Hemingway's Girl (8 page)

“If you believe that about me, it serves you right to suffer for it.”

Lower Matecumbe Key
Veterans’ work camps, Overseas Highway project

The mosquito beater wasn’t fanning hard enough. Gavin slapped the bugs that had found
an open area at his neck and turned to the man behind him.

“What the hell are you doing?” he said.

The skinny, pockmarked vet shrugged. “Sorry, Captain. I’m daydreaming about my wife
up north.”

“Save your daydreaming for night, Bonefish,” said Gavin, “or I’ll make sure you see
her sooner than you’d planned.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bonefish fanned away the mosquitoes with a cabbage tree branch, and Gavin couldn’t
decide what was more annoying: the bugs or the slap of the leaves on his back. He
decided that he’d rather the temporary annoyance of the branch than a sleepless night
of scratching bug bites. He picked up his pace, hacking at the mangroves on the edge
of Matecumbe Key to clear the way for the new dock and bridge ramps.

Gavin hated the relentless, coiling branches of the mangroves more than just about
anything, but he had assumed the duty of chopping them down when one of the men in
his unit had started
vomiting and couldn’t stop. Gavin had him taken to the doctor immediately in case
of contagion. Outbreaks of meningitis and parasitic infections weren’t uncommon in
the filthy camps. He knew, however, that the vet was probably dehydrated from drinking
too much beer and working too long in the hot sun. The men here lived hard and had
long suffered from postwar depression and unemployment. He wouldn’t begrudge them
a drink or two to make the pain go away, but he didn’t appreciate when it interfered
with their productivity.

A sudden shaking sound made him freeze with his machete aloft. He looked down around
his feet and didn’t see the dreaded source of the noise, but knew the rattlesnake
was nearby.

Bonefish was, of course, relentless in his beating now that Gavin needed stillness,
so he reached around and grabbed the branch with his free hand.

“Stop,” he hissed. “Rattler!”

Bonefish sucked in his breath and stopped beating.

Gavin slid his eyes over the ground beneath the mangrove and saw the snake, not three
feet away, coiled and shaking its tail. He felt a new layer of sweat edge out what
had already been there, and his shirt was now drenched. He didn’t want to make any
sudden movements and have the snake lunge at him, but he didn’t think he could get
a clean shot through the mangroves with the machete.

Gavin slowly lowered the machete to a better position to strike and took a step back.
The snake flinched, Bonefish yelped and ran, and the creature struck. Gavin jumped
back, narrowly missing the bite, and brought the machete down hard. In one clean stroke,
he severed the rattler’s head. Some of the men nearby clapped and whistled, and Gavin
felt a surge of pride until their commander, Colonel Ed Sheeran, walked over.

“Get your asses back to work and stop playing with animals,” said Sheeran.

Gavin wasn’t pleased to be reprimanded like a common vet, but had no energy for confrontation
and didn’t want to set a bad example for those under him. He nodded, kicked the dead
snake out of the way, and continued cutting the mangroves.

The great crane groaned as it lowered the keystone from the quarry at nearby Plantation
Key into the bridge piers.

Gavin was relieved to be on crane duty. He preferred operating the heavy machinery
to the manual labor involved in bridge building, but he also knew that doing the hard
labor made his men respect him. After the rattlesnake encounter, however, he felt
he’d earned the high seat for the day.

He kept an eye on Fred, a fellow World War I vet, until he signaled with his shaking
hands. Fred’s tremors had started sometime during the war and continued to plague
him almost two decades later. As the tremors worsened it was getting harder to find
work suitable for Fred, but Gavin was determined to keep him busy and on the job.

While he waited for Fred and the men below to help position the stone, he stared out
at the great blue-green expanse around him. A welcome breeze slipped through the crane’s
cabin, and Gavin reveled in a break from the mosquitoes. He imagined steering a boat
through the waves, anchoring in the dark blue, and fishing away a lazy afternoon with
a beautiful girl at his side.

He thought of the girl from the boxing match. Her deep, dark eyes. Her confidence.
The way she’d smiled at him after the fight.

“Murray!” yelled one of the guys below. “Stop dreaming and finish dropping this rock
so we can get some grub.”

“Sorry, Al. I was just thinking of your sister out with me on a fishing boat.”

“Yeah, well, I was just thinking about your mother.”

Gavin made a rude hand gesture at Al and resumed his task until the stone was firmly
in place.

He climbed down from the crane, ready to smack Al on the back of the head, when he
noticed Fred and Al arguing.

“Back off,” said Fred.

“Settle down, Shaky; I was just joking with you,” said Al.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“You never are, Shakes.”

“If you don’t stop calling me that, I’ll give you a shaking you won’t forget.”

“Oh, is that so?” said Al. Al looked at the men who’d gathered around and then back
at Fred. Then Al wiggled his hands at Fred.

Gavin grabbed Fred’s arm just as he was about to punch Al.

Al continued to laugh and shake his hands at Fred.

Fred yanked himself out of Gavin’s grip and stormed back to camp.

“Why do you have to be such an asshole?” said Gavin.

“I was just messing with him,” said Al. “Come on. I just told him I’d handle the stone
positioning, since we didn’t want a rumbling bridge.”

“This isn’t a schoolyard, and I don’t want to have to discipline you all like a bunch
of kids, so leave him alone unless you want me to get Sheeran involved.”

Al waved off Gavin and walked away. Gavin had an urge to follow him and punch Al himself.
He was always causing trouble, and Fred was an easy target. Instead he flexed his
fingers and thought he’d picture Al’s face in the boxing ring at his next fight.

Stock Island, north of Key West

All the abandoned, broken, battered boats left to rot in the sun depressed Gavin.

He ran his hand along the side of an ancient fishing boat and imagined the water lapping
against its side during happier days. He thought he felt the sadness in the wood,
and then laughed at himself for thinking like a damned fool.

He readjusted the bag of parts on his arm and nodded at the yardmaster—a hefty, toothless
man with tobacco running down his chin, which had left a sloppy line down the front
of his yellowed sleeveless shirt. The man grunted and went back to the girlie magazine
he took no trouble to conceal. Gavin looked forward to the day he wouldn’t have to
collect spare parts from that disgusting slob for his boss. He envied the fishermen
he knew. He wished he could make his living from a boat on the water, instead of dangling
over it from one hundred feet up.

Of course, they were all struggling. Plenty of fish, not enough people to buy them.
Most of the fishermen he knew had traded their fishing rods for hammers, wrenches,
or flasks. It was hard times for everyone.

He pushed all of that out of his head, though. He was just happy to be heading into
Key West for the weekend instead of staying up at camp. His buddy in town was glad
to have him down, and Gavin was happy he could help him out around the house.

A movement beside the skeleton of a brown fishing boat caught his attention. A girl
in rolled-up men’s slacks and an old shirt walked around the boat, looked it up and
down, and ran her fingers along the bow. As she turned away from the boat she met
his eyes and his heart lifted. It was the girl from the boxing match. He couldn’t
believe it.

She smiled and walked toward him. “Gavin Murray, a boxer and a fisherman,” she said.

“Not much of either,” he said.

She laughed. “I don’t know. You sure filled my pocket last Friday.”

“Glad I could help,” he said. “Are you a fisherwoman?”

“Yes, though in temporary retirement, unfortunately,” she said.

“You got a name, fisherwoman?”

“Mariella Bennet.”

“And how do you know Hemingway?”

“I’m his maid.”

Gavin was intrigued. Why would Hemingway go to a boxing match with his maid? Judging
by her long, dark lashes, full lips, and silky hair, he thought he knew why. An unpleasant
and surprising jealousy stirred in his belly. He judged her badly for the relationship
he assumed she had with the writer, and didn’t know why.

“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way,” he said.

“I’ll walk out with you,” she said. “I’m done here, anyway.”

His curiosity overcame his negative feelings for a moment.

“What are you doing at the boat graveyard?” he asked.

“Looking for an old boat I knew. Looking for a boat I could fix.”

“
You
know how to fix boats?”

“Yes—is that so surprising?”

“Kind of.”

“Typical.”

Her familiarity relaxed him, and he smiled.

When she reached the old blue bicycle leaning against the chain-link fence, she stopped
and pulled it toward her.

“Nice seeing you again,” she said. “You fighting anytime soon?”

“Not for a couple of weeks.”

“Well, maybe next time.”

She swung her leg over and pedaled away. He adjusted the heavy bag to his other shoulder
while he watched her ride down the road, hoping he’d see her again in spite of whatever
she had with the writer.

Once she’d covered about a hundred yards, Mariella looked over her shoulder. The boxer
still stood there, watching her. She turned back toward Key West and felt the pressure
of his eyes on her. She felt vaguely annoyed that he didn’t think she could fix a
boat, and downright aggravated that he assumed she was Hemingway’s lover. She’d seen
it all over his face.