“What the heck, it's the best we can do,” Dad said.
“I guess so.” I tried not to sound too bummed.
“Hey, did you meet the famous Shelly?”
“Yeah. She's kind of scary,” I said. “Lice said he stole her from Dusty-what did he mean exactly?”
I figured it was one of those I'll-explain-it-when-you're-older questions that my dad would brush off, but he didn't.
“Shelly was Dusty's second or third wife, after Jasper Jr.'s mother,” he said. Then he paused. “Actually, maybe they were only engaged to be married. Anyway, one day she got fed up with Dusty and moved in with Lice.”
I wondered how miserable life with the Mulemans must have been to make Lice Peeking look like a prize.
“Dad, when're you coming home?” I asked.
“After the trial,” he replied.
The plan was to use his big day in court to expose Dusty Muleman's illegal polluting.
“But Mom says you can bail out and come home and still have your trial later,” I said.
“No, I need to stay here and show I'm totally committed to the cause. You know how many jails around this world are full of people who spoke up for what they believed in and lost their freedom? Lost everything they had? Look at Nelson Mandela,” my father said. “He spent twenty-seven years in a South African prison. Twenty-seven years, Noah! A couple of weeks won't hurt me.”
“But Mom misses you,” I said.
That seemed to catch him off guard and take the steam out of his big speech. Dad looked away.
“It's a sacrifice, I know,” he said. “I wish it didn't have to be like this.”
I didn't say anything about Mom and the plaid suitcase because she'd put it away. That morning I'd peeked in their bedroom closet-her clothes were still hanging there. So were Dad's.
When I stood up to leave, my father perked up slightly. He said, “Oh, I almost forgot. A reporter from the Island Examiner might drop by the house. It's all right for you to speak with him.”
“About what?” I asked.
“My situation.”
“Oh. Sure, Dad.”
His “situation”? I thought. Sometimes it's like my father lives on his own weird little planet.
In July the days get long and stream together. I try not to look at the calendar because I don't want to think about time passing. August comes way too soon, and that's when school starts in Florida.
Summer mornings are mostly sunny and still, though by midafternoon huge boiling thunderheads start to build over the Everglades, and the weather can get interesting in a hurry. I've always liked watching the sky drop down like a foamy purple curtain when a summer storm rumbles across Florida Bay. If you're on the ocean side of the islands, it can sneak up on you from behind, which happens a lot to tourists.
That's where we were going, to Thunder Beach, when a squall rolled through after lunch. Thom, Rado, and I hunkered in the mangroves and held our skateboards over our heads, to keep the raindrops out of our eyes. It took like half an hour for the leading edge of the storm to pass. Then the wind dropped out, and the only sound was a soft sleepy drizzle.
We crawled from the tree line and brushed the leaves off our arms. Not surprisingly, the lightning had spooked everyone away from the park except us.
Before heading to the water, we scanned the shoreline for pollution warnings. Whenever the biologists from the health department find too much bacteria, they post DANGER! signs up and down Thunder Beach-no swimming, no fishing, no anything. Only a certified moron would dive in when the beach was posted.
I was glad to see that the water was okay, especially when a big loggerhead turtle bobbed up to the surface. The three of us stayed real quiet because we thought the turtle might be coming ashore to lay her eggs, although usually they waited until dark. Loggerheads have lousy eyesight, so we were pretty sure she didn't notice us sitting there, but she didn't swim any closer.
We wouldn't have bothered her if she'd decided to crawl up and dig a nest. Most of the Keys are made of hard coral rock, and there aren't many soft beaches like you find up the coast at Pompano or Vero. The momma turtles down here don't have lots of options, so we leave them alone. It's the law, too.
After the loggerhead swam off, we jumped in and goofed around until Thom cut his ankle on a broken beer bottle that was buried in the sand. Rado and I helped him hop back to shore, where we tied his Dolphins jersey around his foot to keep the cut from getting dirty. Rado took him home while I skated alone down the old road, back toward Lice Peeking's place.
Nobody answered the door, and I was already down the steps when Shelly appeared from behind the trailer and nearly scared the you-know-what out of me. She was barefoot and carried a long rusty shovel.
“What'd you want now?” she asked. She wore cutoff jeans and a sleeveless top that showed off her barbed-wire tattoo.
“I need to talk to Mr. Peeking again,” I said.
“Well, he's not available at the moment.”
“That's okay. I'll come back another time.”
Shelly noticed me staring at the shovel. She laughed and said, “Don't worry, it wasn't Lice I was puttin' in a hole. It was last night's dinner.”
I nodded as if that was the most normal thing in the world, burying food in your backyard.
“Lobster shells,” she explained. “I don't want 'em stinking up the garbage, 'cause they're out of season. Next thing you know, some nosy neighbor calls the grouper troopers and then, Houston, we've got a problem.”
Some of the locals in the Keys poach a lobster here and there in the off months. Not even my dad gets upset about that.
“Whatcha wanna talk to Lice for?” Shelly asked.
“Just some business between him and my father,” I said.
She was so much taller than me, I had to tilt my head back just to see her expression. She was smiling when she said, “Important business, huh?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Come on inside and have somethin' to drink.”
“No thanks. I'm soaking wet.”
“So's Lice,” Shelly grunted, “but from the inside out.”
She jerked open the screen door and I followed her into the trailer. Lice Peeking was stretched facedown on the blue shag carpet, and he wasn't moving. I didn't see any blood, which was a relief, but I couldn't hear him breathing.
Shelly said, “Oh, don't worry. He's not dead.” She gave a sharp kick to his ribs and he started to snore.
“See?” she said. “Tell me your name again.”
“Noah Underwood.”
“You're Paine's oldest?”
“That's right,” I said.
Shelly tossed me a Coke from the refrigerator and said, “Your daddy's a curious specimen.” Somehow it sounded like a compliment.
I guzzled the soda in about thirty seconds while I edged toward the door. The perfume that Shelly had on was making me dizzy. It smelled like a bag of tangerines.
She sat down on a cane stool and motioned me to do the same, but I stayed on my feet. I wasn't sure what would happen if Lice Peeking woke up, and I wanted to be ready to run.
Shelly said, “I've known Paine since back when he and Dusty used to fish charters out of Ted's. He was always a gentleman-your daddy, I mean, not Dusty.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“How come you're actin' so skittery, Noah?”
I couldn't come out and tell her that she was the reason, that everything about her-from her face to her feet-was at least twice as big as my mother's.
So I said, “I'm going to be late for violin practice.”
Which was incredibly lame, because we don't even own a violin. Abbey takes piano lessons on a portable electric keyboard that my father bought from a consignment shop in Key Largo.
“Now, Noah,” Shelly said, “that's not the truth, is it?”
“No, ma'am. I'm sorry.”
“Please don't grow up to be one of those men who lie for the sport of it,” she said, “and most men do. That's a fact.”
As Shelly spoke, she was staring down at Lice Peeking, and not in an admiring way. “That's why the world is so messed up, Noah. That's why history books are full of so much heartache and tragedy. Politicians, dictators, kings, phony-baloney preachers-most of 'em are men, and most of 'em lie like rugs,” she said. “Don't you dare grow up to be like that.”