of us,” he said. “Vicki, you’re living on a remote mangrove in the middle of nowhere. Wouldn’t you rather spend your evenings at the jazz club with me?”

  “I love my nights with you.”

  “Then how about tonight? You don’t have to get on that boat. You could leave with me now, and tonight you and I could watch another sunset, see another green flash.”

  “That’s a once-in-a lifetime sight,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Yes, and we saw it together,” he added, then kissed her. “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, Ben, I can’t leave with you now. I’m working through a few things in my life, and this place is like therapy to me.” She waved at the approaching boat.

  “C’mon. I’ve only got you for the summer, then you’re off to Spain.”

  “And after Spain, I’ll be back to Holland for school. Who knows where I’ll go from there? There are so many places yet to see. We’ve gone over it again and again. I can’t let anything get in the way of my goals.”

  “Yes, but remember, you have to enjoy the journey there.”

  A little girl ran past them, skipping and hopping, and for a moment, they stopped and laughed. “Vicki, you’ve gotta hop, skip, and jump toward your goals, enjoying the process as much as the destination.”