Nature Girl

Twenty-five

Eugenie Fonda sat on the balcony of her sixth-floor room, fanning her freshly painted toes and watching the sun melt like sorbet into the Gulf of Mexico. Her third Bacardi was sweating cool droplets that snaked down her bare tummy.

The sliding door opened, and Gillian St. Croix stepped out wearing camo flip-flops and a baby-blue tank dress that Eugenie had bought for her at a shop in the lobby. She announced that her mosquito bites had practically vanished, thanks to a magical mint unguent recommended by a Moroccan lady at the spa.

“Check out the sunset,” Eugenie said.

“Yeah, it’s awesome.” Gillian arranged herself cross-legged on the other patio chair. “Wanna hear what he said? Ethan, when I called him?”

Eugenie sipped her drink. “I can guess what he said, sweetie. ‘All is forgiven. Come back home.’”

“Yeah, but you know what I said? ‘Find another girlfriend, loser.’ He’s such a loser, not tellin’ me about those dolphins. Makin’ me think they swam off like Free Willie when all they did was hang around and beg for treats like trained poodles.”

Eugenie had heard the story before but she listened politely. Looking south, she wondered if Boyd Shreave had gotten off the island yet. She hoped that he wouldn’t come searching for her, that he wasn’t dim enough to believe he was still in the mix.

Gillian went on, “Ethan doesn’t really care about me. It’s just the sex.”

“Well, he’s a boy.”

“Why are they all like that?”

“Oh, they’re not.” Eugenie was thinking in particular of Honey Santana’s ex, who’d obviously never stopped loving her. There was no such man in Eugenie’s past; even Van Bonneville had quit writing from prison.

“Rate the massage,” Eugenie said.

“Awesome. Eleven on a scale of ten.” Gillian paused and frowned. “Know what? I gotta find a new word. I’m so over awesome.”

“It’s been beaten to death,” Eugenie concurred.

“Hey, how about super? I had a super massage.”

Eugenie shook her head. “Super is over, too. Especially if you’re gonna be a big-time TV weather woman.”

“God, who knows what I’m gonna be.” Gillian laughed. “Did you have the Japanese guy or the deep-tissue redneck? I had the redneck.”

“Me too. Showed me pictures of his darling twin boys.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah,” Eugenie said, “then he took out a vibrator the size of a hoagie and asked me if I was into toys.”

Gillian hooted. “See! They’re all the same!”

Eugenie drained her glass. The sun was gone, the horizon aglow. There were scads of little kids running up from the beach, shouting and giggling and kicking up sand.

“Patience,” she said to Gillian. “That’s the secret. Once you start rushin’ into these things, making lousy choices, it’s awful hard to dig yourself out. By that I mean it’s hard to change.”

Gillian said, “You haven’t done so bad. Look where we are, Genie-the beach, the ocean, rum drinks! The rest of the country’s freezin’ their butts off.”

Eugenie thought: Treading water is where I am. Maxing out my credit card.

“What happens is, you start to give off a certain vibe,” she said. “Why do you think that masseur came on to me and not you? Because he knew, sweetie, that I’m not above fucking the help when I get bored. They’ve got radar for it, men do, the boredom vibe. You be careful about that, okay?”

Gillian went and got a beer from the minibar. She took a slug and said, “Wait for the good ones-that’s what you mean by patience?”

“They’re out there. I know for a fact,” Eugenie said.

“Like Thlocko?”

“Find one from earth, Gillian. His baggage had baggage.”

“But he’s different. I like him.”

Eugenie said, “Me too.”

“Totally not boring.”

“That’s true.”

“Thanks for not sleeping with him. I mean it.”

“Anytime,” said Eugenie.

Gillian tipped the last half of her beer into a clay planter. “I better head back to Tallahassee tomorrow-I’ve gotta buy my books for the new term. What about you?”

“I’m on a non-stop to DFW. Gonna quit my shitty job and start over.”

“Yeah? And do what?”

“Quilts. I hear they’re coming back. Or maybe scented candles,” Eugenie said with a straight face. “Something where I can work at home and never have to meet any jerks.”

Gillian watched a flock of gray pelicans crashing bait in the waves. “What a crazed trip-I mean crazed. Maybe we should, like, celebrate.”

Eugenie Fonda agreed. “I’m thinking lobster,” she said, “and a Chilean chardonnay.”

“Magnificent,” said Gillian with a wink. “How’s that for a word?”

Ninety-one miles away, Boyd Shreave finally got to change his pants.

He’d waited in the poinciana tree until dusk, listening for the two men who had accosted him at gunpoint. Then he had commenced a nervous descent that transpired in stages, the first being baby steps and the second being a spontaneous heels-over-head plummet. By some miracle, he’d landed short of the cactus patch. And although he’d torn off his windbreaker and bloodied his palms on a ridge of loose oyster shells, Shreave was overjoyed not to have crippled himself.

He removed his soiled boat shorts and searched hurriedly through the Orvis bag for a dry pair of Tommy Bahamas. He settled for apple-green Speedos, which he’d packed in the fanciful expectation of appearing well matched with his bethonged mistress on the beach.

In the pup tent that he and Eugenie Fonda once shared, Shreave found an open bottle of water, which he chugged. From Honey Santana’s tent he appropriated bug spray and a small halogen headlamp; from his own gear he took his NASCAR toothbrush and the paperback of Storm Ghoul, for toilet paper.

Choosing an escape route was easy-Shreave aimed himself in the opposite direction of that taken by the men searching for Honey. While cowering in the tree he’d heard two small concussions that might have been gunshots, several minutes apart, indicating that something dangerous was happening on the other side of the island. Shreave headed briskly the other way, flaying a rough path through the vines and bushes and spiderwebs.

There was still a rim of amber along the skyline when he lurched through a slender opening in the mangroves. Heedlessly he waded into the water, the soles of his expensive deck shoes grating across a jagged shoal. He hoped to position himself to signal the first passing vessel, but of course no boats would be coming; mainly dope smugglers and poachers traveled at night through the Ten Thousand Islands, and they were not renowned for their Samaritanism.

The flats were turbid and cold, and Shreave in his glorified jockstrap began to shiver. As darkness closed in, he employed Honey’s headlamp to scan the intricate tree line for the menacing reflection of panther eyes. Instead what he spotted was a shiny tangerine-colored canoe, canted among the spidery roots.

Excitedly Shreave dragged the craft to open water and, on his fourth attempt, bellied himself over the side. With his lacerated hands he snatched up the paddle and felt an exultant rush-at last he would be free of the place!

He navigated Dismal Key Pass with equal measures of zeal and ineptitude. Despite the slack tide he expended more energy correcting his frequent course oscillations than he did advancing the canoe. The exercise served to warm him, however, and present the illusion of pace. Never had Shreave attempted anything so daring as a getaway, and he regretted that neither Genie nor Lily was there to witness it. He chose to believe that they would have been dazzled.

After an hour he paused to rest, the canoe drifting noiselessly. With a stirring anxiety he contemplated the depth of the night; nothing but shadows and starlight and a pale sickle of moon. Far from being soothed by the silence, Shreave was fretful. It was as if he’d been sucked through a time tunnel into a bleak primeval emptiness with no horizons. He couldn’t remember feeling so alone or out of place, and he yearned for evidence of human intrusion-a car’s horn, a boom box, the high rumble of a jetliner.

Not being the spiritual sort, Boyd Shreave saw no divine hand in the unbroken wilderness that lay before him; no grand design in the jungled labyrinth of creeks and islets. Such unspoiled vistas inspired in Shreave not a nanosecond of introspection; when it came to raw nature, he remained staunchly incurious and devoid of awe. He would much rather have been back in Fort Worth, watching American Idol, swilling beer and gorging himself on microwave burritos.

Grimly he picked up the paddle and went back to work. He hadn’t a clue where he was or what direction he was heading, although he suspected that the vast gray body of water to his right was the Gulf of Mexico-no place for a puny canoe. After an hour of ponderous stroking he was in profound discomfort. Unfamiliar with toil, his arms burned, his lower back ached and his abs were cramping. He’d already decided to quit for the night when he heard what sounded like an engine, and the soft slapping of waves against a hull.

Shreave shoved the paddle between his knees and fumbled to activate the small lamp strapped to his forehead. He swiveled his neck owlishly, playing the narrow white beam back and forth across the water until he located the source of the noise: a small flat-bottomed craft motoring parallel to the canoe, about seventy-five yards away. A tall man stood in the stern of the boat, facing away, one hand on the tiller of the engine.

“Hey!” Shreave called out. “Over here!”

The man appeared not to have heard him.

“Help!” Shreave steadied the headlamp, trying to center the light on the passing boat. “Hey, you! Come get me!” he yelled.

The man continued to look the other way. Shreave was nettled; even if the guy was unable to hear him over the motor, he surely saw the flickering from the headlamp.

“What the hell’s the matter with you!” Shreave hollered angrily. “I’m lost out here! I need help!”

The flat-bottomed craft was moving so sluggishly that Shreave wondered if it had mechanical problems. He saw no smoke when he shined the light at the engine, although he noticed two ropes leading tautly from the transom to a lumpish object dragging in the backwash. Shreave couldn’t see what the stranger was towing, and he didn’t care. The guy obviously knew his way around the islands, and Shreave desperately needed a ride out.

“Hey! Over here!” Shreave shouted again. “Are you fucking blind?”

The stranger stiffened, turned and scowled into the light. Shreave sucked in his breath.

It was Genie’s Indian. The one who’d called him a “damn litterbug” and left him to rot in the poinciana tree.

The man’s response was firm and unambiguous. He took his hand off the tiller and held it up, flush in the headlamp’s beam, extending the middle digit for Shreave’s mournful contemplation.

Shreave dimmed the light, slumped low in the canoe and waited for the sound of the motorboat to fade away. Then he picked up the paddle, cursed under his breath and went back to work.

Sister Shirelle was bent over at the waist, bracing her arms against a storm-toppled pine, when she saw the light.

“Look there!”

Brother Manuel was deeply absorbed-gripping her by the hips, thrusting from behind while breathlessly invoking a deity. His robe was undone and his chest beaded with perspiration. The other moaners were well out of earshot, dancing and spinning around the fire pit on the beach.

“Brother Manuel, there’s a man on the water!”

And indeed there was a man, pale and spectral, wading across the shallows and pulling a fruity-colored canoe. A harsh pinhead of light shone from the stranger’s brow.

“Help me!” he called out.

Brother Manuel withdrew from Sister Shirelle and hastily tucked his unholy wand.

“Is it Him?” Sister Shirelle rose upright, tugging at her undergarments. “Is it our Savior, home at last from His divine voyage?”

“Hush, child,” whispered Brother Manuel. “Compose thyself.”

The man sloshed ashore and, after removing a canvas satchel, flipped the canoe to drain the water. He was garbed in a flower-print shirt and an alarming green pouch of a swimsuit, to which Sister Shirelle’s gaze was wantonly drawn.

“Are you ailing?” Brother Manuel inquired.

“Freezin’ my cojones off,” the man said. “I’d kill for one of those bathrobes.”

“What’s your name, brother?”

“Boyd.”

“And how long have you been at sea, Brother Boyd?”

“Too damn long,” the man replied through chattering teeth.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” Sister Shirelle exclaimed.

“You have?”

“Tell him, Brother Manuel!”

The self-anointed pastor of the First Resurrectionist Maritime Assembly for God was skeptical. His sermonizing to the contrary, he’d never seriously expected to run across Christ the Almighty during a camping trip in the Everglades. However, not wishing to dampen Sister Shirelle’s spiritual fervor-which often overflowed rather lustily-Brother Manuel kept his doubts to himself.

“We’ve been faithfully awaiting a visitation,” he acknowledged to the stranger, “or any holy sign from the Father.”

“Know what? I just wanna go home. You folks got a boat?”

“The hands! Behold the man’s hands!” Sister Shirelle began to hop, her formidable and unbound breasts jouncing in tandem.

With impatience Brother Boyd directed the headlamp toward his own pudgy palms, which were raw and oozing as a result of his tumble from the tree. He failed to behold the stigmata resemblance.

“I had a fall,” he explained.

Brother Manuel nodded. “As have we all. Come.”

They led the stranger down the shore to the campfire, where the other moaners ceased their dancing and fell quietly into a half circle. The women were eyeing Brother Boyd’s bathing attire in a manner that made him uncomfortable.

“Can I borrow one of those robes?” he asked. “How about a beach towel?”

Brother Manuel steepled his long pink fingers and began: “Sister Shirelle and I were praying together in the woods, communing most strenuously, when we saw a mysterious light-like a star descending from the heavens-and then, lo, this weary mariner appeared on the water. Show them your hands, Brother Boyd.”

The moaners gasped at the sight. “It is He!” exulted one of the women.

“No, wait!” one of the others interjected. “He could be that poacher-the lawless heathen we were warned about by the visitor with the boy. He was said to have a damaged hand, remember?”

Brother Boyd looked stricken. “I’m not a poacher. I’m in telemarketing!”

Sister Shirelle hastened to his defense. “But there are wounds on both His hands, not just one. And He has arrived alone by sea, exactly as foretold by Brother Manuel, bearing a cargo of forgiveness and salvation for all worldly souls. His long, lonely crossing is over.”

Another female moaner raised an arm. “What’s up with the Speedos?”

Sensing that doubt was coiling like a serpent amid his flock, Brother Manuel sidled close to Brother Boyd and whispered, “I’ll take it from here, dog.”

“Hey, are those rib eyes on the fire?”

“Sisters, brothers, listen and be joyful!” Brother Manuel commanded. “Tonight He appears to us just as He departed this world more than two thousand years ago-nearly naked, wounded and pure of soul. Instead of thorns He is crowned with light, the symbol of hope and rebirth!”

Here Brother Manuel spread his arms to righteously welcome Brother Boyd, who appeared to the other moaners as somewhat lacking in serenity.

“What are you goony birds talkin’ about?” he demanded.

Sister Shirelle gently spun him by the shoulders, the beam of his headlamp falling upon the stark wooden cross that was planted on the dune.

Brother Boyd stared and said, “You’re shitting me.”

Sister Shirelle put her plump lips to his ear. “See? We’ve been expecting you.”

“Rejoice! It is Him!” a bearded moaner crowed.

“No, He!” corrected the woman who had earlier commented upon Brother Boyd’s swimwear.

Sister Shirelle pressed the case: “Can there be any doubt that He is our Savior? Is today not the Epiphany?”

The moaners murmured excitedly, and then one spoke up: “But wait, sister-the Epiphany was, like, last Thursday.”

“Close enough!” boomed Brother Manuel.

Whereupon a spontaneous frolic broke out, the moaners twirling and gyrating euphorically around the fire. Bottles of cabernet were passed around, and before long Brother Boyd worked up the nerve to ask Sister Shirelle if they intended to nail him to their homemade cross. She laughed volcanically and tweaked his chin and said he was an extremely cute Messiah.

“I’m in sales,” he whispered confidentially.

“And a carpenter, too, don’t forget.”

“C’mon, sis, tell me-where’s your boat?”

“As if you needed one,” she said with a wink.

His headlamp illuminated the blue stenciling on the front of her white robe. “Four Seasons, huh? Not bad,” Brother Boyd remarked. “That’s my kinda religion.”

“Are those goose pimples on your arms?”

“Duh, yeah. It’s cold as a well digger’s ass out here.”

“Well, we definitely can’t have our Savior catching pneumonia. Here-” With an operatic flourish, Sister Shirelle shed the plush hotel garment and presented it to him.

“God bless you,” said Brother Boyd, liking very much the way it sounded. “God bless all of you.”

Honey Santana said, “Don’t die on me, you big bonehead.”

“Slow it down.” Perry was laid out and breathing hard in the bottom of the skiff. She’d given him Louis Piejack’s last Vicodin but he was still in monstrous pain.

He said, “You’re gonna hit an oyster bar, and this ain’t my boat.”

“Is Fry asleep?”

“Can’t you hear him? He snores worse than you.”

“Not nice.”

“Slower, Honey. I promise I’m not gonna die.”

She eased off the throttle. “Me and my two sick boys,” she said. “You with your hip shot away, and him with a concussion. Knuckleheads!”

“See the channel markers?” Perry asked.

“Sure do.”

“Remember, stay left of the red ones and right of the greens.”

“I heard you the first time, Captain Ahab. You’re still bleeding, aren’t you?”

“I got a pint or two left. Is your jaw broke?”

“It looks worse than it feels.”

“I doubt that. Was it Piejack?”

Honey nodded. “My own dumb fault. I tried to be Wonder Woman.”

“Tell me what the hell you were doin’ out here-and no more bullshit about an ‘ecotour.’”

So she told him everything, beginning with Boyd Shreave’s sales call from Texas. He didn’t interrupt her once.

After finishing, she said, “Perry, this is all my fault and I’m sorry.”

“It ain’t exactly normal. You know that.”

“I’ll go back to the doctor. I’ll try the pills again.”

“Won’t work, Honey. This is how you are. It’s how you’ll always be.”

“Please don’t talk like that.” But she knew he was right. “Can I ask you something-was that the first time you ever killed somebody?”

“It’s been a week or two, at least.”

“I’m serious, Perry! I never saw a man die before-have you?”

“Not like that,” Skinner said. “Not killed by a damn guitar.”

“But Fry didn’t see it, right? The Indian was on top of him.”

“I’m pretty sure he didn’t see a thing.”

Honey said, “You’ve got no idea how sorry I am-”

“Just watch where you’re goin’.”

The pass opened into a broad expanse of water, and she spotted a twinkle of lights-Everglades City. It had to be.

Perry lifted his head. “Good work, babe. We’re almost home.”

Chokoloskee Bay. She remembered the first time she’d been there at night. Perry had brought her out in a crab boat to see the sunset. They drank some champagne, made love-the water glassy at dusk and the sky like grenadine. He’d asked if she was sure about staying with him. Said he’d understand completely if she changed her mind and went home to Miami.

This was two days before they got married.

It’s the middle of nowhere, not everybody can handle it, Perry had said. Especially the skeeters.

Honey had told him she’d never seen anyplace so peaceful, which remained a true statement nearly twenty-two years later. When she’d told him that she wanted to visit all ten thousand islands, he’d promised to show her every one. Build a fire and make out on the beach. What woman could have said no?

Fry stirred in his father’s arms. Honey was chilled to think that she’d almost gotten both of them killed.

“Perry, I’m gonna dock at the Rod and Gun, okay?” She was in a hurry because of all the blood.

“Hey, Perry?”

The channel was well marked, so she goosed the engine and planed off the skiff.

“Perry, you awake?”

She sped up the mouth of the Barron River, eased back the throttle and-as if she’d done it a thousand times-kissed the bow against the pilings of the old Rod and Gun Club.

“Perry!”

Nothing.

Fry sat up, rubbing his neck. He said, “I got the worst headache in the history of the human race.”

“Can you run?”

“What for, Mom?”

“Just answer me. Are you good to run?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“Then go get help.” Honey boosted him to the dock.

Fry looked down at his father lying in the boat. “Dad? Hey, man, wake up!”

“Just go,” his mother told him. “Fast as you can.”

One day not long after Fry was born, Perry Skinner had brought home a CD by the Eagles, a group that he claimed was more country than rock. He’d told Honey there was a song on the record that reminded him of her, and she’d picked it out immediately: “Learn to Be Still.”

At first her feelings were hurt because it was the story of a restless woman who heard voices; a woman who wouldn’t slow down long enough to let happiness find her. But the more Honey had listened to the lyrics, the better she’d understood that Perry wasn’t being mean; he was trying to let her know that he was afraid of what was happening.

But if I hit the brakes now, she remembered thinking, I’ll skid for ten years.

The funny thing was, Honey secretly liked the song. It made her feel that she wasn’t the only one struggling with that particular demon. One afternoon, Perry had come home early from the docks and caught her playing the CD, but she’d insisted it was only because she had the hots for Don Henley.

Although Honey couldn’t carry a tune-Fry forbade her from singing in the car; said she sounded like a wildcat riding a jackhammer-she knelt down, gathered Perry Skinner close and sang to him. As always she switched the words to first person.

“Just another day in paradise…”

Listening to his choppy breaths.

Squeezing one of his wrists, counting the heartbeats.

“As I stumble to my bed…”

Feeling the sticky warmth of his blood on her bare leg.

Thinking that he’d promised her he wouldn’t die, and he’d always kept his word, for better or worse.

“Give anything to silence…”

She shifted him slightly in her arms so that she could watch his face in the lights from the dock.

“These voices ringin’ in my head…”

“Have mercy,” Perry said weakly.

Honey giggled with relief. “Ha! You want me to stop?”

“No offense.”

“’Member those letters I wrote you in prison? Did you read ’em all?”

“Except for the ones that started ‘Dear Shithead.’ Where’s Fry?”

Honey said, “It’s so perfect out here. Look at the sky.”

“Better than church.”

“Oh, so much better.”

Perry coughed. “Damn. I’m all run-down.”

“How come you filed first? Don’t you dare go to sleep on me! Let’s discuss this stupid divorce.”

He said, “The stars are burnin’ out one by one. I’m tired, babe.”

Honey shook him. “Nuh-ughh, buster. We’re not done yet.”

She heard a siren. She prayed it was real.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said. “Wake up, Skinner.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You are too.”

He said, “Hush now. Doesn’t it hurt to talk?”

“Wake up or I’ll start singin’ again. Honest to God.”

He smiled but didn’t open his eyes.

“You hear that?” she asked. “That’s the ambulance.”

“I don’t hear a damn thing.”

“Yes you do!” she said. Please tell me you do.