Among the Ducklings

To
Margie, for everything.

  Acknowledgments

     I just want to thank Linda Hurt and
Dr. Mary Bea Reyes for agreeing to be my “editors” and for the constructive
criticism that they gave me during the writing of this novel. Linda and Mary
Bea, I owe you one.

Chapter One

“Charles,
party of nine.
Charles, party of nine,” kept repeating the young hostess, as she surveyed the
crowd standing outside the Brazilian restaurant, as if she knew who Charles
was. She wore a blue blouse over a long black skirt. The name tag on her blouse
read “Cathy”, and on the top left of the blouse, embroidered, were small
figures of women in bikinis with feathered masks dancing in a carnival.

“I think
it's us,” a woman said, pointing to a large flat beeper with blue flashing
lights that one of the men in her group was holding. She was the only woman in
the group, and the only one standing while the men were sitting on the bench in
front of the restaurant. A few minutes earlier, they had offered her a seat
next to them, but she had declined. She preferred to stand.

The man
with the beeper then got up and waved at the hostess, who then guided them to a
corner of one of the dining rooms, where two tables were joined together to
accommodate the group.

Although it
was known as a Brazilian restaurant, the menu itself consisted of a variety of
dishes from numerous countries in South America. Located in downtown Orlando in
a large shopping center, the restaurant contained six separate dining rooms
that shared two self-service salad bars. Pictures of the Brazilian countryside
adorned the walls of each of the rooms.

After
ordering a martini, the woman then followed the men in her group to one of the
salad bars.
 
As she approached the salad
bar, something caught her attention. She turned and looked.

Far away,
in a dark corner in the adjacent dining room, sat a man she recognized. Next to
him was a young blond woman who was whispering something in his ear, while her
lips gently kissed his earlobe. He was smiling, and his hand covered hers
affectionately above the table. She was stunned. They didn't see her and they
were not going to.

She had to leave the
restaurant. She had to think. She needed to know who the blond woman was, and
why he was with her instead of with his fiancée tonight.

##

“Good
afternoon, Mr. Pierce. How is your ankle?” a voice rang from across the room,
prompting Philippe Pierce to shift in his hospital bed and turn his head in the
direction of the voice. His 6 foot 2 inch frame barely fit in the bed, which
made him wonder whether the hospital mistakenly put him in the children's ward.

“My name is
Dr. Gomez,” the voice then added. “Are you feeling any pain?”

“The nurse
gave me some painkillers and I feel a little bit better,” responded Philippe.

“Good,”
said Dr. Gomez while reading from an electronic pad in her left hand, and
holding what appeared to be a tiny black stylus. Dr. Gomez then used the stylus
to punch something on the screen of the pad and said, “I see yesterday was your
birthday.
Happy birthday.”

“Thanks. My
luck,” Philippe replied distractedly, thinking about the irony of his
situation. Who would have thought that he would miss his 35th birthday party
that his friend Jeremy had planned for him yesterday? He had driven five hours
from Miami and arrived at Jeremy's house in Saint Augustine at 2:00 pm to be on
time for the birthday party, which was to start at 7:00 pm. By 5:00 pm, he was
already being rushed to the hospital, having broken his left ankle in a game of
basketball.

“Did you
enjoy your birthday cake?” Dr. Gomez asked.

“Sure. It
was the best hospital cupcake I’ve ever had. Not much sugar and taste,” replied
Philippe with a short laugh, which caused Dr. Gomez to join in the laughter.

“I will
tell our new baker how much you enjoyed it,” Dr. Gomez said. She was dressed
in a blue coat, and looked to Philippe to be in her
mid
sixties
, with short black hair, light hazel eyes, short nose and very
small lips. She didn't appear to be wearing any makeup. She didn't need to.
She must have been a knockout when she was
younger
, thought Philippe. Dr. Gomez sensed that Philippe was watching her.
She looked up and her eyes met Philippe's and she said, “I see
that you live in Miami. How did you get injured and end up all the way up here
in Saint Augustine?”

As Philippe
was reliving the events of the last forty-eight hours from his hospital bed in
Saint Augustine, Florida, little did he know that meeting Dr. Marcia Gomez
would change his life
forever.

##

Helped
by the strong winds that kept pulling and slapping Isabel Romero's umbrella,
the torrential rain managed to fully drench Isabel, as she ran from her car to
the main entrance of the
Dadeland
mall in South
Miami.
She
calculated that it would take her two hours to buy a gift, change clothes and
drive across town to Los Caballeros, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Miami, to
celebrate the high school graduation of the daughter of her close friend, Lucy
Langford. The reservation was at 6:00 pm and Isabel's watch read 4:30 pm. She
was already late and needed to hurry.

“May I help
you Ma'am?” asked the young, good looking male clerk, as she entered the
electronics store. The clerk seemed no more than eighteen years old and
appeared to be a living example of the term “multiracial”. Was he black, white,
Hispanic? One could not tell by simply looking at him.

“I am
looking for an electronic book reader,” Isabel replied. Except for one
customer, who was busy perusing an electronics catalog, the store was
completely deserted.

“I guess
the rain chased your customers away,” Isabel said as the young clerk grabbed a
blue box from the top of a shelf behind him, with a picture of a gadget with
the name
Rezko
on it. The picture on the box looked
more like a large calculator than an electronic book reader.

“I guess
so,” The clerk said. He pulled the gadget
out of the box and added, “This is the latest model that we have and recommend."

“I'll take
it,” said Isabel.
The clerk looked surprised at Isabel's fast decision and said, “Give me one
second, and let me go check the price for you.”

“The price
on the box hasn't changed, has it?” Isabel asked, smiling at the clerk and
pointing to a small yellow sticker on the side of the box.

“No.
Ma'am
,” the clerk replied, looking embarrassed.

“OK. Just
wrap it for me,” Isabel said, as she planted her credit card on the glass
counter, in front of the clerk.

“Yes,
Ma'am,” the clerk said, picking up Isabel's card.

As the
clerk was swiping the card, Isabel realized that the young clerk kept calling
her Ma'am. She had just turned thirty-two years old last month and wondered
whether her age was showing.

As soon as
the clerk finished wrapping the gift, Isabel ran out of the store. The rain was
still pouring heavily, forcing Isabel to wait at the mall's entrance and not run
to the car, fearing that the water might damage the electronic reader. As
Isabel was waiting for the rain to stop, her cell phone rang, emitting an awful
tune that her sister Rebecca had downloaded from the internet and uploaded into
Isabel's
Iphone
.

“Hello,”
Isabel answered.

“Hi big
sis,” Rebecca said, “Where are you? Richard just called me asking for you.”
Rebecca was twelve years younger than Isabel. But the age difference never
prevented them from being good friends.

“I am on my
way home to change for the graduation party. I am all wet from this rain,”
Isabel responded.

“Oh, I
remember now,” Rebecca said. “Richard said to call him back."

“I will,”
Isabel promised. Isabel and Richard
Seyfert
had been
engaged for the past three years. Sometimes Isabel wondered if they would ever
get married. The wedding date had never been set and Richard was in no hurry.

“I don't
want to use your money,” Richard would say. “The economy will soon pick up and
my construction company will rebound. The fact is that I love you. So why is it
wrong for me to make sure that I'm financially able to provide for my wife
before we get married? ”

“Isabel,
are you OK?” asked Rebecca still on the line, interrupting Isabel's thoughts.

“Sure.
Where are you?”

“I am with
Mark. We’re picking up Mark's niece. We're going to the movies,” Rebecca
answered. Mark was Rebecca's boyfriend and they had been going out since high
school.

“What are
you going to see?” Isabel asked.

“Some
horror movie that Mark chose,” Rebecca answered.

“Hopefully,
it’s good. So at what time do you think you will be home
tonight?”

“The movie
starts at 7:00 pm. I should be home by 11:00 after dropping Mark and his niece
off.”

“OK, be
safe,” Isabel said, before she hung up.

##

As
the rain refused to subside, Isabel was contemplating whether to make a dash
for the car, when her cell phone rang for a second time. It was Richard and she
picked up.

“Hi honey,”
she answered.

“Hi Bella,
I tried to call you to let you know that my conference was canceled, but all I
was getting was your voicemail.” Richard began calling her “Bella” ever since
she told him that her father used to call her by that nickname when she was a
kid.