He wrapped a hand around the dog and fell asleep again.
For Phoebe, the first order of business was to get her truck down to Smathers Beach and to start selling some Sno-Cones. December was advancing. The tourists were finally returning and, for the moment at least, this felt like a good thing. Pale customers in pastel bathing suits were lining up for snacks at eleven in the morning. By three pm, pink and parched, they were back for seconds. There was usually a line in front of the service window, snaking away along the beachfront promenade. Phoebe barely had time to sit down on her cot or even to empty the tip jar.
Or to run basic errands, such as going to the post office.
On the third afternoon she finally managed it. The clerk handed her a fat envelope that was not very tidily addressed. Inside she found a stack of hundred dollar bills wrapped in a brief note scrawled on a torn-off piece of paper. She read the note, folded it again around the money, stuffed the envelope inside the waistband of her cut-off jeans, and got back on her bicycle.
She rode to Garrison Bight, where Ozzie and Nicky had been spending most of their time trying to put their ravaged houseboat back together. When she pulled up to the dock, the two friends were wrestling with a cabin door. Nicky, on his hands and knees, was trying to hold it steady in the frame while Ozzie fumbled to attach the hinges. Walking up the gangway she said simply, “You could have told me.”
Nicky twisted his neck to look up at her. “Told you what?”
“That you didn’t like one of the flavors,” she said. “You could’ve just come out and said it.”
Nicky’s arms were getting tired from holding the door. He leaned a shoulder against it and said nothing. Phoebe produced the envelope, took the note out, and read it aloud. “Save me a Sno-Cone. Anything but blue. Love, Nicky.”
He shrugged and said sheepishly, “Okay, I didn’t like the blue that much. Tasted kind of weird.”
She frowned. The expression pulled down her eyebrow stud a fraction of an inch. She waved the envelope in front of her. “This money, Nicky. I don’t know what to say. It’s the most amazing thing that anybody’s ever done for me. But I can’t accept it. You know that, right?”
Nicky said nothing. His feelings were hurt and it showed.
“Look,” she went on, “I don’t even need it now. Gus is gone. No will, no relatives. I own the truck by possession. Keep the money. Spend it on yourself.”
“I don’t need it either.”
“Spend it on the boat,” she suggested. “Get it all spiffed up.”
Ozzie guffawed at that. “This tub? Doesn’t deserve more than a few hundred bucks in repairs.” He paused, then added, “Hey, how about guitar lessons?”
No one followed up on that notion. Nicky was still down on his hands and knees. Except for the fact that he was holding up a door, it seemed to be a courtly pose, very gallant, a pose of supplication. After a long moment he looked up from beneath his brows at Phoebe and said, “Okay then, listen. You don’t need the money for the truck. I don’t need the money for the boat. So I have another idea, a compromise. How about we spend some of it on us?”
“Us?” she said.
Nicky made all the arrangements. The details came to him easily because he’d thought about them many times before. They had to have a beautiful hotel room, a suite in fact. It had to be waterfront and there had to be a balcony where they could watch the sun go down and hear the hiss and tumble of the waves. There needed to be fluffy white bathrobes and terry-cloth slippers and more pillows on the bed than anyone would quite know what to do with. Champagne in a silver bucket. Room service with lobster and shrimp.
A bellhop showed them around, lingered for a tip, and silently removed himself.
For a moment after he was gone Phoebe tried to be sophisticated and blasé but she couldn’t help giggling a little. She touched upholstery, peeked into the enormous marble bathroom, then stepped onto the balcony and leaned far out over the railing. “God, this is extravagant,” she said.
“You saved my life,” said Nicky.
“And you saved mine.”
“Well, then, we deserve a little luxury.”
She looked out at the ocean. Close to shore, the water was a milky green. It phased through more colors than there were names for on its way to deepening to indigo out by the horizon.
Nicky was looking at her sideways. Suddenly he said, “Your hair.”
“What about it?”
“It’s back to magenta. I’m so excited I almost didn’t notice. When did you change it back?”
“An hour ago,” she said casually. “You still like it this way?”
By way of answer, he reached out with his damaged hand and touched her gently just behind the ear, then cradled her head as they drew together so that gleaming sunshot wisps curled over and between his fingers.
Much later, finishing dinner in their fluffy bathrobes, Phoebe said, “So the rest of the money. It’ll tide you over till you get another music gig.”
Nicky had butter sauce on his lips. He dabbed them before he answered. “I don’t want another music gig.”
“But—“
“I’ve thought about it, Feeb. A lot. I love the guitar but I don’t need an audience. I don’t deserve one. I’m not that good. I know that.”
She started to protest. He waved it away.
“I’m okay with it. I really am. And anyway, that’s not the most important part. The important part is, say I did get a gig. I’d be working nights, you’d be working days, we’d never get to see each other.”
“You’ve thought about that? That’s nice.”
Being called nice still embarrassed Nicky a little bit, and he looked away for a second. Then he said bashfully, “So I kind of have a different idea.”
“What?”
He gestured in the air like he was erasing something. “Might be terrible,” he said. “Probably crazy.”
Phoebe put her fork down. “So Nicky, what’s your idea?”
He propped his elbows on the table and mumbled into his interlaced fingers. “Hot dogs.”
“Hot dogs?”
“The wagon,” he said. “Coupla grand, I’ll bet Fred could
get it all equipped again. We hitch it to the Sno-Cone truck. Sno-Cones, hot dogs. Beach food. It’s a natural. Ozzie funnels customers to us. Fred and Piney help us at the window.”
Phoebe said, “Fred and Piney, equal partners.”
“Okay, partners then. Enough cash for all of us. In season at least. Fred and Piney could afford real rooms. And you and me, Feeb, if you don’t think it’s too soon, too sudden, maybe you and me could get a little place together. Whaddya think?”
She didn’t answer right away. She had a last bite of lobster and finished off the champagne that was foaming at the bottom of her glass. Then she smiled just enough so that the stud at the corner of her eyebrow twitched a quarter inch. “Let’s sleep on it,” she said. “Who knows? With a little luck it just might work.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laurence Shames is the author of more than twenty books. Four of them have been New York Times bestsellers; seven have been optioned for feature film. His comic crime fiction has earned him Great Britain’s prestigious Last Laugh Dagger and has been called “as enjoyable as a day at the beach” by USA Today.
Shames was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1951, and graduated from NYU in 1972. Before turning to writing full-time in 1976, he briefly and unhappily held jobs as a taxi driver, lounge singer, furniture mover, lifeguard, dishwasher, gym teacher, and shoe salesman. He currently divides his time between Asheville, North Carolina and Naples, Florida.
Find him online at www.LaurenceShames.com
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Key West Luck Page 19
