-And what will you do if you catch up to him?
-Two can play at this spying business.
I weave in and out, keeping back while keeping up. Who is he, really? What does he want with me? Does he think I’m on the prowl for a boy-toy? Miami’s awash in divorcées and widows on the arms of young Israeli, Russian and South American-flavored men. It’s a question of survival in this land where legions of Viagraed old men wallow in a sea of nubile thong-clad second-third-fourth wives. And where better for a handsome cowboy to scout out a Mrs. GotRocks than a boutique marina with expensive yachts? How hard would it be for a gigolo to schmooze with the Harbormaster, ask why this boat or that boat is on the sales block. I can just hear Quincy or Deke:
-‘Poor Mrs. Golf Widow, her husband keeled over trying to hit out of a sand trap.’
-‘Lovely Mrs. NoClue, the yacht’s part of the divorce settlement.’
I lose sight of Parker as he veers around a truck. Damn. I’m too far back. I hit the gas. There. There he is, at the base of the bridge, just starting the long climb. I’m still a block back when bells start clanging, bridge lights flash and the safety arms come down. Traffic ahead of me grinds to a dead stop. Helpless, I watch the bridge separating Parker and me begin its slow yawn open.
I dial Parker’s number. It immediately goes to voicemail. “Hi, this is Sam. Leave a message.” He’s on his phone or he’s turned it off, or the batteries are dead, or he’s avoiding me. Does he know I’m behind him?
And it occurs to me, as I watch the parade of boats sail through the open bridge, that there might have been just the teensiest something odd about Parker’s friend giving me that free propeller. And I wonder, now that I’m thinking back on things with a more critical eye, if there was ever anything wrong with the old propeller. All I had was Parker’s word, which at this moment doesn’t seem worth the paper it’s not written on. My boat felt perfectly normal during yesterday’s sail up to Palm Beach, nary a shake nor rattle nor roll. So, one wonders, doesn’t one, what was that bit with the propeller all about?
I don’t know. But I mean to find out.
22
Smoke is coming out of my ears as I call Quincy.
“Seaview Marina.”
“You told me you ran a check on Parker.”
“Laura?”
“You told me he was on the up and up. What did you check? Happy Stalkers, Inc.?”
“Hey, darlin’, calm down.”
“He followed me today.”
“What?” Worried now. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. I’m not even sure he knows I saw him. But it’s creepy.”
“Why did you think he followed you? Maybe he just happened to be in the same place.”
“This was no accident. I was in a courtroom, watching a murder trial. He had no business there.”
Silence on the line. “You mean Deke’s trial?” he asks. “You’re watching that guy who murdered Deke’s marina people?”
“Yes.”
“But, why…”
“It’s a long story.”
“And you’re sure it was Parker you saw?”
“Not a doubt. So, how did you check him out?”
“Financials, mostly. His company is based in Atlanta, has a good D&B and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. I also traced a few boats he’s owned over the years. Nothing as fancy as yours, but he sure as hell seemed like the real deal.”
“What does he do?”
“Runs a Consulting company of some kind.”
I wince. ‘Consulting’ is like ‘Miscellaneous’. It can mean anything and everything, which is to say nothing.
“What should I do if he comes around here?” asks Quincy.
“Shoot him.”
“Spear gun or Glock?”
“Your choice.”
I’m wiped, sapped, jellyfish floppy as I drive into my complex through the Residents side of the guard gate. A couple of cars wait in line on the Visitor’s side, their credentials checked by the security guard. Maria Galdino comes to mind, her palpable distain for ‘Security’ at her dead sister’s gated community. They’d allowed a murderer into the complex as easily as I suspect my security let in Parker. How else could he have planted those warning notes? But, why would he warn me away from the trial? What’s his connection? Or was he just stalking me and happened onto the trial? But who else could have sent those hateful notes? My thoughts race ‘round and ‘round until they turn to butter.
I follow the meandering two-lane road through the complex, aiming for my building in the distance. It’s an obstacle course -- kids on scooters and skateboards, dog walkers, bikers, joggers, landscapers, security personnel on golf carts, cars weaving as drivers talk and text and twitter. An immense furniture truck blocks the road like a wall. The driver jackknifes his rig, inching backward in fits and starts trying to negotiate the hairpin turn to the loading dock. Perfect. Just what I need. If I try driving around I’ll take out a couple of Royal Palms and an ancient Antler Fern.
To my left, the Intracoastal Pool gate clangs shut. Bitsy’s friend Wendel, resplendent in a floral Cabana Suit, leaves the pool with the oddest expression on his face. It’s sort of a Cheshire cat smirk, as if he just ate the canary, the cockatoo and the peacock. Wendel looks around and, I think, sees me. I lower my window to say hello but he quickly changes direction, disappearing behind the furniture truck.
The faint sounds of women yelling drifts through the open window. I focus, trying to block out sounds of burbling fountains, leaf blowers, truck gears straining, not sure I hear what I think I hear. There it is again. Definitely yelling. It sounds like it’s coming from the pool. Bitsy? Is that my sister’s voice? Naw, Bitsy-the-beneficent doesn’t yell. The volume escalates. It sure sounds like Bitsy. I pull my car up onto a strip of newly laid sod and run to the pool.
Bikinied mothers shelter small children in the shallow end, others watch two women at the far end of the deck rage at each other. It is Bitsy. My reserved sister is in a shouting match with an elegant stranger -- blond hair swept into diamond clips, floral silk caftan, gold jewelry. Teens around the pool elbow each other, inching closer, snapping photos with assorted electronic gizmos. I hurry around the vast pool, darting around Styrofoam noodles and water wings, floats and chairs.
The woman-who-is-not-my-sister yells as she circles the chaises around Bitsy like a lioness stalking prey. Bitsy yells back as she packs up her sun block, reading glasses, book, water bottle. Bitsy, normally more erect than the average supermodel, has gone I-beam straight, on high alert, never taking her eyes off the other woman.
I round the pool’s far end, checking the stranger’s hands for a gun. We’re allowed that, here in Florida, the right to hide firearms in our pockets, purses, bras. People regularly shoot off their own body parts. I’m not convinced carrying a gun is a deterrent to crime, although it does make me think twice about honking at other drivers. Closer, now, I see that the woman’s hands are weapon-free, unless you consider the ten blood-red claws set off by enormous rings glinting in the sunlight. If diamonds can scratch glass, these could shred Bitsy’s flawless skin.
I’m close enough to hear what they’re shouting.
“…keep your hands off…”
“…don’t you threaten…”
“…don’t belong here.”
“…as much right as…”
“…you don’t belong.”
“Hey!” I yell. They don’t notice me. “Hey!” shouting louder, reaching them, moving next to Bitsy so we present a united front. “What’s going on?”
“She doesn’t belong here,” yells the woman. “She’s not a resident.”
“I’m a resident,” I say.
“She’s a trespasser.”
“She’s my sister.”
“Your sister is a thief.”
Crazy lady. Bitsy finishes packing her gear and slips on her cover-up. “Where are your shoes?” I say, looking around.
The other woman glances
down, spots them first, dives for Bitsy’s sandals under a chaise. “You want your shoes?” she yells. “Here,” hurling one at Bitsy’s head, missing by inches.
“Stop that,” I yell, but the other sandal whizzes by, trajectory corrected, clipping Bitsy’s left ear.
Bitsy-the-calm’s face flares red, her eyes go scary wild. I haven’t seen that look since I spilled a bottle of India ink on her pink prom dress. “Let’s go,” I say, but she doesn’t hear. She hauls back her loaded pool bag and hurls it at the woman. It flies wide and the woman laughs. Big mistake. Bitsy, lunges across the chaise, grabs the woman’s caftan and jerks her off-balance. As the woman falls, Bitsy grabs a handful of her hair and yanks. The hair comes off in Bitsy’s hand. The woman -- already off-balance -- crashes across the chaise, her bald head thudding near the concrete base of a pool umbrella. She doesn’t move.
The world stops. Bitsy killed her. I bend down -- please be alive, please be alive, please be-- not sure if I should touch her or leave her or… She moans. Alive! Oh, thank God. What saved the woman, saved us all from a future of untold grief, heartache and prison, was a laundry bag full of dirty towels one of the pool boys forgot near the umbrella. The mountain of soft terrycloth took the brunt of her fall. One inch to the left and the woman would be concussed or dead instead of shaken but alive. Bitsy, consumed by rage, is not processing what just happened.
The woman moans. Moans again. It’s the sweetest sound on the planet. I check her scalp and the white towels for blood. Nothing. I glare at my smug and triumphant sister, not a hint of ‘I’m sorry’ in her face.
“You,” I bark, “go upstairs.” Bitsy gives me a ‘Who invited you to this party?’ look. “Now!” I say, no room for argument. She tosses the wig aside and, as she leaves, the teens give her a round of applause. Their recordings of the fight have likely already gone viral. I help the woman up onto a chaise, retrieve her wig and sit next to her. She adjusts the wig then lies back, throwing an arm over her eyes. “Are you all right?” I ask.
“Leave me alone.”
I sit on the next chaise, leaving her alone without leaving her alone. She’s sobbing. It’s been my experience that the nasty ones don’t cry, not ever. I’m torn between feeling I should stay and wanting to go interrogate Bitsy about her un-Bitsy-like behavior. It’s a long time before the wracking sobs stops.
“Look,” I say, “I don’t know who you are or what you think we did…”
“Not you.” She sniffs again. “Your sister. And I don’t think she did something. I know it.”
“Whatever you’re thinking about her,” I say, “you’re wrong.” She sniggers. “You called her a thief,” I say.
“She is.”
“The only thing Bitsy ever stole was an ear of corn from a Wisconsin field when she was ten. She’s been doing penance ever since.”
“Your sister destroyed my life.” She moves her arm exposing ruined eyes. I hand her a towel. “Wendel and I….Wendel…” and her face scrunches the way my daughter’s used to, just before the dam broke. She sobs into the towel.
Wendel. This explains his supercilious expression. He had just abandoned Bitsy and this woman at the pool, left them fighting over him like a couple of teen-agers in heat. Coward. Bastard.
“I promise you,” I say, taking another towel, wiping the mascara, “Bitsy had no idea.”
“Of course she did. Everyone knows Wendel and I are…are engaged.”
“Not everyone,” I say. “Not Bitsy. Not me.” I watch her wipe her eyes, feel the depth of her grief.
“Come on,” I help her stand, slip my arm through hers, “I want you to meet my sister.”
“I’m not going —”
“You have to. You’re aiming your hate at the wrong target. The two of you need to compare Wendel notes.”
I’ll give it to this gal. She holds her head high during our long walk past the pool people who pretend not to stare. The teens, black and blue from elbowing each other, barely contain their glee. Outside the gate, the furniture truck has finished folding itself into the loading dock. A Security guard bends over my car, peering inside. “Emergency,” I say, by way of excusing my tires sinking in the new sod.
“What’s she doing here?” says Bitsy-the-rude as I bring her opponent into the apartment.
“Bitsy,” I say, “I want you to meet May Browne.”
The Ice Queen’s eyes narrow. “Get out.”
“May is Wendel’s fiancée.”
This knocks my sister back. In milliseconds her face shifts from hatred to anger to confusion to mistrust. “His what?”
“Fiancée,” says May.
“Since when?” disbelieving, challenging.
“A couple of months. But we’ve been going together over a year.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.” May turns to leave and I put my hand on her arm.
“Please, wait,” I say.
She yanks away. “I don’t need this.”
“Bitsy,” I say, “you have to listen.”
My sister juts her jaw at May. “How come I’ve never seen you before today?”
“I was away for a month,” says May. “My nephew was Bar Mitzvahed in Israel.”
“Mazel tov,” I say.
“When I came back, I needed another round of chemo. That pretty well knocked me out of commission.”
“I’ve met a lot of people here,” says Bitsy, not giving an inch, “not one of them ever mentioned your name.”
May sighs. “Not to your face. Just like no one told me anything about you. But you’d better believe they were talking plenty behind both our backs.”
“Fiancée?” says Bitsy, her icy voice thawing a bit.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been together over a year?”
“Yes.”
One of the many good things to come out of Bitsy’s divorce from Sheldon-the-sycophant is she’s learned how to take a hit. I feel her take an emotional step back as she processes the information. Then, without preamble, she says, “Coffee,” and heads for the kitchen.
“Is she going to poison mine?” asks May.
“Probably not. But Wendel should hire a taster.”
May and I sit at the kitchen table as Bitsy goes into full hostess mode, filling, pouring, slicing, arranging. Kitchen is her Zen, the calming way she works things through to put the world in balance. Personally, I would have uncorked a bottle of Cabernet. But Bitsy brews a pot of her special blend and sets out fresh-baked rugelach.
Something transcendent happens to women gathered around a kitchen table. Even the most diverse, divisive and acrimonious can find common ground over a cup of coffee and a piece of cherry Danish. Golda Meir, serving just-baked coffeecake around her kitchen table to diplomats and politicos alike, understood this as well as anyone. It’s as if a small genetic compass exists at our core, and the kitchen table points directly True North.
By the time she joins us at the table, Bitsy has regained her center. “I didn’t know,” she says, moving the sugar and a variety of artificial sweeteners closer to May.
May studies the eddies as she stirs her coffee. “For the past year Wendel and I attended all the social events together, played bridge, golf, went on a cruise.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Maybe they thought you knew. Maybe they assumed Wendel and I had broken up before I left. People here aren’t like old friends from back home. They tend to leave you alone, don’t dig into your private business.” She breaks off a corner of a raspberry rugelach. “Oh,” she says, “this is good.” And she tells us about her and Wendel. “I knew his reputation,” she says. “When I moved here, a couple of women warned me he was a real Lothario so I kept my distance. I don’t need drama in my life. But he pursued me, courted me, told me I wasn’t like any of the other women. I convinced myself he’d changed. Then, when I came back from Israel, I found your name and apartment number on a note on his desk. I asked him about it. He said
you were the sister of one of the residents and he’d been asked to show you around.”
“And you believed him,” I say.
“I wanted to. I was pretty sick, not really up to any of this. But a part of me knew. I suggested that, when I was stronger, we invite you two over for dinner. He started to stammer, came up with some lame reason why that wasn’t a good idea. That’s when I knew.”
“Why didn’t you walk away?” asks Bitsy.
May heaves a sign so deep it seems to start in her toes. “The stupid part of me thought I could still change him, salvage the relationship. You have to understand. I’m widowed nine years, battling cancer for three. And, even though I keep busy with work and charities, theater and bridge and all sorts of things, it’s not so easy being a single woman down here. I thought I’d found someone special in Wendel and I wasn’t about to give him up without a fight. That’s why I sent those notes.”
“You wrote the notes?” Betsy and I say together. Not Sam Parker.
“To scare me off?” says Bitsy.
“We’d picked the date, for God’s sake.” May stirs milk into her coffee with more vigor than necessary. “My daughter is designing the invitations. My son is mixing music for the party. I was sure you were some nafka who thought she could just waltz in and take my man away.”
“Oh, May,” says Bitsy, her voice gone soft, “I know that pain. It’s excruciating.” She reaches across the table, covers May’s hand with hers, gives it a squeeze. “You must believe I’d never knowingly take another woman’s man. Not ever.” She tells May about Sheldon-the-Slut. And I’m ready to break into a rousing chorus of Kumbaya when the phone rings.
“Got it,” I say, taking it in the living room so Wendel’s ex’s have time to bond.
“Hello?” I say. Silence. Is Wendel calling to gloat? Is he curious to know how the catfight ended? “Hello?”
“Laura?” Parker’s voice. The world screeches to a halt. “I need to see you.”
“You followed me,” I say, my voice low, angry.
“No.”
“That’s a stupid lie, Parker. And you’re not a stupid man. You stalked me, followed me to the courthouse, into the courtroom.”
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