The Orange Blossom Special (28 page)

“Oh, you mean the Baptists?”

“Yeah. They're such creeps, always acting holier than thou then cracking these stupid dirty jokes and double intendras or whatever they're called.”

“Some people make religion look silly,” he said. “It doesn't have to be that way.”

“Don't you think anyone who blindly believes all that stuff is pretty silly to begin with?” she asked.

“Sure, if they believe it without thinking about it they are. But if they feel it in their hearts, well that's something else.”

Dinah could tell that Charlie was about to set off on one of his jags, but she wasn't in the mood.

“Charlie, didn't you say you had something important to discuss with me?” she asked.

“Oddly enough,” he said, “what we were just talking about has something to do with what I wanted to say.” He cleared his throat and wiped a stream of sweat from his neck. “I'm one of those people, you know, who feels God in his heart.

“Ever since I was little, I've known things—things I don't know why I should know. Sometimes I can tell what's going to happen before it happens. It's like finding out you can paint or you have a good voice. You want to test it and use it and do the best you can with it. Lately, it's become clear to me: I want to become a preacher. I want to have my own congregation.”

Dinah held Eddie tighter.

“In order to do that,” Charlie continued, “I'll have to go away for a while. There's a school for chaplains that the army runs in New York City. I can go there for three months and then go into the army as a chaplain. After that, they can send me anywhere in the world.”

It was so quiet Charlie could hear the refrigerator rumble like a hungry stomach. Even the cat seemed frozen in place.

“That's nice for you,” said Dinah, her words rigid.

“I know this probably comes as a shock,” he said. “But here's the thing: I want you to wait for me. Whatever I'm going to do, I want you to be a part of it. Do you understand?”

By now, the sun had set and the house was shrouded in darkness. Neither of them budged from their chairs to turn on any lights. It was dark enough so they couldn't read the expression on each other's faces. All they had to go on was the sound of their voices and the articulation of their gestures.

Dinah covered her eyes with her hands. Eddie tried to nuzzle under her knee. Charlie got up from the love seat and sat at the edge
of her chair. He tucked his arm around her shoulder. “Don't you see what I'm saying? I love you and I want you to wait for me. We can do this together, Dinah. We can give each other strength.”

Dinah put her hands down. She spoke with long spaces between her words. “I love you, Charlie. I respect what you're saying and what you want to do. I'm glad you and God are so chummy. I've been around for nineteen years and He hasn't said a word to me. I don't mean that sarcastically. I just mean that how am I supposed to go on this mission with you when all I know about God is that he took my father when I was ten and now he wants you. It doesn't exactly make me a fan.”

Charlie dropped his chin to his chest and thought hard. “This doesn't have to be about you and God. It's about you and me. It's about you being who you are, and me being who I am. Who I am happens to involve Him. Who you are, doesn't. That's fine.”

Dinah squirmed as she pulled her legs from under her. Eddie rubbed his head against Charlie's arm.
Just leave things as they are and pay attention to me.
“Supposing we get married,” said Dinah. “Not that I'm proposing, but just suppose we do. Then you become a minister and you have a congregation. Every Sunday you go off to church and I do what? I play tennis? I go fishing? How would that look to everyone? And don't preachers' wives have to do stuff like hold bake sales and visit sick people? What if I don't want to do those things? Don't you think you need a wife who will be in the front row each Sunday smiling up at you as you deliver your sermons? And what about the army? Am I supposed to sit around and wait three years while you go to New York City and study to be a chaplain, and then when you get sent off to some godforsaken place?”

Her eyes filled as she comprehended the weight and consequences of his plans.

“I love you, Charlie. I really do. But you have a hell of a nerve
making me fall in love with you, then telling me you're leaving, and oh, by the way, you want to become a preacher. Shouldn't you have come with some sort of warning label? ‘Do not fall in love unless you are prepared to sit around waiting for many years, after which you will get to bake lots of cookies and iron your husband's dresses.' That's asking an awful lot, Charlie, it really is.”

“Ministers don't wear dresses,” he said. “You're thinking about priests.”

“That's not the point. You know what I mean.” Her voice was so charged with anger that Eddie figured he'd done something wrong and scooted under the couch.

“I want to marry you, Dinah. I thought you wanted what I did. I can't imagine my life without you.”

“You've done a pretty good job of imagining your life without me,” she said. “It works fine for you. There's not one bit of it that works for me.”

“I had no idea you'd feel this way,” he said, then laughed the way you do when you're trying not to cry. “For someone who can often see what's going to happen, I really missed this boat.” He waited for her to laugh with him but she didn't. “Maybe I can study theology here in Gainesville. Maybe I don't have to go to New York City.”

Even without the light, Charlie could see that her face was frozen. When he tried to kiss her, she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away.

“Would you like me to go?” he asked.

“You already have,” she answered in a bottomless voice that he would always think of as a night without stars.

Maybe it was the greatest train ever. People, when they saw it, their eyes would bug out of their heads. It went as fast as one hundred miles an hour between Miami and New York, and oh, those colors. Florida on wheels—the yellow as yellow as the sunniest day, the green of a palm leaf, and of course orange, ripe and heavy and sweet with perfume. When the Orange Blossom Special rolled into view, folks would come out of their houses just to watch it hurtle through town, a giant parrot on the fly. It sped by in a heartbeat, leaving only its shrill whistle in the air and the memory of something so powerful and dazzling that a momentary glance of it was all the senses could bear.

At least that's how Reggie described it.

It was Reggie's idea to turn the liquor store into a saloon and Reggie's idea to name it after the Orange Blossom Special. Victoria was the one who came up with the idea of carrying the theme into the décor. “If we're going to do it, let's do it all the way,” she said. From his memory as a porter, Reggie conjured up what the interior of the Orange Blossom might look like. Every day they'd sit at the dining-room table making lists, jotting down notes of what would go where to make it as authentic as they could. It was the fall of 1962, during the time that Reggie was getting his teeth fixed and Charlie was off to Fort Wadsworth in New York City, so the two of
them were happy for the distraction. For Victoria, it was a return to a life she thought she had left behind: fabric swatches, paint chips, decorators, workmen to order around. She'd nearly forgotten how she thrived on all of it, how it got her creative juices flowing in a way that nothing else, not even Reggie's makeover, had.

For Reggie, all those hours in the dentist's chair, watching his reflection in Dr. Simon's spectacles as he slowly filled in all the spaces, was a time of rebirth. He would go from having no purpose to becoming a citizen of the world. Reggie, who'd always been on the other side from where he felt normal people were, was now closer than he'd ever been to not being different. He renewed the vows he made to himself after Maynard's death, only this time with more vigor and determination. He would help Victoria. He would help Ella. No, he would take care of Victoria, he would take care of Ella. He would become the man of their odd little household and pick up where Charlie Landy left off. He'd work in the saloon and make it a success. He knew how to do lots of things that no one would guess he knew. All along he had things to say. He was just waiting for teeth so that he could say them in the way they needed to be said.

Victoria hired Frank Bowman, the decorator who was responsible for the successful specialty restaurants like Sundowners and Pelican Point. She told Reggie that Bowman had a rare appreciation for thematic design. “He gives himself over to it like nobody's business,” she'd said, in what was surely one of the understatements of her life.

Bowman embraced the train theme the way he once had crab and lobsters. He even took to wearing a blue-and-white-striped engineer's hat while he worked. His philosophy was consistent and surefire. “The moment a customer walks through the doors of one of my establishments, he should be transported to another time and place. If the establishment is properly executed, the customer will be in
such a state of psychological disorientation that he will be oblivious to the usual restraints associated with spending money.”

The doors to this particular oblivion would be made from extruded aluminum. They would be double swinging doors, as shim-mery as fish scales. Each door would have a round glass window the size of a man's head and at eye level for most people. In the train itself, these windows served a useful function, giving the traveler the opportunity to see if someone was coming through from the opposite direction. On the streets of Gainesville, the daytime sun would bounce off the aluminum like lightning. At night, the reflection of the blinking orange and green neon Orange Blossom Special sign would beckon like the giddy entrance to a funhouse. How could you not come inside?

The walls would be sheathed in crimson satin. Pale yellow Venetian blinds with slats the width of rulers would cover the windows. There would be rattan seats with high backs and broad arms, exactly like the handsome ones they used in the old parlor cars. Bowman had an obsessive eye for detail and faithfully reproduced the ornate counter with all its flutes and flowers, and the marble countertop, the marble veined with green and purple. Even the cash register would be from a time when cash registers were representative of art deco design rather than functional boxes. Overhead, two natural palm-leaf fans would churn the cool air. The light fixtures would be electric replicas of old gas lamps, and the soft light they gave off would bathe everything in sepia. Framed artifacts such as a white linen towel with an embossed orange and a menu featuring caviar, turbot, and crème caramel for five dollars would hang behind the cash register.

The Orange Blossom Special was a perfect jewel, a treasure from another time tucked between Florsheims and the Fremac luncheonette. Even the drinks had train-related names like Full Steam Ahead
and First Class Only. A sign above the bar invited patrons to “Chug Chug.” And just in case they missed the point, Bowman had another brainstorm. The coup de grâce, he called it.

“The two of you will wear what the porters would have worn on that train. Modern, of course, but they'll be reminiscent of the old uniforms. A soft melon-color. An A-line skirt short enough to accentuate your shapely legs.” He winked at Victoria. “The fabric will be lightweight and wrinkle resistant. A little capped sleeve and Peter Pan collar.” He touched Victoria's shoulder. “Precious. Maybe a vest instead of the jacket.” He folded his hands together. “For him, white pants with the melon stripe down the side. A vest with ‘Sykes' embroidered above the breast pocket. A hat perhaps.”

It gave Victoria the chills to watch Bowman in action.

“No porter's outfit for me. No, sir, no, thank you.” Reggie broke the spell. “I've already worn that uniform. I'm a businessman now and that's how I'll dress.”

Victoria flushed. “I'm certainly not going to be the only one prancing around here like a goddamned cantaloupe,” she said. “C'mon Reggie. It'll be fun.”

“I've made my decision and that's that,” he said.

“Never you mind,” said Bowman waving his hands as if to clear the air of confrontation. “I've come up with an alternative plan. Pins. You both will wear Orange Blossom Special pins. Subtle but authentic.”

T
HERE WAS SO
much buzz around the opening of the saloon that in the days leading up to it, everyone's letters were filled with some news of it. Crystal wrote to Huddie at the Marine Recruit Depot on Parris Island:

How I wish you could see what's going on here. Everyone's gone nuts over the redesign of Charlie's old liquor
store. They've turned it into a saloon. My mother is spending a fortune to make the place look like the replica of some fancy old train that Reggie used to work on. She's hired that phony baloney decorator who does all the stupid fish restaurants with the fake nets and rusty anchors. If you ask me, the place will look more like a dance studio than a bar, but at least it gives her something to do. Reggie's got a bunch of new teeth that are whiter than any Colgate ad you've ever seen. It's amazing what a difference a set of choppers can make.

I hope they are not working you too hard. In your last letter you said you'd lost a little weight. Don't lose any more. I want as much of my Huddie to hold on to as possible. I love you. Your adoring wife to be, Crystal

Ella wrote to Charlie:

Crystal joined a sorority at the University. She seems to be very popular. I saw Dinah a few weeks ago. She asked how you were doing. I told her you were doing the work you set out to do. She said she is working hard at the University. She asked to be remembered to you. Your mother and Reggie seem to have gone hogwild over the saloon. I never thought I'd live to see Reggie Sykes and Mrs. Landy fighting over the color of shelf paint. You wouldn't recognize him. He hasn't smiled this much since he was a boy.