Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida

by Sandra D. Bricker

  “We can take the van!” Maureen exclaimed, and she hopped out of her chair. With a sudden jerk, she changed directions and sat back down again. “You have something to eat, Richard.”

  They all shared a laugh, and Richard plucked a bear claw from the platter. “I think I will. Thanks!”

  “I’ll go powder my nose and then we’ll get started.”

  Marvin dropped a ladleful of fruit, first onto his own plate and then onto Richard’s. He snatched an éclair from the platter and took a big bite out of it. He was still chewing it when he said, “Mo worries. I hate it when she worries.”

  “It’s part of the deal, isn’t it?” Richard asked him. “Your wife loves you, and she’s going to worry. It’s like the egg roll that comes with the entrée at China Jade; it sort of comes with the dinner.”

  “I don’t appreciate the Chinese food so much. Gives me gas.”

  Richard let out a laugh, both because he thought Marvin’s remark was funny and also because he was so relieved to have someone else in on his plans. It had been a long and lonely few months while putting it all together and worrying about the sudden appearance of Mandalay—or whatever corporation was behind the buyouts.

  “Are you boys still eating?” Maureen exclaimed as she hustled back into the kitchen. “Let’s light a fire under you. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  Maureen grabbed the handles of Marvin’s wheelchair and started pulling him away from table. He tossed the last of his pastry to the plate as she pushed him toward the door. “Hold your horses, woman!”

  “I’ll get Marvin into the van and we’ll meet you out front,” she told Richard over her shoulder. “Could you press the lock on the knob when you go out the door?”

  “Sure,” he said, grinning.

  Richard imagined that Maureen wanted to get the show on the road before Marvin changed his mind. The thought of her husband having something creative to do, something that would exercise his brain a little more than those mystery reruns she’d mentioned and that would pay him a little something to boot, well, it probably looked like a whole set of golden opportunities to Maureen.

  He popped the last bit of bear claw into his mouth, wiped the icing off his lip with a napkin, and then hurried out the front door before Maureen came in and dragged him out, too. By the time he locked up and stepped foot outside, Maureen and Marvin were in the van and waiting for him in the driveway.

  Richard climbed into the passenger seat, and Maureen was at the corner stop sign before he’d even clicked his seat belt into place.

  “Slow down, Mo. Richard might wanna get there in one full piece.”

  “Sorry. Okay. So are you coming to the disco bash at the church tonight?”

  “I am,” he replied. “Against my better judgment, I’m even going in costume.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Richard. Loosen up,” Maureen teased. “You’ll have a ball!”

  “I’m not exactly the ‘loosen up’ type of guy, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Maureen grinned. “We’ve noticed.”

  “I thought I’d turn over a new leaf; just a test drive to see how it fares.”

  She chuckled and then asked, “Are you bringing a date?”

  “I’m bringing Cassie and Millicent.”

  “A man with a harem,” Marvin teased from the back.

  “I’d have thought Cassie would be coming with Stella’s nephew,” Maureen remarked. “I thought they were the new couple in town.”

  Richard swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. “Cassie and Hunter?”

  “Yes, that’s his name. Hunter.”

  “Is he still in town? I had assumed he went back to New York.”

  “Mm-mm. Not until after the new year. In fact, he and Stella’s son-in-law are in charge of the music tonight.”

  He didn’t particularly like Hunter when they’d met on Christmas, but he certainly wasn’t aware that Hunter had been seeing Cassie since then. No wonder she’d been so clear about a kiss being just a kiss. She wasn’t just on the same page with him, she’d said; she was parked in the same paragraph, with no designs whatsoever on a future with him.

  “Stella says he has quite a torch for Cassie.”

  “Really.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “Nope. She never mentioned it.”

  “I hope I’m not causing a problem. If you’re her date tonight, then—”

  “No, Cassie and I are just friends. I’m escorting both her and Millicent.”

  Just friends.

  It stuck in Richard’s throat, leaving it scratchy and dry. There wasn’t anything just friends about his feelings for her. There never had been, from the very first day he’d seen her at the other end of the dock from George Hootz’s sinking pontoon. That was why he hadn’t been able to stop himself from kissing her and why everything male inside of him had responded to the female in her when she’d hoisted that return kiss upon him.

  Passionate.

  That was the answer in her crossword puzzle, although she denied it because she couldn’t manage to see herself that way, nor believe that her own husband had been able to. But that kiss she’d laid on him told a different story, one of passion and fire.

  Whether she could see it or not, Cassie Constantine was 2 parts intellect, 1 part adorable, and 1 very full part passionate. Richard couldn’t even entertain the idea that Zan had missed that in her. In fact, the only one that seemed to be missing it was…Cassie.

  Maureen veered into the parking lot and then circled into a space.

  “Do we want to get out?”

  “No, let’s drive around the outside of the course and have a look,” Richard replied.

  “Isn’t that Smitty?”

  Kenny Smits, the owner of the golf course, was standing at the far end of the parking lot with two other men. Smitty leaned on the trunk of one of the two cars parked there.

  “Who’s that with him?” Maureen asked in a whisper, as if they could be overheard from 200 yards away. “Maybe the corporate raiders?”

  Richard diffused a laugh. Maureen was no doubt a frustrated mystery solver. To her, this was just a live episode of Murder, She Wrote, sans the murder.

  The men shook hands, and Smitty turned and headed toward the office. When the two other gentlemen stalked toward their car, Richard’s breath caught in his throat once again. He squinted to make sure.

  “Well, we know one of them,” he told them. “The one in the blue shirt is Hunter.”

  “Stella’s nephew?”

  “The very same.”

  “We were just talking about him!” Maureen exclaimed.

  “Well, what on earth is he doing meeting with Smitty at his closed-up-tight golf course a week before it goes on the auction block?” Marvin observed.

  “That’s a very good question,” Richard replied.

  Chapter Fifteen

  6 ACROSS: Smart dresser; neat in appearance

  Cassie grazed over her reflection in the bathroom mirror and felt like she might need to shield her eyes if she looked too long at the hot pink satin bell-bottoms, sequined top, glitter platform shoes, and something called “stardust” sprinkled over her very big hair. One of the clues in Zan’s crossword puzzle left an echo of laughter as she thought about it.

  Smart dresser; neat in appearance.

  “Yeah, there’s nothing smarter or neater than sequins and glitter,” she told Sophie, who was seated at her feet with her ears forward and head cocked, watching Cassie as if she might sprout wings at any moment.

  Cassie applied another few spritzes of hair spray to make sure her big hair stayed big, and then she danced out of the bathroom to the disco music and glitter ball in her head.

  “Dog fed and walked. Check!” she said, and Sophie wagged her fringed tail in response. “Dancing shoes buckled and ready. Check! Stardust and sequins in place and ready to catch the light. Check, check!”

  She couldn’t help but think how much pleasure Zan might have taken in a night like this one. S
he could almost see him in a turquoise leisure suit and platform shoes, probably working to inspire his stick-in-the-mud wife to give it a chance and have some fun. One look at the shimmery disco-diva persona she’d become and poor old Zan might have had to check his heart.

  Sophie announced Richard’s arrival before the bell did, and Cassie flung open the door and exploded into an immediate fit of laughter. Richard stood there frozen in his best Travolta pose, wearing a very shiny polyester shirt in watercolors of peach and pink, with a huge butterfly collar and starched French cuffs. His peach-toned pants were accessorized with a white riveted belt and a rhinestone buckle that read, “Disco!”

  “You look…ready to shake your groove thing.” Cassie chuckled.

  “Are you ready to party down?” he returned.

  Cassie grabbed her sequin purse and patted Sophie on the head before she closed the door. Richard led her down the sidewalk and to the driveway, and they reached his car just as Millicent tottered across the street with her arms waving.

  “You two are so shiny,” she called out.

  Richard and Cassie both erupted into laughter when they saw her in her paisley caftan and huge Afro wig with the matching scarf tied in a knot just behind her left ear.

  “How do I look?” she asked, fluttering her glittering blue eyelids at them.

  “Oh, Millicent, you’re a slice of heaven!” Richard wailed, and he wrapped his arms around her and rubbed the top of her wild hair with his knuckles. “Two hotter dates a dude never could have.”

  “Well, then,” Cassie said, miming a couple of gum chews. “Let’s split, then.”

  “Solid.”

  Once they were all in the car, Richard flipped on the radio.

  “I searched the Internet for the best oldies station in town, and what do you know,” he exclaimed. “They’re playing disco hits until midnight!”

  He cranked up the volume just as Gloria Gaynor began to sing. In the next moment, Cassie sang along with her.

  When Millicent chimed in, Richard shot them both a bewildered expression.

  Suddenly the two women began to sing at the top of their lungs, gyrating in their seats and pointing their fingers at Richard, crooning about how he should just go right ahead and walk out the door!

  The mood was so merry and fun that Cassie couldn’t help recognizing the contrast. How long had it been since she’d laughed so much or taken a lighthearted attitude about anything in life? She was reminded of the infrequent times in college when she and her friends would take a break from studying and get so silly that the laughter made their cheeks ache. She remembered when Zan would force her into activities she thought ludicrous for people over thirty, like ice-skating, a trip to a comedy club, or a pizza-making class. Serious went right out the window when she wasn’t looking on those occasions, and she remembered finding herself, just like tonight, feeling uncharacteristically exuberant. It was so unlike her, really, but Zan just managed to bring that out in her sometimes.

  Cassie wondered if Richard felt that way now, but the look on his face told her that he was only partially there; the rest of him, merely puzzled. That was okay, though. She’d spent a long time feeling utterly baffled in her first years with Zan, but he’d brought her around every once in a while. Maybe, she speculated, she could have that same effect on Richard.

  Well, if I was going to be around long enough to keep at it, she thought.

  But for now, she really was on a holiday in Holiday, Florida, and she speculated about all of the really entertaining Christmases and New Year’s Eves that she and Zan had missed while she stuck to her traditional guns about fencing the holidays in to Boston Proper.

  It was a little like Halloween inside the recreation hall. Leisure suits and polyester abounded, and the whole crowd looked just a little bit taller, thanks to the fad of platform shoes. A silver glitter ball hung from the middle of the hall, and colored spotlights from all four corners intersected at the center of the dance floor. Tables overflowed with punch bowls and ice buckets of soda cans. Platters offered varieties of chicken wings, pigs in blankets, cheese pinwheels, and shish kebabs.

  Richard snapped a few photos of Cassie and Millicent just as someone shouted, “Oooh, Cassie’s here!”

  It seemed as if the whole roomful of seniors erupted with applause.

  “Lead us in the hustle, Cassie!”

  It was a bit like filtering the disco ’70s through a circus sideshow tent from the ’60s hippie era as she looked around at them: George Hootz in his pale blue suit and psychedelic shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest; Stella Nesbitt in fuschia hot pants over bright blue spandex leggings; and someone else in a gold glitter dress so shiny that Cassie couldn’t make out her face past the reflection.

  “Night Fever” by the Bee Gees invited her to the dance floor, and Cassie grabbed Richard’s hand on her right and Millicent’s on her left and dragged them along with her.

  “I’m not doing this alone,” she told them as they moved toward the center of the floor.

  Cassie was waiting for him on the stone wall outside the recreation hall, and Richard offered her one of two paper cups of punch.

  “I think this might be fruit punch mixed with ginger ale,” he warned her. “Sugar rush to follow.”

  Cassie giggled. She sipped it and then wrinkled her nose in response. “Mmm-hmm. I think you’re right.”

  “They have bottled water, too. Would you prefer that?”

  “This is fine,” she told him. “Sit down.”

  Richard parked on the wall beside her.

  “I’m glad we got a few minutes alone,” she said. “I wondered if you’d learned anything else about the auction next week.”

  He smiled. Cassie had a sort of intuitive nature, and he wasn’t at all surprised that she’d sensed something else had happened.

  Richard took a final swig of punch and crumpled the paper cup between his palms. “I’m pretty sure I know who at least one of the representatives is. I saw Hunter Nesbitt over at the golf course with Smitty and some suit this morning.”

  “Hunter! Are you sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t about the auction?”

  “Maybe. But the place was vacant, and they had their heads together with Smitty. What can you tell me about Hunter?”

  “Not much,” she replied. “Just that he’s from New York and has a job where he crunches numbers.”

  Richard nodded, and then he sighed and shook his head.

  “I don’t like him,” she added. “He’s very pushy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I had a little episode with him when he was saying good night after dinner on Christmas.”

  Richard bristled. “Do tell.”

  “It was nothing really. But he moved in without any warning. Or interest on my part, let me add. It was really uncomfortable.”

  “What do you mean, he moved in?”

  With the casual wave of her hand, Cassie replied, “He…kissed me.”

  Richard popped to his feet before his feet even knew what the rest of him was doing. “He kissed you!”

  Cassie looked a little stunned, and he took a step backward.

  “It was no big thing,” she assured him. “Just unexpected.”

  “Idiot,” he muttered.

  Cassie grinned, taking his hand. “All things being relative,” she said with a gentle lilt, “it wasn’t much of a kiss.”

  It was pretty pathetic how his heart soared at her reassurance, and he pressed his fingers into her palm. “Well, not when you have so much to compare him to.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  Richard smiled and returned to the wall. He shook his head and muttered “Idiot” once again.

  “Oh, Richard! Do you think Stella knows?”

  He looked up at her, the sudden revelation somewhat of a shocker. He didn’t know why he hadn’t wondered that himself.

  “No!” Cassie blurted,
answering her own question. “Stella loves this place and these people. She couldn’t possibly.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Richard, she wouldn’t.”

  “So you think he’s just down here on the guise of visiting his aunt…,” he surmised.

  “But he’s really here doing his dirty corporate duty,” she completed the thought. “Hey, I wonder what revealing the truth to Aunt Stella would do to his whole plan.”

  “Or—”

  She interrupted him. “Or what it would do to Stella.”

  The two of them sat there, side by side and in silence, as they mulled over the possibilities.

  “I guess we’d better get back,” Richard said. He stood up and offered her his hand.

  She took it and then gave it a gentle pull. “I’m not going to take that offer on my house, Richard.”

  “Even though it’s much more than you might get from an individual buyer?”

  “Even though,” she said with a nod. “It’s just not right. I can wait for the right buyer to come along when all this is sorted out. Tameka can take care of the details and let me know when it’s done—and done right. I’m not going to help some corporation turn

  Holiday into a tourist trap.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. Then she got up and wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a gentle squeeze. “I want you to get your dream,” she added on a whisper. “And I want the people in Holiday to keep theirs.”

  Richard wanted to kiss her so badly. Instead, he pecked her cheek and pulled away from her embrace. “You’re doing a good thing,” he said. She slipped her arm into his and they meandered back toward the hall.

  “Oh, wait!” he said. He produced a small digital camera from the front pocket of his shirt. “Let’s take a photo.”

  Placing one arm around her shoulder and pulling her in close, Richard held up the camera and snapped. The image in the viewfinder was one of strangers. Two groovy dudes from the ’70s, all decked out and ready to dance.

  As they headed toward the door, Richard stopped and said, “You know, Maureen Heaton told me that Nesbitt would be here tonight. Have you seen him?”