DUB, FAT IN WHITE LINEN in the peacock chair, having breakfast beside the pool before sunrise. The chilled mimosa, the opal-fleshed melon with a twist of green-tangerine juice, then the country ham and the quail eggs flown in from Japan, blackhearted coffee that wired you for the day. He’d drink twenty cups of it until his hands shook.
His hands were steady when Mernelle called, her northern voice asking what he thought about burying Ma’s wedding ring next to Da. Because that’s all they had. It would ease their minds. She’d come across the ring a few weeks ago tidying boxes and drawers. She thought Ma had taken it off when Da had —
‘Sure, why not?’ he said.
She read him the inscription. ‘“JSB Forever Thine MMB June, 1915.” At least it’s something that was hers, something that ties them together,’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ he said.
He loved the rotten tropical smell, the heat, kept the air conditioners at lukewarm. ‘Turn that thing down, reminds me of ‘Winter on the Farm,’ famous painting by Frosty the Snowman. What the hell you think I live in Florida for?’ But laughing.
A good-looking man despite the bulked chest and jowled face and the glowing bald head. Clients fell into his smiling eyes. In the mirror he saw he still had the fine mouth and, of course, he had the money. Manicured nails (on the good hand) and custom-made suits don’t come without it. He had Pala, or she had him. The pirate, a little heavier, wore beige and ecru linen suits, gold chains knotted with medallions and charms hung around her neck. Smarter than anyone he knew. Secretive. He thought there might have been an abortion but could not ask. The properties were her children now.
It was all real estate knowledge, prime properties, not the crude hawking of condos and old-age death parlors to the ancients from the north, but scholarly appraisals, landmark status research, a shrewd eye for next year’s extraordinary properties. They knew the importance of discreet arrangements and offerings. They could talk to sheiks, seekers of political asylum, men who had business dealings to the south. Aesthetics. Look what Pala had done with Opal Key Reef. Every major magazine in the country had run photos of the antiqued shell-stone houses and the gardens designed by Burle Marx, fantasies of curious plants.
The first needle of sun came through a hole in the canvas awning and drilled onto Dub’s linen knee. Many of the properties Eden handled never came on the market when the owner wanted to sell; the sales were privately arranged by Eden, Inc. No one came close to Eden. He and Pala had an instinct for the protected properties, islands joined to the mainland by a single causeway or bridge. Peninsulas with a single approach road. They understood the clients who needed certain properties. He wished the tax people would understand him.
He tilted the coffeepot, the black fluid arced into his cup. On the other side of the pool the garden yawned with caves of shadow, early heat ricocheted off leaves, ferns arched, petals unfurled. Pala might sleep until ten. He never shook the early rising habit. He got up and walked toward the garden, carrying the white cup in his artificial hand with its perfect plastic nails.
Here was Eden. They didn’t go to the Green Swamp now. The garden’s odor, heavy and perfumed as a split fruit, filled his mouth and throat. The moist air pressed against him, the moss cushioned his footsteps. The banyan tree was the center of the garden. He had bought the place for this ancient tree with its humped root knees, its branched arms and rooting thumbs, the twists of vine and florid blossom, the molded, shreddy bark and falling, falling fragments. There was something he loved in the smell of decay.