SEX IN A SIDE CAR
PHYLLIS SMALLMAN
McArthur & Company
Toronto
First published in Canada in 2009 by
McArthur & Company
322 King St. West, Suite 402
Toronto, ON
M5V 1J2
www.mcarthur-co.com
This eBook edition published in 2010 by
McArthur & Company
Copyright © 2009 Phyllis Smallman
All rights reserved.
The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the expressed written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Smallman, Phyllis
Sex in a sidecar : a Sherri Travis mystery / Phyllis Smallman.
ISBN 978-1-55278-831-8
eISBN 978-1-55278-930-8
I. Title.
PS8637.M36 S49 2009—— C813’.6——C2009-901046-1
The publisher would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program (BPIDP) and the Canada Council for our publishing activities.
The publisher further wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
Cover and text design by Tania Craan
eBook development by Wild Element www.wildelement.ca
for Myrna Hardcastle and Lynda Smallman
my anchors in stormy seas
Chapter 1
Florida has two seasons. In the rainy season we get hurricanes, in the dry season we get tourists…both can be nasty. But when they come together it’s murder.
October was early for tourists and with Halloween just around the corner, it was late for hurricanes. This should be our quiet time. But down in the Bahamas a tropical depression was forming. We weren’t unduly worried. Hurricanes need warm water to sustain them. At that time of the year, we reasoned, the Atlantic Ocean would be cooling. So the further north the swirling mass traveled, the more likely it was to starve for waters hot enough to feed it. Blinded by optimism, we ignored the fact that South Florida was in the grip of a record-breaking heat wave. With temperatures in the nineties, making it more like sultry July than October, hurricanes were able to feed farther north. But really, at the tail end of the season, how bad could it be?
Circling in the steamy waters of the Caribbean, slowly gathering strength, the storm laid its plans. It stretched and grew stronger and started to prowl northward, looking for prey. West of Jamaica its wind speed passed thirty-nine miles per hour, making it officially a tropical storm. It was given a name now. The thirteenth named storm of the year: her name was Myrna.
When they give a storm a name you start to pay attention. The word hurricane begins to shimmer at the back of your mind. There’s nothing like one of those beasts hovering offshore to remind you that life is pretty much a crapshoot. You assess your options, check in with family to see if they need any help, and start making a list on the back of some unpaid bill of things to take with you and things to do before you run.
For me, Sherri Travis, family wasn’t a problem. My mother, Ruth Ann, was in North Carolina visiting my half-sisters, and as for my father — well, let’s just say we weren’t real close and leave it there. And after living my whole life in Florida, thirty years of hurricane seasons, I really didn’t need a list but a list is always comforting — made me feel like I was actually doing something besides sitting there waiting to have the shit kicked out of me.
On Tuesday morning we woke to find Myrna lurking malevolently south of the Florida Keys, barely moving but growing in intensity minute by minute. Even as we watched, anxious to see whose fate she held in her eye, Myrna surged to a category two hurricane. That’s why we barely paid attention to the murder of the female tourist out on the beach at the Bath and Tennis Club. We were too busy worrying about staying alive.
Lines at the lumberyard grew longer as the wiser and the more nervous among us began boarding up windows. At grocery checkouts every shopping cart held half a dozen jugs of water along with some batteries and everyone filled up their gas tanks while comparing strategies and offering advice to the person at the next pump.
By noon the circling mass arced northwest, slowly heading for the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico: good news for Miami and the Gold Coast, bad news for those of us living along the West Coast of Florida. Moving a little faster, dancing into the gulf, Myrna sang, “Look at me, look at me!” We looked.
Myrna’s winds strengthened. In a few hours she could blow up our coast for a real good visit, and she would not be a welcome visitor. Everyone had a plan now, and what was important in life shrank to those items we could fit into the family vehicle. All those other possessions we’d coveted and worked so hard for were about to be abandoned to the mercy of the storm. Around town, businesses closed and a cavalcade of cars crept slowly up to the entrance of the schools. Parents weren’t waiting for any official closing to pick up their kids.
Now that she had everybody’s attention Myrna stalled at the mouth of the gulf, coyly hiding her intent. Ready for flight, we hovered between panic and false bravado. Late Tuesday, spinning north by northwest at eight miles an hour, she veered sharply to the west into the gulf, heading towards Texas and Louisiana. A collective sigh of relief blew out behind her — not that we wished anyone any harm, you understand, we just didn’t want Myrna to hit us. Living on a barrier island off the west coast of Florida, storms slam us hard. Only fifteen miles long tip to tip, Cypress Island had barely cleaned up the debris from the last storm. We figured it was someone else’s turn.
All over town cars were emptied of treasured photo albums and heirlooms before the outdoor furniture was dragged from the family room back out to the patio and someone was sent out to replace the milk dumped down the sink two hours earlier.
But we celebrated too soon.
Chapter 2
At seven o’clock Wednesday morning I flicked on the weather station. Overnight Myrna had bulged to a category three hurricane. Once again the devil woman had changed her mind and was now bearing north towards the Florida Panhandle.
Myrna’s worst excess would miss us, but high winds, heavy rain and tidal surges were expected along coastal areas.
I called Marley Hemming, my best friend since childhood and the woman who’d stood beside me when I married Jimmy Travis. Come to think of it, maybe she wasn’t that good a friend or she’d have burnt down the damn church before she let that particular disaster happen.
“David and I are going out on the bus to pick up the homeless and move them to shelters inland,” Marley told me. David Halliday was the Baptist minister Marley was madly, passionately, in love with — the man on whose behalf she was practicing for sainthood.
“That’ll be an easy job. There aren’t any homeless on Cypress Island. City council doesn’t allow homeless people,” I told Marley. “They send them off island along with the trash. Nothing that offends is allowed to stay.”
“Strange you’re still here then.”
“Oh, two demerit points for you, Sister M.”
“You know I’m talking about the mainland. There’re lots of people living rough. No matter where Myrna hits, we’ll be in for some vicious weather and people will need proper shelter.”
“You were much more fun before you found Jesus.”
“I expect you to help. There’ll be more
mouths to feed than normal and who knows how long they’ll have to stay in shelters. Start making sandwiches.”
I headed for Defino’s Grocery store.
The town of Jacaranda at the north end of the island was once a fishing village but it’s gone upscale. Now Jacaranda is full of condo developments and gated communities with multimillion-dollar estates, and while there’re a few pockets of us old-time Floridians left, most of the ordinary people have been priced off the island. Every morning the support staff essential to keep life running smoothly for the rich on the island stream over the humpback bridge at the north and the old swing bridge at the south end of the island on their way to jobs as maids, waitresses and gardeners.
Jacaranda was already starting to feel deserted, but for now the sun shone, the air was fresh and satin smooth on the skin and the only hint of what nature had in store for us was the stiff breeze blowing onshore. But I knew what to expect and it made every weather-beaten wall, covered in scarlet flowers, heartbreakingly precious. Turning down Banyan Street, I thought the town never looked more perfect. The joy of it caught in my throat.
Jacaranda may have gone upscale but there’s still a lot of old Florida left. Tin-roofed houses with white picket fences stand shoulder to shoulder with clapboard churches. Scarlet, vermilion and orange-blossomed vines climb over every fence and peek out of hedges, colors and scenes that most days would have tourists clambering for their cameras but today those tourists were scrambling for safety.
On main street two guys were fitting green wooden shutters over the bow-fronted display windows of Albrighton’s Drugstore, one of the original buildings from the twenties.
Eddy Albrighton, third-generation druggist, stood on the sidewalk beside bales of straw covered in pumpkins carved by Mrs. Waterson’s senior art class. Eddy watched the ancient shutters being screwed into place for about the millionth time in his life. He smiled broadly and gave me a big thumbs-up.
Two blocks east, the facade of Defino’s supermarket was covered in raw plywood but the front door was wedged open. Eighty years ago Defino’s was the only store on the island. The original gas pumps still sit out front, shaded by a spreading Jacaranda tree that turns lilac blue in spring.
Mr. Defino, sixtyish, short and bald, looked up and called, “Hi, Sherri,” as I came in.
“Emptying the dairy case again?”
“Yeah, sounds like there’s a good chance we’ll lose power so everything perishable has to go. It’s the third time in three months.”
“Why do we live in this stupid place?”
He laughed. “As if anyone stood a prayer of getting you off the island.”
This truth was ruining my love life. I rattled a grocery cart over uneven plank floorboards. Only three loaves of bread were left on the shelf. I took them all, adding jars of peanut butter and some jam and asked, “Are you going to ride out the hurricane?”
The door to the dairy case slid shut. “No way. Lynne and I are going to use Myrna as an excuse for a little holiday.”
I cleared the shelves of the last chips and cookies. “Where’re you going?”
“Orlando. Mickey never grows old. Besides, I like to show my Florida driver’s license and get all those discounts. Love the tourists paying more than I do for something.”
He was stacking the last of the ice cream into a cardboard box as I came to the dairy cases at the back of the store.
“Whoa, mama,” he said, pointing at my cart. “How many people are you hunkering down with?”
“It’s my good deed for the year.” I told him about Marley’s plans, which led to me inheriting boxes full of stuff.
Chapter 3
I joined the line of cars loaded down with families and all their possessions waiting for the north bridge to go down over the inland waters while a dozen boats motored past the lift bridge heading for safety. For now traffic was still two-way. If the storm moved closer the bridges would go on lock down and no more boats would be able to leave the inland waters. Traffic would become one-way off the island.
I turned the radio to a weather report and watched a pair of osprey feeding their young in the big sloppy nest of sticks and twigs they’d built on the light standard. It didn’t look like it would withstand the slightest of breezes, never mind hurricane-force winds.
When all the boats passed, the two arms forming the center section of the bridge lowered into place and I headed out Tamiami Trail to a rundown strip mall where a coalition of Baptist churches ran a drop-in center and shelter.
The plaza was devoted to poverty. A social service office at the center was bracketed by a thrift shop and the church help center. The builders hadn’t wasted any imagination or money on preventing the flat-topped stucco buildings from being ugly. Painted a diluted shade of Pepto-pink, brown rust stains dripped down from leaking overhangs and if you weren’t depressed before you came you sure would be when you arrived. I pulled around to the back of the building where the potholes where big enough to jar your fillings loose and parked beside Marley’s Neon.
With my hands loaded down with plastic grocery bags, I kicked on the weathered door with the toe of my wooden clog until Marley threw the door open and said, “Beware of strangers bearing gifts. Come in stranger.”
She emptied my right hand and backed into the kitchen with me following. Tall and thin, she was wearing wrinkled shorts, a hot pink tee-shirt and orange flip-flops. Her red curls hadn’t seen a comb since she’d lifted them from her pillow. The curls and lack of makeup gave her face a false look of childish innocence, but strong-willed and stubborn cut closer to the truth. If you wanted someone to drum fools into line there was no one better than Marley. She’d make the perfect minister’s wife, an event she was already planning. The truth was Marley had re ally come into the woman she was always meant to be. Unlike me, she’d just been marking time and pretending to be a crazy girl, but I missed the mad prankster, the party ’til you puke girl who’d made way for this bossy do-gooder.
I dumped my load on a long metal table in the center of the kitchen.
“I’m delighted to see you’re in such a good mood this fine morning,” Marley said.
“Try being celibate as long as I have and see how cheerful you are.”
“I’d love to hear all about your complicated love life,” she told me, already diving into the bags, “but I’m a little short of time and sympathy.”
I flexed my fingers, getting the circulation back. “Where is everybody?” Laughter coming from the dining hall answered my question.
“We pushed the tables together and set up a production line.”
“Mr. Defino threw in all the produce and dairy,” I said, wedging the outside door open with a triangle of wood. “I’ll bring it in but then I have to leave. The Sunset is going to open and it seems I’m expected to be behind the bar.”
Marley looked up, a jar of peanut butter in each hand. “Who’s going out to the beach for lunch? It’s crazy to open.”
“Tell that to Chris.”
“Keep your ass off that island, girl.”
“Everything’s in the truck. I’ll head for Orlando as soon as we close.”
“Why aren’t you going up to Cedar Key with Clay?”
“I thought you didn’t have time for my love life.” She planted a fist on her hip and asked, “How long have you two been together?”
“I moved in with him last February, eight months ago.” But she already knew that.
“Right, and how many of those months haven’t you been going to move out?”
She didn’t wait for my answer but started ticking my complaints off on her fingers. “First you said he was too controlling, and then you never knew how he felt about things, didn’t talk enough — didn’t stroke your ego enough is more like it, then you went on about how much he worked. Pardon me if I’m getting a little tired of your problems with this perfect
man in your life, the man that delivers great sex and never lies. After Jimmy, he’s a saint.” She hoisted a couple of bags and sprinted for the next room.
I went back for Mr. Defino’s cardboard boxes in the back of the pickup, nasty comebacks piling up in my head. Marley was right about Jimmy, my lying, cheating, scam artist husband, after him anyone would be a saint. Clay was honest and dependable and all those good things Jimmy wasn’t. What was I complaining about? What was wrong between Clay Adams and me?
It was as if we had shuffled out on a high diving board and were standing, looking down, afraid to jump and afraid to shuffle back to safety. We were terrified of forever but what we had was too good to give up. Only one thing was clear…we couldn’t stay where we were. That was no place to live, hovering on the edge of trust, pulling away at any sign of commitment or promise.
We had a few other problems. Clay was older, richer and smarter than me. Coming from a prominent Florida family, he belonged to the best private golf club on the coast and was a member of everything that counted while I was none of those things. Low class, no class, trailer scum was how Jimmy’s mom described me.
Clay’s social calendar emptied when he took up with me. The good people of Jacaranda were waiting for him to come to his senses. Actually, I was expecting him to come to his senses too. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t making any plans, just hanging in to see what came next. But then again that’s pretty much what I always do, planning ahead being one of many life skills I don’t have. Inertia always had worked for me in the past so I was pretty loyal to it.
Jimmy and I had been separated for a year when he was murdered. Clay had helped me through that bad time and I’d move din with Clay within a month of Jimmy’s death. And while we were still living together, he’d taken on a development project in the panhandle. He’d asked me more than once to join him there but I’d stayed in Jacaranda.
Marley told me, over and over, that I’d moved in with Clay too soon, told me I wasn’t over Jimmy yet. She also told me the problem wasn’t with Clay but with my head. Marley was never one to hold back in case she hurt your feelings or ruffled your feathers.
Sex in a Sidecar Page 1
