Hemingway's Girl (2 page)

No one could have fought that long, Papa
.

Her slender forearms flexed to the pole, and drops of sweat mingled with sprays of
seawater, leaving a briny film on her skin. She loved the heat, the wet, and the exertion,
because they made her feel alive, but her muscles quivered from the effort. She glanced
at her watch and saw that it had been only a half hour. Disgusted with herself, Mariella
yelled, “Jake!”

Her son stumbled out of the cabin from his sleep.
She’d insisted he come out on the water to give him respite from his medical residency
and put him back in touch with the sea. It had been too long.

“How big?” He ran a hand through his hair.

“Just about took me over.”

“No shit?”

He checked her line on the railing and followed it with his hand.

“You ready?” she asked.

“We’ll see.” He smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners.

God, he’s like his father
.

Jake grabbed the pole and sat down once his mother moved away.

It was a dance: one at the pole, the other backing down the boat in response to the
marlin’s movements on the line. They took turns until their palms bled. In the end,
three hours later, they were able to tie the rope around the fish’s head, reverse
the boat, and pull the water from the gills to drown it. Then they moved like hell
to get back before the sharks destroyed it.

Back at the Seaport Harbor dock in Key West, they grabbed a couple of idlers to help
haul up the fish and weigh it. When the scale showed three hundred twenty-six pounds,
the small crowd that had gathered around them cheered.

“How much,
hermosa
?”

Mariella looked over and smiled at the wrinkled old man who had pushed through the
crowd. She gave him a hug.

“Quince
,
guapo.”

“You’re givin’ it to him,” said Jake. “That took me hours.”

“Shut up, boy.” Nicolas smacked Jake on the back of the head.

Mariella handed Nicolas her camera, and she and Jake stood on either side of the fish.
The sun shone in her eyes, making it difficult to discern people’s faces in the crowd,
but she thought she saw a large man with a white beard and white hair.

Her heart leaped and she started forward, but as quickly as she’d seen him, he was
gone. She scanned the area where she thought he’d stood, but he had disappeared.

The flash went off, and Mariella was surprised to feel a lump in her throat.

The leaves on the banyan in her front yard hung motionless and nearly indistinguishable
from the night sky. She could still feel the banyan’s presence, though, its great
woody roots strangling some old host tree. She remembered when Hemingway had planted
a banyan at his house and told her its parasitic roots were like human desire. At
the time she’d thought it romantic. She hadn’t understood his warning.

Mariella struck a match and lit her cigarette. Its tip glowed against the darkness,
and a sweet burning scent filled the space around her. Duval Street sang from a couple
of blocks over, but the bugs outside her door were louder. She leaned on the doorframe
and flicked the moths off the screen one by one to clear her view down Whitehead Street.

Bumby and Mouse emerged from the darkness.

“Hello, boys,” said Mariella. She fetched the plate of leftover bits of fish from
dinner and slid it to the ground outside the door. The cats grabbed morsels and retreated
into the shadows.

Her son’s mumbling sleep talk drifted in from the couch where she’d sent him to rest.
She picked up the
Key West Citizen
rolled up outside her door next to his discarded boat shoes, and lined up her own
shoes next to his. It seemed like yesterday that his shoes were smaller than hers.
Now, at twenty-five, Jake was a full head taller than Mariella. She went to him on
the couch and kissed his hair. It smelled like the sea air.

Mariella walked up the stairs to her room, listening to the
comfortable, creaking sound of the wood responding to her steps. She could smell the
aroma of fried fish at the top of the stairs and knew it would sit there for days,
reminding her of her time on the boat with her son. In her room she threw the paper
on the bed and went to wash up in the bathroom. When she returned, something in the
headline caught her eye.

“Papa” Passes

Bell Tolls for Writer

Ernest Hemingway Dies of Gunshot

Moments later, she was vaguely aware of her son’s footsteps pounding up the stairs,
the door thrown open, and his arms around her as she fell to her knees, screaming.
He was unable to console her.

Key West
January 1935

It was his introduction that caused Mariella to burn her fingertips.

“And the referee, the internationally renowned writer,
millionaire
, and playboy Mr. Ernest Hemingway.”

Mariella’s eyes jerked up from her cigarette. He sauntered across the ring, hands
up to the crowd, his whole face a grin. She’d seen him call before, but it was the
first time they had introduced him as a millionaire.

“Ouch!” She dropped the match to the ground and shook her hand as she stepped up to
the chain-link fence to get a better look.

“How goes it tonight?” he yelled.

The crowd at Blue Heaven bordello and playhouse roared and stomped their feet. They
were a hundred poor, black, out-of-work men, with a smattering of whites and Cubans,
and all were his.

“Big Bear from Bahama Village fights visiting opponent Tiny Tim!”

Mariella smiled as Hemingway held up the arm of Tiny Tim, a massive man with coal
black skin, bulging biceps, and a neck as wide as Mariella’s waist. She knew the newcomers
would bet on
him, but she also knew that Big Bear never lost, so she’d bet that way. Her sister’s
doctor bills were piling up and they were late on rent. She needed to win.

A group of noisy, drunken vets pushed by, nearly knocking her over. Mariella straightened
up and tightened her father’s old baseball cap to make sure that all of her hair remained
tucked inside. She had to stop herself from shouting expletives at them, because she
didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She turned back to the fight, but rather
than watch the boxers, she couldn’t take her eyes off Hemingway. Key West was a small
town, so she’d seen him around, but she’d never much noticed him until tonight. His
dark brown hair was a little too long in the back, his shoes were as ratty as hers,
and a rope held up his shorts. He certainly didn’t look like a millionaire.

Her father, Hal, had mentioned Hemingway from time to time when he saw him at the
docks. Hal thought him a decent guy, but her mother had read one of his books and
deemed it vulgar. While this intrigued Mariella rather than putting her off, she didn’t
have time to read. Caring for her sisters and trying to make money consumed her.

More than ever now that Hal was dead.

Big Bear’s every punch made contact with Tiny Tim in the first round. Tim was huge
but uncoordinated, and he tired quickly. By the second round it looked like he’d lose,
and some of the amicable cheers from earlier in the night took on an edge of shock
and outrage. Losing money was no joke.

Hemingway sobered, too. He was into the fight and called it with all the intensity
of a high-stakes referee. Mariella found it interesting that a man of his stature
would participate in a poor men’s boxing match and take it so seriously.

She liked that.

When she finished her cigarette, Mariella licked her sore fingertips and blew on them.
The suspense was killing her, and in
the third round her heart dropped when it looked like Tim would get the better of
Big Bear. That meant she’d lose all the money she’d earned the past week from odd
jobs at the docks. That meant she’d have to beg the landlord for a few more days,
when they were already late on rent. That meant the doctor wouldn’t come when they
needed him. That meant no money for her secret stash.

Mariella felt her heart pounding and cursed herself for betting so much. She was a
damned fool and deserved the tongue-lashing she’d get from her mother. How could she
play with money like that?

Tim’s strength built like a tidal wave. Bear couldn’t get in a punch. Tim had him
cornered. He was all over him, and finally, with sickening ease, Tiny Tim knocked
out Big Bear.

She grasped the chain-link fence and pushed her face into her arms, listening to the
men whoop and holler around her. She felt light-headed and sick, but forced herself
away from the fence and toward home. As she passed the ring, she heard a commotion.
A small white man from the crowd jumped the rope and tried to attack Big Bear, who
sat with his head in his gloved hands.

“You stupid shit,” he shouted. “Give me back my money. I bet all my money on you.”

Mariella felt her stomach clench. She knew the man from the marina. He used to shortchange
and overcharge her father, and she’d always hated him for it. Without thinking, she
moved to push him off Bear. Before she got there, Hemingway jumped between Bear and
the man and shoved him into the ropes. Hemingway’s jaw was clenched tight as a shark’s,
and he put his face right into the man’s face.

“Don’t come around here again, asshole,” growled Hemingway. “If you don’t have the
money to lose, you got no business betting it.”

With that, Hemingway pushed the man over the side of the ring. He landed at Mariella’s
feet, quickly righted himself, and ran
off cursing into the night. Mariella turned back to the ring and saw the writer crouched
down in front of Bear with his hand on Bear’s shoulder. She was moved that Hemingway
stood up to the guy who lost his bet, but it reminded her of her own loss, and she
felt sick.

God, all the money she’d lost.

She felt her head spin, and stumbled with the gait of a drunk toward home before anyone
noticed her.

Mariella crept through the front door and closed it as quietly as she could. The room
was black except for the moonlight shining through the front window. She was relieved
to see that her mother’s chair was empty and she’d gone to bed, but it still held
the impression of where Eva had doubtlessly sat all evening with her legs tucked into
her, teary eyes gazing out the window, shoulders hunched under the weight of her grief.

Mariella reached up and squeezed her own shoulders, tense from the loss, the guilt
from gambling, and the strain of watching her mother’s pain consume her just a little
more each day instead of releasing her. While she and her young sisters had adjusted
to Hal’s death as best they could, Eva was drowning, and Mariella didn’t know how
to help her.

The floorboards threatened to expose Mariella with each step, but she made it past
her mother’s room and into the room she shared with her sisters. The girls slept together
on a mattress on the floor—twelve-year-old Estelle curled in a ball, and five-year-old
Lulu sprawled with an arm hanging over Estelle on one side and the edge of the bed
on the other.