Beach Town (22 page)

“She's had to work late at the Inn tonight, and then I think she was spending the night with one of her girlfriends. Courtney maybe? I don't keep up with all those girls.”

“Raising a teenager must be hard, even in a small town like this one.”

“Allie's a good girl. Stubborn. I guess she gets that from the Thibadeaux side of the family. I hate to think what she gets from her mama's side.”

“Do you worry about her—and boys?”

Ginny exhaled another thin plume of smoke. “Eb worries more about her than I do. Maybe that's because he remembers what it was like, trying to get into the pants of every pretty girl in town, back in the day. He keeps an eye on all these fellas coming around Allie.”

Greer managed to choke back a surprised laugh.

“Allie knows what's what. One of her best friends since kindergarten, Haylie Bostwick? She got pregnant last year. Had to drop out of school. Her boyfriend's in the Navy now, and Haylie, she and the baby are living in a double-wide trailer with the boyfriend's mama, over in Chieftain.”

“That's an unfortunate reality check for a seventeen-year-old,” Greer said.

“Allie's not gonna be another Haylie Bostwick,” Ginny said. “She's been talking about going to school to be a writer since she was just a little thing. She's taking all honors classes. Eb's been setting college money aside for her since she was a baby.”

“Of course he has,” Greer murmured.

Ginny gave Greer a coolly assessing look.

“You don't think much of my nephew, do you?”

“I'm sure he's doing what he thinks is right for this town. It's just that I happen to disagree with him.”

“Anything else that's bugging you about him?” Ginny took a long sip of beer, then tossed the empty bottle in the vicinity of the recycling bin, where it landed with a loud clink of glass against aluminum. “Come on. It's just us girls talkin'.”

Greer laughed nervously. “It doesn't matter what I think of Eb. My job is to help get this film made. When that's done, hopefully, I'll move onto my next project.”

“And how is this movie of yours going to make our little town look?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. I've got eyes in my head, you know. I've seen what those cameramen are filming around here. The empty storefronts, that sorry-looking old oyster cannery, this motel. You picked Cypress Key because you think it's sad and ugly and depressing. Isn't that right?”

“No!” But Greer knew she'd blown her cover. “We needed a place that looks real. Not like Disney, not like those candy-colored new fantasy towns in the Panhandle. Cypress Key is the real Florida. That's what the director wanted me to find. And that's what I found here.”

“We haven't always looked like this. And we're changing, you know.” Ginny tilted her head up, her eyes watching the gently rustling palm fronds at the edge of the patio.

“We are so close. When we get that grant money, and get the pier and the casino all fixed up, that'll be the first step back for Cypress Key.”

“I hope so,” Greer said politely. She took another sip of beer. “It's certainly a beautiful setting, with the beach and the bay.”

Ginny's laugh was low and raspy. “You don't know Eb Thibadeaux. He's always been a leader. Always been somebody who could get things done when nobody else could. Or would.”

“Has he always had a messiah complex? Always believed he could save the world?”

“I know you think you're being sarcastic, but Eb really did save Cypress Key when he became mayor. And that's not just his aunt talking. You can ask anybody else in town and they'll tell you the same thing.”

“And how did he manage that?”

“Living out in California like you do, you probably don't know about the big stink we had in this town. I'll save you the details, but all you need to know is that two years ago our illustrious mayor and two other members of our city council went to prison for taking bribes from the paper company. They were bought and paid for by Peninsula Paper Company, and they sold this town down the same damn river they allowed to be polluted for all those years. The state's attorney came in and did a big investigation, and now all three of those crooks are in the federal prison up at Eglin.”

“Wow.”

“We very nearly lost our city charter,” Ginny said. “Some people in town, they came to Eb, and they basically begged him to run for mayor. After that big scandal, nobody else would touch the job with a ten-foot pole. Eb sure didn't want the job, either. He was thinking about handing his share of the motel back to me and taking a job in Texas, where he'd worked before.”

“Why'd he change his mind?”

“He never really said, but I'm pretty sure it was because of Allie. That girl has had a tough time of it. This is the only real home she's ever had, and for damn sure the only stability she's had in her life has been me and Eb.”

Greer found herself twisting the beer bottle between the palms of both hands.

“Some people around here think Eb is a soft touch. He bought the grocery a year ago, and it was the same kind of thing. The couple that owned the store, the husband had a stroke and his wife couldn't run it by herself. They were fixing to close it up. That would have been a disaster for us. You know what the closest store is besides the Hometown?”

“Not really.”

“There's one of those dollar stores in Chieftain. They sell expired canned goods and some frozen foods from companies you never heard of, and maybe some bread and milk and beer,” Ginny said disdainfully. “That's thirty miles from here. We got poor people with no transportation and people on fixed incomes—where would they get meat and fresh vegetables if the Hometown closed?”

“Good point.”

“He's made a success of that store,” Ginny said proudly. “Hired a proper butcher, opened that little deli counter. He's started buying produce from local farmers, too. You call that a messiah complex? I call that a decent human being who cares about the people around him.”

“I stand corrected,” Greer said. “But I still disagree with the high-handed way he gets things done.”

Ginny stubbed her cigarillo out in the ashtray. “High-handed or not. He gets it done. And that's what this town needs.”

Now those gray eyes were studying Greer in a way that made the younger woman squirm in her seat.

“You ever lived in a small town?”

“Not really. I was born and raised in and around L.A.”

“Got family back there?”

“Just my grandmother. My mom died two months ago.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“I'm an only child of an only child,” Greer said.

“What about your father? Is he still around?”

Greer wondered where this line of questioning was going, but Dearie taught her early never to be rude to her elders. And somehow, that lesson had stuck.

“My parents split up when I was only five. So I was raised by a single mom.”

“But he's still alive, right?”

Greer nodded, thinking about the text she'd received earlier in the evening. The one she still hadn't answered.

“I haven't seen him in years. I think he actually lives not far from here. Alachua?”

“Little over an hour away,” Ginny said, nodding for emphasis. “He didn't beat you, did he?”

“No.”

“Alcoholic?”

“Not that I'm aware of.”

“Criminal?”

Greer laughed. “Now I know where Eb gets his direct way. No. As far as I know, my father isn't a monster. He's just … not somebody who's been in my life. Not in a really long time.”

“I had a good dad,” Ginny mused. “He and my mother were married for fifty-two years. My brother Julian, that's Eb's dad, he was a good man, too. Is still, but he's got dementia now, bless his heart. Allie, she didn't get that lucky. Her dad, Jared? He's just sorry. His mama never could see it, thought Jared hung the moon, but everybody else in this town, they could tell you stories about Jared.”

“Does Allie see him?”

“No,” the old lady said sharply. “His mama sends him a little bit of money, which he's allowed to use for cigarettes and candy and things like that, but Jared wasn't really in Allie's life before he went to prison, so there's no need for her to see him now.”

“Kind of sad,” Greer said, barely suppressing a yawn. She stood slowly. “I'm dead on my feet. Thanks for the beer, Ginny. And the company.”

“Glad to have you.”

“Oh. And I meant to tell you, thanks for getting Eb to replace the air conditioner in my room. The new one works so much better.”

“You're welcome, but I didn't know anything about that. He must have done it on his own.”

 

25

It was only eight o'clock on the West Coast. Greer scrolled down her contact list and tapped her grandmother's number.

The cell phone had been Greer's Mother's Day gift to Dearie the previous year. Lise had been apprehensive about the idea. “She'll just lose it, or end up accidentally calling Sri Lanka or something. Just give her some dusting powder or a box of candy, for God's sake.”

But Greer had been insistent. Work sometimes kept her too busy to go see Dearie, for weeks on end, and she didn't want to lose contact with her grandmother.

The phone had been a huge hit, instantly upping Greer's stock as favored, if only, grandchild. Not only had Dearie not lost the phone, she'd amazed everybody with her quick adaptation to the technology, sometimes texting Greer photos of her dinner tray, or candid photos of the appalling fashion choices made by her nursing home contemporaries.

Three rings, then four. Greer heard a recording of her own voice. “You've reached the cell phone mailbox for Deidre Kehoe. Please leave a message.”

Greer spoke as loudly as she could without shouting. “Dearie, it's Greer. I saw I had a missed call from you. Call me back, but not too late, okay? I'm down in Florida and it's already eleven here.”

Her skin felt sticky from the insect repellent, so she showered and scrubbed the war paint off her face, then climbed into bed with her cell phone. No telling when Dearie might call back.

Or maybe Clint would try to call again. She opened Facebook on her phone and found his page. She scrolled down the photos on his timeline for clues about her absentee father's life. Nothing very remarkable here. Clint holding up a large fish, Clint raising a beer toward the camera, Clint and two other men posing in front of his beloved orange Dodge Charger, Clint with more old cars. If there was a constant in her father's life, it seemed to be cars.

The most recent photo, dated a week ago, showed that he was now clean shaven, although he still wore his ever-present ball cap with the bill turned up.

“He's probably bald as a billiard ball,” Greer muttered. She noted that his status was “single” and that only a few of the photos he'd posted included women. She scrolled on, past more car and fishing photos, then stopped abruptly when she found one he'd posted nearly a year ago, for Throwback Thursday. The photo was in murky purple tones, but there it was: Clint and Lise seated on a beach somewhere, grinning into each other's eyes, with a blond, diaper-clad toddler seated on Clint's lap.

Greer clicked and enlarged it, then stared down at this family photo she'd never seen before. In the enlarged version she could see the steel framework of the pier in the background, which meant they were at the Santa Monica beach.

The first thing that struck her was how young and happy the adults looked. Lise's hair was pulled on top of her head in a scrunchy. She wore an off-the-shoulder T-shirt, low-cut black bikini bottoms, and huge round-frame sunglasses. Clint wore cutoff blue jeans. He was bare chested and sunburned and rocking a righteous mullet and a full-on Fu Manchu.

And baby Greer? She wore heart-shaped pink sunglasses. Her chubby legs and arms were coated with sand and she was waving a red plastic shovel.

Clint had typed “THE GOOD OL' DAYS” as the photo's caption. Greer sighed and closed out the app.

*   *   *

She fell asleep with the cell phone on her pillow, which meant she felt it vibrating before she heard the ring.

Her voice was thick with sleep. “Hello?”

It was Dearie. “Don't tell me you're asleep already.”

Greer rolled over and looked at the clock radio on the dresser, then sank back down on her pillow. “Dearie, didn't you listen to my message? I'm in Florida. It's one o'clock in the morning here.”

“Sorry.” She didn't sound the least bit contrite. “I was watching my shows.
Real Housewives
came on, and I guess I lost track of time. What are you doing all the way out in Florida?”

“Working. Remember, I told you last time I visited.”

“Why were you calling me?”

Greer yawned. Sometimes, talking to her grandmother felt like she was Alice in Wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole. “You called me first.”

“Oh. That's right. Work going all right? You meeting any nice fellas?”

“Work's good. I don't have time for fellas. Even if there were any nice ones.”

“Well, you'll never meet any good ones in the business you're in,” Dearie said tartly. “Not any straight ones, anyways.”

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Oh. That's right. I was wondering if you could put some more money in my account. I'm a little short this month.”

“Are you playing Candy Crush again? I thought we decided that was a bad idea for you.”

“
We
didn't decide it. You butted into my business and took it off my phone. But I figured out how to put it back on there.”

“Swell. But I promised Mom I wouldn't underwrite your bad habits.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the phone. When she finally spoke again, Dearie sounded old and defeated. “Sometimes I forget she's gone. Do you do that?”