Chapter 1
We landed in rural Florida on a sunny Friday morning in what seemed like five hundred-degree heat. The air was stifling and so humid I felt like I was wearing a pair of long underwear in August. My entire body began to sweat and my hair was huge. Voluminous. My fashion forward seven-year-old had steamed up, too. Her normally neat, sleek red ponytail had been replaced by a burning bush of humidity curls. She looked like Annie on a bus tour through the rural south. Weather in New York was nothing like this. We had four distinct seasons and none were called inferno.
Lisa, my best friend and the sister who stepped into place when my own sister was killed, never mentioned the weather when she called and practically demanded that Zoey and I make this trip. When her husband Adam dropped the bombshell that he was taking a job in the Deep South to work as an assistant to Senator Downes, Lisa and I were stunned and reluctant, but she knew there was no point in arguing. We knew Adam was driven, and that a career in politics was always his goal; we just never remotely considered the possibility that it was in God-Knows-Where. Ad explained that this move was an integral part of “the plan” (a term he used when discussing their future), that “timing and location” were beyond his control, and it didn’t matter anyway because nothing was going to interfere. Thanks to the connections Lisa’s father had made through his time at Yale, the plan took off more quickly than expected.
“But you’re in Florida . . . in Banjoland,” I had said, letting my northeastern code word for that foreign land down south where they play banjos like in the movie Deliverance, slip out inadvertently.
“Lots of people come to Florida, and some never leave,” she stated factually, as if this should influence my decision.
“Lots of people over eighty,” I said.
She wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“I’m serious, Mel,” she said, short for Melanie—everyone else calls me Lanie. “You and Zoey need some distance from everything. . . that happened,” she said cautiously, “and I’ve only seen you a handful of times in 2 years. Two years, Mel. That’s much too long.”
And that’s how it started.
I had no real attachment to SoHo anymore, except its routine familiarity. Maybe it would be good for me and Z to get away and make a clean break. That way when the time was right, I could tell her everything. I could make sure she heard it honestly, from me, and that she understood. But start over in Banjoland? Not bloody likely.
And now we were here, ostensibly for a visit, finally in the Sunshine State. I could put up with a little heat if it meant finally seeing Lisa again after all this time.
My spirits were high. Maybe Banjoland was underrated. Maybe it was more contemporary than I thought. My optimism was short-lived as we made our way off the plane and down the stairs onto the tarmac. I took a look around at the world we had just descended through the clouds to greet. This was Banjoland all right. Hot as Hades and not a palm tree in sight.
Zoey took my hand as we walked over the blistering pavement toward the terminal building.
“Mom, where are the palm trees?”
“I don’t know, Z.” That was a good question, actually. Where were the palm trees? This was tropical Florida, wasn’t it? All we could see were some scrubby bushes and a few Cypress trees with stringy dark moss hanging over their slender, knobby branches.
“Mom, are you sure we’re in the right place?”
I had a moment of brief hope. Could we have landed at the wrong airport?
Sigh. “See the sign above the door to the terminal?” I said, pointing. “It says, ‘Welcome to Clarksville, Florida’ (Banjoland’s proper name). This is the right place.”
As we approached the entrance to the building, I noticed a sign attached to the fence at the end of the runway that read, “Beware of Gators.” Even I could fill in the blanks on that little cautionary sign.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I muttered under my breath, sounding exactly like my Irish mother. Gators? I led Zoey toward the safety of the terminal, such as it was.
“Ready?” I said, more to myself than to her.
Zoey yanked my arm away from the door and looked at me with concern on her little freckled face. I almost burst out laughing at her bright red hair halo.
“Mom. . . . Mom,” she said purposefully while rummaging through her Hello Kitty purse. “Remember rule number one! We can’t go in without rule number one.” And with that she held up her cherry lip-gloss. Lisa and I decided many years ago when we first started going on dates that we would never be seen in public without lip-gloss or lipstick on because we felt like it made us feel more confident, look more sophisticated, and seem less vulnerable. It was our magical protective shield. We felt that in some way no harm could come to us, as long as we were wearing our lip-gloss. We called it rule number one.
“Thanks, Z,” I said. I began riffling through my clutch, sure that my lipstick had melted. We had a routine for applying rule number one. We turned to face each other, and I bent over so that we were literally face to face. Though we’d done this many times before, somehow I think we both knew that this time was different. Our future was waiting for us on the other side of the door, but hell, at least we’d look civilized when we met it.
We faced each other, and I bent over so that we were eye to eye.
“Left to right, right to left,” we said in unison as we rolled the color across our lips. “Rub, rub, cheese.” We rubbed our lips together and gave each other a toothy grin to make sure we didn’t have any color on our teeth.
“Ready?”
She nodded. I reached for the door, and we took our first baby step into the great unknown.
“Aunt Leese!” Zoey chirped, and she went running into Lisa’s arms.
“Baby girl!” Lisa picked up my child and hugged her hard. “I love what you’ve done with your new do. Vintage Annie.” She laughed and ran her fingers through Zoey’s auburn bouffe.
The second I saw my sweet friend I realized how much I had missed her. She was almost six months pregnant and looked good . . . really good. Same beautiful, sparkling eyes and fresh, heart-shaped face, same lithe body, except for the small bulge that was now her belly. I hugged her tightly and then stood back to look at her. Wait. There was something different about her beyond the baby bump. What was it? And then I realized. She was wearing overalls.
“Holy Jesus,” was all I could spit out. Damn. I did it again. I had been making a conscious effort to reduce using Jesus (or any form of the Trinity) as an adjective to describe my shock, surprise, frustration, or any other emotion because ever since Z started Catholic preschool she reminded me there would be eternal consequences for doing it. It was more challenging than I thought it would be, simply because growing up in an Irish Catholic household made using these words commonplace. I thought I should get a pass this time, though, because standing in front of me was my stylish, Soho-loving, designer-discount scouting, million dollar-listing-brokering bestie wearing overalls. Camouflage overalls . . . with flip-flops. And her formerly expertly highlighted and glossed chestnut curls were now pulled through the back end of a baseball cap that said, “Bullet Bob’s Discount Ammo.”
“So I look a little different than the last time you saw me?” she asked, before snorting that laugh that told me she thought I was ridiculous as I took in her new look with shock and awe. “I’ll have you know this hat is vintage couture. And camouflage is the new black. And you, my dear, are one to talk. You look like a large piece of steamed broccoli.”
How did she always know exactly how I felt? I did feel like a piece of overcooked roughage. We both laughed then and fell into each other’s arms; and she felt just the same as she always had. My second sister. My best friend. My Leese. But I noticed in that moment that while she was laughing, there was a tension in her body that I hadn’t felt before. An unfamiliar vibe. I chalked it up to the pregnancy, or maybe the humidity.
Lisa left the terminal to get her vehicle while my child and I went to get our luggage. It was hotter in the terminal than it was outside. I almost couldn’t take it. There was a large man standing next to the luggage carousel who was wearing jean overalls with one side unstrapped revealing a sweat-stained Florida Gators t-shirt. He was dabbing the sweat off his forehead with a torn camouflage handkerchief in one hand and holding a beer in the other.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he said, catching my glance at the beer in his hand as he took another swallow. Hoping his next sound would not be a belch, I offered him my luggage ticket, which he waved away and said, “Just show me which ones are yers.”
Zoey, wide-eyed and taking it all in, pointed silently to our matching red Louis Vuitton suitcases (a jackpot find at a consignment place we discovered called Tags On), and he carried them, with a great deal of effort, out to the curb. When I tried to tip him he refused. I definitely was not in New York anymore!
And then Lisa pulled up in a pick-up truck. With a gun rack. And it wasn’t empty.
“Adam thought we should get a family ride now that we are in the family way,” she said, obviously amused at the shocked look on my face.
“A family ride that includes guns?” I said, a little startled. We were bleeding heart Yankee liberal pacifists. We didn’t do guns. And we definitely did not do gun racks.
“When in Rome,” she said, as she pulled out onto the county highway. We passed farm after farm on dusty, seemingly abandoned country roads that were dotted with a wood-framed house here and there. It seemed kind of lonely, and very different from the busy, fast-paced life I was used to.
“Where is everybody? Where are the cafés? Where are the cabs? Where are the homes and the people?” I asked, breaking my silence. “Where is life?”
“Be patient,” Lisa said, continuing to drive along worn, two-lane roads.
She and Zoey chatted happily, discussing hair products (need to control frizz) and Disney World (five hours away). Eventually, we approached a crossroads and entered a small town with two gas stations, a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, and a Dairy Queen. This was absolutely an alternate reality. How could I even think of living in a place like this?
Lisa oriented me to the area. “If you go past the red light down the road a little, the school is on the left and the furniture store is on the right. If you keep going for another twenty-five miles, you run into the next big city.”
The next big city? I was pondering how she could live this far from civilization, when she slammed on her brakes and hit the horn. At the same time, I reached across the seat to stop Leese from hitting the steering wheel, a learned mother’s response. A quick glance affirmed that my child was still strapped in tightly.
What the hell?
Outside, I saw the answer to my unspoken question. A teenager driving a tractor had turned in front of us onto Main Street.
“I forgot,” Lisa said. “Its drive-your-tractor-to-school day.” She waved to the boy on the tractor, and he promptly waved back.
“Are you kidding me? Drive-your-tractor-to-school day?”
“Yes, every year kids that are old enough to drive a tractor, usually thirteen or so, wash them up and drive ’em to school. It’s a big event that they look forward to.”
“Jesus.” Shit, I did it again.
Zoey gave me the side eye and I mouthed, “I’m sorry.”
“I want to ride on a tractor, Mom.”
The only time I’d seen a tractor up close in my life was when we had taken a field trip to a dairy farm in elementary school, and it had taken us over an hour to get there.
“I’ll see what I can do, Z.”
We unpacked our bags, and while Zoey took a nap in preparation for the evening’s events, Lisa and I relaxed with some refreshments—a cold beer in a frosty glass with a lime wedge for me (thank God she remembered), iced tea for her—on the front porch of her two-story wood-framed house. I took in the scene that was laid out in front of me. Everything was lush and green, different than the City for sure, but a pleasant visual change. Their front yard was filled with large oak trees and azalea bushes; the smells of late spring wafted through the air. Squirrels and birds were busy making their preparations for the day. The nearest neighbor was at least a half-mile away. It certainly was peaceful, but it was much too quiet. At least for me. The City noise was a great distractor and its drone a great comforter.
“Do you really like it here?” I asked her, wondering how long it took her to adjust, and wondering if I could.
“I do,” she said thoughtfully, but I saw a sadness creep across her face that I didn’t recognize. “I’m still getting used to it. It’s slower and very different, and Adam, well . . . you know, he’s under so much pressure with the Senator. Everybody’s so nice, but I miss home sometimes.” And then she sipped her iced tea and went silent. I felt like there was something she wanted to tell me, but she was holding back, which wasn’t like her.
I broke the silence because I needed answers.
“Why were you so determined to get me here, Leese? I mean, I know we haven’t seen each other often in these last couple of years, and of course it’s great to see you, but why now and why this week after so many years? It wasn’t just for a visit or to see what “job options” might be available or even the idea of a fresh start for me and Z, was it?”
She got very quiet then. “I need to tell you something,” she whispered. She reached across the porch table, taking my hands in hers.
“Why so serious?” I jokingly whispered back.
She glanced from side to side as if making sure we were completely alone and said slowly and cautiously, “I don’t know how to tell you this, Mel, . . . but I think he’s alive.”
“Who?” A shiver raced up my spine.
Just then, Adam drove up and sprinted out of the car and threw his arms around me.
“Lanie, you look great! And where’s my little lady?”
Zoey came bounding out of the house and Adam picked her up and swung her in the air until she giggled herself silly. He looked over at Leese, as if measuring her mood for a moment, and then smiled broadly at me. “Banjoland activities this evening, Lanie.”
