The Pirate Queen (15 page)

If she could get beyond the empty feeling of marriage to a man who did not know how to love her, she could grab hold of a little of Tobias’s joy. Always the obstacles.

“Nana, come inside for ice cream.” Eddie stuck his head out the french door, a rim of chocolate mustache outlining his mouth. “Can
you have some or will it make you fat?” he asked, having heard her turn down dessert most of his life.

“I don’t care if it makes me fat, Eddie,” she said. “Give me chocolate and nuts and cherries, all of it.”

She ate the cup of ice cream, lapping up Eddie’s silly stories and even tolerating Bender’s absorption in a golf game on television. She wouldn’t let Sherry clean up the ice cream mess and instead sent her out of the kitchen to read or whatever she wanted to do.

Bender fell asleep on the couch. She turned off the television and covered him with a blanket. Eddie kissed his grandfather so hard that Saphora was surprised he did not stir at all.

“He’s taken his medication, Eddie. He’ll see you in the morning.”

“I love you, Nana,” said Eddie.

“I love you too,” she said. But it was his sincerity that broke open some of the emotions she had tamped down. “More than I can even tell you.” She hugged Eddie until he told her she did not have to get so mushy.

He went upstairs to bed without complaining.

She was not the least bit sleepy, being overwrought with dark chocolate decadence. The moon drew her back outside as if she were an ocean tide.

She could not get Tobias out of her head. He left behind a residue of his delicate self wherever he went. At first she thought it was his dependence on the kindness of strangers that caused those around him to pause and be thankful for their good health. Then it came to her that it was his humility.

Luke was out shoveling again. Of course. There was a full moon.

9

The artists drawn to Oriental’s warm shores had at some point in years past gotten the idea that tourists needed evidence of the existence of the Oriental dragon, a town myth. So in strategic locations around town, brightly colored giant dragon eggs sat perched in nests. The signs placed near the large stones disguised like eggs and painted in all kinds of mural motifs declared the spots were a natural nesting ground for the Oriental dragon.

In spite of the brilliant marketing ploy, Oriental attracted more sailing and yachting aficionados who had chanced upon its busy harbor than tourists lured by its humble publicity campaign. The town residents liked the fact that Oriental was a best-kept secret. The boat owners making up the sailing community loved its cozy, welcoming harbor and the lazy lull of its downtown streets.

In front of each shop or café were bike racks full of bicycles for people to ride and then leave at the next shop or café they visited. The town provided the bicycles to encourage the locals and tourists to put more bikers than drivers on the quiet streets. Saphora walked across the street to Ida’s B and B and borrowed a blue bicycle deciding, for
the time being, not to occupy her thoughts with Bender. The act of pedaling down South to the marina lessened her worries, swapping them for the lightness of soul she felt through the simple act of carrying food home in a backpack. She could disappear into the simple pace of Oriental and pretend she belonged to these gypsy types who lived part of the year sailing navigational routes down the Atlantic coasts, summers on the Gulf.

She came upon a farmer’s market under an outdoor tent. A local vendor wearing a straw islander hat manned the rows of folding tables. The tables were ornamented by bins filled with homegrown tomatoes and crookneck squash. He poured a bucket of green beans into a cardboard box. Walking up and down through the aisles, Saphora took in the smallness of the display. It wasn’t masses of vegetables like the bulk produce sold in large supermarkets. It was all that this man had grown from his home-based garden to produce this small, potent, natural bounty. He washed a tomato and handed it to her sliced in half. She thanked him and ate it warm. Its strong tang, superior to bland supermarket tomatoes, made her picture her mother, Daisy, bent over a container garden. “I’ll take six,” she said, and he bagged them.

He set out local honey and she took a jar.

Out front a sidewalk guarded by garden containers paralleled the two-lane downtown road. Beyond that the village harbor serviced fishing boats coming in and out. Captain Bart was greeting customers. Sea gulls serpentined overhead waiting for dropped fish. She asked herself what had taken her so long to come to Oriental.

In the next tent a half block down, two men wearing expensive blue-and-white windbreakers reclined in lawn chairs behind a table filled with fresh fish. When Saphora approached the table, one sat forward, happy to see her.

“What’s the fresh catch?” she asked.

“It’s all fresh,” he said. Grocers back home all claimed the fish was fresh when asked, too. But she trusted the local boys’ claim here along the coast. “How’s the tilapia today?”

“Almost out of tilapia. We’ve got salmon just off the boat. Some swordfish and tuna steaks.”

Gwennie was coming in tomorrow, catching an early flight. She would want the tuna steak. Sherry shared her tastes. Saphora picked out two tuna steaks for the women and two swordfish steaks for herself and Bender. Eddie would eat corn dogs.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“My husband, Bender, and I are here for the summer,” she said. “We have a house on South.”

“The big blue house with the green roof. Is that the one?”

“Yes. But it’s my first time here.”

“Glad to meet you. I’m Reed Holt and this is my brother Lane.” Reed wrapped up the fish and bagged it for her to tuck into her backpack.

“I’ve heard about a fishing tournament Saturday,” she said.

“Yep, the annual tarpon tournament’s kicked off by a kids’ parade down this street in an hour,” said Lane. “A couple of vendors will be frying fish.”

She thanked him. She would try and rally Eddie and Tobias. There was time to get the fish home into the refrigerator and pick up the boys. The last thing she needed to get was a couple of onions. The farmer’s market had sold out.

She rode the bicycle back up South and swapped it for the Lexus. The grocer’s was a little too far for biking on a short schedule. She drove to the grocer’s and spotted the yellow onions. She bagged one
up and was just about to meander toward the checkout lane when she heard, “I think you must be following me.” Pastor John Mims stood grinning and pinching an obviously ripened tomato.

He startled Saphora, but she kept the surprise from her face as much as possible, attempting a normal-looking smile. No use hiding.

“I’m glad I saw you. Did Dr. Warren tell you about tonight?” he asked.

“Not a word,” she said. So far she was not lying to Mims. Bender’s highly realized sense of self-possession had followed him from Davidson. Cancer had not simplified him but made him more complicated than even their first three decades together.

“The ladies’ quilting group is holding a silent auction and bake sale. Bender didn’t tell you about it?”

“He wouldn’t, Pastor.” She would be honest with him. “Bender’s not into bake sales and such,” she said. Bender was plying the minister with promises he did not intend to keep.

“The doctor said you’d be good for a pie. He didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t baked since we hired Sherry. And she cooks to suit Bender. He doesn’t eat pie.” She couldn’t tell whether or not Mims was kidding.

“That’s a shame.”

“It’s nice to see you, Pastor.”

Before she could escape, he stopped her again. “Mrs. Warren, you don’t have to bring anything. I was just trying to find a way to invite Dr. Warren out of the house. He says he’s not been out much since starting his chemo.”

“I doubt he’d come. He’s already got Sherry cooking dinner for tonight.”

“Sure, but if you can make it, it’s at six o’clock. There’s one silent
auction item that’s a vacation to the mountains. They expect it to be a hot ticket. But someone like Dr. Warren could give them a run for their money.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said, slipping away from the minister to the checkout lane.

Bernard sat on his stool as he must do for hours on end all day. “Mrs. Warren, I saw you confronting that crooked preacher. Want me to have him arrested?”

“Not today, Bernard,” she said. “Next week is jail-the-minister week.” She paid and left.

When she pulled into the drive, Eddie was spraying Tobias with the garden hose. Tobias ran off the concrete into the grass. He made a big deal of stopping Eddie at the source, clamping a section of the hose in two. Eddie pumped the nozzle twice and, finding it dry, tossed it down, running at Tobias.

“Eddie, come and get the groceries,” said Saphora.

Tobias beat him to the car and threw open the back door.

Wanting to keep the two of them from tangling like feral cats, she said, “Both of you grab a bag and then run into the laundry room to dry off. Then I’ll take you downtown to a parade.”

“I wanted to go swimming,” said Eddie.

“The parade!” said Tobias. He had a strange way of agreeing with adults. He carried the produce sack one-handed through the open garage door.

“Is there a pool, Eddie?” asked Saphora.

“The motel pool, Nana. The next-door neighbor said his cousin works there and would let us in,” said Eddie.

“When did you meet the neighbor?” she asked.

“This morning. Luke was out cutting grass and messing around.”

“Just be sure you ask the owner.”

“Luke said he’d vouch for us to his cousin,” said Eddie. “He’s already called ahead.”

Luke seemed reliable enough. “We’ll see. Hurry or we’ll miss the parade.”

By the time she got the two of them on bikes and headed downtown, children were lining up with their wagons and bicycles. Each kid had decorated a bicycle or a wagon with a dragon theme.

Eddie and Tobias found a spot on the curb beneath a shade tree. Saphora left them to watch the children pass while she slipped into a jewelry store. The owner had been hitting estate sales. Saphora found a pair of antique earrings the color of the lake. She bought them and then went back outside, where she found Eddie spitting on the walk.

Eddie had turned his back to the street. “This is dumb,” he said. “Swimming’s a better idea.”

“I shouldn’t swim, my mom says, unless she knows,” said Tobias.

There was a sadness about him that made Saphora say, “I’ll call her if you want to go. Can you swim?”

“Took lessons. I can race,” he said.

Bender called. Saphora stepped away to take the call. She was exasperated to hear that he had decided to go to Pastor Mims’s silent auction and bake sale. “Did he call you? Because I saw him at the grocery store, and he was really pushy about the whole thing.” She was surprised to hear that Mims had not called. Bender had placed the event on his calendar after promising the minister he’d go. He said, “I told Sherry she was off for the night.”