The Man Who Ivented Florida

ELEVEN

Ford said to Sally Carmel, "You mean you buy this kind of newspaper? Or, what is it-a magazine?"

They had the new issue of the National Enquirer spread out on the table, opened to the full-page story about Tucker Gatrell.

The headline went across the top of the page: FLORIDA'S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH DISCOVERED!

Standing beside Ford, her arm folded over his shoulder, Sally said, "No, it was like I told you. I was standing in line at the grocery-at Bailey's Store?-and I happened to pick it up and leaf through because there were people ahead of me, everybody writing checks. And there it was. I just started laughing when I saw the picture."

All around Ford's living quarters were sacks of groceries-stalks of celery sticking out, the tops of two wine bottles, Asti Spu-mante. There was a twelve-pack of Coors Light with condensation beads showing on the cardboard as the ceiling fan whirled overhead. Sally had been in such a hurry to show him the story that she and Ford hadn't taken time to put the groceries away yet.

"I can't believe he'd pull a stunt like this. No, I take that back. Of course I believe it. Vitamin water, that was hard enough to believe. Now it's the Fountain of Youth."

Sally touched a finger to the paper, reading. She said, "Maybe he didn't tell them that. You know how these papers exaggerate. Maybe he said vitamin water, and they just blew it up to make a better story."

The story read:

Why is native Floridian Tucker Gatrell smiling? Because he has discovered the long-sought and legendary Fountain of Youth, that's why. Gatrell is a Florida cowboy and he and his best pal-his horse, Roscoe!-found the little artesian well bubbling on a forgotten corner of his own cattle ranch in the bayside village of Mango on Florida's southwest Gulf Coast.

According to Gatrell, he and his best pal, along with several other of Gatrell's friends, started drinking the water months ago. All of them have noticed amazing changes in their health.

"I know what it's like to be young again," Gatrell told the Enquirer. "Not only that, but I had Roscoe gelded years ago. Now his reproductive organs have grown back. You would have to be a man to understand what news like that would mean to someone my age!"

Sally said, "See? That's not the way Tuck talks. He'd never say something like that. 'Reproductive organs?' Come on."

"No, I see what you're saying. But that's Tuck. This is exactly the sort of thing he'd do. Do you remember me saying how tricky he was? That's why I didn't want to have any part of it." Ford stepped away from the table and began to put away groceries while Sally continued to read.

"Don't be mad at him, Doc. The old guy's trying so hard."

"Uh-huh, that much is true." He looked over at her briefly. Pretty woman in her go-to-the-grocery jade blouse and Land's End slacks that were pleated, belted up around her lean waist. Brown toes sticking out of her sandals, and that hair of hers, bright as liquid copper, swinging in the light as she bent over the table to read. It made him smile, looking at her. Knowing he could go over to her if he wanted and put his arms around her and hold her, touch her if he wanted, and that it would be okay… and it also made him a little uneasy, knowing they had become much more intimate than he had planned, far faster than he had hoped. Ford told her, "I'm not saying I would change anything."

She looked at him, a soft expression on her face, her eyes moving to his eyes. "Thanks, Doc. Me, neither."

That's the way it had been. For four days? Five days? No, it was Wednesday, so it had been more than a week now. Since… the night after he'd driven to Mango and she'd fixed dinner. Nice dinner, with a candle on the middle of the tablecloth, her face and hair flickering in the shadows, sitting across from him. Moving her food around but not eating much, holding the fork in her long fingers. Ford had had no appetite, either. Being that close to her alone in the same room. They had talked but didn't say much because of that feeling. Like something pressing on his abdomen every time he tried to breathe. Then they were standing over the sink, washing the dishes, talking about something, and the next thing Ford knew, his hand was on her's, then she was in his arms, soapy or sweaty-he didn't know or care-and then they were kissing, their faces wet.

It had almost happened that night, but not quite. Sally had said she wasn't ready yet, because of the marriage. The divorce, she meant. But then they were holding and kissing again, touching, yet it still didn't happen because of something she said they had to talk about.

"I don't know how to… what I'm trying to say is… we should talk about our backgrounds. It's so terrible even to have to worry about it… Do you understand what I mean?"

Ford had understood. He and Tomlinson had spent enough time talking about it. "The Modern Specter," Tomlinson had called it. "The Dark Gift. Because of it," Tomlinson had said, "the human race will never again know total spontaneity. Never again will we know a moment free of the knowledge of our own vulnerability. Or our own mortality. The last retreat has been taken from us."

Which, Ford had thought at the time, was just more spiritual wailing in the face of a serious biological anomaly: a fatal virus, sexually transmitted. But in that instant, in Sally's arms, Ford realized that Tomlinson was close to being right.

So they had talked. Talked all night, nearly. Coyness couldn't be tolerated; discretion became a necessary casualty-one more ghost of romance that had to be abandoned to hard reality. In ways, that kind of complete disclosure seemed to Ford as demeaning as being marched naked through a crowded laboratory. To betray so many past confidences

… to impose upon the privacy of other women he had known. Even though their names were never mentioned, it seemed an intrusion upon the essential privacy of whatever time they had shared, and Ford felt diminished by it. Even so, there was also something oddly sensual in that kind of total honesty. It demanded a complete letting down of facades that at once mocked their frailties but also brought them very close in a very short span of hours.

The next night, after a sunset boat ride at Ford's place, it had happened. The next morning, too. And the late morning. Then again in the early afternoon, the late afternoon, and most of the next night. Once they started, it had seemed, they couldn't stop.

Their first joinings had been enthusiastic but wary, a little self-conscious, and slightly mechanical-he and the woman trying to do everything just right. But then their couplings escalated into a strange kind of binge behavior. They couldn't get enough of each other. The touching, the exploring, the freedom of being naked and alone, just the two of them, free to please the other in any way at any time. Lying spent, sweating, all Ford had to do was look for a moment at her breathing form, the slow lift of abdomen, the pale blue veins of her breasts, the slow pulse of color in her nipples, her deep-set eyes holding him… and his body stirred, ready again.

"You're going to think terrible things about me. The insatiable woman. The way I'm acting."

"No. Never that."

"I'm not like this. I'm really not. I just… feel like I've known you for such a long time-"

"You have."

"And now. To finally let go. I don't know what it is…"

Ford had thought, Lust is what it is, but at odd moments he too had wondered about their behavior. It had, he thought, the flavor of revolt. A kind of wild insubordination in the face of the Dark Gift. Like captives who flipped hand signs through the bars at their captors, the two of them had lunged around, bare-skinned, in an insurrection against the latex shield that ultimately separated them. And it always did. It was always there, the subject of many bawdy jokes that unfailingly brought laughter because the only alternative was to weep-or so Sally had said. The blood and bones make-up of their own bodies could not be trusted. No human's body could ever be completely trusted again.

"We should both get blood tests. I mean… if you think… or would like the relationship to continue."

Ford had almost said something about already driving vials of water to Tampa for testing (he had; a buddy of his would drop the results back in a couple of days) and now she was asking for blood. But he didn't. The subject was too serious. He had answered, "Of course. It's something we should think about," because any less evasive answer would, to him, have seemed like a commitment.

And he wasn't ready for that… and he hoped to hell she wasn't either.

They had split their time together, staying at Ford's place then at Sally's, then back at Ford's again. On Sunday, though, she had arrived with a flight duffel of clothes and her big camera-equipment bag, telling Ford that she had arranged for her neighbor Mrs. Taylor to feed her cat. And Mr. Rigaberto had agreed to take care of Tucker's dog and cattle. Having sold most of his chickens, he had little else to do.

"If you don't mind," she had said. "This way, we can both get some work done."

Ford had thought, She already wants to live together? but he had said, "Great, stay as long as you want," convincing himself that it would be a mistake not to at least give it a try. She was an attractive woman; he enjoyed her company… and hadn't he spent the last few months damning his own loneliness and wallowing in self-pity?

So, for the last three nights, she had stayed with him. She used his skiff to probe the rookery islands in Pine Island Sound, shooting rolls of film. He worked in the lab, shipping off specimens and doing research for his paper on the effects of turbidity and nutrient pollution on sea grasses. Every other day, he checked his sea mobiles, weighing the dripping mass of growing sponges, tunicates, and sea squirts.

They made love. They talked a lot. Each morning he made breakfast for her. Eggs with mango slices. Fish poached in coconut water.

Yesterday, though, Tuesday, she had made a comment that, Ford suspected, foreshadowed an inevitable conflict. He had entered his lab to find her photography equipment, cameras and lenses and filters, spread out on all the tables while she cleaned them. It wasn't unexpected. He had offered her the use of the room, any time. But looking up at him, she had smiled softly and said, "I'm in your way."

"Nope. There're other things I can do."

"We don't have a lot of room here, do we?"

"It's like living on a boat." He had almost added, "That's why I like it," but he didn't.

Last night she had disappeared, and he had walked out to find her sitting on the deck, looking at the water. He had touched his hand to her shoulder, and she had taken it, without looking at him, and held it to her lips. "A lot has happened very fast, huh?"

"Yeah, it has. Are you getting homesick?" Ford hoped he hadn't sounded as wistful as he felt.

"No. Well, I miss my cat. But being with you, that's what I want now."

"It's… been fun."

"But you know. I was sitting here thinking"-she had turned to him, still holding his hand-"I was wondering. Those things you read… about the way people act after a divorce?"

"I've never read them."

"Oh."

"You think we're going too fast?"

"Maybe. I don't know." She had made a fluttering sound with her lips. Frustration. "I don't know what to think. I know I've felt good, being here."

On the rebound? That's what she was thinking about-Ford could almost feel her cerebral electrodes zapping the possibility back and forth. She had loved her husband. She had already told him that. So the conflict was understandable, though Ford could have never brought himself to push the subject. That was Sally's life, her private realm, and small caches of private experience were becoming rare these days.

But there was something he could talk about, something else, he suspected, that had motivated her brief withdrawal.

"Staying here, having to use a rainwater shower and an outhouse. I've been thinking that that must be hard on you. You probably got enough of this when you were a girl?"

Ford had been surprised at her surprise, at the wide-eyed look she'd given him. "How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Break in on my thoughts like that? That is exactly what I was thinking, the instant you said it. And you did it yesterday, too. About the camera mount. How? How do you do that?"

Yesterday, he had seen her looking at his telescope. Then she'd gone over to check the calendar, and he had said, "If you need a camera adapter to get shots of the full moon, there's a photo supply on the island."

But standing alone with her on the deck, Ford had said, "Just a guess."

"I was hoping it was something more. The Spanish have a word for it. Simpatico."

Ford had said, "I'm familiar with the word," but offered nothing more.

A while later, breaking the silence, Sally said, "You love this house, don't you?"

"It's a good place to work."

She had stood then and kissed him. "Then it's where you should be."

That brief uneasiness was gone Wednesday morning, and Sally had dressed to go grocery shopping while Ford worked on the two big glass tanks he was building to do the procedure with his filtering sea mobiles.

Then she had returned with the new issue of the National Enquirer, still reading it now as Ford moved around putting groceries away. He heard her say, "Uh-oh, you're not going to like this."

He stopped. Now what? He leaned against her to read over her shoulder. She was pointing to a bottom section of paragraphs, which Ford skimmed. The state was trying to take Tucker Ga-trell's property to make a park. But how could the state set a price on something as valuable as the artesian well Gatrell had found? Were they willing to pay him what it was worth? Not that he wanted to get rich off it, no; Mr. Gatrell was a simple man. Just a regular working guy. He wanted to share the water with anyone willing to come to Mango to get it. Naturally, he would have to charge a small price-bottles, handling, that sort of thing. He had to make a living, after all. But he was going to sell the water cheap. Help people, that's what Mr. Gatrell wanted to do, the story said. Help people feel young again.

Then the story quoted Tuck: "A number of scientists are already studying the composition of the water. A Florida biologist, Dr. Marion Ford, has already assured me that the water contains unusual properties."

That wasn't Tuck talking; it was the reporter. But Tuck had used Ford's name. How else would the reporter have gotten it?

Ford said, "Damn him. He's gone too far."

"He's trying to get you involved, Doc."

"Of course. But to have my name associated with something like this!"

"I know. He's wrong, he is. But I think he's desperate."

"All the years he's owned that land and done nothing but make a junk heap out of it. Suddenly he's desperate to keep it?"

"I don't think that's the reason he's desperate. I think it has something to do with you." Sally leaned back so that her head pressed against Ford's stomach, a warm physical prompt, asking whether he wanted to talk about it.

Ford kissed her on top of the head. "I'll put the last of these groceries away."

"He's not a bad man. And you certainly aren't."

"Yes, but only one of us is crazy. No, make that two. It must be catching, because now Tomlinson's got it. I have to hunt through some more papers on his sailboat and Federal Express them this afternoon."

Tomlinson had been in Boston since Friday. "Might as well, man," he had told Ford privately. "I can't even stop over at your place for a beer anymore, the musk is so thick. I'm afraid it'll peel my tan off."

Right. What he really wanted was an excuse to go and see his daughter, Nichola, and use a research facility he knew about near Cambridge. "They've got the new Genesis machine for DNA testing, and the head honcho owes me a favor. An automated sequencer that pops everything up on the computer screen, no fuss, no muss. Du Pont makes it. Same folks who gave us napalm. This world, it just keeps getting wackier and wackier."

Even so, Tomlinson had called Ford nearly every day he had been gone. Sounded oddly troubled, too. Sort of deflated, as if running on low batteries. Not at all like Tomlinson, but Ford wasn't the type to press for explanations. Tomlinson told him what books and papers he wanted, and Ford said okay. He was getting to be pretty good friends with the Fedex lady.

Now Ford folded the last of the grocery bags, saying, "I have to find the papers and get them off by three, or they won't make Boston's morning delivery. The way Tomlinson keeps his boat, they could be anywhere."

"Hey… hey." Sally had him by the hand, turning him toward her. "You're upset."

"Nope. I'm not."

"You're tense. I can feel it in your shoulders." She was kneading his neck with her strong fingers, looking up at him, the two of them standing so close, and Ford recognized the gradual transformation of her mood, her body: knees bent, breathing more shal-lowly, the sleepy sag of her eyelids.

"Seriously. I told Tomlinson I'd do it. I don't know why, but I told him, so-"

She pressed her lips to his, sliding them back and forth, back and forth, her tongue moving to lubricate his lips as her right hand slowly moved to her own chest for a time before she began to unbutton the jade blouse, pulling it open to show him the translucent cotton bra full to bursting, stretched taut, holding her. "I can't let you go off like this," she said.

Ford hesitated-he really had promised Tomlinson-but then his hand found the little coupling at the front of the bra. It was automatic now; didn't even have to stop to think about how the tricky thing worked. Then, as he stooped to kiss her, he felt her hands on his belt, sliding down to grip him, and he didn't think about Tomlinson or Tuck or anything else for quite a while.