“Not what we had in mind,” he added. “Right, Genie?”
“It isn’t much like the Bahamas,” his mistress allowed.
Honey said, “What were you two hoping for? Besides a beach and a tiki bar, I mean. This is raw, untouched wilderness, the very last of it. That’s what people come to see on an ecotour.”
Boyd Shreave chuckled coldly. “Just give us the damn sales pitch and take us back to town.”
“There is no sales pitch,” Honey said.
“Yeah, right.”
Eugenie Fonda stretched her arms. “What’s the name of this island, anyhow?”
“I don’t know,” Honey said, “but it’ll do.”
Shreave frowned. “For what?” He stalked up to her and flicked the half-eaten granola bar out of her hand. “Do for what?”
“That was rude,” Honey said. She collected the pieces off the ground and placed them in a garbage tote. “Beyond rude, as a matter of fact.”
Eugenie Fonda told Shreave to quit acting like a jerk.
“No sales pitch, she says?” He kicked at the ashes of the previous campers’ fire. “What the hell’s going on?”
Honey Santana decided it was pointless to wait any longer. She was ready; he was more than ready.
She stood up and said, “There’s no pitch because there’s no such development as Royal Gulf Hammocks, Mr. Eisenhower.”
Shreave’s brow inverted in a simian portrait of vexation. He swayed slightly, working his lower jaw.
Having connected the dots, Eugenie Fonda said, “Shit, Boyd. Shit, shit, shit.”
“Do I know you?” he asked Honey. The words came out as a rattle. “Don’t tell me you’re the same one who called my house.”
“You called me first, Boyd. Peddling some worthless scrub in Gilchrist County, remember? I gave you a short history lesson on Stephen Foster, how he never laid eyes on the Suwannee River. Why don’t you have a seat?”
Shreave spun around. Stammered. Shook his arms. Finally, Eugenie snagged him by the belt and pulled him down beside her.
“Do the voice,” he said to Honey. “If you’re really her, do the phone voice.”
She was well prepared. “Good evening, Mr. Shreave. My name is Pia Frampton and I’m calling with a very special offer-”
Shreave’s chin dropped. “Aw, Jesus.”
“You said it was too ‘creamy-sounding,’ remember? You gave me lots of helpful pointers.”
Eugenie Fonda said, “Incredible.”
Honey recognized the inflection of fatigue; of low expectations, unmet. What am I doing with this loser? Honey had more than once asked herself the same question, before she swore off dating.
“Boy, she got you good,” Eugenie said to Shreave.
“Bullshit. It was a free trip to Florida!”
“Nothing’s free, Boyd. Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“Yeah, but she sent plane tickets!”
“You got suckered. Get over it.” Eugenie looked over at Honey and said, “Wild guess. There’s a couple of redneck goons waiting to jump out of the bushes and rob us.”
Honey Santana had to laugh.
“Then what’s this all about? Wait, I know-a ransom deal!” Eugenie guessed. “Maybe you found out Boyd’s wife has some bucks.”
Shreave said, “Genie, shut your piehole.”
Honey popped a Tic Tac. Her attention was drawn to the debris of a cottage-peeling lumber, charred beams, broken window frames-that somebody had once called home. A squat bunker-like structure of bare cinder blocks had been erected on one slope of the shell mound, perhaps as a cistern.
Honey noticed a flurry of gulls and pelicans overhead, and she wondered what had flushed them out. They’re probably just going fishing, she thought. It was a fine day.
“Why’d you do this?” Shreave asked in a scraping voice. “The airline tickets and all, Christ, you must be nuts.”
Eugenie Fonda said, “She’s not nuts. Are you, Honey?”
Honey was opening a packet of dried figs. The campsite was dominated by an ancient royal poinciana, and she considered climbing it to get a better fix on their whereabouts. She felt like she was a long way from her son.
A shot rang out, followed by another.
Eugenie jumped. Shreave went wide-eyed and exclaimed, “It is a trap!”
“Sshhh. It’s just poachers,” Honey said, thinking: They must be the ones who built the fire.
Shreave became antic, the gunfire having unstapled his nerves. He launched himself at Honey’s knees and tackled her, pinning a clammy forearm to her throat.
“Get us out of here!” he rasped.
With some difficulty, Eugenie Fonda dragged him off. As Honey picked chipped oyster shells out of her hair, she recalled the time that Perry Skinner had made love to her on the beach at Cape Sable, both of them caked with sand and wet grit. It was in the middle of a wild spring rainstorm, and they were alone except for a bobcat watching from a stand of palmettos. Honey wanted to believe that she’d become pregnant with Fry that afternoon.
“Who shot off that gun?” Shreave demanded.
“I’ve got no idea. That’s the truth,” Honey said.
For several minutes they stayed quiet and listened. There was no more gunfire, and Shreave calmed down.
When Honey began to unpack the pup tents, Eugenie said, “Uh-oh.”
Shreave snickered. “No way we are spending the night out here. I’ll call for help.”
“How?” Eugenie asked. They’d left their cell phones in the rented Explorer because they were afraid of losing them overboard on the kayaks. She said, “We’re campers, Boyd.”
“Like hell we are.”
It took half an hour to set up the tents. After Honey finished, she turned to the Texans and said, “I have one son, the boy you saw in the pictures back at the lodge. I’ve tried to teach him to be a decent, positive person-these days they get so cynical, you know, it breaks your heart. We watch the news together every night because it’s important for young people to be aware of what’s happening, but sometimes, I swear, I want to heave a brick through the television. Don’t you ever feel that way?”
Eugenie said, “Not Boyd. He loves his TV.”
“Except the news,” he cut in. “I don’t ever watch the damn news, not even Fox. By the way, we’re leaving now.”
Eugenie said, “Let her finish, Boyd. Obviously she’s gone to a lot of trouble.”
Honey thanked her, and continued: “I always tell my son, ‘The world is crawling with creeps and greedheads. Don’t you dare grow up to be one of them.’ And what I mean is: Be a responsible and caring person. Is that so hard? To be generous, not greedy. Compassionate, not indifferent. My God, is there a worse sin than indifference?”
Shreave hoisted a water jug and glugged noisily. He wiped his lips on his sleeve and grumbled, “Would you get to the point, if you’ve got one.”
“I do. I do have a point.” Honey paused to sort out the tunes in her head. One was “Yellow Submarine,” which she’d often sung to Fry when he was a baby. Even Perry Skinner, who preferred Merle or Waylon, knew all the words.
She said, “I tend to get overexcited, I admit. Obsessed about certain things, though in a non-clinical way. ‘Hyperfocused,’ my son calls it. The dinner hour is important to me. It’s the only time we really get to talk anymore.”
“You and your boy?” Eugenie said.
“Right. That part of the day is ours, you understand? Fry’s growing up so fast-he’s got track practice and homework and his skateboarding. Plus he sees his ex-father a couple of times a week, which is strictly his choice. Anyhow…where was I?”
“Dinner,” Eugenie prompted gently.
“Yes. Practically every night the phone rings in the middle of dinner and it’s some stranger, hundreds of miles away, trying to sell me something I don’t need, don’t want and can’t afford. The name of your company is Relentless, right? Like they’re proud of how they never let up from pestering people.” Honey felt her arms flapping. She heard her voice rise. “You call up my house, Mr. Boyd Shreave, and do not even have the honor, or spine, to give your true name!”
Shreave snorted. “Strictly SOP.”
“Standard operating procedure,” Eugenie explained. “We don’t ever use our real last names. None of us do.”