CHAPTER THREE

Tampa, Florida

Saturday 7:00 p.m.

January 27, 2001

WHEN I RETURNED TO the noisy party, the sky was dark and no one had missed me. I saw as many people in all the gathering places of our flat and the restaurant as had been there hours before. Maybe the faces had changed, but with all the makeup, it was hard to say.

The parade was long over, but the thousands of people who had come to watch it were slowly finding their way from Hyde Park to downtown Tampa, where the after-parade festivities would reverberate into the early morning. An arts and crafts show, fireworks and the festival, featuring live stage shows would fill the downtown Tampa streets. This day wouldn’t end for hours yet.

As I descended the stairs from our flat and into the lobby of George’s restaurant, I saw Gil Kelley sitting with my new stepmother, openly flirting with her. Whether Suzanne was flirting back or not was hard to tell. Her head tilted toward Gil and he laughed at something she said as if he was totally captivated by her. A few feet away, Dad bent his head to hear Gil’s wife, Sandra. Poor Dad, I thought. Sandra Kelley was certainly no substitute for Suzanne Harper

Steering clear of them all, I moved in the opposite direction. I finally found George sitting at our favorite table in the Sunset Bar with Armstrong Otter. Because the television was now turned off, it was marginally quieter in here.

Up close, Otter was good-looking for his age, which I guessed to be between sixty and seventy. He appeared fit, lean and quick. He had a full head of grey-blonde hair, brushed straight back and worn in a silly pony tail tied at the base of his skull with a ribbon that made him look like an aging rock star. His eyes were an unremarkable cloudy blue. Whatever it was about Otter that incited Sandra Kelley’s anger, it wasn’t obvious to me.

I snagged a cup of café con leche and headed toward my husband. George stood when I approached, as he always does when a woman joins his table. One of the things I love about George is that he treats me at least as nicely as he does everyone else, usually better.

Otter was well back in the booth and made no effort to rise.

“Willa, do you know Armstrong?” George asked, as I slipped into the booth across from Otter. I bumped his foot on the way in, but he didn’t move it.

“No, I don’t think we’ve met,” I said, holding out my hand, which he took softly, as if he wasn’t used to shaking hands with women. He had manicured fingers, oddly flat at the tips, like little spatulas. And I noticed a small diamond stud earring in his left earlobe.

After I was settled, a few moments of uncomfortable silence followed, until George smoothly rescued the situation. “Armstrong was telling me about the new work he’s entered in the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts competition. He hopes to win the grand prize.”

“Really?” I said, looking at Otter with renewed interest. The art festival was my favorite part of Gasparilla month, partly because it was the end of the festivities.

“The piece is a pin. I call it Gasparilla Gold.” He pulled a picture out of the pocket of his rumpled tweed jacket and described the pin to me as if dictating copy for a catalogue, holding his cocktail straw in those flat fingertips and using it as a pointer. “It’s quite large, about eight inches long. The pin is meant to be worn on the shoulder of a coat, on the outside of the lapel.” He gestured to a spot on his own shoulder just below the seam in his jacket, above where you’d lay your palm to say the pledge of allegiance.

“The platinum dagger has semi-precious stones set in the handle, and a gold chain connects the scabbard to the knife.” He glanced up at me and I nodded my understanding. “The dagger sits on top of the open treasure chest filled with gold nuggets.” He handed the picture to me for closer examination.

I’m not an avid jewelry hound, but even I was impressed. “Can I see it sometime?”

“Sure. The piece is on display at my studio. It’ll be there until a few days before the art festival. Come over anytime,” Otter said, in haughty tone. His manner was off-putting and I began to have a little more sympathy for Sandra Kelly’s view of him.

I handed the picture to George, who was about to say something when Dad walked up, peeked at the photo over George’s shoulder, and folded his lanky frame into the booth next to Otter. Dad, ever the salesman, whistled then asked, without a trace of embarrassment, “How much does something like that cost?”

George looked down at the table and I glanced away, too, so as not to show our amusement at Dad’s trademark lack of decorum.

Otter, though, was thoroughly offended. “Well, it’s not for sale, actually,” he said, with even more arrogance. “The point is to win the competition, and then I’ll return it to display in my store.”

Dad wasn’t so easily deflected, though. “No, I mean, really. If you were going to sell it. How much?”

With no graceful way out, Otter said, “Oh, probably about one-hundred-seventy-five thousand dollars, particularly if it wins.” He inched toward Dad trying to get out of the booth. “Would you excuse me, please? I need to speak with Gil Kelley for a few minutes.”

As he was standing to let Otter out of the booth, Dad said, “Somebody would pay one-hundred-seventy-five thousand dollars for that thing? Why, that would feed several entire families for more than a year!”

Dad’s feigned awe was humorous, since he wasn’t half the rube he was pretending, for the moment, to be. Dad knows that people are frivolous with money, even if he’s not. Dad has always made good money and managed it wisely. Over the years, he’d accumulated a sizeable net worth.

Before Suzanne, Dad preferred the simple life. Yet, I’d noticed all the status symbols she wore and the fashion show she’d given us since she arrived. Suzanne would change Dad’s comfortable modesty. Nor would his quiet living be the only change. I worried anew Dad had no idea what he’d gotten himself involved with when he married his precious one.

While Dad continued his tongue-in-cheek marveling at the price of jewelry, I glanced over and noticed Armstrong Otter and Gil Kelley arguing in the corner. I couldn’t hear their words, but I saw Otter poke Kelley in the chest several times with his index finger. Kelley’s face suffused with angry color. I nudged George and whispered that he might call one of the on-site paramedics, just in case Kelley stroked out or something.

Just as I said it, Kelly gestured with his arm in a wide arc and his hand knocked several glasses off the bar. The glasses flew onto the floor and shattered in a cacophony of noise that stopped all conversation in the room.

George rose to break up the argument, but before he covered half the distance to the pair, Kelley stomped off into the dining room and Armstrong Otter stalked out in the other direction.

Guests glanced at each other, embarrassed, and then turned back to their conversations. George organized the cleanup and in a short while, the noise level in the room returned to the same low hum I’d heard before the incident.

I turned back to Dad. We were alone in the booth. It was our first private moment since I’d met Suzanne. I searched my mind’s “social graces” database for something acceptable to say in the circumstances, and could think of absolutely nothing. Everything I wanted to say was simply not appropriate.

Finally, Dad broke the ice. “How about those Bucs?” he asked, and tension relieved, we both laughed. We’d heard the question fifty times today, or more. That’s been the standard greeting around Tampa since our football team won the Super Bowl. A few moments of uncomfortable silence followed our laughter, and then, for half an hour, we discussed the Bucs, a safe topic that kept us from talking about his marriage or our own uneasy relationship.

Fatigue and the easy talk relaxed me. I dropped my guard too soon.

I gulped the last of my coffee in one large mouthful just as Gil Kelley walked over, punched Dad in the shoulder and boomed loudly into one of those awkward silences that sometimes happen in a crowd, “Congratulations, Jim! Suzanne tells me you two are expecting! Didn’t know you still had it in you, you old dog!”

The surprise propelled the coffee right out of my mouth. I spit caramel colored liquid all over me and began to cough uncontrollably. Which was fine because it gave me the opportunity to excuse myself from the now impossible situation.

I hurried away and tried to hide out in a corner of the dining room. My attention was focused on blotting the coffee off the front of my blouse, allowing Margaret Wheaton to approach me as she came out of the ladies’ room, a happy smile on her face.

Giving up on the coffee stain, I studied her as she navigated the crowd. My concerns over Suzanne, my father and now, unbelievably, a new sibling on the way, were trivial by comparison to Margaret’s situation with Ron. I tried to focus on Margaret as a way to avoid my own impossible situation.

Since Ron Wheaton had been diagnosed with ALS about a year ago, his illness had progressed too quickly. I’d watched Margaret become more and more exhausted, which I’d attributed to the stress of dealing with Ron.

In the past few months, Ron had become weaker and less mobile. He was confined to his wheelchair much of the time and they rarely went out. Ron would soon require twenty-four hour care.

Yet, on the few occasions when I spoke to him on the telephone, he sounded as strong as he had ever been. I could only imagine the horror of knowing you would one day be unable to breathe and would actually suffocate. The thought brought instant tears to my eyes again. Ron and Margaret Wheaton deserved better treatment from life. It seemed at the moment that the Sandra Kelleys of the world succeeded despite their meanness while Ron Wheaton suffered so unfairly.

When Margaret eventually reached me, I gave her a hug, partly to hide my glassy eyes. She felt small and frail to me and I marveled at how heavy a burden those small shoulders could carry.

“Can you believe this madness?” I asked her.

She smiled and her face lit up a little more than usual lately as she nodded. “I love it, though. I’ve lived in Tampa my whole life and I never get tired of Gasparilla. When I was a little girl, the Gasparilla parade used to be held downtown and it was the same time as the State Fair. The parade was actually my very first date with Ron.” She sighed here, giving my hands a quick squeeze “Gasparilla holds many good memories for us.”

Before I could reply, we heard several screams, as if a thousand marauding pirates had landed at Minaret. Alarmed, I moved as quickly as possible through the crowds toward the noise, with Margaret close at my side. Several other guests joined us enroute.

When we got to the veranda, I could see Ron Wheaton slumped over in his wheelchair, not moving, while Suzanne Harper, my stepmother, stood near him. Suzanne’s mouth was wide open, head thrown back, resembling the heroine of a horror movie as she screamed repeatedly at full volume.

But not loud enough to wake the dead.