Exhibit A being Boyd Shreave.
On the regret meter, Eugenie Fonda had passed the “What was I thinking?” stage and was cruising toward “Boyd who?” Their fling had been an idle blunder of her own devising, and she bore him no malice. In fact, she would’ve been bummed if he were mauled by a panther, poisoned by a coral snake or otherwise savaged in the boondocks.
But Eugenie doubted that a fate so colorful would befall her dull Boyd. She saw him begging a ride back to the mainland with Honey and her ex, then hastening to Fort Worth on a doomed mission to head off a divorce. It was easy to envision his thunderstruck reaction as Lily Shreave presented the graphic pictorial and video evidence of his infidelity. A more endearing schmuck might win a reprieve, but Boyd didn’t stand a chance. Eugenie had no reason to hope that being single and destitute would improve his personality, or his prospects. Boyd was what he was, and she’d already moved on.
Minutes after the helicopter landed in Fort Myers, an ambulance whisked Lester off to a hospital. A female paramedic examined Eugenie and Gillian while a Coast Guard petty officer took their statements. Gillian told him that she was a weather personality for WSUK, a non-existent television station in Tallahassee. Eugenie, using her real name of Jean Leigh Hill, was inspired to identify herself as Gillian’s videographer. The two of them had gotten lost, she explained, on a kayak expedition in the Ten Thousand Islands. Juicing up the yarn, Gillian said they’d befriended Lester, who while skinny-dipping was shot by a poacher who’d mistaken him for a manatee. The ski-masked assailant, she added, escaped in a silver-blue speedboat called Wet Dream.
The young Coast Guard officer showed no sign of doubting the yarn. He mentioned that Wet Dream was the most common boat name in Florida, followed by Reel Love and Vitamin Sea. He also reported that Lester was actually Theodore Dealey, and that he was suffering from a rare and unpronounceable medical disorder. The petty officer commended Gillian for diving into Dismal Key Pass to assist Mr. Dealey, who would have otherwise drowned. The petty officer then asked the women if they’d seen anyone besides the trigger-happy poacher on the island, and both of them-wishing to protect the fugitive Seminole-answered no.
The petty officer said they were free to leave, and offered to call a cab. Eugenie picked up the Halliburton that held Dealey’s video gear; Gillian grabbed the one with the Nikon.
Outside it was getting warm, so they waited in the parking lot and soaked up the sun. Gillian yawned and said, “So, whatcha gonna do now-go home to Texas?”
“I haven’t decided. You?”
“Back to FSU, I guess. Try not to flunk out this term.”
“Bet you’re gonna miss Taco,” Eugenie said.
Gillian laughed. “It’s Thlocko. And yeah, I miss him already,” she said. “But, hey, at least we got to do it. Only once-but he was amazingly awesome.”
“Well, good for you.” It was the natural order of things, and Eugenie didn’t feel the least bit jealous.
“I could totally eat a horse,” Gillian said, stretching.
“Me, too.”
“Can I borrow a few bucks?”
“All I’ve got is a credit card,” said Eugenie, “but you’re welcome to join me. There’s some stuff I need to tell you, anyway.”
“Cool. Where do you wanna go?”
“Looks like a good day for the beach.”
“I’m there,” Gillian said.
“And maybe a spa treatment?”
“Oh, momma.”
“And for lunch,” Eugenie said, “a bowl of French onion soup.”
“You’re my hero,” said Gillian.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
Tree-bound, Boyd Shreave was revisiting the high points of his telemarketing career:
Troy Marchtower, age seventy-three, who had dumped the last of his 401(k) into sixteen acres of abandoned soybean fields near Gulfport, Mississippi, with the expectation (based on Shreave’s spiel) that the tract would be developed into upscale waterfront town houses. Hurricane Katrina obliterated Gulfport soon afterward, and Marchtower’s property lay beneath seven feet of toxic mud, a bleak turn of events that Shreave couldn’t have foreseen (and in any case fell under the contractually absolving “act of God” clause).
Mr. and Mrs. Clement Derr, whom Shreave had signed up for supplementary health insurance that cost a whopping $137.20 per week. Unfortunately for the Derrs, the policy reimbursed only for treatment of cholera, Ebola virus, chikungunya fever, trypanosomiasis, and six other tropical diseases not likely to afflict a couple in their mid-eighties living in Skowhegan, Maine.
Mrs. Rosa Antoinette Shannon, who was so upset to hear that Hillary Clinton was secretly plotting to confiscate all privately owned firearms that she’d patriotically recited for Boyd Shreave her husband’s Platinum American Express number, pledging $25,000 to a Republican PAC called Americans for Unlimited Self-Defense, which had hired Relentless to do its fund-raising. Rosa’s donation was hastily returned after it was learned that her spouse was none other than Marco “Twinkie” Shannon, the most prolific supplier of Mexican heroin on the eastern seaboard. His unappetizing past came to light in personal correspondence from the East Jersey State Prison, where he was serving twenty to life for kneecapping two associates on the driving range at Pine Valley. In a handwritten letter leaked to the Washington Post, Mr. Shannon-citing a previous commitment-regretfully declined an invitation to visit the White House with other GOP donors for a photograph with the First Lady and her Scottish terrier.
All three deals had been buttoned up by Boyd Shreave’s supervisor but, being the one who’d chummed up the suckers, Shreave awarded himself full credit and glory. If Relentless wouldn’t take him back, surely a competitor phone bank would.
His immediate challenge, however, was to escape the island. As the morning ticked away, Shreave felt less like a “Survivor” and more like Gilligan. He was reluctant to attempt descending from the royal poinciana, partly because he didn’t trust his balance and partly because he felt safer in the branches than he did on the ground. In addition to a nerve-racking assortment of wildlife, at least two dangerous outlaws were running loose-the vile-smelling derelict who’d kidnapped Honey Santana, and the elusive Indian with whom Eugenie Fonda supposedly had skipped off. Boyd Shreave had no desire to interact with either of them.
Nearly as daunting was the cactus dilemma: Directly below Shreave’s roost was a thriving spray of prickly pear. An ill-chosen step, a gust of wind-and he’d be impaled like a cricket on barbed wire. He blanched at the sight of the long, pale needles on the beckoning green pads, and thought: Not again. Shreave flashed back to that doomed orthotics sales call in Arlington, the old crow practically tripping him with her oxygen tank and then cackling when he fell crotch-first into her potted dwarf saguaro. The pincushion tracks on his pubic triangle might have paled, but the excruciating memory had not.
Shreave hugged the poinciana and resolved not to look down until he was better prepared. Fastening his eyes on the sun-kissed treetops proved calming, and gradually he began inching his butt backward along the bough. Eventually he’d have to stand and traverse branch to branch, but why hurry? The slower he moved, the less noise he made-and until the next helicopter appeared, his plan was to remain silent and unseen.
It hadn’t occurred to Boyd Shreave that absolutely nobody would be searching for him; that his absence would leave no void in the lives of those who knew him. He would have been stupefied to learn that the Coast Guard crew that he’d fruitlessly signaled had been sent by his own wife to rescue the private investigator who was gathering ammunition for their divorce.