When we got to Maddie’s door, I said, “Thanks a lot for dinner, and the ride. I really appreciate it.”
I stuck out my hand, but Tony leaned in close and brushed his lips against my cheek. I’m sure the surprise registered on my face, because he took a step back and cocked his head.
“Hope you don’t mind.”
“No-o-o-o,” I stuttered, still smelling his scent, like tall pines on a wind-swept beach.
“I’m Italian.” He shrugged an apology. “We’re pretty affectionate.”
“It’s fine, really.”
“Sometimes we even give a kiss on both cheeks.”
“Not at once, I hope?”
He laughed. I could get used to the sound of that.
“No. We do it like this.” He kissed the same cheek again, lingering a bit this time, and then passed this close to my lips on his way to the other cheek.
“Hmm,” I said. “The timing must take years of training.”
“Not so long, really. I could give you a few lessons if you like.”
I put a hand to my cheek. It was so hot, I was surprised there wasn’t a blister.
I was just about to say, Yes, I like, when I noticed the blind in Maddie’s front window shift back and forth. At least she hadn’t flicked the porch light or turned a hose on the two of us.
“It … it’s getting late,” I stammered. “I’ve got to be up in a few hours.”
A smile formed on his lips. I had an inappropriate urge to trace it with my tongue.
“Okay, good night.” He stepped off the porch. “But think about those kissing lessons, would you?”
When I opened the front door and stepped inside, I was thinking about just that.
“Look at you: smiling like a billy goat in the briar patch.” Maddie’s arms were crossed over her blue robe; she had the high beams on her principal’s glare.
“I’m tired, Maddie. Can you just give me the keys and save the lecture?”
She pulled them out of the robe’s pocket and handed them over.
“What exactly are you playin’ at, Sister? You’ve got a good man, and you’re ready to toss him out with the trash.”
I shrugged, like a seventh-grader caught without a hall pass. Maybe Mama was right about me.
The door to the kitchen swung open just then. Maddie’s husband Kenny came out with a piece of banana cream pie and two forks.
“Evenin’ Mace,” he said.
I waved. As I turned to leave, I noticed Maddie looking at her husband with pure love in her eyes. It might have been the pie, but I didn’t think so. She put a hand on my arm before I stepped out the door.
“You better straighten up, Mace. Maybe your relationship with Carlos isn’t perfect. No relationship is. But if a man makes you happy and treats you right, that’s as close to true love as you’re likely to get. Don’t screw it up.”
As I rolled down the unpaved drive to my little cottage, an owl hooted from a fencepost as if to welcome me home. A thousand stars lit the midnight sky. The beams from the headlights on Pam’s ancient VW bounced across the yard, catching a couple of raccoons loping away into the woods.
“Thieves!” I yelled after them.
My nemeses had returned, foiling an elaborate brick-and-bungee-cord garbage protection system. Cantaloupe rinds and chicken bones littered the grass; an empty potato chip bag tumbled across the driveway as the car passed by. I imagined constructing a raccoon-proof concrete garbage vault, complete with a steel top too heavy for them to lift. If I ever figured out how to foil the masked bandits, I could get a job as a government consultant on how to safeguard our borders from evil-doers.
Garbage cleanup could wait until the morning. I parked the car, threw a tarp over its broken convertible top, and made my way to the front door.
Once inside, I saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. I tossed the keys to the VW along with my own set into the gaping jaws of a preserved gator head I keep on my coffee table.
“Did you miss me, Al?” I said to the taxidermist’s specimen.
The gator and I had been on close terms once, since I helped wrestle him out of the pool of a newcomer who hadn’t pictured a ten-foot reptile with seventy-five razor-sharp teeth as a guest at his swimming parties.
Wila stalked out of my bedroom, making Siamese noises, which meant she sounded like a whole alley full of cats.
“Hush, Wila.” I scratched under her neck and on her back near her tail the way she likes. “I know I’ve been away all day. I know I’m a bad mama. And you’re right, a human child probably would have walked out on me by now.”
Meowr.
“It could be worse. If you were a little bit bigger, I’d set you on those damned raccoons outside.”
Meowr.
“Nah, I’m just kidding, baby. I didn’t save you just to see you come to harm.”
I shot a guilty look at Al, who had the bad luck of being classified as a nuisance gator after he got a little too used to being around people. That meant he could be trapped and killed, his hide and meat sold for profit.
“Sorry about that, buddy. There are just too many of you in places that used to be wild, aren’t there?”
Al didn’t answer. But I felt that beady glass eye of his judging me.
I added a little canned cat food to the dry stuff that Wila won’t eat unless she’s starving. It’s about time, her body language said.
Pressing the play button on the answering machine, I turned on the AC, shrugged out of my T-shirt and paced off the dozen or so steps from my living room to the bedroom of the tiny cottage. The first message sounded just as I tossed the dirty shirt into the clothes basket in the corner. The voice was pure Ivy League.
“I had a great time tonight,” Tony said. “I hope you did, too.”
Yeah, except for seeing my alleged boyfriend having a rendezvous with some gorgeous mystery woman, it was a lot of fun.
“I read in the Himmarshee Times about a rodeo next month at the Agri-Civic center. I’d really like to go, and I could use a local guide. Would you like to come with me?”
Hmmmmm. Maybe I would.
He went on about how he’d always wanted to see a real rodeo, how he couldn’t even believe they had rodeos in Florida, and how I’d have to tell him what was appropriate to wear. That was easy: Wrangler blue jeans, no matter how hot the temperature is. Nothing pegs an outsider faster than wearing Bermuda shorts and man sandals to the Himmarshee rodeo.
I had to give Tony credit. He seemed to really be trying to learn the way of life down here. Not like a lot of newcomers, who move South only to complain about how everything is different than it was up North.
Isn’t that the point?
The next message was one I’d saved earlier, when I called from my office to check the machine. There weren’t enough hours in my workday to listen to the whole thing.
“Mace, honey, this is Rosalee. Your mama.”
Mama always became oddly formal when she talked to the answering machine. I think she pictured it as a secretary, painstakingly writing down each message that came in.
“I was just thinking about our fitting tomorrow morning. Could you please not wear your boots? Obviously, those are fine for tromping through the swamp the way you do. But they’ll just ruin the drape of your bridesmaid gown.”