His eyes went to her name pin: Amanda. “Mandy?”
“The one and only.” They looked at each other. “My God,” she said, “isn’t this something? I mean, what goes around comes around.”
“I’ve got a bad memory for faces,” Eddie said, thinking that a chivalrous phrase might be required but doubting that that was it. He searched her face for the features of the Mandy he had known, and found some; but smudged, blunted, coarsened. Like the others-Jack, Evelyn, Bobby Falardeau-she had aged more quickly than he, as though prison, with its bad food that kept him from eating too much, and its absence of sunlight, which had kept his skin unwrinkled, had slowed the life clock inside him. A nice thought; but it left out his hair, growing in gray.
“Of course I remember you-I never forget anyone I sleep with,” Mandy said, verifying Eddie’s doubt. “There haven’t been all that many, considering.”
The office door opened again and a little man came out, carrying a briefcase. “Not all that many what, dear?” he said.
“Requests for the Cotton Town jitney,” said Mandy. “Say hi to Eddie, an old acquaintance of mine. Eddie-my husband, Farouz.”
They shook hands. Farouz’s name pin read “Manager.”
“Gotta run,” he said, and went out.
Mandy’s eyes were on him again. “You’re lookin’ good,” she said. “Stayed in shape, unlike yours truly. I don’t have the discipline.” She raised her arms hopelessly. “That’s my sad story. What have you been up to?”
A routine question for most people, but not for him. Had he heard it right? “What have I been up to?”
His tone surprised her. “Since I wimped out on you that time up in Lauderdale,” she explained.
“Wimped out?”
She lowered her voice. “When the cops came. You don’t have much of a memory for anything, do you? I heard them come aboard and just grabbed some gear and jumped off. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging and all, but what could I do? Especially since I was hip to what was on board and you weren’t. I just knew you’d be okay.”
“Okay?”
Mandy glanced around to see if anyone was watching. “I know you were pissed off. But you could have answered my letters. After all, there was no harm done.” Eddie was silent, but something in his expression made her say, “What? What is it?”
“You’d better explain,” Eddie said.
“About what?”
“About no harm done.”
Mandy shrugged. “You know. Nothing came of it.”
“Nothing came of it?”
“Brad lost everything to the bank, of course, but I meant nothing came of it in terms of you. I was back at my parents’ in Wisconsin by that time-classic move, right? — but when they dropped the charges I wrote you, more than once, and you didn’t write back.”
“Wrote me where?”
“Care of your brother in Lauderdale. I kept in touch with him for a while. That’s how I knew you got off.”
Eddie leaned on the counter, not trusting his legs to hold him up. “Jack told you I got off?”
“In a postcard or something. That’s when I started writing you. I gave up after a few months. I’m the kind who carries a torch, but not forever.”
Eddie didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, looking for some sign that she was lying. He saw none.
She misread whatever expression was on his face. “Hey! You really couldn’t expect me to, now could you? I mean, you didn’t even answer my letters.”
“It’s all right,” Eddie said. His legs felt a little stronger now; he stepped back from the counter.
“Whew,” said Mandy. “I thought you were going ballistic there for a second.” She looked him up and down. “How about a drink?” she said. “On me.”
“I’ve got to get going.”
She reached across the counter, touched his forearm. “What’s the rush? You’re on vacation, right?”
They went into an air-conditioned bar overlooking a heart-shaped swimming pool. It had green-glass floats hanging from the ceiling, fishnets and harpoons on the walls, and a neon name glowing over the rows of bottles: “Mongo’s.” Jack’s suggestion, outliving him like the work of some great author.
“Do you own this place?”
Mandy laughed. “Are you kidding? It’s owned by AB Gesselschaft. They bought it from the bank, way back.” A waiter arrived. “What’ll it be?” Mandy said. “Cecil makes the best damn planter’s punch in the Bahamas.”
Two planter’s punches arrived, in tall frosted glasses with pineapple wedges stuck on the rims. Mandy raised her glass. “To old times,” she said, taking a big drink.
Eddie drank too; the glass trembled in his hand. It was too bitter.
“We were so young,” Mandy said. “And what a place. Undeveloped then, but still. Irrestistible, I guess. At least, I couldn’t resist it.”
“When did you come back?”
“After the bank took over. I kind of drifted down. It was closed, but they needed someone who knew the history. When the Germans took over I stuck around, answering the phone, working my way up. Then Farouz arrived.” She took another drink. “Jesus, that’s good. You like?”
Eddie made himself drink some more. She watched him, watched his face, his hand, his throat as the liquid went down. “I’ve got a confession to make,” she said. “Promise you won’t tell a soul?”
Eddie smiled. It was such a childish idea. “Promise,” he said.
Mandy smiled too. “Remember that shed by the old tennis court?”
He nodded.
“I still think about it.” Her voice grew husky. “I mean a lot. When I’m in bed, kind of thing.” She tried to meet his gaze boldly, but couldn’t. “With Farouz, I mean. As soon as I start getting all hot, or if I’m not, I just think of that time, and then I do.” Her face, dark and leathery as it was, reddened. She gulped her drink. There was a pause. She leaned toward him. “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“I find that hard to believe.” She leaned a little closer. “Do you think about it?” she asked.
She didn’t have to say the shed. He knew. In his cell in F-Block he’d thought about it a lot, not as a hormone booster to get him in the mood for someone else, but just because it was one of the best memories he had. Now he knew he would never think about the shed again, not in the same way. “It’s gone now, isn’t it?”
She leaned back. “What’s gone?”
“The shed.”
She looked at him. Her eyes grew cooler, businesslike. “We’ve got twelve Deco-Turf courts and an outstanding program, if you’d like a lesson sometime.” She glanced at his drink. “You don’t like Cecil’s creation?”
“I do.” He took another sip. “But I’ve got to get going.”
The jitney left from the dock. Eddie sat alone at the back, waiting for the driver to finish saying good-bye to his girlfriend and climb aboard. He kissed her, patted her shoulder, patted her rump, kissed her again, answered a question, then another. Out on the water, a cruiser slowly approached the dock: long, white, multidecked, topped with rotating antennae and satellite dishes; possibly the boat he had flown over. It was much too big to cross the reef. Even as Eddie had the thought, the cruiser swung round, slowed some more, dropped a bow anchor. Eddie could read the name on the stern:
The driver hopped on the jitney, cranked up his boom box, shot away from the dock. “Cotton Town and all points in between,” he said. “Which is nowhere. Va va voom.”
