A Second Chance in Paradise (6 page)

She said nothing else. She only laid there as I dressed in the quiet. I was disappointed all right, but I was at odds with myself and embarrassed as well. Never had I been in such an awkward situation. I felt like an A-1 heel for not staying to have a cup of coffee with her, but I couldn’t. I
had
to get out of there. All I wanted to do was bolt.

When I was finally dressed I looked down at Julie Albright and said in as earnest a voice as I could muster, “
Thanks for having me over. I’ll probably see you later.”

T
hen I walked out of the trailer.

Chapter 6

As soon as I stepped outside I broke into a trot. Passing all the rest of the trailers first then heading up the same narrow road I followed Julie home on the night before, all I could do was think about how she must be reacting right then. I envisioned her staying in her bed alone, thinking. I could see quiet tears making their way down her cheeks. We may have only known each other for twenty-four hours but the mutual attraction we felt – both mental and physical, was undeniable. And it was deep. I knew for sure she really liked me, but there was a lot I didn’t know about Julie Alright.

I had no idea she hadn’t
had a semblance of interest in any man since her modeling days ended sixteen years earlier in New York City. Nor did I know that back then she was engaged to Mark Richardson, a very promising young attorney. Mark was about to become the youngest partner ever at Dalrymple, Stockton and Stockton, one of New York’s most prestigious law firms. Julie and Mark had been dating for two years, and they had a big wedding planned for that fall. The ceremony was to be held in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, followed by a reception at the Waldorf Astoria. Money was no problem for Mark’s parents and they insisted on buying the grandest wedding available. His father, J. Walter Richardson of Scarsdale and Palm Beach, just happened to be the sole heir of the “American Grains” breakfast cereal fortune.

At that time Julie was one of the
big up-and-comers in the modeling world. As a matter of fact, she was just about to cross the threshold to cover-girl fame. But it never happened. One June morning, when she was on her way to the biggest shoot of her career, her sunny future eclipsed totally, and in an instant.

Sitting in the back seat of a Checker cab, she was headed uptown to the
world-renowned Clairidge Studios where she was to pose for an upcoming cover of
Vogue Magazine
. The sun was beginning to shine, but Madison Avenue was still slick from a late morning rain. Julie, who was sitting behind the driver, cranked down the window and held her left hand out in the breeze, drying her freshly applied nail polish. Then, just as the cab was crossing the intersection at 44th street, another cab, heading east, didn’t bother to stop for the red light. The driver of the at fault cab, one Eloi Hernandez, was so toasted on coke he didn’t even notice the light had turned red. Thoughts of stopping never entered his hopped-up mind until after he’d sped into the intersection – and slammed broadside into Julie’s cab. The impact to the driver’s door was so forceful that her driver’s neck snapped so far sideways it literally cracked. The two vehicles then skidded, smacking sideways into each other, crushing four of Julie’s fingers in the process.

The driver of Julie
’s cab, a Greek immigrant from Astoria Queens, whose name she never learned, was dead by the time the ambulances reached the scene. Julie was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital where a team of three plastic surgeons performed micro-surgery in an attempt to re-attach her fingers. Her middle and index fingers were salvaged and the nerves regenerated in due time, but her pinky and ring finger were so badly mashed there was no possible way of saving them. Eloi Hernandez did a short stint on Riker’s Island; the Greek was buried out in Queens by his family; and Julie’s potential international fame never materialized. On top of all that, when Mark Richardson found out Julie had lost two fingers, he decided that just maybe he wasn’t ready for marriage after all. After knotting the loose ends of her life together the best Julie could, she returned to Ft. Lauderdale with lost dreams and a broken heart.

I was panting
heavily as I jogged past the side of Pa Bell’s store and headed north on U.S. 1. Moving at a good clip by now, the palmettos and Florida Holly alongside the early-morning-quiet two-lane highway blurred green in my periphery. I pushed hard, lengthening my strides – punishing myself. Nagging thoughts about what happened ten minutes earlier whirred in and out of my head so quickly that I could only hold onto a few. But they were enough. I went back and forth, condoning and lambasting myself for the way I’d just acted around Julie. I was so sorry she’d seen that dumb stare on my face after noticing her handicap, but I couldn’t help it. And sure, Julie was beautiful, kind, smart and more, but she
was
handicapped too. Over and over, as if trading punches, the two sides of my conscious mind parried each other.

Hell man, what
’s wrong with you! Can’t you see she’s a very special woman? Yeah, maybe so, but I could never get over the hand thing. It would be always be there, like an eternal dark asterisk, always taking away from the rest of her. Maybe so, but look at the rest of her. Look at what a kind human being she is. I know, I know, but I could never accept the fingers thing. I’m better off not getting in any deeper with her. You think so, huh! Think about
... .

On and on I went like that until I finally slowed from a jog to an easy trot. As I cooled
down the best I could with the morning sun hot on my perspiring back, I finally decided the last thing I needed was to get into some kind of stressful relationship.

“T
hat’s it,” I said aloud, by now slowing to a walk on the marl road back toward the trailer park, “I don’t want to think about it anymore. Even if she did have all her fingers, I’m not ready to get mixed up with another woman so soon. Hell, I’m not even over my broken marriage yet ... probably never will be.”

Before reaching the trailers I came upon another road that cut into the pines on the left. Even narrower than the one I was on, I’d seen it before and suspected it led to Pa Bell’s place. I needed to talk to him, and rather than walk to the beach then wade the shallows around the mangroves again I turned up that road. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody, but I
had
to talk to the old man. After checking the rents for apartments in the papers at Sloppy Joe’s the day before, I’d finally admitted to myself that, without a job, I couldn’t possibly afford a place in Key West yet. As much as I did not want to be next door to Julie anymore, I had no choice. With not a whole lot of money behind me, the deal Pa Bell was giving me was just too sweet to walk away from.

Just before I reached Pa’s house, the slash pines gave way to tall gumbo limbo trees and stately banyans with trunks wide across as a man is tall. High above, a dense ceiling of motionless leaves hid the birds whose calls and songs filled this forest. It was as if I were in a wide, verdant, majestic tunnel. As if I had stepped into a place that was half jungle and half rain forest. When most people think of heaven they envision a place with fluffy white clouds and an endless blue sky, but this green Eden was the closest to the Promised Land I could ever imagine. Everywhere I looked there were bushes, shrubs, clusters of flowers, long vines hanging from tree limbs. Yes, the place was absolutely breathtaking. And as I walked on I couldn’t help but feel I was previewing that eternal, peaceful sanctuary that’s promised us by so many religions.

By the time I made my way to Pa Bell’s front lawn the towering canopy had thinned some, but I was still shrouded in shade. A well-worn footpath cut across the grass to the front of the house and after I stepped onto it I just stood there for a moment. From where I was standing the first time I’d seen Pa’s place, I hadn’t seen through the dense bush the two massive Poinciana trees now standing before me. Like towering twin sentinels, their long limbs intertwined above the path, forming yet another tunnel. But this one was different. A person would have to travel this world far and wide to witness a sight more magnificent than a Royal Poinciana in full bloom. And here I was, looking up at two. With the expansive boughs of these trees bursting with vibrant, flaming-red flowers above me, I knew I was looking up at some of Mother Nature’s finest work. I walked beneath them with my head tilted way back, still marveling with every step. But at the same time, a feeling other than wonderment came over me. I became somewhat leery. I didn’t know what to expect. Not knowing Pa Bell very well I felt like I was crossing a border into his private world. And I was. 

After slowly climbing the wide
wooden steps to the veranda, gently I rapped the door with the brass door knocker – a miniature ship’s bell with the family name “Bell” inscribed in it.

Nobody answered. I
knocked again, still no answer.

I
walked around the side of the house, skirted an old brick cistern then saw the old man. He was standing on a narrow wooden dock, facing Florida Bay, leaning over the railing at the end of it with his back to me. Not wanting to startle him, I announced my presence by walking heavily on the faded gray planking. As I approached he turned around.

“
Hello, Mister Bell.”

Calmly as can be, as if he’d already known I was on his property, he said, “Mornin’.” Then he looked into a
white plastic bucket sitting next to him on the dock, reached in, grabbed a handful of small dead fish and flipped them over the railing. I came up alongside him and we both looked down into the clear water. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

All at once a
n entire school of ten to fifteen-pound snook rushed for the baitfish. As they struck the slowly sinking cigar minnows, sunlight reflected in bright flashes off their silvery sides. One of the small fish floated on the surface but it wasn’t long before a large snook crashed it. Its huge mouth agape, water flew everywhere and it produced a loud, distinct popping sound.

Pa
then repeated the process, and with my eyes still glued to the water I said, “Wow, this is something else. They’re all nice size fish.”

“See that one over there, the one laying in
the eel grass?” Pa asked, pointing a sausage-like finger toward the far edge of the school, “Been feeding him for years. Call him ‘Old Moe’.”

“
How do you know it’s the same fish?”

“
That’s easy,” Pa answered, squinting into the sunlight, “see that there scar at the base of his tail ... where his black lateral line ends?”

“
Ohhh yeah,” I said, studying the fish like an ichthyologist.

“
Well ... when Buster found ’im he was still runnin’ gill nets, right out there at the front of this channel. Anyway, this one time he pulled up the net and Old Moe was stuck in it, by his tail. Where that scar is he had a diver’s spear plum through his body. It got tangled in the mesh.” 

P
a lit up a Lucky Strike then and I thought about having my first smoke of the day. But I didn’t. I wanted to hold off until I had my morning coffee.

Exhaling as he spoke Pa said, “
Buster put ’im in the live well and brought him here to the dock. We sawed the spear in half, pulled it out, and let ’im go.”

“
And he’s still here.”

“
Yep! He’s still hangin’ ’round the dock. Snook favor stayin’ around structures you know.”

It was easy to see that this man
loved to talk about the sea and the life it sustains. That became even more obvious as he went on with his story.

“
One evenin’ at dusk I was cullin’ the dead mullet out of the live well aboard the ‘Island Belle’ – that’s our old Chris-Craft cabin cruiser ... Buster’s out in it right now. Anyway, after I flipped the first mullet over the side I heard a pop. I looked down there and saw ‘Old Moe’ layin’ there, motionless; eyeballin’ me. I threw him another one and this time saw him grab it. Been feedin’ him and his brood ever since.”

With my
eyebrows now arched much the way Pa’s were permanently, I said, “I’d say that’s really getting in touch with nature.”

“Nowadays it’s a lot e
asier than connectin’ with most people.”

“Yeah,” I said, l
ooking out at Wreckers Channel now, “people are so busy running around in a frenzy today most of them don’t have time for each other anymore.”

“
That’s part of the beauty of this here key. There ain’t many of us and nobody’s ever in a rush. We have plenty of time to be neighborly. Been that way since my great-grand-daddy came here to Wrecker’s Key in the 1830’s. He was the first white man to settle here.”

“I
nteresting! So your family’s been here ever since?”

“
Yup, only difference, ’cept for a little increase in boat traffic, is all those tourists rushin’ by out on U.S. 1. Let me tell ya, there’s some real characters pass through here. Hell, just last weekend we had some first-class bozos from Miami stop at the store. They were all liquored-up and wanted ta fill the boat they were trailerin’ with gas. One of them put the nozzle into a rod-holder instead of the fuel fill and poured eighty dollars worth of regular onto the floor of the boat!

“
Haaa!  Some kind of characters they must have been!”

As we shared a
good laugh, a brown pelican landed next to Pa on the dock. He called him “Max” then hand fed him a fish and stroked his white head a couple of times. The bird was perfectly fine with this show of affection, but when I leaned to take a look at him he took one cumbersome step back.

“
Mister Bell,” I said then, in a more serious tone, “the reason why I came over here was to ask you if there’s any possibility I could rent Mr. Doyle’s Airstream for a little longer. I mean ... unless he’s coming back soon?”

Pa pursed his lips in thought and said,
“Son, I wish he was comin’ back. He was a good friend and was here a long time, but I’m afraid it’d take one of them miracles to bring him back from where he is now.”