When the doorbell rang, Dieter scribbled a final note in the margins of the page he was editing and shuffled down the hallway, his flip flops slapping the hardwood floor.
Well hello, handsome, Lureen breathed.
Wearing a tight yellow sundress and wide-brimmed white hat, Maggie’s flamboyant evangelical sister leaned in for her usual peck on the cheek while her son Toby burst past the writer, barging through the hallway and out the patio door.
Dieter couldn’t help himself, the moment his lips brushed Lureen’s cheek his eyes drifted down to the ample cleavage her skimpy dress, the top two buttons wide open, unleashed. Then he abruptly lifted his gaze but not before Lureen registered, with a look of bemusement, his wayward glance.
In the kitchen, Maggie was making a spartan lunch: tomato and feta salad, slices of watermelon, Mason jars of sweet iced tea. Smiling, Lureen bent over for another kiss on the cheek then barked a laugh when her sister, mimicking Dieter, checked out the rosy tops of her breasts.
What? What are you laughing at?
Nothing, Lureen chortled, nothing at all.
Uh huh. Nice dress.
Blissfully unaware of the edge of sarcasm in her sister’s voice, Lureen feigned surprise. What, this old thing? Ya really think so?
For a hooker, Maggie mused, holding her tongue. Whenever her sister came over to visit, particularly if she thought Dieter might be home, she always took the opportunity to dress as provocatively as she could. But sometimes, like today, she went too far. That gargantuan garden hat, for instance, looked preposterous. And that cleavage! What in the world must the good ladies of St. Anne’s parish think of her?
Ready for lunch?
As long as it’s something light, Lureen purred, I’m watching my figure.
In that outfit, Maggie drily replied, so is everyone else.
Hunter showed Toby how to toss a quarter into the deep end of the pool then dive down and retrieve it. But Toby was too plump to reach the bottom, so Hunter agreed to switch games.
Cannonball!
Hunter stifled a groan. Cannonball was lame, a game for kids half their age, but he didn’t want Toby to brood.
Sometimes Hunter felt sorry for his cousin and the constant battle he fought with his weight. Life was unfair, and Toby’s obesity was one more proof of that. Hunter suspected the real culprit was genetics—hefty father hefty son—though God knows Toby’s mother didn’t have to count the calories she consumed. His gaze roved past the pool to the kitchen where Aunt Lureen was leaning over the counter grabbing a slice of watermelon, her own melons nearly spilling out of her dress. On the one hand they looked sort of comical, dangling like that. On the other, he wondered why it was so difficult to tear his eyes away.
Cannonball!
Hunter spun around just in time to see his cousin—a white blur, a white blob—smash into the water and spray an alarmed Sunny, who had fallen asleep in the shade of the lemon tree. Whimpering, the yellow Lab skulked away.
Embarrassed by his encounter with Lureen, Dieter returned to his office, softly closing the door. He needed to get back to work, to avoid further distraction, to put his literary house in order before it was too late. For the past few days he had been having a difficult time of it, not writer’s block exactly but something just as worrisome, a vague and undefined anxiety when he sat down at his desk to pound out a rough draft of the next chapter. He could blame his lethargy, his lack of a creative spark, on the heat, but it was always hot this time of year. He could blame it on Maggie, whose odd behavior the last few weeks had made him increasingly uneasy. Or he could blame it on the new book.
Was it fair for him to write about Faye Lindstrom now that she had miraculously risen, like Lazarus, from the dead? Six months ago the basic premise of a sequel to Fever Tree had taken root in his mind. He would follow Angelina as she left the village on the tanned arm of Pablo Mestival. Not knowing what had actually happened to the poor woman, he would then construct a mystery around her disappearance, and by telling her story, her fictional story, illustrate the twin faces of Mexico, the tropical paradise the expats had discovered in Quintana Roo tragically balanced by the dark stain of corruption, exemplified by the flourishing drug cartels, spreading across that proud but unfortunate country.
At first the writing had gone well. Then one morning a few weeks later, thirty pages in, the phone had rung. Dieter gasped, startled to hear Bobby Parrish’s voice on the other end. They hadn’t spoken in years.
Bobby?
She’s still alive, Parrish announced.
Dieter didn’t even have to ask who his old friend was referring to. The floor shifted. The walls shook. And in a surge of panic the writer’s gaze swept across his desk, freezing on the title page of his newest manuscript, Flamingo Lane.
While Toby and Hunter splashed around in the pool, not particularly interested in eating a tomato salad for lunch, Maggie told Lureen that she and Hunter would be flying up to Indiana the following day. Later in the week, Dieter would join them.
Why aren’t you all going together?
He wants to make sure the house-sitter gets settled in.
Lureen nodded. Anddddd . . . who is this woman again?
An old friend of his. From Mexico.
An old friend huh.
Maggie didn’t bother to reply. In Lureen’s world a genuine friendship between a man and a woman was impossible. The sexual component, always present, reigned supreme.
By the way, how come that handsome husband of yours isn’t out here eating with us? Did I scare him away?
No, but that dress might have.
Very funny.
Maybe he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to stop staring at your tits.
Maggie!
What?
You’re always so . . . graphic.
Maggie pondered the word. Graphic? So it was okay for Lureen to casually display her outrageous physical endowments but not for Maggie to use graphic language to describe them?
Am I?
Tits? Lureen whispered.
Sorry, I meant your boobs.
Gee, thanks.
Okay fine. He’s working, that’s why.
On a book?
Of course on a book. What else?
Lureen hesitated. She didn’t want to appear too nosy, or too judgmental (as an evangelical, you had to be particularly cautious about that), but the not-so-subtle clues Maggie had been dropping these last few weeks were too intriguing to ignore.
You know when you say stuff like that—
Stuff like what?
Like what else.
Like what else?
The way you say it, Lureen clarified. It makes you sound a little, I don’t know . . .
Defensive?
Yeah, defensive.
Disillusioned?
Yeah, that too. Lureen glanced over at the pool to make sure the boys weren’t eavesdropping, then lowered her voice. C’mon, sis, let’s have it. What’s going on with you two?
In lieu of an answer Maggie considered the lemons drooping from the tree. In a few weeks they would be ripe enough to eat. She saw herself squeezing lemon juice on a grilled flounder while Dieter, sipping a Cabernet, stared off into the distance, no doubt thinking about his book.
Maggie?
What?
Talk to me.
About what?
You know about what. Go ahead. Tell me what’s going on.
What she liked most was the lemon’s tartness, that little kick at the end. During a silent meal it was something to look forward to. There’s nothing to tell, she sighed. There’s nothing going on.
Lureen eyed her intently. I see.
No, actually, you don’t.
Oh yes I do.
Fine. You see what?
Nothing going on.
Maggie moaned, exasperated.
Is that all you ever think of?
Me!
I didn’t say in the bedroom.
You didn’t have to!
Maggie stabbed angrily at a wedge of tomato. Like Lureen’s sex life was so hot? She visualized good old Charley, Lureen’s big oaf of a husband (okay, oaf was a little harsh, Charley was a sweet guy and all, but still) climbing on top of little sister and huffing away. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
When he heard a soft tap on the door, Dieter was almost relieved. At this point, anything that might distract him from the roadblocks in the book was welcome. Maggie told him they were taking the boys out for burgers. Then they were all going for a swim.
Where?
Christopher Key. Wanna come?
He did, actually, but he knew he wouldn’t allow himself that kind of idle pleasure today.
Sorry, hon, but I gotta work.
Of course you do. What a surprise.
What’s that supposed to mean?
It means I want you to tell me—just for fun, okay?—the last time you and I went to the beach.
What is this, Maggie, a pop quiz? He glanced over at the jumble of papers on his desk and wondered why he didn’t give in and go with her. Take an afternoon off.
Look, I got work to do, okay?
So in other words you can’t remember either, she sneered, slamming the door.
As they crossed the causeway to Christopher Key, Maggie gazed out the passenger window at the boats in the harbor chugging south toward Carrabelle. Gathering over the Gulf, a few dark clouds hinted the probability of an afternoon storm. It was early in the season for that kind of activity but she had lived in Crooked River her entire life and she knew the signs. Soon the wind would rise, whipping up the waves. Then the temperature would drop, the clouds break open, the rain hammer down.
Ever since she was a child, this remarkable seascape had surrounded her and she never grew tired of it, the smudges of cloud, the sailboats tacking in the wind, the black shadow of a manatee floating out on the shifting current. The sea, the sky, the causeway connecting the mainland to Christopher Key were in her blood, in her bones. This, she thought, staring out at the harbor, is my DNA. This is who I am.
At the end of the causeway, Lureen turned right, avoiding the overdeveloped southern half of the island for the pristine, protected beaches to the north. On the long straightaway she gunned the engine, cruising past an empty shell of a convenience store with a For Sale sign plastered to its front window, a scattering of summer homes, most of them unoccupied, and the old abandoned saltworks, which lay in ruins now, the crumbling brick walls that once sheltered the evaporation vats tottering in the afternoon sun.
In the north parking lot, the one near the tip of the island, Maggie opened the trunk and retrieved a canvas bag stuffed with towels, sunscreen, and two of Lureen’s glamour magazines. Before they sprinted away, she instructed the boys to grab the folding chairs.
They followed the trail into a hushed grove of slash pines, chains of morning glory choking a sandy path framed on either side by prickly pear and saw palmetto, the light broken into mazes by needled boughs. A few hundred yards further on the pines opened up and Maggie saw a brilliant blue canvas strung with ropes of wave. A trio of surfers straddled their boards, facing the open water, waiting for the storm to roll in. A few solitary sunbathers. The usual obnoxious gulls.
Toby and Hunter didn’t hesitate. As Maggie and Lureen unfolded their chairs and slathered on the sunscreen, the boys dove headfirst into the waves, gritting their teeth against the initial shock of cold. Hunter caught a rare steep breaker and rode it back to the beach while Toby extended his pudgy arms, content to float on his back and rock in the surf like a buoy.
So you agree or not?
Maggie put down the magazine she’d been scanning and looked over at her sister.
Agree about what?
That there’s a sex gene.
Watching the boys frolic in the waves, Maggie shook her head in dismay. What in the world are you talking about, Lureen? What sex gene?
The one I heard about on the radio the other day. The one you and I apparently have.
Speak for yourself, please.
Lureen leaned forward, swiping a palm of sunscreen down her calves. I’m just sayin’ if there is one, then you and I must have it.
Don’t be a dimwit, Lureen. Of course there’s a sex gene. It’s called your libido. And trust me, everyone has one.
Well, maybe not everyone.
With her index finger Maggie dragged her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and stared at the side of her sister’s face. And I take it you’re referring to . . . ummm, who?
Freshly lathered, Lureen leaned back in her beach chair, basking in the sun. Well for one, she murmured, closing her eyes against the glare, Charley.
Maggie tried not to laugh but lost the battle. Then Lureen started to laugh too.
The clouds were moving in fast now, the wind, the waves. One of the breakers flipped Hunter over and when he came up for air, spitting out a mouthful of saltwater, he saw his mother and Lureen straddling their beach chairs, doubled over with glee. He turned to Toby, who was watching them too.
Whatdya think they’re talking about?
Sex, Toby deadpanned. What else?