Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County (10 page)

After a few moments of silence, except for the little clicking noises from Mrs. Bailey White's knitting needles, I couldn't stand it any longer. “Mrs. Bailey White,” I said breathlessly, “I can't believe you knew someone—your own father—who saw Seminole Joe!”

“Oh, well, I saw him, too,” Mrs. Bailey White said, pausing in her knitting. “I was in the car. In the backseat.”

“Sweet Jesus!” I said, jumping to my feet.

“Oh, for Pete's sake, Dora, cut it out,” Jackie said. “It's just a story.”

Plain Jane came back down the stairs, having finally settled Dream for a late nap. “What's going on down here?” she asked. I filled her in, and noticed that she was watching Jackie carefully.

“So, Jackie, what do you think of all this?” Plain Jane asked, although surely she anticipated the answer.

“I don't believe any of it,” Jackie declared, “but I suppose it would serve Darryl right if he ran into old Seminole Joe.” She laughed at her own little joke.

Mrs. Bailey White and I looked at each other, a little alarmed. No matter what Darryl did, he didn't deserve that fate. Plain Jane, settling back in her favorite chair, sighed and shook her head.

“What book is that you're reading?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

Plain Jane held up the cover for me to see. “
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf. I've been hearing about this book for years and years, and then Jackie suggested we read it.”

“It's a book club pick?” I said, feeling left out once again. I had wondered if the three members of the club who'd stayed in Naples would keep choosing and discussing books.

“Why, Dora, we should have told you what we've been reading, and you could have been reading it, too,” Plain Jane said guiltily.

“It's okay, I read it anyway, a few years ago,” I said, adding, “I thought it was beautiful.”

“Aw, everyone says they love
To the Lighthouse,
” Jackie complained.

“You didn't like it?” I asked, surprised.

“Not as much as the others did,” Jackie sniffed. “I think it's one of those books you're
supposed
to love.”

“What do you mean?” Plain Jane cried.

“It's one of those books people talk about at cocktail parties,” Jackie said. “Everyone trying to sound so
terribly sophisticated
says, ‘Oh,
To the Lighthouse
is my favorite!' but half of them haven't even read it.”

“Oh, Jackie!” Plain Jane said. “I think you are so wrong. I just read it again and frankly it is unforgettable. There's a passage I'm looking for . . .”

“Dora, Plain Jane is right—shame on us for not letting you know what we were reading,” Mrs. Bailey White said. “We just thought you were busy with your adventure in Mississippi and we didn't want to interfere.”

“Ah, yes,” Jackie said. “Speaking of your adventure in Mississippi,
are you going to tell us what you found out about your family?”

“Oh,” I said, completely off guard. I started to say something evasively Southern but stopped myself. I could learn
something
from Jackie, couldn't I? So I tried my hand at Jackie's signature bluntness. “I'm not ready to talk about that yet,” I said, and although it sounded Yankee-rude it also felt surprisingly good to say what I meant.

The others looked a little surprised. “Well, Dora dear, whenever you're ready,” Plain Jane said, rescuing me. “For the moment, we need to figure out what we're going to do about Darryl, anyway.”

“What, other than hoping Seminole Joe goes after him?” Jackie chortled. “Seriously, I'm beginning to think that old ghost could help us in some way.”

“Jackie, you are going to get us into some serious trouble,” Plain Jane said uneasily.

“Oh, don't be silly!” Jackie said, lighting yet another cigarette. “What do you think I'm suggesting? Summoning the ancient spirit of Seminole Joe and asking for his help?”

“Well, I suppose one of us could dress up like Seminole Joe and sneak up and bop Darryl over the head, not to hurt him but just to scare him,” Mrs. Bailey White said thoughtfully. “Maybe then he'd be afraid to go ahead with his project?”

I swallowed hard. “I don't think that's funny,” I said.

“I wasn't joking,” Mrs. Bailey White replied. I looked at her for a long time, trying to reconcile this sweet-looking little old lady with the woman who had done time in jail and was now suggesting that we hit my former husband over the head “just to scare him.”

“Mrs. Bailey White,” I said, my voice all squeaky and trembling,
“this is out of the question, and I do not want to be part of this conversation.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Bailey White said, looking a little chagrined. “Sorry I upset you, Dora.”

“Now, girls,” Jackie said, trying to diffuse the situation. “I have a better idea. You know how I used to do some copyediting over at the newspaper, before I had my radio show? Well, I've been asked to do some writing—a column, as a matter of fact!”

“How exciting!” Plain Jane said, and I might have detected a touch of envy in her voice. “Jackie, you're just full of surprises. Why didn't you tell us?”

“I'm telling you now. And, besides, they only just asked me last week.”

“What's the column going to be called?” Plain Jane asked. That was a question I wouldn't have even thought to ask but, after all, Plain Jane had written for some of the big-name magazines in New York.

“Chatter Box.”

“Chatter Box?”

“Meaning little bits of news and delightful gossip,” Jackie said. “And my byline will be Miss Dreamsville.” After a pause, she said, “The owner came up with the Chatter Box thing. I'm not sure I like it, either. But I won the more important battle. It will
not
be on the Women's Page! It will be on the Editorial Page.”

“What's wrong with the Women's Page?” Mrs. Bailey White asked innocently.

“No, no, no, I will never write for the Women's Page,” Jackie said crossly. “It's all weddings and gardening tips and all that junk. No, no, no! I don't want my column to be stuck there!”

“But everyone reads the Women's Page,” Mrs. Bailey White said softly.

“Men don't!” Jackie cried out. “If it's on the Women's Page it implies that my column is for women only or about women's ‘concerns' and that's not what I'm going to write about.”

“Well, what are you going to write about?” asked Plain Jane.

Jackie smiled, and to me it seemed a little mischievous. “The agreement is that I get to write my column about anything I want. My first column is supposed to run in two days and I couldn't decide what to write about. The editor suggested a piece about how Collier County seems to be forgotten at the statehouse in Tallahassee. But that seems deadly dull, doesn't it? Now I'm thinking I could write about Seminole Joe.”

“What?”
I asked, realizing I was at least one step behind Jackie's thinking.

“Well, what if I wrote a piece about Seminole Joe, pointing out that he haunts the area where Darryl is going to do all that construction? And maybe get everyone in Naples all scared and stirred up, so there'd be opposition to the project?”

This was either the best or worst idea I ever heard. I'd have to think on it overnight to decide which. In some respects it was brilliant. It might even work. On the other hand, it was one of those ideas that could have consequences we couldn't anticipate. Jackie had a history of getting herself, and everyone else around her, in over their head. She was good at coming up with creative ideas but her strong suit didn't include fixing up the messes that sometimes resulted.

She saw our hesitation. “Aw come on, girls! What could go wrong?”

Not the words I wanted to hear, but I admired her confidence just the same.

I
f he hadn't been so overburdened with work, Ted Hart might have enjoyed the challenge to start an airline for Mr. Toomb, his boss. The fact was that he was already away from his wife and kids more than he or they had expected. Hopefully, Mr. Toomb would quickly allow him to hire an assistant.

But he was off to a bad start. He and Mr. Toomb could not even agree on a name for the airline. Ted had suggested Florida Airlines. Mr. Toomb's idea? Wild Blue Yonder Airways. Ted could see immediately that marketing would be a problem. The word “wild” could be interpreted as “reckless.” And “yonder” had a connotation that was anything but sophisticated. The well-heeled Yankees they would need as customers were not going to like it. Well, Mr. Toomb was the boss, and the boss always got what he wanted. Especially if the boss was a powerful, no-nonsense man like Mr. Toomb.

Ted spent two weeks in Tallahassee to get the permits lined up. It was easy compared to the way things were done up north, Ted thought. In fact, before anyone realized what was happening,
the crummy little airport landing strip in Naples was under construction. The Naples airport had been so lacking that Mr. Toomb had been forced to accept that headquarters for his new airline would be in Tampa, which was, compared to Naples, an actual city. Meanwhile, the headline in the Naples paper said the state was financing some “improvements” to the humble airstrip, but in truth it was being modernized and expanded to accommodate Mr. Toomb's vision.

One problem was going to be Ted's son, Judd, who was deeply involved with the cadet corps of the Civil Air Patrol. Making a mental note to himself, Ted vowed to be careful not to say too much around Judd, who seemed to be on friendly terms with everyone at the Naples Airport. Mr. Toomb was a secretive man, which meant Ted—if he wanted to stay employed—had to keep secrets, too. Not that Mr. Toomb was doing anything illegal, Ted quickly told himself. Mr. Toomb was an opportunist. A well-connected opportunist, the most formidable kind.

Ted sighed. This was not what he thought he was getting into, back when he was in the Army during the war and wanted to make the world a better place. Somehow that dream had been diverted, one little decision at a time, into a simpler, more
personal
goal: go to college on the G.I. Bill and become the first person in his family to wear a suit to work. It had meant leaving Boston, which he hadn't counted on. It had meant long days on the road, travel, and, needless to say, time away from Jackie and the kids. Was it worth it? On good days, the answer was yes.

Jackie's parents, owners of a well-known restaurant in downtown Boston, were not happy when Ted proposed to their only daughter. Sometimes it occurred to him that he was still trying to prove himself to them, even though he knew it could never happen. They would not even come to visit. It wasn't Florida
they were opposed to; God knows they'd spent their fair share of time at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach and the Breakers in Palm Beach. They just wouldn't come to Collier County, that's all. In their minds, Collier County was the sticks.

Of course, the way things were headed, his in-laws might change their stubborn minds about Naples. There could come a time when Naples
surpassed
the swankier places on Florida's east coast. Not likely, but possible.

As for his own parents, they didn't have the money to travel to Cape Cod for a holiday, let alone Naples. In fact he wasn't sure if his parents had ever gone on a vacation. This thought made him so sad that he found it necessary to light his pipe, a habit that calmed him.

He watched as a tiny, single-engine plane landed gracefully on the lone runway and taxied carefully around construction equipment and scores of workmen who hadn't even looked up when it landed. There were no hangars, only the terminal building which housed a weather station, a bathroom, and a so-called lobby with a half-dozen molded plastic chairs, a Coke machine, and plenty of ashtrays. He'd seen better accommodations overseas in the Army during World War Two.

He had no desire to feel nostalgic about his stint in the Army. Back in Boston, he'd had a few beers now and then at a local VFW but, unlike many other veterans, he discovered he couldn't think of his war service as his glory days. Unusual for his generation, Ted was bitter about the war. About all wars. About powerful old men, since the beginning of time, who sent young men to their deaths. More than nine thousand Allied soldiers killed or injured on D-Day alone. Ted thought about those numbers every day.

He watched another plane land then realized that his pipe
had grown cold. He leaned over to empty the bowl by tapping it against the heel of his shoe and was surprised, a moment later, to realize that he'd struck the pipe so hard that he'd broken it in two. He was glad no one was around to see this. Men like him didn't show their emotions when it came to the war.

His unit had landed at Normandy without him. He had been pulled out at the last minute and never knew why. The shame and guilt resulted in unrelenting pressure.
You should have been there,
his mind told him daily.
You'd better have a good life; you're living for all of those who didn't make it.

Twenty years had passed but it didn't matter. And, as luck would have it, there were fresh reminders. The only suitable type of aircraft available for Mr. Toomb's airline, it turned out, were old Army transport planes affectionately known as “Gooney Birds.” And the pilots? The only ones who had answered the newspaper advertisements were former World War Two pilots who had kept up their credentials in civilian life. He'd already hired two.

So far, the federal government had approved a route between Tampa and points east (Orlando) and north (Tallahassee). It was a huge accomplishment in a short period of time, but much work remained to be done. When he was younger and dreamed of the white-collar life, Ted had envisioned smoke-filled boardrooms and leisurely lunches of prime rib and bourbon. In his mind, a secretary would take care of all the mundane details at work, just as a wife would do at home. Well, fantasy did not match reality. While he was making more money than he'd ever thought possible, the truth was that he hardly had time to enjoy spending it.