Surface Tension - Kling Christine - Страница 19

She told me why she couldn’t go back home. She said she and her mom just couldn’t get along ever since her mom had married this bum. Even before she told me, I knew what was coming. I could see the horror and disgust building in her eyes as she worked up the courage to talk about it out loud. When she finally told it, her voice remained emotionless. Her face went slack. It was as though it had happened to someone else, not her. Her stepfather had been sexually molesting her for six months, and according to Elysia, her mom deliberately chose to remain blind to the situation, to keep her man at the expense of her child. Elysia felt she had no recourse but to run away.

In a few weeks on the streets in Lauderdale she’d gone from being a teenager who smoked a little weed now and again to an addict who was turning twenty-dollar tricks for crack. At five in the afternoon I drove her to Lester’s Diner and watched her, a tiny thing at about five feet two inches and a hundred pounds, put away a mountain of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, salad, and pecan pie. That night was my first visit to Harbor House, but I’d gone back several times in the last few years, to visit Elysia and to drop off a few others I’d picked up along the beach.

Harbor House had helped her kick the crack and given her a place to stay while she pulled herself back together. Jeannie had assisted with the legal stuff, and Elysia became an emancipated minor. Not needing to go to a foster home, she just stayed on at Harbor House where she worked part-time as a peer counselor and office clerk. Last year, I convinced her to get her GED, and then B.J. helped her get a job as a hostess at the Bahia Cabana, a nice little patio restaurant on the Intracoastal. She was hoping to become a waitress soon, so she could start making the big tips and get out of Harbor House and into her own apartment. Just recently she’d started talking about maybe taking a class at the community college. I drove over the causeway to the beach and found a parking space a couple of blocks from the restaurant.

She was working the front when I walked in, past the outdoor Jacuzzi, up to the little sign that said Please Wait to Be Seated. She started to turn on the canned spiel for a couple of seconds, then her eyes lit up with recognition, and she ran up and hugged me, standing on her tiptoes.

“Seychelle! What are you doing here?” She pushed the unruly curls of redwood-colored hair back from her face.

“I came to see how you’re getting along, kiddo.” She looked great, and I noticed she was still wearing the little golden angel around her neck that I had given her for her birthday the year before.

Her eyes darted down and she reached for the charm. “My guardian angel’s checking up on me, huh?” Elysia smiled. She pretended not to like it when I watched out for her.

“Well, somebody’s got to, Ely. Look there. See, that couple just walked in, and here’s the hostess flapping her jaw with some friend of hers.”

She scooped up a couple of menus from her little podium and strode confidently up to the new arrivals. Her pleated white slacks and high-heeled sandals made even her legs look long, and combined with the required blue-and-white-striped sweater she looked like a shorter version of those models in the classy nautical clothing catalogues. She maneuvered the couple through the inside tables and out on to the deck overlooking the marina. Watching her filled me with a sense of wonder. She had fought her way back from a despair so black I couldn’t imagine it, and she had grown into this stunning, self-assured young woman.

When she returned, she explained she couldn’t talk and work, so she pointed me in the direction of the bar and told me her shift would be over at five, in about twenty minutes. I sat down to wait, deciding against a beer. After looking at Maddy’s beer gut that morning, I knew I’d been doing too much drinking lately.

The couples coming in for the early-bird dinner tended to be older people, but many of them entered arm in arm, smiling. The husbands joked and flirted with Ely. They were tanned from days spent sunning themselves like lizards on the beach. I wondered if it had been any of them standing on the beach yesterday morning watching hopefully as the Top Ten nearly went aground. They didn’t have to wonder if someone they once loved was either underwater providing food for the fishes, or a murderer on the run.

Finally Elysia appeared at my shoulder with her purse tucked under her arm. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

Once we were outside on the street, she pointed toward the beach. “Do you mind if we just walk for a while? That’s what I usually do after my shift, before I catch the bus back to Harbor House. I need the fresh air.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

We dodged cars, jaywalking across A1A in front of the Jungle Queen tour boat dock at the Bahia Mar Marina, and zigzagging through the parked cars in the city parking lot. When we hit the sand I slipped out of my boat shoes, and Elysia pulled off her white spike-heeled sandals with little red anchors embroidered on them. Now about three inches shorter, she looked younger but more familiar to me. The tall buildings along the Intracoastal cast long shadows across the beach as the sun dropped behind the city. The sand between my toes felt warmer than the evening air. We walked down to the waterline, where small waves broke into golden foam in the last of the day’s sunlight.

“So, how you been doing?”

“Not bad. The money’s adding up. I think I’ll have enough for first and last months’ rent on a furnished studio soon.”

“All right. You’ve come far, you know. I’m proud of you.”

She didn’t say anything at first. Then finally she said, “Seychelle, I know you didn’t come down here just to tell me that. I mean, you tell me how proud you are every time you see me these days.”

I smiled at her. In some ways she was wise way beyond her teenage years. “Something happened yesterday, and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“I heard about Neal. Some guys at the bar were talking about what happened on this big yacht, and when they said the name of the boat, I knew it had to be Neal.” She ran her fingers through her hair and bit her lower lip. “I didn’t really know how to bring it up when you walked into the restaurant like that. I’m sorry.”

My throat constricted, and I couldn’t say anything for several seconds. A fancy sportfisherman raced toward the inlet, throwing up a huge, creamy bow wave, the hired skipper hunched over the wheel high up on the flybridge while his paying customers drank their liquor in the air-conditioned cabin below.

“You know, Ely, I thought I had been through it all with Neal. I thought I had finally got him out of my system for good. And then this happens, and suddenly he’s thrust back into my life. I can’t believe he’s dead, Ely. In fact, I don’t believe it. And I’ve got my reasons.” I shook my head and stared out to sea. “Life’s so strange sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know. I mean, look at me.” She did a little pirouette in the sand. “Who’d have thought, after all the shit I’ve been through, that I’d end up like some little debutante in a sailor suit?” We both laughed loud and hard. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t all that funny.

“Did you know the girl, Ely? The one who was with him. I found out she used to stay out at Harbor House.”

“What was her name?”

“Patty Krix.” As soon as I said the name, I saw the recognition in her eyes.

“Patty was with Neal?”

“Yeah. I guess they’d been seeing each other for a while. When I found out she’d lived at Harbor House, I thought maybe you could tell me something about her. Did you know her?”

We walked past a surf fisherman wearing hip waders, casting his line into the waves. He had white hair and a fluffy white mustache. He looked a little like Einstein.