Pulling on the wooden door, Dale stumbles onto the boardwalk outside Smugglers. He draws in a deep breath. Island air. It’s salty and heavy, tinted with the smell of fish, too thick to go down easy. Behind him, the bar’s lights switch off. At some point during the evening it rained, but not enough to break the heat. The lights in the parking lot throw a glare on the damp concrete that stretches out below him. It shimmers like black ice.
Leaning heavy on the railing so he won’t fall, Dale pulls out his phone. The lights on it blur as he squints and holds it close. He sets an alarm for nine a.m. tomorrow morning, doing it now so he doesn’t forget. Elise is coming to the house at ten a.m. sharp. That’s what she said. Sharp. And she also said she was happy to help Dale with his bookkeeping and that she needs every extra penny she can get. Maybe, if the business bounces back, he can bring her on regular.
Every guy in the bar tonight saw Dale getting what they couldn’t. Elise. They’re all worn out, old guys, looking in from the outside, but Dale proved that even at fifty, he’s still on the inside. He’s still in decent shape, even has all his hair. And his bank account will bounce back. He’s nothing like all the others. Every one of them will want to hear the details of what happens between Dale and the girl tomorrow, but he won’t tell. She’s beautiful, sure. That’s all the other guys noticed. The lips and legs. The curves that spilled across the bar every time she reached out over it. But he saw her real beauty. She’s worth more than one night. She’s young and new and a fresh start on a tired life.
The pain in his upper arm is the first thing Dale feels. He swats at it and then he’s stumbling off to the side, struggling to keep his balance. Someone has grabbed him and he’s falling. But then someone grabs the other arm and he’s straight again and they’re dragging him toward the side of Smugglers where the lights from the parking lot don’t reach. His toes bounce over the curb and then over the rough ground.
There are two of them. They pull Dale by the arms, shove him so he’ll keep moving forward, don’t say who they are or what they want. They don’t have to. When they’re beyond the glow of the streetlights, they drop him. He hits the ground and they start kicking him. He curls up on himself, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his hands over his head. And then they’re gone. By the time he can stand, pressing one hand to his ribs and touching the other to his top lip, he knows this was Chum’s reminder that he doesn’t give a shit about stagnant real estate or foundation problems in one of Dale’s flips or a barrel-tile roof for his own house that cost him forty-five thousand dollars or a seawall he had to replace along eighty feet of frontage. Two weeks means two weeks, and Dale’s house better damn well close. Standing in a patch of St. Augustine left to grow too long and waiting for the ground to settle underfoot, Dale wonders if those two guys might be the right kind of guys, if they might be the kind Dale could hire to make sure Chum disappears along with Dale’s debt.
Elise shows up at Dale’s house right on time. She’s dressed in blue jeans and a loose-fitting polo, both meant to disguise her body, likely because she thinks she’ll be meeting Dale’s wife. Dale didn’t tell her that Patty left months ago when he finally confessed he had borrowed $150,000 from Santo “Chum” Giordano. Patty, like Dale, knew the name. She knew about the dentist too. According to her friends, the wife still lives in the house but her husband, the dentist, disappeared when he couldn’t pay Chum back.
“Beautiful place,” Elise says. The arched entry shades her from the morning sun, but even the short walk up the ten stairs that lead to the front door has caused sweat to break out across her upper lip. She rests a hand on the stucco siding. “Never been inside a house like this.“
“Me neither,” Dale says, moving aside to invite her in. “Until I bought one.”
Before closing the door, Dale steps outside and looks down onto the street. A dark-blue sedan sits in front of the house two doors down. It’s rusted around its front wheel basin, has the large, squared-off body of an older model, and has been parked there since Dale woke this morning. People on his street don’t drive cars like that, but men who work for Chum do.
“This is just beautiful,” Elise says, peering up at the ceiling that lifts two stories overhead, and then she notices Dale’s face. “Good lord, what happened to you?”
“I’ll give you a tour later,” he says, ignoring her question and waving her off like it’s nothing, though breathing still hurts and he’s been wondering all morning if he should go to the emergency room. Patty would probably come back if she knew he was in the emergency room, yet she’d also want to know how he ended up there.
In his office, he pulls out the leather chair from under his mahogany desk, and with a sweeping gesture, he helps Elise to sit. She slides in front of him and he can’t help but lay a hand on her waist.
“All this from flipping houses and condos?” she asks, glancing back at him with raised brows.
“Among other things,” he says, winking so she’ll think there’s more to the story. Once she sees Dale’s books, she’ll know he’s broke, and he wants her to think he has other deals going.
When she begins tapping on the keyboard, Dale leans close as best he can with the pain shooting through his right side. She smells of that lotion again. He tries to breathe it in deep.
“You don’t look so good,” Elise says, glancing up at Dale. Her hair brushes the side of his face. “You should go lie down. I’m fine here. I’ll let you know if I’m missing anything, and I can let myself out.”
Dale nods because he’s having trouble taking a full breath and a little rest will do him good.
“And I see here you’re only reconciled through February,” Elise says, continuing to tap on the keyboard as she talks. “Is that right?”
Dale shrugs. He used to have an accountant, back when he could afford one, who took care of everything.
“Just download your bank statements before I come back next time,” Elise says as he starts up the stairs to the bedroom that’s mostly empty because Patty keeps coming by and taking things when he isn’t home. “Don’t you worry. I’ll get you all straightened out.”
By the time Dale wakes again, he’s sweated through his T-shirt and the sheet is damp where his head is resting. Without moving, because he’s stiffened up while he slept and maybe all the sweating is a sign of infection or a fever, he reaches for his pillow. Not finding it, he sits up. Both pillows are gone, as well as the blue comforter Patty bought for them last Christmas. On Patty’s side of the bed, where her head used to rest, is one of her notes. She leaves them when she comes and goes with more of their belongings. This time, she’s taken the pillows right from under his head and the comforter from on top of him. She’s even taken the top sheet. He picks up the note and unfolds it. This is the last time. I won’t be back.
Downstairs, the house is somehow quieter than before, because Patty is finally gone for good. His office chair is pushed up tight under his desk, the keyboard is centered, and the lights are off. Walking across his office, he flips open the slats on the plantation shutters and looks down on the street. The squared-off car is still parked two doors down. Pulling back, he closes the slats because even the filtered light is hurting his eyes, which is probably a sign of a concussion, and the spot between his eyes is pounding and he’s still worried about the ache in his side. Not only is Patty gone for good, but it’s as if Elise was never here, which makes the quiet in the house heavier. And then he gets a whiff of her lavender-scented lotion and smiles.