The Girl in Hemingway's Studio

by Carolyn Grady

  Copyright © 2019 Carolyn Grady

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-54396-196-6 (print)

  ISBN: 978-1-54396-197-3 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019901550

  Courage is grace under pressure.

  Ernest Hemingway

  To Jim, Sean, Kristen, Jeri Dawn,

  Corey, and my beautiful granddaughters,

  Nicole and Tori.

  Contents

  Consequences

  The Year Before

  Background

  The Apartment

  Their New Life

  The Invitation

  The Anniversary Party

  A Skiing Accident

  The New Client

  The Wedding

  The Prize

  Memories

  The Decision

  The Inheritance

  The Husband

  The Sister

  Exploring the Facts

  The Fourth of July

  The Unexpected Guest

  The Hemingway House

  The Search

  Divergence

  The Investors

  The Loan Connection

  The Deal

  The Polar Express

  The Loan

  The Mediation

  The Courtship

  The Unscrupulous Agreement

  Extortion

  The Promise

  More Problems

  Charlotte’s Visit

  Complications

  The Perfect Dinner

  The Payments

  The Relationship

  The Art Exhibit

  Serious Conflicts

  More Delays

  The Decision

  Headquarters’ Concerns

  A Decisive Incident

  Ticking Time Bombs

  Consequences Continued

  The “Fixer”

  The Resolutions

  A New Agreement

  The Patsy

  A Revelation

  Hurricane IrmaTwo Months Later

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Consequences

  April 18, 2017

  The man who rescued Alexis from the faculty parking lot was middle-aged with a paunch; he arrived in a white van with AAA in large red letters printed on the door. After installing a new battery and accepting Alexis’s Visa card, he smiled at her, tipped his baseball hat, and drove away. Alexis was happy to be on her way home after a long day of teaching classes, meeting with students, attending an impromptu faculty meeting, and dealing with a car that wouldn’t start. Tuning to KBAQ, her favorite classical radio station, she took a deep breath as she contemplated another heated argument with her husband, Marcus. Perhaps instead of initiating the touchy subject, she would start the evening with a glass of wine and small talk about their day. Maybe after relaxing and frivolous conversation, Alexis could turn the conversation to the “investment.” If only Marcus would be honest about what has been going on with the mining project that he and his brother, Eric, were subsidizing with their time and borrowed money. Alexis didn’t know much about the deal the brothers had put together with a group of investors, as she had been distracted getting her first manuscript ready for publication. Alexis knew Marcus and Eric were expecting a promising windfall at any time. However, depending upon the direction of the weekly conversations the brothers had with the wealthy businessmen, Marcus would come home in either an ecstatic or despondent mood.

  Just as Alexis turned into her neighborhood she noticed the mailman pulling away from her house. She breathed a deep sigh of relief as she pulled into her driveway and opened the garage door with her clicker. As the garage door curled upward, she noticed Marcus’s car was parked in the garage and his car door was open. She stopped her car, got out, and shut the door on Marcus’s vintage, black Jeep.

  How unlike Marcus to do something so careless, she thought as she walked back to her car.

  Alexis parked her car in the garage and walked over to their mailbox. She loved the fact that the houses in this older neighborhood still had individual mailboxes planted in their front yards. After purchasing this house, this cute white mailbox splattered with yellow daisies across the top and on both sides was a housewarming gift from her dad. She smiled as she walked toward it.

  Taking the mail out of her mailbox, she groaned as she noticed several unexpected bills. She shut the mailbox door and looked at the front of her house where she noticed all the shutters were closed.

  That’s odd, she thought. Marcus loves to have our home illuminated with sunlight and opens the shutters as soon as he walks in the door.

  While walking back toward the open garage, Alexis noticed a brand new black Lincoln MKZ with celebrity-style tinted windows sitting in front of the house across the street.

  Hmm, she thought. Maybe Matthew McConaughey is visiting someone in our neighborhood. She chuckled as she hit the button on the wall to close the garage door and walked through the side door into the kitchen.

  “Marcus,” she called out. “Did you know that you left….”

  Out of nowhere, a large, hairy arm grabbed her neck from behind and put an enormous smelly hand over her mouth. The house was dark, and as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw her husband lying on the floor, motionless. Alexis gasped. Her purse and the mail scattered onto the kitchen floor.

  The man smelled dirty and sweaty as Alexis tried to twist her way out of his grip. The man tightened his grip and pointed to her husband and announced, “He’s not dead…just unconscious…at least for now. If I take my hand off your mouth, will you promise not to scream and answer a few questions?”

  Alexis nodded her head. She panicked as she thought, Home invasion? Robbery?

  Another man, portly, dressed in jeans and a frayed T-shirt walked out of the bedroom that she used as an office. Immediately she noticed that he was carrying her laptop and a mailing box that contained her just completed manuscript. The one she was going to UPS to Michael, her literary agent, first thing tomorrow morning. Her heart jumped into her throat.

  “Hey, Ricco, look what I found,” the grubby man announced. “Are you Alexis Strong Caldwell?”

  “Yes, who are you?”

  “Funny girl, you don’t get to ask the questions. You look alarmed.” As he held up the box, he asked, “Are the contents in this box important to you?”

  A third man walked inside the house from the backyard through the French doors that opened into the living room. This man carried an aura of authority, and Alexis assumed that he was probably the leader of this gang of thieves. The man was holding a watering can that he found on the patio table and poured its entire contents over Marcus’s head.

  Alexis gasped as her husband tried to sit up. There was a gash on his forehead, his nose was bleeding, his face was discolored and bruised, and both of his front teeth were broken. Her mind was racing as she desperately tried to make sense of everything. She became agitated as she watched a puddle staining her beautiful wood floors underneath her husband’s body.

  “Please take whatever you want and just leave us alone,” Alexis pleaded with the three home invaders. “We don’t have any cash or jewelry, but I promise we won’t call the police, just don’t hurt us. Please go.”

  “Lady, we ain’t your common burglars,” explained Ricco. “We are, what we like to call in the business, ‘persuaders.’ We’re just doing a courtesy job for our boss. Trying to gently remind your husband that he can’t ever be late or try to shortchange the boss with his payments.”

  “What payments? What boss? What are you talking about?”

  The man who had poured water on Marcus’s head was helping him up from the floor.
“Oh Marcus, I think you forgot to tell your pretty little wife about the terms of the loan that you and your brother agreed on. You have until tomorrow afternoon at four to gather the rest of this month’s payment plus a $500 late fee or we come back.” He looked over at Alexis as he allowed Marcus to fall back on the floor, “Maybe, we’ll make you watch as we take out what you owe us on your pretty little wife. But that would be such a shame—she’s one attractive lady.” He looked at Alexis with a mocking sneer and then turned his attention back to her husband, “Marcus, remember tomorrow at four, same place as usual.”

  The large muscular thug, Ricco, who had grabbed Alexis when she walked through the door, turned her around to look at him. He lifted her chin with a chubby finger and warned her, “Girly, like I said this is a ‘friendly’ visit. If we have to return, there will be bloodshed, broken bones, or worse. Make sure Marcus finds the money.” Then he grabbed one of Alexis’s breasts and rubbed his dirty hand against it and laughed. Marcus tried to stand up to defend his wife’s honor, but again fell back on the floor.

  The men picked up their things along with Alexis’s computer and manuscript and walked out of the front door. The man who had poured the water on Marcus left with a warning, “Don’t be stupid and call the police. Just get the money together, and all this will go away. When we get our money, Alexis, you get your laptop and manuscript back. Easy-peasy.”

  Alexis ran over to Marcus helping him up, “What was that man talking about? Why would you owe thugs money? What did you and Eric do?”

  Glancing through the slits in the shutters, Alexis saw the three men get into the black Lincoln parked across the street and speed away.

  Alexis helped Marcus onto the couch and ran into the kitchen to get frozen peas to put on his face. As she was tending to her husband, her cell phone rang. It was her sister-in-law. Trying to decide whether to answer it or continue to help her husband, she reluctantly pushed “accept.”

  “Betsy, can I call you back….” she began.

  “Alexis,” interrupted Betsy. “You need to help me now. I just got home from work and found Eric lying on the garage floor beaten to a pulp. I thought he was dead, but I felt a pulse. I just called 9-1-1, and they are on their way. Can you send Marcus over to help me file a police report?”

  “Betsy, take a deep breath and hold on,” Alexis muted the phone and quickly told Marcus what had just happened to Eric.

  Marcus looked up at his wife terrified and shook his head. “No, don’t let her call the police.”

  “Okay, Betsy, listen to me and listen carefully. Don’t call the police.”

  Alexis thinking quickly continued, “We need to make this look like an accident. No police. Is Eric lying close to the crawl space where the ladder pulls down?”

  “If you mean where Eric keeps our Christmas decorations, yes.” answered Betsy.

  “Good. Pull the ladder down and tell the paramedics that you think Eric fell off the ladder trying to get something out of the attic.”

  “Okay, I’m pulling it down now,” Betsy was breathing heavily trying to keep her hysteria under control. “Please tell me what is going on—I don’t understand why you’re not surprised that my husband was beaten up?”

  “Listen, I’m on my way over to see you and I will explain what I know. But for your protection and Eric’s, don’t talk to the police. If the paramedics come before I get there, text me which hospital they are taking him. Betsy, be strong and do exactly what I tell you, okay?”

  “Okay, hurry up and get here. Oh, the paramedics are pulling up into the driveway.”

  Alexis explained briefly to Marcus about Eric while she dialed her father’s cell phone.

  “Dad, I need your help,” Alexis said as her voice cracked when she heard her father answer.

  “Alexis, what’s going on? Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “I’m at home and I don’t have time to explain, but Marcus has been hurt and I need someone here to look after him. I’m afraid he may have a concussion, and I need someone to keep him awake. I need to leave to go to another emergency. Please just trust me.”

  “Judith and I are just coming back from a meeting in Phoenix. We can be at your house in just a few minutes,” Arthur responded as he disconnected the call and increased his speed.

  Oh, God, please not Judith, thought Alexis as she looked over at her battered husband.

  Marcus looked up at his wife while he rubbed his sore head, “Alexis, call Becky in Dr. Allen’s office and see if he can squeeze me in tomorrow morning to fix my front teeth. I can’t go to work looking like this.”

  Alexis felt a steam of anger rising up through her chest, “Marcus, we just had ruffians in our home, attacking you, stealing my laptop and my finished novel, assaulting Eric in his garage, and then threatening to kill all of us if you don’t come up with some money you owe them and all you are worried about is your teeth? Are you serious? What the hell did you and Eric do to get us into this situation?”

  Alexis was afraid her whole life was unraveling, a wave of despair rushed through her body. Was it really just a little less than one year ago that her life seemed so filled with promise and excitement?

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Year Before

  May 2016

  Alexis finally felt comfortable in her own skin. It’s about time she thought; after all she would be thirty-five years old in September. It had taken a long time for her to discover who she really was and what style looked good on her imperfect body. As a child, Alexis grew taller faster than any of her friends. When she was twelve, she had reached her full height of 5’ 7”; and she was taller than anyone else in her class. To make matters worse, she was skinny—soaking wet she didn’t weigh ninety pounds. Her classmates called her “the bean stalk” or “Jack’s bean stalk.” Jack was the most popular boy in her class, and he would stare and shake his head when the other boys would chant, “There goes Jack’s bean stalk.” Jack’s piercing blue eyes would go deep into Alexis’s soul and her cheeks would blush crimson red. How she wished she could immediately disappear from the face of the earth.

  During high school Alexis’s body filled out as the other kids grew closer to or exceeded her height. One low point in her freshman year of college was when she became a little pudgy. Alexis quickly lost the “freshman 15” through diet and hours of excessive exercise. Finding that “look” that would define her style and one she felt comfortable wearing, took several more years. It didn’t take long for Alexis to discover the trends of the mid nineties—overalls with one strap off the shoulder, long T-shirts, a Von Dutch trucker hat, laced-up jeans, halter tops, and popcorn shirts didn’t do anything for her confidence or her figure.

  Today, Dr. Alexandra Strong Caldwell was an associate professor of English at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. Her husband of six years, Marcus, was starting a new job at Maricopa Community Colleges in the Accounting Department that morning. Alexis said a quick prayer that this would be the job that he would like and find challenging enough to hold his interest.

  Alexis walked from the faculty parking lot to her first class on this dazzling perfect May morning. These pleasant cool mornings and evenings were coming to an abrupt end; soon the desert heat would settle in and bake the city of Phoenix for the next four to five months. It was the week of “finals” and in few short days, her summer vacation would begin. Three months ago, she had entered her original short story in the “Florida Keys Flash Fiction Contest.” It was a good story, five hundred words that would hold the reader’s interest, have them fall in love with the protagonist, and provide an ending that no one would see coming. The contest winner would be announced the end of May and the prize was paid air travel for two, accommodations for twenty-one days in a residency cottage at The Studios of Key West, a $500 debit card for meals, plus a pass and paid admission to various events. The best part of the prize would give the winning author ten of those days to spend writing in the studio that Ernest Hemingway used when he li
ved on Whitehead Street most of the 1930s. Her colleagues admired her writing style and ideas, but Alexis needed inspiration. She wanted to create a novel that Hemingway would have loved. Alexis had been working on her beloved novel for eighteen months and needed a shot of originality to make it sizzle. Maybe Hemingway’s ghost would be the catalyst to find the perfect words that could create a best seller.

  As she walked past a classroom structure that was in the process of being built, she caught a reflection of herself in a window—the new and improved Alexis. Her light-brown hair was cut in a sugar pixie cut with lots of blond highlights on the top of her thick hair. The new cut emphasized her big brown eyes and cute nose. Her new Ann Taylor outfit of navy and white culottes and a navy T-shirt topped with a smart white jacket was classic.

  She smiled as she remembered her mother’s patience when she was a young teenage girl trying to find herself. Her two best friends, Cathy and Julie, loved spending the night at her home. They would arrive dressed in their cute “parent-approved” outfits, but as soon as their parents drove off and waved good-bye, Alexis and her friends would run into the master bedroom and raid her father’s dresser. The look was “grunge.” Alexis would distribute her dad’s white boxer shorts and oversized white T-shirts to her friends. After their hair was sprayed and back combed until the top and sides stood straight out and their eyes rimmed with black pencil and tons of mascara, the girls were finally ready to walk down to the local theater to meet their friends.

  Grandmother Baxter, who was spending the weekend with her daughter Nora, was shocked as the three friends were ready to walk out of the door.

  “Nora, did you see Alexis and her friends?” called Grandma. “You aren’t going to let them leave this house in Arthur’s underwear, are you?”

  “Dorks!” exclaimed Charlotte, Alexis’ older sister as she walked out of her room. Charlotte was tastefully dressed in Guess jeans and an expensive sweater; she had begged her mother to purchase.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Nora said as she gently put an arm around her mother to guide her back into the family room. “They all have their own underwear on underneath their outfits and actually they are very modestly dressed. It’s what their friends wear on Friday nights at the movies.”