Heart of Palm (21 page)

“I
hate
this!” Brooke said, crying.

They caught up with Arla and Bell in a room with a looped video playing on an overhead TV. On the screen, a man inserted a live snake into his mouth and waited until it emerged from his left nostril.

“Oooh,” Bell said.

“Mama!” Brooke wailed.

“Good heavens,” Arla said. “Now why would he want to go and do that?”

“Arla, I think maybe Brooke’s had enough,” Elizabeth said.

“Suits me,” Arla said, taking Bell by the hand. They found Sofia in the gift shop. Myra bought Brooke a T-shirt. Arla bought a souvenir shot glass. It featured an image of Robert Ripley holding a shrunken head. “For Biaggio,” she said. “For driving us down here.”

“Not that one,” Sofia said. She selected one with an image of Smiley Lewis,
THE MAN WITH THE THIRTY-INCH MOUSTACHE
. “He’d like this one better,” she said.

“How would you know what he’d like?” Arla said, and Sofia shrugged. Elizabeth ran her hands through a deep basket of shiny stones and helped Bell pick out a shell bracelet. Then they walked out of the museum, back into the searing heat. They reboarded the trolley and spent the next thirty minutes in near silence, conserving energy, fanning themselves with Ripley’s brochures while the trolley rolled up and down the streets of St. Augustine, past the Spanish Castillo, the Oldest House, the City Gates, the slave market. The city was crowded with tourists, despite the heat, and Elizabeth tried to see it all from their eyes—the austere Spanish twin towers of Flagler College, the manicured plaza, the bright jaunty hibiscus and spindly Sabal palms. It was pretty, she supposed, all very quaint. But she was sick of it suddenly, sick of the whole quaint place. The nation’s oldest city. All these ancient buildings, all this detritus of pushing and shoving and fighting over the land. The British, the Spanish, never mind the poor Native Americans who were here to start with and who never even had a prayer. And still it went on, more than four centuries later—the merchants, the sightseers, the homeless, the students, the locals, each group squawking at the next, jockeying for territory, staking claims. It was claustrophobic, cloying. Always too many people—the traffic, the tourists, the ubiquitous trolleys! She wanted to walk into the woods, stay there.

“That’s where I got married,” Arla said to Bell, pointing to the Cathedral Basilica.

“What does your husband do?” Myra said.

“Oh, I lost my husband twenty years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Myra said.

“What are you talking about?” Sofia said to Arla.

“It’s true,” Arla said. “I don’t know where he is, do I?”

Sofia rolled her eyes. Myra looked confused. Elizabeth bit her lip, tried to keep from laughing. Her T-shirt was soaked with sweat. Maybe one day she’d say the same thing. “I lost my husband.” Maybe one day soon.

The trolley stopped to let a fashionable young couple disembark. A trio of powdery old women, dressed in billowy capris and enormous white sneakers, climbed aboard and sat primly in the row in front of Elizabeth, and the trolley began to roll again.

“I’m ho-ot,” Brooke whined.

“I think maybe we’ll call it a day here,” Myra said.

“An ice cream,” Arla said, spotting the Dairy Queen ahead. “Just an ice cream, and then we’ll go back. Bell needs an ice cream.”

She stood up in the trolley.

“Driver!” she said.

“Please remain seated at all times,” the driver said over the microphone.

“We need to stop here!”

“Remain seated!”

“Please stop the train!” Arla, still standing, her red hair nearly brushing the ceiling, raised her cane and beat on the metal roof of the trolley. “We need to get out right here!”

The old women pivoted in their seats, gaping at Arla. Myra stared out into traffic, her face turned away from Arla. Brooke looked at Arla with her mouth open. Bell smiled.

Arla banged the roof again. “Driver!” she said.

“Jesus Christ!” he said into the microphone. He slid the trolley to a stop, turned around and glared. “You know I can get fired?”

“Thank you!” Arla said brightly. “This will do very well.”

Sofia climbed down first, turned to offer a hand to Arla. Elizabeth, Myra, and the girls followed. They walked across the parking lot toward the Dairy Queen.

“They have Blizzards here,” Arla said to the girls. “M&M’s Blizzards. Oh, babies, to die for. Just wait.”

“Isn’t your house just up two blocks?” Myra said to Elizabeth. “How about I go get my car, come back, and pick you all up?”

“Don’t you want an ice cream?” Elizabeth said.

“No,” Myra said, looking at her pityingly. “I don’t eat ice cream, honey.”

I’ll have a double Blizzard
, Elizabeth wanted to say.
Do they come with vodka?

“Well,” she said instead, looking at the red faces and soaked shirts of Arla, Sofia, Bell, and Brooke. “A ride would actually be very nice, if you don’t mind getting the car.”

Myra didn’t answer, just turned to Brooke, told her she’d be right back, and went clicking up the street toward Elizabeth’s.

“She’s got some swing on that back door,” Sofia said, looking after her. Brooke looked at Arla. “What does that mean?” she said.

“Never mind,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s get some ice cream.”

Inside the Dairy Queen, they ordered a round of Blizzards from a thin boy with long blond hair. “M&M’s in mine,” Arla said. “Extra M&M’s, in fact. I’ll pay extra.” The boy grunted and pushed buttons on a register.

They settled into a booth. “This heat,” Arla said. “It’s getting ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s getting hotter, or if it’s just bothering me more now that I’m getting older. I’m sixty-two, and I don’t ever remember being this hot. What’s going to happen when I’m ninety?”

“It’s global warming,” Sofia said. She fished in her tote bag and removed a plastic bottle of Germ-X, which she squirted across the tabletop and spread around with napkins.

“It must be,” Arla said. “My Lord.”

The boy from the counter brought a tray of Blizzards, and everyone was quiet for a moment. Elizabeth was grateful for the cool chocolate cream. It was such simple, sweet relief. The girls spooned chunky pieces of ice cream into their mouths, made worms out of straw wrappers on the table.

“This doesn’t have extra M&M’s in it,” Arla said, looking at her Blizzard skeptically.

“Arla,” Elizabeth said. “Do you think maybe we could stay with you for a bit? At Aberdeen?”

Arla put her Blizzard down. “What do you mean?” she said. “Of course.”

“I mean me, and Bell,” Elizabeth said. She dropped her voice down a bit, but the girls were oblivious, lost in their own games.

Sofia raised her eyebrows. “You’re leaving Carson?” she whispered.

“No,” Elizabeth said. “Not leaving. Just—” Just what? She put her hands up. “Just for a little bit,” she said. Her voice caught. She looked away from the table, hoped they wouldn’t ask her any more questions, and when she looked back, Arla’s eyes were soft, sad.

“Oh, baby,” she said. “You come on to Aberdeen. You come on up there anytime you want. Come today.”

Elizabeth nodded, not trusting her own voice.

They were quiet again, and then Arla coughed, looked back at her Blizzard.

“This does
not
have extra M&M’s,” she said. “Let me out.” She nudged Sofia, who was sitting on the outside of the booth.

“Let it go, Mother,” Sofia said. “It’s fine.”

“I paid for extra M&M’s.”

Sofia rolled her eyes.

“Let me out,” Arla said. Sofia stood up and Arla slid out of the booth, grasped her cane, and approached the counter.

“Are you okay, Elizabeth?” Sofia said, and Elizabeth was surprised at the reason in Sofia’s voice, the concern, the maturity.

“I will be,” Elizabeth said. “Eventually.”

“He can be a real ass sometimes, I hate to tell you.”

“Who?”

“My brother.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Yes, I’ve noticed that,” she said.

“Do you ever wonder if you made the wrong choice?” Sofia said, raising her eyebrows knowingly. “I think about that sometimes. I think about choices.” Her voice dropped a bit, and she gazed off into the space behind Elizabeth’s head.

“I think this is a conversation that will get us nowhere,” Elizabeth said. She looked out the window of the Dairy Queen. Myra’s sea foam Volkswagen pulled into the parking lot. “Okay, girls,” Elizabeth said. “Finished up?”

They cleared the cups and plastic spoons, threw them into the trash. Arla was still at the counter, arguing with the blond boy.

“That’s not extra,” she was saying. She held the Blizzard cup out to him. “Extra means
more
. Look in there and tell me if that’s
more
.”

“Arla,” Elizabeth said. “Our ride is here.”

The boy was silent, shaking his head.

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” Arla said. “Get me your manager.”

“I am the manager,” he said.

“Oh, my Lord,” Arla said. “Then take this back. I don’t want it. I paid for extra and I didn’t get it. I want my money back.”

“No refunds,” he said coolly. He pointed to a handwritten sign on the front of the register:
NO REFUNDS. NO EXCHANGES
. He yawned.

Arla hiked her handbag higher on her shoulder. She straightened up and poked her cane one time into the floor.

“Oh, really,” she said. She looked over at Bell, standing now with Elizabeth.

“Arla, Myra is waiting for us,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s just forget it.”

“Bell, you want a Dilly Bar?” Arla said.

Bell nodded.

“She just had a Blizzard,” Elizabeth said.

“Your friend want a Dilly Bar?” Arla said.

Bell nodded again.

“It’s Brooke,” Brooke said. “I don’t want a Dilly Bar.”

Arla left the Blizzard on the counter and walked over to the freezer case. She reached in and took out three Dilly Bars. “Elizabeth?” she said.

“No,” Elizabeth whispered. She knew what was coming.

“Sofia?”

“Sure,” Sofia said, shrugging her shoulders. “I can fit it.”

Arla took out one more, stepped back, and let the freezer door close behind her. The boy watched.

“I’m not paying for these,” Arla said. She took a step toward the door.

He gaped at her. Her voice took on a singsong lilt. “I’m not paying. Watch me not paying,” she said, and she moved deliberately toward the exit. “Not paying!”

They stepped out into the hot sunlight. Myra’s VW idled in a disabled spot.

“Go!” Arla said. “Do it!”

Elizabeth and Sofia hustled the girls into the back of the car, and Elizabeth pulled Bell onto her lap so they could all squeeze in. Arla lumbered as quickly as she could to the front passenger seat. The Dairy Queen boy was now in the doorway of the store.

“Bitch!” he yelled. “Get back here, you old bitch!!”

Brooke started to cry.

“What—?” Myra said. She stared at the boy in the doorway.

“Fucking stealing my Dilly Bars!” he screamed.

“Go!” Arla said. Elizabeth put her face in her hands. “Go!”

The boy started toward them, and Myra’s instincts kicked in; she put the car in drive and bolted out of the parking lot, narrowly missing another trolley train as she pulled into the traffic of San Marco Boulevard.

“What in the
world
?” Myra said.

Sofia laughed, and Elizabeth looked at Bell, who was grinning.

“Okay!” Arla said. “Now who wants a Dilly Bar?” The car was cool and smelled lovely, with thick velour upholstery on the seats. The AC blasted through the interior and made a rushing sound. “Brooke?” Arla said, extending an ice cream bar across the back of the seat.

“I don’t
want
one,” Brooke said. She sniffled. “They’re
stolen
.”

“They’re what?” Myra said.

“Oh, never mind,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll eat hers.” She reached out and took the ice cream from Arla. Sofia smiled. “This way we won’t have to eat lunch,” Elizabeth said. Arla’s eyes shone, and Bell laughed, and God
damn,
if that wasn’t the best Dilly Bar Elizabeth had ever eaten.

After Myra and Brooke dropped them off, Elizabeth packed quickly, just a suitcase each for her and Bell. She glanced at her watch. Still a half hour, at least, before Carson would return home.

“We’re going on a trip?” Bell said.

“Better,” Elizabeth said. “We’re going to Granny’s.”

“Why?” Bell said.

“Because it’s summer,” Arla said. “And because it’s your birthday, and because we want to fatten you up with ice cream and Little Debbies and spoil you rotten.”