The restaurant is packed: Swedish tourists laden with shopping bags throng the bar, heels ringing on the terracotta. The men stare at the tall blondes, their skirts like bits of fluff, tasseled purses sag from their elbows. Conrad points at some sort of photocopied schematic unfolded on the table, already butter-stained. “Four thousand units. Is that beautiful? Breaking ground spring ’06.”
“This spring? That’s insane,” Gavin says, voice reverberating with admiration. “Instant City.”
Fred Wales, City of Miami Zoning Board, shakes hands with Brian, drags over one of the heavy wooden chairs and sits on it backwards, his arms resting on top of the chair back. “So, Prevlin Group?”
Chantelle arrives with a tray of thick-bottomed glasses. Conrad holds a sprig of mint to one side with the backs of his fingers and takes a gulp. “Oh, thank God,” he says.
“Ambitious — those Prevlin boys,” Brian allows, staring at the upside-down schematic. “The scope of this thing.” The men watch him: along with his vaunted powers of analysis, he has a reputation as a bit of an industry seer — Parkhurst asks him to weigh in on all his big projects — particularly what communities look promising for gentrification. Brian had predicted the revitalization of Hollywood, and drawn his attention to the early rustle of activity in Wynwood; at conferences, other developers corner him by the buffet table and throw out the names of neighborhoods. “They might just pull this off.”
Conrad lifts his cool, Presbyterian eyes, grins at Brian. He experiences a prickling uneasiness, like being dragged lightly against a brick wall. “Those boys are only getting started.” Conrad folds up the photocopy.
“What’s the point?” Javier tugs at his collar. “Redlands’re a bunch of farms. Downtown, we’re gonna outsell them within the quarter — no question. People are lining up for preconstruction prices — half-mil for studios. Who’s gonna move to Homestead?”
“Ha,” Conrad says, stirring his drink with his finger. “That’s where everyone’s gonna go. People can’t afford Miami, but they can afford the swamp.” He licks his finger.
“With a jumbo mortgage.”
“We have a wise old saying in South Florida,” Brian intones. There’s a murmur of laughter around the table. “Show me the money.”
Waiters in black tuxes and bow ties mill around the table ferrying trays of glasses, bamboo and sugarcane stirrers, a swirl of Spanish under the strands of Sinatra. The mayor’s chief of staff comes to greet Brian en route to the grand dining room, and Javier glimpses the tubby governor and entourage on their way out. A couple of the Lennar people stop by the table, one thumps Brian on the back so he can hear hollow thuds. “Whadya call a group of lawyers at the bottom of the sea?” Sydney Eckles, a site contractor, grabs Brian’s arm.
Brian gives a patient half-smile to the wrought iron chandelier. “Really? You just heard that one, Sydney?”
“A good start!” Sydney hoots with laughter.
“Really, Eckles — long as you been around? Best you can do?”
He stops and straightens as Chantelle appears; two waiters place the trays on folding stands. Brian admires her queenly profile, the way she lowers each plate, giving it a slight turn to center their steaks.
BRIAN FORBIDS HIMSELF certain memories. Like the times Felice waited up past her bedtime for him to come home from work — three, four, and five years old. Her face seemed to go pale with joy when he opened the door, Daddy. He’d loved her profoundly: there were times he worried he loved her more than even Stanley (it wasn’t true). He’d taken her to her first day of kindergarten and he’d stayed at the curb, watching, long after she’d gone in. He’d loitered outside on a bench, kicked at the grass, stared at the doors of the school until one of the teachers came out and told him — gently chiding — that Felice was playing happily. For years, he’d read her bedtime stories, her small, warm head resting against the cove of his chest: once, he’d read to her from a library book that had turned out to be more sophisticated than he’d expected. He worried she was bored — especially after a long meditation on children playing in a field — but his six-year-old daughter had looked up from her pillow, saying, “That’s you, Daddy. You catch us.” No. He couldn’t think of that without feeling his throat tighten. The children were small and Brian and Avis still young, holding each other inside shining nets, in equipoise. Early spring nights where they sat together on the hood of the car eating ice cream, watching for the red pulse of a passing space station. Is that what a happy family looks like? He would have sworn it was. A family like any happy family. He wanted only to keep them whole and entire: to provide. But perhaps that’s where the problem was? The drive to pour oneself out, into the providing?
Chantelle nods at Brian as she returns to clear some platters. She bears away Gavin’s nearly unmarred steak with an air of mournful dignity. Brian hopes that she will take it home later for dinner. At one time the lunches had seemed useful — instead of chewing over the same old cases with other lawyers at La Loggia, these get-togethers gave him a chance to collect intelligence from a cross section of architects, bankers, elected officials. But Brian became impatient — it was all developer gossip, analysis of their next car and boat purchases, rubbing elbows with, frankly, subordinates and the semi-educated — agents, appraisers, and engineers. The indigenous population, as Javier puts it. One day Chantelle appeared, a trainee server for their table: Affirmative action hire, he thought. Her face a young, frightened translucence. Brian spoke to her while she studied the older server. She was the same age as Felice. He learned that Chantelle was on summer staff, still a student at Gables High: she’d been in some of Felice’s classes in middle school. When he said Felice’s name, her eyes ticked to his face “Everyone knew Felice, sure.” She stopped. “Are you her dad?”
Brian closed his eyes and a white star of light bloomed behind his eyelids. He smiled as Chantelle asked, “Did she become a model? That’s what I heard.”
It doesn’t matter that much to Brian if they talk to each other — simply catching sight of her is enough. These moments of contact with Chantelle are small indulgences. They rarely mentioned Felice after that first meeting, but suddenly he had a marker, a buoy in darkness. He never misses summertime lunches at Joe’s. If Chantelle is out sick, he feels bereft. When she moves to his side of the table, he says, “How you doing today, sweetheart?”
“Just fine, Mr. Muir.” She doesn’t pause in her clearing.
“I guess you’ll be heading back to school soon.”
A faint smile. “I just started fall semester. But I’ve got morning and evening classes, so I can stay on lunch service.”
“Fall semester?”
“I started at Miami-Dade.”
“Ohh, yes…” She’s eighteen now. Beginning college.
Brian catches Conrad saying to Harold Wisen, relationship manager at First Trust, “Hear we’re cracking Little Haiti?”
Chantelle hands her tray to a busboy and turns.
Harold, in the visitor’s seat, leans across Gavin — who now seems to be napping with his eyes open. “No shit? It’s going through? Who’s doing the financing? You guys must be getting that property for nothing.”
“It’s part of the Design District, friends,” Javier interjects, simultaneously joking and serious, eyeing Brian, “Remember? Making the downtown bloom?”
Brian glances at Chantelle’s impassive profile as she clears Conrad’s plate. He should help Javier shut Conrad down before he blabs too much. Chantelle picks up the last piece of cutlery, her back straight as a carpenter’s level, her expression formal.