Dying to Retire (15 page)

Downtown, the city was filled with people; they wandered in and out of the stores and myriad art galleries, holding shopping bags and soda cups, and licking ice-cream cones. They filled the tables at outdoor cafés, and tied their bicycles to every palm tree along our route. At times the sidewalks were so congested, people walked in the street to make their way around the crowds. We shared the roadway with scooters, mopeds, bicycles, tricycles, and even a unicycle. At one intersection we stopped to make way for the Conch Train, which provides tours of the city, its passengers sitting in bright yellow open cars shaded by a green striped awning. The “locomotive” pulling it was a gussied-up tractor.

Seth turned into a residential side street, strangely quiet after the hubbub of the more commercial thoroughfare. We drove slowly, looking for the number of Truman’s house. Most of the homes were pastel colored or white, except for a vivid lavender one at the far corner. They were large and imposing, with columns and gables, broad verandas, and shaded galleries on the second floors, reminding me of the older homes I remembered seeing in New Orleans. The plantings on the relatively small lots were lush, in some places nearly concealing the front of the house. Despite the cracked and buckled sidewalk where the roots of banyan trees had pushed up the pavement, there was a look of prosperity to the street, of new money spent on old houses.

We drew up in front of the purple house, peering out the window, searching for the house number Truman had given Seth. A man in shorts and a pink-blue-and-yellow Hawaiian patterned shirt was sitting on the porch in an old-fashioned double rocker. When he spotted our car, he rose from his seat, shaded his eyes, and waved.

“Seth! Seth!” he called, slipping his bare feet into sandals and shuffling toward the stairs. He was tall and spare. His gray hair, what there was of it, was pulled back into a wispy ponytail that hung down his back.

“Truman?” Seth said, clearly astounded at the alterations in the companion of his youth.

“The very same,” he called out.

Truman hurried down the path and pointed away from the house. “You’ll have to go ’round the corner to the driveway and pull into the back. You can’t park here. You’ll get a ticket.” He squatted down so he could see into the car. “Seth, you old coot, it’s good to see you.” He pounded Seth’s shoulder. “Hi, there, Jessica. I was hoping I’d get to meet you.” He pushed his arm past Seth and shook my hand. “Go on around. I’ll meet you in the driveway. I’m glad you guys don’t have an RV. I wouldn’t know where to tell you to park it. It would never fit, and the town hates them. They barely tolerate cars, much less trailers. See you in a minute.” He turned and trotted back up the path.

Seth sat for a moment, his mouth agape, before clearing his throat and releasing the brake.

I cocked my head. “He’s changed a bit, I take it.”

“More like transformed,” Seth said. “Always perfectly groomed. Never without a tie. Used to make me feel like a poor relation standing next to him.”

“Retirement often encourages people to explore new directions,” I said. “Or maybe it simply allows a person’s true nature to emerge.”

“But he’s a completely different man.”

“You may seem different to him, too.”

“I haven’t gone from a normal person to a hippie.”

“Seth, you’ve only just said hello. It’s been years since you’ve seen each other. Give it a little time.”

“Ayuh,” Seth said, stopping at the corner before making the turn. “I know. I know. You can’t judge a book by its cover. But, Jessica, I think the contents may have changed here as well.”

“He seems genuinely happy to see you.”

He didn’t say anything more, but frowned as he drove beneath the low-hanging branches of a tree that arched over Truman’s driveway. The gravel crunched under the tires as we pulled to a stop before what I assumed had once been a garage. It was painted the same intense hue as the house, and still had the broad, multipaneled garage door, but a smaller door, painted blue, had been cut into it. A matching sign with white letters tacked up on the right said, DISPENSARY.

Truman was halfway down the path when we climbed out of the car and took in our surroundings. The back of the house had a second-floor balcony that looked down on an overgrown but charming garden. Enough of the overhead foliage had been cleared to allow a little pool of sunlight to reach a stone patio, where a wrought-iron table and chairs—and a canvas hammock on a stand—created an inviting area to relax. A young woman in a long, gauzy dress was doing precisely that. She was stretched out on the hammock asleep, an open book on her chest, one forearm resting across her eyes, shielding them from the sun, a little black dog curled at her feet.

“Let me see what you look like, Boomer,” Truman said, grabbing Seth by the shoulders and turning him around.

“Boomer?” I said, noting the blush rising into Seth’s cheeks.

“Got quite a front porch there,” Truman teased, poking a finger into Seth’s abdomen, “but you’ve got more hair than I do. Good for you.” He gave Seth a bear hug, and turned to me with outstretched arms. “I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like we’re old friends.”

I was the recipient of another hug, and then Truman, beaming at both of us, ushered us up the path toward his home.

“Oh, wait,” I said, rushing back to the car.

“I’ll get Benny to bring in your luggage later.”

“It’s not the luggage I want,” I said, opening the back door on the passenger side. “We brought you a key lime pie. I think it may need to be refrigerated.”

“How wonderful. My favorite.”

“I hope it’s not like bringing coals to Newcastle,” I said.

“Not at all,” Truman said, reaching for the pie. He lifted a flap on the box to peek inside. “Must be the original, authentic recipe.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

He laughed. “There are probably a hundred places down here that boast that their key lime pie is the original, authentic recipe.”

“You mean it’s not?” I was crestfallen. The young man whose pie I’d sampled had seemed so sincere, and I’d purchased this one on his recommendation.

“Don’t worry,” Truman said, taking my arm as we walked to the house. “I haven’t tasted a bad key lime pie in thirty years. It’s always good, just a little different every time. Some are chiffon; some are custard; some are frozen. Use meringue; don’t use meringue. Pastry crust, graham-cracker crust, cookie crust. Every baker has another idea of what’s authentic. And they’ll swear their grandmother invented the recipe.”

I nodded and sighed. “It’s not often I’m taken in, but I was.”

“Don’t think twice about it. Making key lime pie is a competitive sport down here. I’ll take you over to La-Te-Da on Duval. The baker makes theirs with chocolate ganache. Delicious, but definitely not authentic. At Louie’s Backyard, it has a gingersnap crust and is served with a raspberry sauce.”

“What
is
the authentic recipe then?” Seth asked.

Truman shrugged. “I’ve no idea,” he said. “But I’ll tell you a little secret. You have to swear not to reveal it or my reputation will be ruined in Key West.” He winked.

“I think your secret will be safe with us,” I said.

“My favorite key lime pie isn’t made in the Keys at all. The one I love best is made in South Beach at a restaurant called Joe’s Stone Crab. But as a freshwater conch, I don’t dare reveal my preference.”

“And a freshwater conch would be someone who
wasn’t
born here?” I asked.

“Exactly. A true conch would never prefer the pie of an off-islander. There must still be some Boston in my bones.”

“Not much,” I heard Seth mutter.

Truman laughed. “Gave you a start, huh, Boomer? Not exactly the Dr. Truman Buckley you knew and loved.” He grinned at Seth. “We’ll have to catch up later, but let’s get you settled first. I’ll show you to your rooms and then we can have lunch.”

If Seth had thought Truman was living on a limited income, that impression was corrected as soon as we entered French doors leading into the back parlor. The house may have had Victorian origins, but someone in the past twenty-five years—and I suspected it was Truman—had put a large fortune into renovating the interior. Marble floors and whitewashed plaster cooled the air in the old house, which was filled with antiques and reproductions of antiques that any decorating magazine would have been proud to display on its pages.

Truman led us through the parlor to the front hall and up a broad staircase, which had elaborately carved newel posts and spindles.

“The house dates to the late eighteen-hundreds,” he explained. “It was a mess when I got it, the plaster falling down, floors all rotted. I ripped them out and replaced them with marble. It’ll never rot in this humidity, and it feels delicious underfoot in the summer on days when you can barely move because it gets so damned hot.”

“Very nice,” Seth said, pausing to catch his breath and look back at the stained-glass transom over the front door, and the crystal chandelier hanging from the end of a long chain.

Upstairs, Truman led us to guest rooms at opposite sides of a carpeted hallway. Seth’s was at the front of the house, looking out on the street. Mine faced the rear, with French doors leading to the balcony I’d seen earlier.

“I’ll give you guys a few minutes to unwind,” Truman said. “Find your way to the kitchen when you’re ready.”

He closed the door behind me and I looked around. The room wasn’t large, but it had an iron four-poster bed hung with yards of white gauze, and an Eastlake Victorian chest with a rolltop desk above the drawers, on which was a telephone, pad, and pen, just like in a hotel. At the foot of the bed was a blanket chest with an inlaid design of birds and vines. A wing-back chair and small ottoman completed the furniture. Two doors side by side took up half one wall. I opened the first to reveal an empty closet except for a folded luggage rack and an array of hangers. The other door led to a private bath. It had been restored but maintained its old-fashioned appearance, with small octagonal white tiles on the floor with a line of black tiles set as a border, pedestal sink, claw-footed tub, and a commode with a pull chain of a type I hadn’t seen since my grammar school days.

The sound of a knock drew me back to the bedroom. I opened the door. A young man, attired in crimson from hair to shirt to shoes, stood in the hallway with our two bags. He had tattoos on both arms and more piercings than I could comfortably look at.

“Hi, I’m Benny. Which one is yours?”

“That one.” I pointed to my bag. “I’m Jessica Fletcher. It’s nice to meet you. Do you work for Dr. Buckley?”

“Work for Truman? No. I just hang out here. We do favors for each other. Today I’m his bellboy.”

“Oh.”

“But you don’t have to tip me,” he said. “This must be his, huh?” He pointed to Seth’s bag and cocked his head at the door across from mine.

“Must be,” I said, smiling.

He turned and knocked on Seth’s door.

I pulled my bag into the room, not waiting to see Seth’s reaction to the “bellboy,” and unpacked the things I would need for our stay, changing into a fresh blouse and khaki skirt. I washed my hands and face using the fluffy washcloth and towels Truman had provided, went into the hall, and knocked on Seth’s door. “I’m going downstairs,” I called through it. “I’ll see you there.”

There was a muffled reply I didn’t catch.

“This is like a lovely hotel,” I told Truman when I found him in the kitchen. “How do you ever persuade houseguests to go home?”

“I enjoy the company,” he said, clearing off the clutter on a marble-topped island to make room for a tray of crackers. He gathered newspapers and unopened mail and piled them in one corner, and pushed a portable telephone out of the way. It was one of two in the kitchen.

“Can I help with anything?” I asked.

“I’m just about done, but thanks for the offer.” He unwrapped a package of Brie, placed it on the tray with the crackers, and pressed the blade of a knife into the wedge of cheese. He picked up the tray and I followed him into the back parlor through which we’d entered the house.

It was a peaceful room, the upholstered furniture all in beige silk with cushions soft enough for comfort, but not so soft as to hinder getting up. In the corner by a window, a round table, covered in a white cloth, was already set for lunch with a platter of sandwiches and a bowl of fresh fruit salad. Truman had placed three tall glasses of iced tea on coasters on top of the coffee table, and he slid the tray of cheese and crackers next to them. I sat on the sofa while he took one of the armchairs. It was interesting to see that this decidedly informal man chose to relax in such a formal setting.

“It’s the Boston influence,” he said, reading my thoughts. “I can’t quite shed it, but I’ve been trying to for years.”

“You’ve been here for thirty years, you said?”

“Just about. Not full-time, of course, at least not in the early years. You know, President Truman had his summer White House here. There’s an avenue named for him, although I tease the kids and tell them it was named for me. Maybe it was fate that brought me here.”

“It must have been quite a change from what you were used to.”

“I liked Key West precisely for that reason. It was such a departure from my life in Boston. I’d joined my father’s practice right out of medical school; never had a chance to look around and see what else was available. It was just by chance I came here. My first wife had a cousin who lived about three blocks away and we came down for a visit.” He stopped, smiling at the memory.

“And you were charmed,” I said.

“Charmed? I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t believe the freedom of it. Key West has always been a place for free spirits. It was so accepting, so nonconformist, so totally opposite everything I knew and had been raised to value. There were artists and writers and musicians. Philosophical discussions in the cafés. Creativity virtually shimmered in the air. It was like Paris in Picasso’s day—at least I thought so.”