Clearwater Journals

by Al Rennie

I reached the restaurant at ten to nine. I wondered about going inside, but then I remembered the stone faced manager when I paid my bill earlier. I decided to wait outside. It wasn’t raining anymore although the darkening sky was still overcast with heavy cloud cover. No starlit night tonight. As I stood there, I mentally re-played the various scenarios I had developed through the late afternoon. I actually laughed out loud at myself. I must be losing it—becoming delusional. Maybe spending too much time alone in the sun isn’t such a good thing.

  “Do you often laugh like that when there’s no one around?” she asked smiling at my obvious embarrassment.

  “Er…no, actually I was thinking of a joke someone told me recently.”

  “Really…? It must have been pretty good. Tell it to me.”

  Caught again…damn… “Well, it really wasn’t a joke…er…it was more like a humorous incident.”

  “I’m listening. It sounds even more interesting.” She was still smiling at me. Evidently, she had recognized my discomfort. She was enjoying herself.

  “It was nothing,” I confessed. “I was actually thinking about this.”

  “This? What’s this?” She was really into it now. She was laughing at me, and then I was laughing with her.

  “Okay, so where do you want to go to tell me your pitiful story?” I asked. “I mean that’s what I’m here for—right?”

  “That’s right, and pitiful is a pretty good word for it,” she replied lightly—almost as if somehow she had forgotten that was supposed to be why I was here. “Let’s go somewhere that’s not too noisy.”

  “Well, we could go to this charming Waffle House I know about. It’s off the ground floor of the new Holiday Inn—used to be the Ramada. The food is pretty good if you like pancakes or waffles. The waitresses there are like waitresses everywhere—kind of goofy—and they often smell like syrup and waffles.”

  The former Ramada Inn was about two hundred yards back in towards the loop. It was the IHOP’s main competitor in the open twenty-four hour a day mid-priced food group.

  “Goofy?” she playfully hit my arm and then did a quick sniff of her jacket. “Who was standing here laughing out loud to himself a minute ago? Do I really smell like a waffle and syrup?”

  “No, you smell great,” I said as we started walking down the street towards the sound of the gentle surf washing up onto the beach. So much for romance! I had just told her she smelled great. God, I’m an idiot. “I was just kidding about going to the Waffle House. There’s a fairly quiet coffee place slash bar just along Gulfview. It’s supposed to be okay.”

  The place that we went into was really about as upscale a restaurant/bar as you can find anywhere on the beach. That’s not saying much. It was called Frenchy’s South Beach Cafe. Everybody, who had been on the beach for more than a week, just called it Frenchy’s. In some upscale urban areas, the joint would have been summarily condemned to a quick meeting with a large wrecking ball. In Clearwater Beach, Frenchy’s was considered quaint.

  The interior was darkened and the red and white checked vinyl covered tables were candle lit. There was some quiet elevator type music—Kenny G, I think—playing softly in the background. A jockey size maitre d’ led us to a quiet table near the back corner of the almost empty dining area. The dinner crowd had finished and moved on. The drinkers would start arriving after ten o’clock the miniature maitre d’ said haughtily, as he handed us black plastic covered menus. He was responding to my observation about the shortage of people in the restaurant.

  Mia didn’t even open her menu. I did and made a mental note to return sometime in the future. “Want a dessert or something more than just coffee?”

  “No, you go ahead though,” she replied with a fleeting smile. Something was on her mind. It wasn’t romance, and it had to do with me. ‘Still a cop’ I thought as I continued to do a quick scan of the menu.

  The little guy returned with a Bic pen and a small spiral note pad held primly in front of him. He looked like a public school teacher about to give a spelling dictation. If he was expecting to take a nine-course meal order, he was going to be disappointed. And he certainly wouldn’t need the order pad. “What can I get for you lovely folks tonight?” he asked in a voice that oozed deep-south.

  I nodded to Mia. “Just coffee for me…”

  The waiter made a quick head bob and looked at me. “Diet Pepsi on ice with lime and this dessert here—Death by Chocolate—with two forks or spoons—whichever works best.”

  “Very good, Sir,” and he turned quickly and disappeared immediately in the direction of the kitchen.

  “Two forks?” Mia said smiling at me again. She was relaxed. Her mind was made up. “You must be a dreamer.”

  “Not my worst sin,” I said. “Besides, when you see this dessert, you may want some and, like any good boy scout, I’ll be prepared.”

  She just laughed quietly and took a quick look around.

  “So,” I continued, “now you owe me your story; let’s have it.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but I have a few more questions for you.”

  “Cheater,” I said shaking my head. I was starting to feel more comfortable with her. “You can ask me your questions after I hear your story. But only if I can ask you some more questions as well. Agreed?”

  “Well, my story is pretty short. I’m not that old you know?”

  “I was a cop. What are you? About twelve?”

  “Right,” she smiled sweetly and went on. “Up front—I am twenty seven. I was born in Tampa, so in a way, this is my home area. I quit school and left home when I was fifteen. Even though I have taken some night courses, I haven’t graduated from high school, and that’s why I can only get work as a waitress. My folks still live in the area. Well, my Mom and stepfather do. I don’t know where my biological father is. He left my Mom, and my sister and me when I was about eight or nine. I came back here two and a half years ago when my sister died. And that’s about it.”

  “Whoa! Fifteen to twenty seven—that’s a few years unexplained there Round Eyes. Why did you quit school and leave home at fifteen? What happened then? And how did your sister die? Come on. I was a cop—remember? I need details; Just the facts ma’am.”

  Just at that moment, the waiter arrived with our drinks and a large white ceramic bowl filled with chocolate ice cream, covered with chocolate syrup and teaspoon size chunks of brownies. Hershey chocolate bar pieces were generously sprinkled on top of three dollops of thick whipped cream. He placed the calorie packed dessert on the table mid way between the two of us with two long handled silver spoons.

  “Enjoy!” he said with a quick smile and left us alone. He’s my kind of waiter.

  “You’re going to eat that?” Mia asked leaning back from the table her eyes wide open. She pointed at the large chocolate concoction. “It’s a heart attack in a bowl.”

  “No, we’re going eat that,” I said reaching for one of the two silver spoons. “Dig in and fill in the rather large gaps in your life while you’re at it.”

  “How do you stay so fit looking eating something like that? If I had even a small bit of it—I mean a person could get fat just looking at it. You must have some great metabolism Joe!”

  “I won’t eat anything tomorrow. Or I’ll jog longer. This is really good.” I said licking my lips and rolling my eyes. “You’re missing a once in a lifetime!”

  “Well, maybe I could try a little—but just a bit.”

  “Good, eh? Now fill in the blanks.”

  “I left home ‘cause I couldn’t get along with my stepfather. He is not a very nice man. To this day, he still frightens me. Anyway, I drifted up to Ocala and worked at a horse place for around six months during the winter. A lot of wealthy farms from up north send their horses to the Ocala area for the winter. There were a number of spreads from Canada wintering there. Anyway, there’s always lots of work to pick up then. From there I moved to Orlando and worked for a few months at Disney and Sea World for minimum wage. Then, a guy saw m
e and hired me to work in his club. Things kind of went from there. I started to drink too much. I worked as a dancer in clubs up there and then moved up into Georgia. I lived with a guy there for a few years. Just stuff like that.”

  Mia stopped talking and took another spoonful of calories.

  “And?” I said prodding her to continue.

  “And about three years ago, just around Christmas, I phoned home. I talked with my Mom and my sister for the first time in about eight years. My sister was almost fifteen years old by then. She was six when I skipped out. After that, I would phone once every two or three weeks mainly to talk with Vickie. That was my sister’s name. She wasn’t really bright, you know. I felt sorry for her. She always had trouble in school—special classes—but not like really retarded. Do you know what I mean?

  I nodded. It was enough. Mia continued.

  “And a really nice kid too. I felt bad that I had left her there with my stepfather. When we talked, she didn’t actually say it; she’d be afraid to, but it sounded like she was having a lot of problems living at home. I really felt for the poor kid. So, in my head, I kind of made her my project. But before I could help her, I had to get myself straight. I stopped drinking and started to save some money. Sometime in the late spring that year when I phoned, Vickie told me that she really had to get away. She wanted to visit me. I said that was cool ‘cause I had been trying to get up the nerve to come home to visit her. We set up a time. I was going to meet her at the bus terminal in Orlando, and she was supposed to stay with me for a week or so. She never showed up. When I phoned home the next day to see what had happened, my Mom told me that she didn’t know anything about Vickie coming to visit me.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “I had no reason not to. I figured that Vickie must have been afraid to tell her.”

  “So, in a sense, Vickie was planning on running away.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, my mom told me that Vic was missing. A few days later, maybe a week, she was found dead off to the side of a dirt road that leads to the local make out spot. She’d been strangled with her own panty hose. I came home for her funeral, and I ended up staying. But in a weird way, you see, Vickie actually saved my life. And that’s it—end of story.”

  Mia looked up at me. Her eyes had started to brim, but she was almost defying me to ask for more. When I said nothing, she scooped the last spoonful of our dessert.

  “What happened to the guy who killed her?” I asked. Cop curiosity. There were still all kinds of gaps, but that one seemed the easiest to fill.

  “Nothing, they never caught him—if it was a ‘him’.” I could see the hook. It was baited very nicely. But still I went on.

  “When we were talking earlier, you knew that I had been a cop. Do you remember? I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that to you. How did you happen to find out about that bit of my history?”

  Just a little hesitation—a bit of color—maybe more if the light in the bar had been better.

  “I must have heard it from someone.”

  “I see,” I replied knowing that she had just lied to me. Waiting; watching her face reflect the mental calculations she must have been doing. I had not taken the hook—yet. I was still waiting. The Kenny G recording had been replaced with a string of Jimmy Buffet songs. I think the one playing was called Why Don’t We Get Drunk? Or maybe it was Cheeseburger in Paradise. It didn’t matter. After awhile, most of them sound like Margarita Ville.

  “Okay,” Mia said, “so I asked around after you came in to eat a few times. You looked like a nice guy, and I was curious. I’m not dating anyone right now, so I asked around a bit. Someone told me that they had seen you over by the docks working for one of the fishing charters. I know a few guys from over there—customers who come in for early breakfast, so I asked. One of them said you sometimes went out with the Frankie Donner boat. He said you were an ex-cop from Canada named Joe Holiday.”

  Mia looked over to the door and stopped talking. It seemed that the colour drained from her face. She mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. I became vaguely aware of a minor disturbance somewhere behind me near the bar’s entrance.

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