She turned on her heel quickly, closed the door with barely a sound, and went away from there, her heart breaking anew with every step she took.
By the next day he was packed and gone. I helped her try to find him. She put a thousand dollars into agency fees without their finding any trace of him.
After a while you give up. Or maybe you never give up.
Nora straightened up at last, weak and dizzy and held the slim tree with both hands and stood with her forehead resting against the soft silvery bark.
“I must be a very attractive date,” she said in a half whisper.
“It’s been three years.”
“Not knowing if he was sick or dead or in trouble.” She shivered visibly.
I patted her shoulder. “Come on. Go freshen up and we’ll get away from here.”
“When will he be here?”
“Saturday”
“What time?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he… come to the shop?”
“Or phone you. I don’t know.”
“Does he know you’ve told me about him?”
“Yes.”
“He hasn’t found anybody else?”
“Neither of you have. For the same reason.”
“I’m glad to have some warning, Trav. But I will be a complete wreck by Saturday.”
I waited in the lobby for her. When she was ready I drove to Bahia Mar. We could talk aboard the Busted Flush. Obviously she wanted to talk.
I turned the heat up. I made her a tall mild drink. She took her shoes off and sat on the far curve of my yellow couch in the lounge, her legs tucked up, her color better, her frown thoughtful.
“Damn it all, Trav, I just don’t know how to handle it. Rush into his arms? I want to. But does he want me to? Or does he want to be punished? She was a dreadful little bit of nothing, you know. God, how I remember that whining little explanation.” She imitated Sandra’s immature little voice. “ ‘Miss Gardino, we just had a coupla drinks and you know, one thing led to another. Geez, I don’t know where he went. I ast him and he pushed me away so hard I fell down. He just went.’ ”
“I don’t know how he wants you to act.”
“Boy, it was a real belt to the pride. My pride hurt so badly, I didn’t really know he was gone until he’d been gone a month. The wedding was a month away. We were practically living together. That was no secret. And it was such a wonderful magic, Trav. Every time was a promise of forever. Wasn’t I enough for him? That’s what made it such a terrible slap in the face.”
“He was drinking.”
“What started the drinking?”
“Fright, maybe.”
“Of what?”
“A real live complete entire woman can be a scary thing.”
“Did I come on too strong or something?”
“You have to be what you are, Nora. The complete package.”
“Now I’m twenty-nine. Three lousy stinking wasted years. What did he say? Tell me some of his words.”
“Quote God how I want to see her unquote.”
She jumped up and went back and forth with panther stride. “What the hell did he think I was? A white plaster saint? A vision of perfection? Did he think I was so weak I couldn’t handle a little ugliness? So okay! We’d have had a terrible couple of months. We’d have torn each other to ribbons. And I would have told him that if he ever did that to me again, I’d cut his heart out. But he didn’t give me a chance! He didn’t give us a chance. He ran, damn him!”
“After he gave himself the excuse to run, Nora.”
She sat down abruptly and stared at me for a long time. “Sure,” she said. “You can understand that better than I can, because you are one of those too, aren’t you? One of those long distance runners. You wade around the edge, boy. But you never jump in. You go out on the end of the high board and bounce pretty and puff your chest, but you never take that big dive.”
“That’s reasonably accurate.”
Her face twisted. “I’m sorry Trav. I haven’t got the right.”
“Or maybe all the information. But no harm done.”
She hit her knee with her fist. “I don’t know how to handle it, meeting him.”
“Don’t plan anything. Play it by ear, Nora. Don’t try to force any kind of reaction. It’s the only thing you can do.”
“I guess,” she said. She gave me a shamefaced look. “This is idiotic, but I’m absolutely ravenous.”
“Nora, honey, you know exactly where everything is, including the drawer where you’ll find an apron.”
“Eggs? Bacon? Toast?”
“All there. All for you. I’ll settle for one cold Tuborg. Bottom shelf. No glass, thanks.”
She brought me the beer. I heard the bacon sizzling out there. I looked over at the slim and lovely lines of her Italian shoes, one standing, one toppled. I wondered where Nicki was, and if she was making it the way she deserved. I heard Nora Gardino humming to herself. I sipped the cold beer. I turned on the FM and spun the tuner dial and found a Bach thing, a fugue, one of those that sounds as if the needle keeps getting stuck.
Here, behind the thick opaque lounge curtains was that rare and special privacy obtainable in the middle of deserts and the middle of big marinas. Around me were the other craft, water slapping the hulls, gurgling around the pilings, little pressures of tide and wind creaking the lines.
She came out of the galley and said, “Why did he call you?”
“To find out it you were still around,” I lied. “To find out if there were any chances left. To find out if it was too late to come home.”
“It isn’t too late. Believe me, it isn’t too late.”
Three
SOUTH OF Lauderdale on U.S. 1 there are junk strips dating back to the desperate trashiness of the thirties. They are, as a governor of the state of Florida once said at a press conference, a sore eye.
Sam Taggart was in one of six cabins out behind a dispirited gas station that sold some kind of offbrand called Haste. The cabins were originally styled to look like little teeny tiny Mount Vernons. There was a field full of dead automobiles behind the cabins, a defunct Midgie-Golf on the left, a vegetable stand on the right. Sam was in number three, and I got there at four on Friday afternoon, twenty minutes after he phoned. The car beside the cabin was maroon and rust, a seven or eight year old Merc with bald tires.
A bed creaked as Sam got off it and came to the door. He let me in and hit me solidly in the chest and said, “You’re an uglier man than I remembered.”
“I compensate with boyish charm, Taggart.” We shook hands. He motioned to the only chair in the room and sat on the bed. I had never seen him so dark. He was the deep stained bronze of a Seminole. His hand was hard and leathery. He wore faded khaki pants and a white T shirt with a ripped shoulder seam. He looked leaned down, all bones and wire. He had a crescent scar on his chin that hadn’t been there before. He was missing some important teeth on the upper right. His black hair was cropped close to his skull.
“You know what I was remembering while I was waiting, McGee? That crazy time down at Marathon, and those big twins, Johnny Dow’s nieces from Michigan. And we got in that game of trading punches, just for kicks. And every time, both those big old gals would scream. Finally I dropped you, and you stayed down so long I began to get nervous. Then you got up, a little bit at a time. I swear to God, it took you five whole minutes to get all the way up on your feet and you stood there swaying and gave me a great big bloody grin and said, ‘My turn, Sam.’ That’s what I was remembering. God, what idiots. How are things, Trav?”