“Why me?” Debbie Lyn had asked, lying there as uninhibited as a twenty-year-old and as naked as a newborn, except for a gold ankle bracelet, playing with his thick gray chest hair. “What was it about me? Surely you had plenty of women who responded to your profile?”
“Well, I have to admit it was your sense of humor.”
“My sense of humor? That’s funny. My last husband said I couldn’t be funny. That I’d never been funny a day in my life. He called me Debbie Downer all the time. Debbie Lyn Downer.”
“He was wrong. What was it you said to me? About being a sucker for a man and his boat, setting off on the seven seas?”
“I said I’ve always had a crush on Popeye,” she answered. “Which is true. Those big forearm muscles, the way he always looked out for Olive Oyl and Sweet Pea. It was cute. Real cute.”
“I can’t wait to show you my boat,” he said. “You will love it. Don’t bring a thing except for a bottle of champagne and your skimpiest bikini.”
“Bikini? How old do you think I am?”
“How old do you think I am?” he responded, setting his feet on the floor of his home on Bayshore Boulevard. Big Mediterranean Revival number, all stucco and barrel-tile roof. He said they’d used it as a set for some TV show back in the eighties about a nice family running a zoo. “Age is but a number.”
“I would never say.”
He winked at her, pulling a prescription bottle from his suit jacket and shaking loose a little blue pill. “Hold that thought. Let me grab a cool glass of water.”
He wandered off in the dark, tall, nearly six foot five, wiry and skinny with not much of an ass to speak of, sloped shoulders and randy as a sixteen-year-old. Debbie Lyn leaned back and stared at the ceiling and then all around the room.
There was only the bed and a folding chair, the kind you’d find in the basement of a church. Come to think about it, she didn’t recall seeing much at all as they’d gone inside last night, all kissing and hugging and dirty promises. There was a Jacuzzi, that much she was sure of, and a lot of laughter about the wild parrots in the trees and how one might come down to roost when he stood up — naked again — to refill their champagne. He’d played an old CD from her car in his little boom box — she had not seen one of those for a long, long time. “Red Red Wine.” UB40 from nearly forty years ago.
He walked back in, clapping his hands together, erect as a starter pistol. “Ready, freddy.”
“I can see that.”
“Let’s change up positions a bit,” he said. “We’ve already done one and two. But I sure like four and five. Maybe work our way up to a six if my back holds out.”
She looked up at him as she pulled open the sheet and again exposed herself, all the wrinkles, freckles, and sun damage, three children and twenty hard winters in Detroit. An ill-conceived rainbow tattoo on her hip bone from a girl’s weekend in Vegas. She was exposed. “I hate to ask,” she said. “Just what book are you following?”
“Does it matter?” he said, getting on his bony knees. “Just follow my lead.”
In the daylight, sun streaming into the big master bedroom, she started to wonder how a man so successful could’ve lost his wallet. The meal cost her $382 without tip. If this didn’t work out, she’d have to be dipping into her savings account.
“Ever watch a Western?” he asked. “Roy Rogers. Gene Autry. It’s just like that.”
“Who’s the cowboy and who’s the horse?”
“Giddyap,” he said, falling onto his back and reaching his long skinny arms up to her.
So it was now a week — or was it ten days? Either way they’d been together day and night, every damn day, since that first meal on the causeway. By now, the not-paying thing was starting to niggle at her. Now, she was looking down at the check at a Ruby Tuesdays on Dale Mabry Highway, not too far from the Best Buy and Home Depot. He’d had two margaritas and a fruit salad, talking about a meeting he had later in the day with investors for the sunken-treasure deal that he just knew was about to come in. He said he already had a house on standby in Key West, two boats and a helicopter. Just like that, talking about old days in the Keys with Tom McGuane and Jimmy Buffet, some kind of wife-swapping action with the woman who played Lois Lane.
“Isn’t she dead?” Debbie Lyn asked.
“Is she? I don’t know. We quit speaking some time ago.”
“Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“And no word on the wallet?”
“Ah,” he said. “It won’t be long. I’m having new credit cards issued that should arrive today. This whole thing has been a misunderstanding. So embarrassing.”
“You knew Lois Lane?”
“We called her Marjie. She was a Libra. God. So much coke back then. Are you going to finish that?” He pointed to her half-eaten portion of blackened tilapia and wild rice. Her second day of calling in sick to work, nearly broke, and waiting for this mysterious cash to come in. It was so stupid. But still... maybe something.
“Tell me about this boat,” she said.
“It’s more than just a boat. It’s a galleon. Sunk off the coast of Islamorada. Have you ever heard of Mel Fisher?”
“No.”
“Really?” He stabbed the rest of the tilapia, looking less dapper than on their first meeting. Bright blue polo shirt with elastic-waist khaki shorts and blue Crocs! When she saw the Crocs she about died. Maybe he’s eccentric. Most rich people don’t care. They dress and live as they want to, her mother had always said. But he’s old. So damn old. Maybe his feet hurt. Fallen arches. Arthritic toes. Is there such a thing? But he’d held out in bed, making a go of it ten, twelve times with the help of his magic blue pill. Making that off-to-the-races horn sound in his clenched fist.
“Interesting,” he said, chewing. “This is so much better than Applebee’s.”
Most men didn’t give a second thought about shaving. They had their Barbasol, a disposable razor, and horrible hacking habits. Yes, she was supposed to say hacking at their face. Didn’t they know that shaving was a true art? That’s how she’d get them started, maybe a nice guy looking at a straight razor or fancy silver handle for a safety razor, wondering if he might like to upgrade. She was taught to talk to him about it, not sell him, only consult him on what he was doing now and if he might like to upgrade the process. What kind of facial hair do you keep? That being kind of a dumb question if the guy had a big brushy beard or a Tom Selleck mustache or something like that. But mainly she got younger dudes. Guys her age shaved like her dad did, to get clean, but these young guys had shitty little beards or constant scruff to make them look cool and edgy. What do you do to prepare your shave? You know, that’s the most important aspect of getting a close shave — clean your face, prepare your face. She might sell them on the less expensive products, see how interested they were in going all the way to a straight razor, brush, and shaving soap kit that retailed for nearly a hundred bucks.
Arranging a display of silver-tip brushes and mirrors, she turned right into the face of a husky dark woman. “He’s a fake,” the woman said, whispering to her. “A goddamn phony. You know this? Yes, you do. You are nothing but a meal thing to him. One of those things for a free meal.”
“A ticket?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “One of those.”
She was short and looked and sounded Latin American, with lots of frizzy hair and a wide backside, pointing her finger right at Debbie Lyn’s chest, speaking in a funny little accent that Debbie could never place — Cuban? Dominican? Guatemalan? The woman wore a flowing pink paisley shirt with a lot of silver rings and bracelets. She said her name was Delores. She was a good foot shorter than Debbie Lyn but weighed maybe twice as much. Not to judge...