‘Where are you rushing off to?’ Lat asked as the meeting broke and Julia gathered her stack of legal pads and files, car keys already in hand. Small conversations cluttered the room and clogged the doorway, preventing a quick escape. She needed to go, but she didn’t want to be remembered as the first one out the door.
‘I’m hoping to rescue my dog from the kennel before they close for the night,’ she said, glancing at her watch again. ‘I’ve gotta make it there by six.’
Lat laughed. ‘The kennel? Don’t tell me you’re one of those neurotics who leaves their pooch in day care when you have to go to work so they won’t be alone.’
She smiled. ‘Do I look like I’d own a teacup anything?’
‘I pegged you for an Akita, actually.’
‘Beagle-mix named Moose.’
‘Even better. I had a beagle named Dusty Paws when Iwas a kid. He loved to howl at the moon. So why’s poor Moose locked up?’
‘I just flew in this morning from New York and haven’t had a chance to go home yet. Hence the mad rush.’
‘New York?’
‘Family,’ was all she said.
‘And you came straight here?’ He let out a low whistle. ‘No wonder you’re Bellido’s favorite. So what are you and Moose up to tonight?’
She felt her cheeks grow hot and Rick walked up before she could answer. ‘Hey there,’ he said with a smile, his hand on the small of her back. ‘Crazy day, right? Look, we’re gonna go grab some dinner at Christy’s. You want to join us?’
She figured ‘we’re’ meant sitting sandwiched between Charley Rifkin and the Director of the Miami-Dade PD, who were both looking across the room at them. If the seating arrangements alone weren’t enough of a reason to pass up a steak dinner for a peanut-butter sandwich, the sure-to-be subject matter was – she’d had enough of Dr David Marquette for one day. Her head ached with legal issues and creepy thoughts. She needed a break. ‘Thanks, but like Iwas telling Lat,’ she started, then saw the detective had already walked away. ‘I need to get home,’ she finished quietly.
She promised to call Rick later, grabbed her purse and files and hurried to her car. The beautiful Sunday was still beautiful, but it was fading fast as the sun began its slow slip under the horizon. A brilliant idea came to her just as she pulled into the parking lot of the Hollywood Animal Hospital. It would be a shame to miss even one minute of a perfect day – if anything, time spent locked up in a man-made hell with her brother made her appreciate that now. So instead of going home, she had the tech put another rubber ball on the bill and drove straight to the Hollywood boardwalk with a crazed, howling Moose.
The beach was still jamming with joggers, rollerbladers, skateboarders, baby carriages, and sunburned Canadians. For the locals, the impending Monday morning meant back to work as usual, and so they rushed or bladed or strolled about with purpose – sure of where they were going and what they were doing – determined to get it all in before the sun set and the ball came to an end. But for the tourists, a late Sunday afternoon wasn’t so desperate. Much to the irritation of the natives, they meandered, flitting from shop to shop or menu to menu like honeybees, stopping abruptly to take a picture or enjoy a view.
It was a blessedly distracting crowd to get lost in, to forget things and names and faces if only for a little while. Julia made her way through the smog of coconut-scented sunscreen to an empty bench just a few yards down from the mammoth Hollywood Beach Resort – a landmark, 1920s hotel that had definitely seen some better days. She loved the boardwalk. It was one of the reasons she’d picked Hollywood to live. The eclectic old T-shirt shops and fast-food stands, Mom and Pop restaurants and seaside motels that still hung out vacancy signs. It was a place that you just knew had once been great, where you could walk down the boardwalk and still see the ghosts of Al Capone and his boys or follow Rita Hayworth and Jimmy Cagney as they strolled to the sand, flashbulbs popping in their wake, because it hadn’t changed. Yet. Of course, like Miami Beach twenty years ago, Hollywood was in the process of rediscovering itself, and the bulldozers and architects were steadily making their way up Ocean Drive and down Johnson Street. But until the new and shiny refaced a small slice of history, the boardwalk would still be her favorite place to go for a jog or a long, mind-clearing midnight walk.
Moose was sucking wind from the three-block walk from the car. Although he chased mailmen down the street as if they were carrying satchels of steak bones and still caught his fair share of lizards, the last few weekends of doing not much of anything at the kennel had packed a couple of pounds on him. It was Uncle Jimmy’s bikini-watching boardwalk expeditions that had kept Moose in top guard-dog form, but it had been a long while since Moose had trolled the beach or frolicked in the dog park. And just as long since Julia had spoken to her aunt and uncle. She closed her eyes. She’d come here this afternoon to not think, but the ghosts, they found you wherever you went, didn’t they?
‘Sometimes you got to make decisions that people don’t like, bella,’ Uncle Jimmy had warned once when she ran against a friend in high school for a spot on Student Council. ‘Sometimes they don’t like you for making them. They make it personal, which ain’t right. You won’t be needing those people in your life.’
His almost prophetic words haunted her now. Julia hadn’t wanted to make a choice between her aunt and uncle and Andy, but she obviously had. She didn’t want to make it personal, but she also understood that there was no way it couldn’t be. For any of them. It was hard to believe so much time had slipped away; it used to be she spoke with Aunt Nora at least once a day. But as the days and weeks continued to pass, the wall between them grew taller and more difficult to scale.
Past the high-rise resort to the west, the setting sun shot translucent beams of gold out from behind puffy clouds, bathing everything it touched in an ethereal, almost holy light – like a Renaissance painting of Deliverance. Even by Florida sunset standards, it was a beautiful sight. The air felt alive, buzzing with people and music. So different from yesterday, when she and Andy had watched the bleak winter twilight descend upon the concrete skyline of Manhattan from behind dirty, steel-checkered windows. She wondered if her brother remembered a sunset any other way. If it was ever beautiful in his mind. Maybe, she thought, maybe one day she could show him this.
Moose began to howl and bark. ‘I thought Imight find you here,’ said the familiar voice behind her. She spun around with a start and there was Uncle Jimmy, crouched beside her petting a completely delirious Moose, who danced around in circles on his hind legs like some foofy circus poodle.
‘Uncle Jimmy …’
‘And you,’ he said, standing up with outstretched arms. ‘What? You don’t give your uncle a hug no more?’
She nodded and hugged him hard.
‘Now that’s better,’ he said gruffly in her ear, patting her back as if she were a baby. ‘I missed them hugs. Where you been hiding, bella? Igo by your apartment on Saturday on the way to the ponies, no one’s there. Istopped by again today – nobody. Your aunt, she’s going crazy. She needs her Julia fix. She’s got nobody to cook for,’ he finished with a smile.
Julia smiled back but said nothing. She hadn’t spoken to Nora since that day right before Christmas when everything had changed.
‘So she’s fattening me up. Then she complains I’m too fat.’ He rubbed his generous stomach, which was discreetly hidden behind a lime-green Guayabera shirt and black shorts. ‘Sometimes there’s no pleasing her, is all I’m saying. You just love her for who she is and accept that she ain’t gonna change. That she can’t. It’s too hard for her.’
‘I was in New York,’ Julia said quietly.
There was a brief, deliberate pause. ‘Oh yeah? Just now you got back?’
‘I’ve been going up to see Andy. That’s why I haven’t been around.’
Jimmy didn’t blink. ‘Oh yeah? What’cha doing that for?’
‘He has nobody, Uncle Jimmy.’
He laughed wryly. ‘He brought that on himself, Munch-kin. Can’t gun down the kiddies on the playground then bitch there’s no one to play with.’
‘He’s not bitching …’ She shook her head. ‘He’s sorry, Uncle Jimmy. If he could change things he would. If he could switch places, Iknow he would. He was sick.’
‘Yeah? Is he better now?’
‘Yes. He’s much better. He takes his meds. He doesn’t have the hallucinations anymore. And the voices, they’re softer …’ I t was too much to explain. She knew he didn’t want to hear it anyway. That it wouldn’t make a difference. ‘They’re moving him to a different hospital soon. We’re just waiting for a bed.’
‘We’re just waiting for a bed …’ he repeated with a frown. ‘So, your brother, he could get out one day?’
‘One day,’ she replied with an uncomfortable shrug. ‘I don’t know when.’
Jimmy said nothing for a long, long time. Then he squeezed her arm gently. ‘Well, your aunt, she misses you. I miss you, Munchkin. We didn’t even get to see you none for the holidays. And Imiss my little buddy here, too.’ He bent down and scratched Moose’s tummy, who was now laid out like a porn star in the sand. ‘Yeah, that’s right. That’s a good boy,’ he cooed. ‘Where you been putting this guy when you go on your trips to New York?’
‘At the kennel.’
‘The kennel,’ Jimmy repeated thoughtfully. ‘Ain’t no place for a dog. Surrounded by strangers, all those caged animals. He needs to get his ass home. That’s where he belongs, ya know. Where people love him.’
‘Uncle Jimmy …’
‘That’s all I’m saying. Ain’t no place for him.’ He stood back up and set his firm stare again on Julia. ‘He needs to be where he belongs. Stop that other business, caging up with them other dogs. Some of ’em, they look real cute, but they’re bad. Some of ’em, they’re sick, ya see. Remember that, bella,’ he said with a menacing shake of his finger. ‘You don’t know how bad one of those other dogs can be till it rips your fucking throat out. Then it’s too late. Remember that now.’
She looked away, her eyes full of tears. ‘I will, Uncle Jimmy.’
‘Good luck now with your trial. We’ll be watching you. And call your aunt,’ he shouted over his shoulder as he headed back down the boardwalk.
‘She won’t pick up the phone.’
‘I’ll work on that,’ he replied, but didn’t turn around again.
Julia watched as he plodded slowly past the arepa cart and the sunburned tourists in his black Jesus sandals and white Jox Sox, obviously favoring his bad back, but just as obviously straining not to, so that she wouldn’t see he was in pain. Then he disappeared into the Hollywood Beach Resort, the automatic doors closing behind him, just as the sun finally slipped under the horizon and night officially began.