Bruce then got them through the vows, which, in his learned opinion, were a bit on the wordy side, a recurring problem with Mercer’s prose and one he was determined to correct. He loved his writers and nurtured them all, but he was also a tough critic. Oh well, it wasn’t his wedding.
They swapped rings, had a kiss, and bowed to the crowd as husband and wife. The crowd stood and applauded.
The entire service lasted twenty-two minutes.
The photography took longer, then everyone climbed onto the boardwalk and followed Mercer and Thomas over the dunes to the pool where more champagne was waiting. They had their first dance to “My Girl.” The DJ followed it with more Motown and the dancing caught on. Almost ten minutes passed before the first drunk, Connie’s husband, fell in the pool.
The most popular caterer on the island was Chef Claude, a real Cajun from South Louisiana. He and his team were busy on the patio while Noelle supervised the table arrangements and flowers. She was mostly French, and in matters of fine dining with all the trimmings she had no peer. Amy asked her to take charge of flowers, china, place settings, crystal, and flatware, along with the wine, which Noelle and Bruce were happy to select and order from their broker. Two long tables were set on the terrace under a canopy.
As the sun was setting, Chef Claude whispered to Amy that dinner was ready, and the guests were directed to their assigned seats. It was a rowdy bunch, with lots of laughter and admiration for the newlyweds. When the first bottle of Chablis made the rounds, Bruce, as always, called for quiet so he could wax on about the wine. Then platters of raw oysters arrived and covered the table. During the second course, shrimp remoulade, the toasts began and things began to go off-track. Thomas’s brother did a nice job but wasn’t much of a speaker. One of Mercer’s sorority sisters played the obligatory role of the crying bridesmaid and went on far too long. Bruce managed to cut her off with a splendid toast of his own. He then introduced the next wine, a fine Sancerre. Trouble started when Mercer’s brother-in-law, still wet from his splash in the pool and still drunk since midafternoon, stood and wobbled and tried to tell a funny story about one of Mercer’s old boyfriends. His timing was bad. His remarks were mercifully cut off when Connie snapped loudly, “That’s enough, Carl!”
Carl roared with laughter as he fell into his chair, and it took a few seconds before he realized no one else thought it funny. To break the tension, a frat brother from Grinnell jumped to his feet and read a raunchy poem about Thomas. As he read, the main course of grilled flounder was served. Verse after verse, the poem grew dirtier and funnier, and when it was over everyone was in stitches.
Amy had worried about the noise. The homes were built close together along the beach and noise carried. So, she had invited the neighbors on each side and introduced them to Mercer a week earlier. They were laughing and drinking harder than anyone.
Myra took the floor and told the story of the first time she and Leigh met Mercer, five years earlier when she returned to the island for the summer. “Her beauty was obvious, her charm was contagious, her manners were impeccable. But we wondered: Can she write? We secretly hoped that she couldn’t. With her latest novel, a masterpiece in my opinion, she proved to the world that she can indeed tell a beautiful story. Why do some people have all the luck?”
“Now Myra,” Leigh said softly.
Until then, most of the toasts and remarks seemed to have some measure of forethought. After that, though, everything was off the cuff and fueled by wine.
The dinner was long and delicious, and when it was over the older guests began leaving. The younger ones returned to the dance floor where the DJ took requests and turned the volume down.
Around midnight, Bruce found Mercer and Thomas at the edge of the pool with their feet in the water. He joined and told them again what a lovely wedding they had put together.
“When do you leave for Scotland?” he asked.
“Tomorrow at two,” Mercer replied. “We fly from Jacksonville to Washington, then nonstop to London.” The honeymoon was two weeks in the Highlands.
“Could you run by the store in the morning? I’ll have the coffee ready. We’ll need some.”
Thomas nodded and Mercer said, “Sure. What’s up?”
Bruce was suddenly serious. With a smug grin he looked at her and said, “I have the story, Mercer. Maybe the best I’ve ever heard.”
2
Bay Books opened at 9:00 a.m. every Sunday morning when Bruce unlocked the front door, from the inside, and welcomed the usual crowd. Though the demographics were unclear, he had always surmised that about half the permanent residents of Camino Island were retirees from colder climates. The other half were locals from North Florida and southern Georgia. The tourists came from all over, but primarily the South and East.
At any rate, there were plenty of people from “up north” who missed their favorite newspapers. Years earlier he began handling the Sunday editions of the Times, Post, Enquirer, Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Boston Globe. Along with the newspapers, he sold legendary hot buttered biscuits from a restaurant around the corner, on Sundays only, and by 9:30 the café upstairs and the reading area downstairs were packed with Yankees reading news from home. It had become a ritual of sorts and many of the regulars never missed a Sunday morning at the bookstore. Though women were certainly welcome — Bruce had long since learned that most books were bought by women — the Sunday morning crowd was all male, and the politics and sports talk often became rowdy. Smoking was allowed on the outdoor terrace and a layer of rich cigar smoke usually hung over Main Street.
Mercer and Thomas arrived late in the morning, now legally married, remarkably clear-eyed and dressed for their trip. Bruce invited them into his downstairs office, his First Editions Room, where he displayed some of his finest rare books. He poured coffee and they chatted about the night before. The newlyweds were ready to go, though, with a long adventure ahead of them.
Mercer smiled and said, “You mentioned the greatest story of all time.”
“Yes I did. I’ll be brief. It’s a true story but can also be fictionalized. You’ve heard of Dark Isle, just north of here.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“It’s deserted, right?” Thomas asked.
“Probably, yes, but there is some doubt. It’s one of two smaller barrier islands between Florida and Georgia and it has never been developed. It’s about three miles long and a mile wide, with pristine beaches.”
Mercer was nodding and said, “Oh yeah, now I remember. Tessa talked about it years ago. Isn’t it supposed to be haunted or something?”
“Or something. Centuries ago, sometime around 1750, it became a haven for runaway slaves from Georgia, which, then ruled by the British, allowed slavery. Florida was under the Spanish flag and though slavery was not against the law, runaways were granted sanctuary. There was a long-running feud between the two countries about what to do with the slaves who escaped to Florida. Georgia wanted them back. The Spanish wanted to protect them just to irritate the British and their American colonies. Around 1760, a slave ship returning from West Africa was preparing to land in Savannah when a fierce storm from the north, what we call a nor’easter today, spun it around, shoved it south, and badly disabled it. It was a ship from Virginia called Venus, and it had around four hundred slaves on board, packed like sardines. Well, it left Africa with four hundred, but not all made it. Many died at sea. The conditions on board were unimaginable, to say the least. Anyway, the Venus finally went down about a mile out to sea near Cumberland Island. Since the slaves were chained and shackled, almost all of them drowned. A few clung to the wreckage and washed ashore in the storm on Dark Island, as it became known. Or Dark Isle. It was unnamed in 1760. They were taken in by the runaways from Georgia, and together they built a little community. Two hundred years went by, everybody died or moved away, and now it’s deserted.”