1 Margarita Nights

The
Suncoaster
blew up at four-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon in late January while I was setting up for the rush hour at the Sunset Bar and Grill.

I love bars. Like people, each one has its own personality; some are boring, some are stimulating and some are downright dangerous. When you enter a new one it’s always best to stop just inside the door, taking your time until you decide just what kind you’ve got.

The Sunset is the
crème de la crème
of watering holes. On the second floor of a pink stucco building decorated with white Bermuda shutters and tall graceful palms, etched glass doors lead from the lobby of the restaurant into the bar. Black-and-white photographs of Key West in the thirties line the Cypress-paneled walls. Overhead, two giant fans on pulleys stir air smelling of old leather chairs, long ago Cuban cigars and expensive perfume.

Early evening is my favorite time of day at the Sunset. Quiet, but with a sense of waiting in the air—waiting for something that hasn’t quite arrived but you know it’s coming. That day, Sinatra was singing in the background about Nancy with the laughing eyes while the ceiling fans slowly turned.

Across the bar from me sat the same two guys who were there every day about that time. The three of us, Brian Spears, Clay Adams and me, Sherri Travis, had the bar to ourselves. It was early yet. Things would heat up fast enough, but in the meantime we were doing what we always did, sharing life.

“Time to feed the kitty, children,” Brian Spears announced and began collecting everyone’s donation for the weekly Florida lottery. A lawyer in his late sixties, Brian would be retired except for an ex-wife, twenty years younger, with a better lawyer. He tells anyone who will listen that he’ll be practicing law until the grim reaper closes his case. The buttons of his dress shirt strained under the load of his paunch as Brian, at least fifty pounds overweight, shoved my contribution to improving Florida into his shirt pocket.

“Heard from that godawful husband of yours, Sherri?” he asked.

“Not since he climbed up my balcony Sunday night.” I went back to slicing lemon wedges. “And if I never hear from him again it will be too soon.” I’d married Jimmy when I was nineteen and stuck it out for damn near nine years, but last spring I’d finally left him. It was over but Jimmy didn’t get it, didn’t think I really meant it. For Jimmy, his lying, drinking and sleeping around just didn’t seem to be real good reasons for me to go off him and he was sure I’d be back. My ways of saying no were becoming more and more dramatic.

“That man has made you bitter,” Brian complained, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “He’s spoiled you for the rest of mankind. What good is a woman who doesn’t believe in love?”

“I believe in love,” I protested. “I love lots of people. Even you guys. It’s romance that took the fall. For me, Cinderella is dead and the prince is gay.”

They made rude sounds so I tried again. “Moonlight and roses hide muggers and thorns.” Again with the raspberry chorus.

“Well, I tried to enlighten you,” I told them. “It’s hard to see grown men who still believe in Santa Claus and fairy tales.”

Brian began to tell a story about some other woman’s godawful. Seems she fed him to the gators in little pieces. Stories of revenge are the only joy Brian takes in life these days. He collects them, weighs them and considers them for the qualities of revenge and suffering they inflict on the errant partner. I was beginning to worry about the mental health of this friend of mine but I paid close attention to this story for future reference. Such drastic action was not only beginning to seem necessary but also downright attractive if I wanted the man I’d married to stay gone.

When Brian finished his story of extreme spousal abuse, Clay Adams said, “Have you thought anymore about selling real estate for me?” His handsome dark face was real serious, but then it always is when he talks about money. Accumulating wealth is his reason for breathing, the altar he worships at. “You’d make real money. You know everyone in town and have more friends than God.” “Ah, but when would I play golf?” Clay looked as if his beer had gone off.

I pointed a paring knife at him. “If I was in an office, working regular hours, I’d only be able to golf six months of the year. Winter it’s too dark to play after work. Where’s the fun in that? This way I get to golf every day and work at night.”

He pointed at his empty beer glass, frowning at my nonsuccess ethic.

I grinned. “A man of your position should drink Scotch, Balvenie at least. Beer doesn’t have the same image as a twelve-year-old single malt Scotch.” “I like beer,” he replied.

“What you like is the price.”

“We’re talking about you. Don’t change the subject.” I sat a sweating mug down on a cardboard coaster in front of him. “Of course you could ask me to marry you. Take me away from the Cypress Island Municipal Course to the Royal Palms.”

His broad forehead wrinkled in a frown. “You’re just crazy enough to marry someone for a golf membership.”

“I’m going to consider that a maybe,” I told him and went off to serve some newcomers.

It was nearly nine when Cordelia Grant slipped in. She was dressed in a crisp white blouse and navy skirt, probably on her way home from choir practice. She stood just inside the door, holding her pocketbook in front of her with both hands. She looked a round, about as wary as a virgin at a Hells Angels reunion. For a Fundamentalist Baptist like Cordelia, stepping over the threshold of a bar was like crossing the town line into Sodom or Gomorrah.

Everything about her was pale—pale gray-blue eyes, pale eyebrows, pale face and hair so blond it was almost white— and this lack of accent lent her face a strangely naked look. Her eyes locked on me. She walked stiff-legged to the bar, ignoring Jeff when he tried to serve her. She hadn’t come in for a drink.

“I have to talk to you,” she said in her breathless, childlike voice. I led the way down the hall, past the washrooms, to the emergency exit where I held the door open for her. Nudging a wooden block into place with my toe so the door wouldn’t lock me out, I stepped out onto the metal grill into a balmy Florida night smelling of asphalt, fried food and garbage. I leaned back on the metal railing and waited.

Cordelia took a deep breath and said, “Please let him go, Sherri. The children and I need him.” This was not what I expected.

“He’s all I’ve got,” she whispered and lowered her face onto her hands. She started to cry.

“You think I’m having an affair with Noble?” I asked just to be sure I hadn’t misunderstood.

Her shoulders spasmed and there was a soft meowing sound.

“Cordelia?”

She raised her face and her tears shone in the dim light from the Exit sign.

“You came here because you think Noble and I are having an affair?” She nodded.

“Why? Why do you think it’s me?”

She didn’t have to think about it. “Because when we go out with you and Evan he’s different. More animated. And you and Evan are the only people he really wants to spend time with anymore.”

“Cordelia, the only person I’m sleeping with is Mr. McGoo.”

“Who?”

“Mr. McGoo, my teddy bear. Noble . . .” How could I tell her that Noble Grant was the last person I’d ever go for, even if he wasn’t gay? “Noble and I have never done more than peck each other on the cheek with you standing there. There’s less than nothing between us.” It was true but still I felt like a liar.

“Then who is it?” she wailed.

“You should be asking Noble. Not me.”

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“If we talk about it and it’s out in the open there’s no going back. He might leave me.”

“Is that the worst thing that could happen?”

“Yes,” she said and started to cry again.

I reached out tentatively and patted her shoulder before I slid my arm across her sharp-boned back. She was a grown woman of thirty-two, three years older than me, with two kids of her own, but her fragility awoke protective feelings in me.

Her body felt small and delicate beside mine; her head barely reached my shoulder but there was a correctness about Cordelia that would soon turn matronly, taking her from girlish straight into middle age.