A few years back, after a run of bad luck, the ladies had had a ceremony and changed the boat’s name to Satin Doll. Things kept getting worse, however, until they reversed the ceremony, and it’s been Tiger Lilly ever since. It’s moored at the deepwater docks, Dinkin’s Bay Marina, neighbor to a dozen or so other live-aboard vessels—houseboats, sailboats, and trawlers.
Four weeks earlier, there’d been twice that number.
Lucky.
Aside from a Danforth compass, the only navigational equipment aboard Tiger Lilly is a brass plate that points toward the ship’s toilet. The ladies installed it as a precaution against confused and desperate drunks.
“Doc,” Rhonda continued, her tone severe, “we worry about you. That’s why I asked about your new lady.”
I repeated myself patiently. “Mildred Engle is not my new lady,” I said, and fought the urge to check my watch. I didn’t want Rhonda to know that I was eager to get to Chestra’s house.
She said, “It doesn’t matter what you think. It matters what the woman thinks. You’re a dear, sweet guy, Doc, but forgive me for saying this—you’re pretty damn dense when it comes to women.”
I wasn’t going to argue.
“Same when it comes to fighting. That’s just dumb. Especially with some low-life marina punk—we heard about the fight so don’t even bother to deny it. Some freak named Heller? You don’t think a jerk like that can’t take one look and know you’re the scientific type, not a fighter? That’s what I’m trying to get through your head. You’re an easy target for a punk like that to show off. And also for a certain type of woman.”
Rhonda’s hair was colored Irish copper instead of the usual brown…a stylish new wig. She was wearing shorts and a dark blue blouse that was buttoned one notch higher than normal. She’s tall, heavy-hipped, and busty—busty until a recent illness, anyway.
She was one of the friends who’d been hospitalized.
Rhonda had been scolding me about the fight, fussing about Mildred Engle, but something else was on her mind.
Her encounter with cancer and the black void was recent. She deserved my patience.
Rhonda said, “You got about as many scars on your face as I got on my belly and boobs,” She was done with the washcloth and opening a tube of antibacterial cream. “Get a few glasses of wine in me tonight, maybe we can compare.”
“Tempting,” I replied.
“I’d like to think you’re serious. Since the operation, I’m worried you and other manly man types won’t be interested. As if the hysterectomy didn’t make me feel self-conscious enough.”
Self-deprecating humor, typical of her. But it contained an underlying truth. A few months before, she’d found a lump on her breast. Her physician had removed the tumor after assuring her that the biopsy report could have been a lot worse. Rhonda had finished her last week of chemotherapy just before the hurricane.
“If you’re serious,” I replied, “I’ll return with a long line of the manliest men who’d love to get a look at that body of yours. Dozens, probably hundreds. Me included.”
“Hah!”
“Don’t offer unless you mean it. There’re guys on these islands who’ve been lusting after you for years.”
“Really? That’s a shock, because I’ve been lusting after a few of them, too.”
I told her if that information got out, we’d have to build a new marina parking lot.
It’s understood that the partnership between Rhonda and JoAnn is more than business. They’ve been dedicated to one another for years; confident in the way strong couples are confident. Which is maybe why they seem to get a kick out of discussing their occasional bawdy interest in men.
That interest wasn’t always a ruse, either. As I knew.
Rhonda was laughing. “Good ol’ Doc. You always know the right thing to say to a woman.” She reached and opened a box of bandages. Began to sort through them. “That’s another reason you’ve gotta take care of yourself. The summer’s been shitty enough, we can’t afford to lose you. Fighting like some teenager.” She made an introspective noise of disgust. “After the storm, before the cops finally let us back on the island, JoAnn and me about got sick when we heard you’d stayed here, rode the damn thing out. Didn’t know if you were alive or dead. Tomlinson, too—there’s another man who’ll never grow up. Crazy coconut-headed fools, the both of you.”
Not quite accurate. Tomlinson hadn’t been at the marina when the winds began to build. He’d used the flood tide to pole and wade his sailboat into the same tidal river where the fishing guides had moored several of Dinkin’s Bay’s larger vessels, Tiger Lilly included. He’d tied a spiderweb of lines to the mangroves, burned incense, then roped himself to the ship’s helm and was meditating naked, he told me, when the eye passed over.
I was the only one watching as he sailed back into Dinkin’s Bay under full canvas, the sunset an eerie green as the hurricane pulled the last of its funnel clouds northward. No other vessel under way for a hundred miles. Few human beings on the island, none at Dinkin’s Bay. Standing on the broken decking of my roofless home, I considered the possibility that I might be hallucinating because of the recent concussion. Quite a vision; quite a night.
“You have a son to think about,” Rhonda reminded me primly. “A new daughter, too. People who care about you, and rely on you to stick around. Who worry about some of the stupid things you do.”
As she said that, into my mind appeared the image of an adolescent boy, playing baseball in the jungle. Then an infant bundled in pink, her face an undefined space. It was the daughter I’d never seen.
Rhonda had unwrapped a butterfly bandage and leaned in to apply it. I took her wrist, stopping her. “Why is it I get the impression you’ve practiced this little speech? And you’re not only talking about the fight. You’re putting a whole lot of mysterious implications between the lines—”
I paused when the cabin door opened and we watched JoAnn Smallwood step into the salon.
J oAnn is a shorter, bustier version of Rhonda; she looked businesslike in stockings, dark skirt, and blazer. She was carrying a sack of groceries in one arm and the marina’s resident cat, Crunch & Des, in the other. JoAnn and Rhonda exchanged looks as we exchanged greetings, and then JoAnn said, “You’re having that little talk with him?” Expecting it.
“Just getting started,” Rhonda said. She pushed my hand away and leaned toward me with the bandage.
Sounding like a tattletale sister, Rhonda said to JoAnn, “Guess who got into a fistfight? Got himself beat up. Look at how deep this gash is—thing needs stitches. Then he got clunked on the head today while they were diving that wreck—”
JoAnn said, “I heard. I heard,” letting the cat drop pad soft on the deck and taking groceries to the galley. Began to sort items on the teak cupboard. Cheese, tortillas, coffee, toilet paper, party hats, candles, tonic water, wine. Cat food, too. The expensive kind in caviar-sized tins.
Which explained why Crunch & Des hadn’t visited me at my stilt house for a while. A burly black cat with ragged ears and a white patch. It wasn’t the first time he’d been lured away by better food.
“I told him what you said about the woman you met on the beach.”
JoAnn replied to me, saying, “I hope it doesn’t seem like we’re being nosy, but—”
I interrupted, “Of course you’re being nosy. But it’s okay. Being nosy’s one of the perks of friendship.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I think. I think there’s something strange about that woman, if it’s the same one. Slender, very elegant—even at night on a beach—but something…dated about the way she dresses. Even the way she talked. Some of the phrases she used. I’d guess her to be in her late sixties, so maybe that explains—”