The Key to Paradise (2 page)

Something inside of me finally broke. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t sit here with the man I had planning to marry yesterday and have the relationship moratorium talk. It was taking every ounce of strength in my body not to reach across the gulf between us and slap him across the cheek. To mark him with a scarlet, burning brand of my hand for everyone to see.

I got to my feet and stormed off to the kitchen, opening and closing the cupboards with more force than was strictly necessary as I collected boxes and bags for my things. From there I stomped off down and the hall and barreled into the bedroom before I could stop to think about what happened the last time I had made that walk. The bed was made and the sheets freshly changed. Something Chris had never done voluntarily in his life. No doubt he would pat himself on the back for it later; that he didn’t make me see the crumpled sheets where my life had imploded.

I ripped my clothes off their hangers and jammed them into cartons and paper bags desperate to be in my car driving away far and fast. I knew Chris was standing in the doorway watching me but I kept my eyes pointed in every other direction. My sanity and patience were hanging on by the thinnest strand.
If he says one more thing I’m going to put my fist through this wall.

“We need to talk about the finances before you leave.”

It was like a bucket of cold water had been thrown over me. He couldn’t really mean what I thought he meant. He couldn’t really be talking about…

“We should go to the bank and close the account and divvy up our money. I understand if you’re too raw to do it today but we have to start thinking logically, Livvie.”

“
My
money.” My jaw was clenched so hard I could barely squeeze the words out from between my teeth.

“What?”

“My money! My money!
Mine!
I was the one working and supporting
you
for
us
and
our
future while you were fucking Gina!” Chris took a startled step back. I had never lost control like this before but it felt cleansing like fire was racing through my veins. “If you want to have a conversation about money it begins and ends with you paying me back for five semesters of law school, rent and spending money.”

I grabbed my bags and raced out of there, shoving past him still standing shocked and wordless in the hall. I had managed to pull together my clothes, toiletries and an old family photo album. I didn’t want anything else; everything else seemed saturated with memories and pain.

I threw it all into the back of my old Cadillac, a Frankenstein’s monster of rusting and used parts, and merged onto 95 South. The city lights and skyline of Boston dwindled smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror. I took a deep breath and tried to release the past while preparing myself for the future.

Chapter Two

Olivia

The golden glow of my headlights illuminated the dark maw of Nana’s carport. Shimmering eyes of raccoons disappeared into the night, fleeing from the roar of my engine. I had spent two days on the road and when I finally clambered out of the driver’s seat my butt was numb and four meals worth of road side fast food was roiling in my belly. Feeling stiff and exhausted I pulled my boxes and bags out of the trunk and made my way to Nana’s front door.

I was so tired that I knocked several times before I noticed the fluttering piece of paper taped just below the peephole.

Liv,

At Captain Joe’s. Meet me there.

XOXO Nana

PS Bring cash.

I could have strangled her. Obviously Captain Joe’s was some type of bar. Or maybe it was the name of one of Nana’s drinking buddies. There was no way of telling. She was scatterbrained enough that she wouldn’t have remembered I don’t know where Captain Joe’s is before she scampered blithely out the door.

Frustrated, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and started punching the name into my GPS before realizing I had absolutely no signal. The empty bars blinked at me balefully. Could things get any worse?

As I saw it I only had a few options available. I could sit here in Nana’s driveway waiting until she finally turned up or I could drive around and hope for a better signal or a friendly stranger willing to point the way. At this point in my life, a cool glass of pinot grigio sounded like manna from the heavens so I piled back into my car and headed off down the twisting lonely roads.

I kept my cell phone in one hand waiting for those reception bars to blink back into life but my watch was in vain. The phone remained as useful as a three hundred dollar rock. It was after eleven and the houses were all closed up for the night. Only the gleam of front porch lights broke through the darkness. There were no other cars on the road.

I remembered passing a small shopping center earlier but nothing in this town looked like it would come in the 24 hour variety. Ironically it seemed the only place open in town to get directions at this time of night was exactly the place I was trying find.

I was just about to give up when my headlights crawled over a driveway well illuminated with floodlights. There was a small center console fishing boat sitting on a trailer and I could just make out two jean clad legs sticking out from under the hull. I pulled my car over to the side of the road and rolled down my window.

“Excuse me?”

I heard a muffled curse as the man wiggled out from under the boat. He turned to face me and I was taken aback. He looked like he had stepped off the cover of a romance novel; maybe one starring a rugged cowboy or a lusty pirate king. His hair was chestnut waves brushed back from wide cheekbones and a square jaw. His tight fitting white t-shirt stained with grease did little to conceal the broad expanse of his shoulders or the muscles moving beneath the cotton fabric.
Hello,
I thought to myself.

As soon as the thought passed through my mind, a fresh cramp of pain squeezed my heart. It felt disloyal to be looking at another man.
Not as disloyal as screwing another woman in your bed,
the voice in my head whispered. I was beginning to like her.

“Do you need a doctor or something?” The man asked in a low growly voice. I realized I had been staring off into space while working through my emotions. A blush burned across my cheeks.

“No. I’m sorry. I’m just tired. Can you tell me how to get to a place called Captain Joe’s?”

“Why do you want to go there?” The question was so unexpected it took me completely by surprise. The tone it was delivered in was not at all friendly. In fact, it was just this side of positively icy.

“Why do you care?” I snapped back not liking how the conversation was going. Couldn’t one thing be easy? All I wanted were directions!

“It’s a local bar. Meaning: for the
locals
.” He answered dragging out the last word as if I were simple. “If you’re looking to party you should get back on US 1 and keep going to Key West and Duval Street.” With a final dismissive shrug he turned away.

What is his problem?
The voice in my head asked me and I didn’t have an answer but deep inside I could feel her growling.

“I didn’t realize this was the Lower Keys Board of Tourism. Thanks for the advice but I’m looking for Captain Joe’s.” I answered in a tone matching his own thinly veiled hostility. The voice inside of my head was quickly turning into a bad influence. Reluctantly he gave me directions while I furiously typed them into my phone. I grumbled a thank you but he just turned on his heels and walked away.

Fuming, I pulled back onto the road and took off. What was with people lately? Why was it so hard to just give a stranger friendly directions and let them be on their way? Why did that guy think he had any insight into my life, someone he had only met a whopping five seconds ago?
But damn, he was hot.

“Shut up.” I murmured to myself wholly convinced that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Maybe talking to yourself was normal but arguing with yourself must be some sort of warning sign.

After 15 minutes of driving I noticed that the roads I was travelling on were growing increasing rural. Ghostly shapes of trees pressed in on either side of the narrow lane and blue crabs skittered across the asphalt in the glow of my headlights.
Could that guy have been a big enough jerk to give me wrong directions?
I wondered.

A growing sense of unease was gnawing at my stomach. I was completely lost and had only the directions glowing on my cell phone screen to help me along the way. The last thing I wanted was to run out of gas and end up having to sleep in my car on the side of the road. I had made so many twists and turns I doubted if I would be able to find my way back to Nana’s. Were there alligators in the Keys? Could alligators open car doors? Not without opposable thumbs, right? I begged my harsh inner voice for reassurance but the bitch was quiet for once. Maybe she didn’t know either.

Finally after what seemed like hours but was probably only about twenty minutes, light broke through the trees. I pulled into the parking lot of an old marina where a faded sign read “Captain Joe’s Marina, Restaurant, Bar and Legal Services.” Apparently Capt. Joe was a Jack of all trades.

The bar and restaurant hung out over the water on a sun faded deck, warped by the years and the weather. The ancient pilings holding it up were covered in mussels and sea slime. They looked like they had been placed there when Flagler first built the railroad. Despite its decrepit appearance the sound of laughter and music floated out on the mild night air.

I made my way up the rickety wooden stairs noting the assortment of buoys and life preservers dangling from the ceiling. A carved wooden pirate stood guarding the host station and a stuffed parrot wearing a jester’s cap was holding court at the bar. It looked like Captain Joe had spent the past decade prowling consignment shops and trash heaps for every piece of nautical kitsch he could find. The lacquer of the bar was yellowed and cracking but every seat was filled. The tables were all propped up on piles of coasters as the deck had settled beneath them but they were equally as packed. Apparently Captain Joe’s was the place to be in Tamarind Key on a Friday night.

I saw Nana across the crowd waving to me excitedly. She was sitting at a table with four other women each looking older than the last. I was pleased to see her looking happy and healthy. Despite being eighty years old she hadn’t slowed down one bit. Her curls were still salon coiffed and her face rosy with the heat and no doubt the alcohol. For the first time since I fled Boston I allowed myself to breathe. Above all else, Nana looked like home.

I picked my way through the crowd and found myself swept up into her arms. There’s a certain type of hug only a nana can give. It doesn’t matter if they’re tall or short, fat or skinny. If they smell like sugar cookies or in my case—margaritas. Nanas give the best hugs in the world. I buried my face into her shoulder and squeezed her back feeling some of my tension release. It was a struggle to blink back tears before they spilled down my cheeks.

“Come on, I want you to meet my bingo club.” Nana said ushering me into a free seat. The table was already littered with empty margarita glasses and a harried looking waitress was on her way over with another tray full. “This is Ellen, Verna, Lily and Lois.” She said motioning to each old lady in turn. They all nodded with the exception of Lois who merely blinked at me owlishly from behind her coke bottle glasses. I think she was trying to determine which flesh colored blur was me.

“Linda, honey, I want you to meet my granddaughter Olivia.”

“Hi,” I said turning and smiling at the waitress while trying to keep the flow of names straight in my head.

“Nice to meet you, sweetheart. You want something to drink?”

“Two glasses of pinot grigio would be a good start.”

“You want both at once?”

“Oh yes.”

“Take after your grandmother don’t you?” She said and the whole table laughed. I actually felt light and a little happy. It was strange after alternating between being numb and soul crushingly sad for the past few days.

The fresh salt air blew in from the marina thankfully dissipating the more human smell of the sweaty packed crowd. There was only a handful of people my own age there. Most of them hovered around their fifties. Later I would learn that the flagging economy on the island drove the young people away early in life but later the call of the islands would grow too strong, beating a constant staccato in their minds until they returned home.

Captain Joe’s was not a place for fancy dress. Everyone was wearing tee-shirts and jeans or shorts. People moved effortlessly between tables as if they knew every single person there intimately. I suppose in a small place Tamarind Key that was probably the case. Across the deck one of the patrons stumbled over to a makeshift stage and picked up a guitar. He picked out the first few notes of Jimmy Buffett’s
Margaritaville
before the crowd started booing loudly and pelting him with lemon rinds.

“We don’t take to Jimmy Buffett down here. That’s for the tourists.” Nana told me when I looked at her wonderingly. “So how are you doing?”

“I’m…alive.” I managed to answer. “It’s been hard.”

“You poor dear.” Lily said patting my hand. “My great uncle Silvio had connections in Boston. If you need help dealing with that scumbag you let me know. I can get someone to handle it for you.”

I murmured a quiet thank you wondering if an old lady had just offered to put out a contract on my ex-fiancé.

“You know what they say,” Ellen added. “The best way to get over a man is to get under another one. All of Tamarind Key’s most eligible bachelors are here tonight.”

I looked around at the crowd of men almost all old enough to be my father. Their skin was the texture one would find in a fine leather goods store. It was hardly enough to tempt the memory of Chris and Ms. Red Shoe out of my mind.

“What about Lyle?” Verna asked motioning to a man well into his seventies sporting a sizeable potbelly and the foam of his beer caught in his mustache.

“I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

“Then do you mind if I do?”

Yes, I minded the fact that the mental image of Verna and beer mustache Lyle making out was now dancing through my masochistic brain.

“Not at all.” I answered and Verna scooted up out of her chair and off to flirt with her geriatric Romeo. I shuddered in quiet horror.

“It’s only been two days.” Two days since my entire world had collapsed around me. “The last thing I want to do is date. I need to take some time and heal myself before I can even think about it.”

“Now there’s a viable option.” Nana whispered nudging me gently as if I hadn’t said a word at all. “Landon Fitzpatrick, the most handsome man in all of Tamarind.”

I knew who it was before I even turned. With my recent string of luck what else could I have expected? I swiveled my head and locked eyes with the colossal jerk that gave me directions earlier. I quickly turned back to the table and lowered my head hoping he hadn’t seen me but knowing full well he had. At least there was some solace in the fact that I wouldn’t have to talk to him. He had seemed to like me just about as much as I liked him so there was no risk of him coming over for small talk.