Marsha reclined on a beach chair near the edge of the surf, an unread newspaper folded on her lap, a drink nestled in a depression she’d created in the sand. On the other side of her beach chair, a black plastic boom box sat baking in the Bahamian sun as well, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones softly pouring from the pair of speakers. Marsha looked relaxed for the first time in days, and she’d managed to gain back part of the ten pounds she’d lost, thanks largely to my insistence that we eat everything in sight. I came up behind her and rattled the sack I had in my hand as a warning; she’d been a little jumpy lately. This time, though, she didn’t flinch. Maybe she was getting over it.
It had taken us a few days to quit buzzing. When the shooting started that Saturday night, the police assault team rushed in and took most of the Pentecostal Evangelical Enochians without a fight. Expecting a final confrontation at dawn on Sunday, the boys in MUST had gone on an all-out, edge-of-your-seat alert. At the first crack of gunfire, they did their own remake of
Police casualties: zip.
There was hell to pay for us, of course, mostly from the news media. How a penny-ante private investigator and a ragtag car repossessor managed to free five hostages when the police, the FBI, the National Guard, and the Boy Scouts were all held at bay was a subject of keen interest. The hardest ones to fend off were the tabloids. Marsha flat out refused to give interviews, but Kay Delacorte and the others were telling everybody to take a number, take a seat. Lonnie went to ground, as I expected. The last thing he wanted was anyone paying attention to him.
As for me, I thought about trying to parlay the whole situation into a few bucks. But then I decided money was too expensive to be made that way. I’d had my fifteen minutes of fame, and frankly, that was plenty. Maybe that was stupid, but I still had to look in the mirror every morning.
So Marsha and I ran and hid. At first, Dr. Henry didn’t want to give her comp and vacation time. Something about getting right back on a horse when you’ve fallen off. She threatened to quit, then sue the dog snot out of the city. He reconsidered. She told him we’d be out of the country for a few weeks-at least until the hubbub died down-and that she’d call him when she got back.
Maybe.
I sat down in the sand next to her and pulled a CD out of the sack. “Look what I found in the hotel gift shop.”
She opened her eyes halfway. “Wow,” she said, her voice almost sleepy. “I didn’t know country music was so popular down here.”
I yanked the plastic off and replaced Bela. I stared at the picture on the square CD case, with the word BECCA painted across the top in a bright yellow swash. I hit the play button and Rebecca Gibson’s voice was there just like she was sitting next to us. I thought of that first night I’d seen her, her last night on earth, back home at the Bluebird Cafe. The first song was one that she and Slim had cowritten, a soft love ballad called “When Your Heart Gets Lonely, Call Me.” It was a sweet, syrupy song that gave me a pain in the middle of my chest. Her voice was genuinely unique, pure, cutting, powerful. Now it was gone. Well, maybe not, I thought.
The lead song finished, then the opening guitar licks of “Way Past Dead” started.
“My love for you is way past dead,” I sang along flatly. I’m not quite tone-deaf, but I am harmonially impaired.
“It better not be,” Marsha said.
“Don’t worry.”
“This is great,” she murmured sleepily.
“I think we’re going to be okay,” I said after a few more measures.
“Yeaaahh,” she said, her voice drifting.
Then I settled down in the sand next to her, leaned back against the side of her beach chair, and rested my head against her arm. She brought her other hand across and ran her fingers gently through my hair.
We sat there quietly as the Caribbean sun and Rebecca Gibson’s voice warmed us and brought us slowly back to life.
