vanity plate.
Woody pulled up on the grass next to a mastless hull which, after over four and a half years of defying hurricane season, was still firmly balanced on jack stands. He took a moment to admire the keel of the Sea Sponge, which he’d painted with red lead preservative early that morning, but when he heard his mutt, Sweetie, barking, he hustled along to the house.
The moment Woody walked through the front door, the sixty-pound lapdog jumped into her beloved’s arms and slathered his face with her flat noodle of a tongue. He found her breath particularly atrocious.
“What on earth have you gotten into?”
Sweetie looked at him as if to say, Beats the shit outta me. Which basically meant, I love you but why bother asking me a question I can never answer?
“That you, Woody?” called a gravelly female voice from the kitchen.
“You were expecting Donald Trump, perhaps?”
“Very funny!” came the response. “Now, you and your wise ass better hightail it in here and give your old aunt some sugar.”
Before he took another step, however, Woody dutifully removed his Top-Siders. Katherine had had this no-shoes rule ever since he could remember. Judging from the massive amount of clutter everywhere, she certainly wasn’t anal. Nor was this New Orleans–born woman of Japanese descent. She had simply decided to adopt this centuries-old custom of “leaving the outside world, outside” in order to provide a “sanctuary where one’s bare feet can breathe in a dirt-free environment.”
Katherine Arnold also had a very definite opinion about interior design. In the main living area there were cerulean blue walls and curtains. Shelves crammed with coral, starfish and shells of every size. A coffee table made of driftwood, another from lobster traps. Sconces fashioned from conches. Lamp bases made out of pieces of polished sea glass. A thirty-gallon salt-water fish tank. Paintings of beach sunsets and rolling waves. And finally on the floor, sand-colored shag carpeting. Call it aquatic overkill, but Woody, whose whole life revolved around the ocean, rather dug it.
Woody found his Aunt seated at the ship’s wheel kitchen table he and Uncle Herb had built for her many years back. Petite and trim, save for her kangaroo-pouch middle, three-quarters of her body was all legs. She wore her white hair plaited into her signature braids, and her face—thanks to avoiding the sun, and genes—looked more than a decade younger than her seventy-nine years. A quirky dresser, today Katherine had on purple leggings and one of her favorite T-shirts, which depicted a red-cheeked blowfish and the tagline, Puffed up about the environment.
To Katherine’s left sat her buddy, Dorothy, a former cabaret singer with big hair, big heart and a big appetite for everything from food to politics. Dorothy had lost her husband a year prior to moving to a condo on the Key.
Now, given that Katherine served on the steering committees of several local activist groups—among them, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society—it was not unusual to see any number of ladies—mostly widows over the age of sixty-five—gathered at the house. But today somebody from a different demographic had joined the group. Specifically, a girl in her early twenties.
If called to describe one feature of her face, however, Woody would have been at a loss. He’d become visually impaired ever since laying eyes on a certain Romanian waitress.
“Hey, ladies,” he said.
He walked up to his aunt, leaned over and kissed her forehead. She was always a bit warm to the touch.
“Woody, honey,” said Dorothy. “I’d like to introduce you to my Kristin.”
She had pestered him about meeting her granddaughter the few times she’d visited from up north, but he had always created some emergency that needed attention. This time, however, Dorothy had obviously pulled a fast one on him.
“Oh, well, nice to, ah, meet you.”
It was against his nature to be rude.
The girl, in turn, mumbled an unenthusiastic salutation and resumed stuffing envelopes. Seemed she had been the victim of a setup as well and was none too pleased.
“Kristin’s staying with me for a month,” said Dorothy. “She’s going to work on that Everglades restoration project. I told you she’s getting a master’s degree in environmental studies at Brown, didn’t I? She’s also an excellent sailor and just so happens to have broken up with her boyfriend and—”
“Grandma,” she groaned. “No offense, but could you please cut the sales pitch?”
Woody chuckled to himself. Only hours ago, he’d used the same line with Elizabeth.
Back there at the Spinnaker Café.
Standing next to Madalina.
He could still smell her hair.
Hear her giggle.
Feel the way her tiny fingers slowly slid across the palm of his hand.
Woody suddenly felt a stirring in his boxers.
“Man, am I ever thirsty!”
And with that, he leapt in front of the refrigerator. Flinging open the door, he discretely brushed the front of his pants and confirmed the diagnosis. His only option was to pretend to rummage through the shelves until the cold air, hopefully, remedied the situation.
“We out of chocolate milk?”
“Just bought a new carton,” said Katherine. “It’s between my prune juice and flaxseed oil.”
Woody reached for the container and was about to close the fridge when he zeroed in on a large stainless steel bowl filled with cookie batter. He was about to steal a golf-sized ball of the dough which Katherine always let “season” prior to baking, when she interceded.
“I know what you’re up to! Get your dirty mitts out of there!”
“Aw, come on, just a little taste. Just to make sure it’s not poisonous.”
“Poisonous, eh?” asked Dorothy, laughing.
“Would you believe he’s been giving me the same bullshit line since he was six?”
“Yeah,” said Woody, pouring himself a large glass of chocolate milk and downing it in one gulp. “And she’s been falling for it just as long.”
Bloody Mary in hand, Katherine followed her nephew outside to the flagstone backyard patio.
“Ought to be a good one tonight,” she said, pulling up a chipped cast-iron chair. “No haze, clearly delineated horizon.”
Back when Herb was alive, the three of them would often gather to watch the “best free show in the world”—namely an unobstructed view of the sun setting over Biscayne Bay. Nowadays, the only way she could capture Woody’s attention long enough was to assign him grill duty.
“Too bad Dorothy and her granddaughter couldn’t stay for dinner.”
“Yeah, what a pity,” said Woody, throwing back a bottle of beer.
“Don’t be a wiseass. You know, it might be good for you to get out a little.”
Woody stoked the fire and didn’t respond.
Katherine stared at the boy. His face was nearly a carbon copy of her late brother’s. The angular profile. Those full lips. Those large, deep hazel eyes. Same nose. Same hairline. Minus that ragged scar on Mike’s chin for which Katherine felt responsible when she, at age fifteen, had briefly turned her back on her baby brother.
“Kristin seems like such a nice girl. And so smart. You two certainly have common interests.”
“Please don’t meddle,” said Woody. “You know I’ve got no time.”
Katherine had promised herself never to intercede with her nephew’s future plans. Still, every once in a while she was guilty