“Sure.”
“And then if you wanna start trenching for the sprinklers, you can do that.”
“No problem.”
“Unless it’s this hot again. Then don’t.”
I shifted my feet in the sand. “I’ll do it.”
He frowned. “Yeah. I know you will. I’ll be damned if you don’t do everything you say you’re gonna do, kid. I may find you dead on that lot with a shovel in your hand, melted by the sun, but you’ll probably have it all done.”
I gave him a faint smile. I liked Ike. He was a good guy. And he didn’t ask a lot of questions, even when I knew he wanted to.
“You find that six footer I told you about?” he asked.
“Nah.”
He raised a thick eyebrow. “Carter said you’d probably need a board.”
I sat down in the beach chair. “I don’t.”
“You bring one with you?”
“No.”
“Well, you can use that…”
“I don’t surf anymore, Ike,” I said, cutting him off. “So I don’t need it. But thanks.”
Ike nodded. “Alright. Good enough. You’ll holler if you need something?”
“Yep.”
He headed up the dunes toward the parking lot and I watched him disappear.
I listened to the small waves crash against the shore. The wind had turned, blowing hard off the gulf, the blue-green water choppy and rough. The sun was high in the sky, beating all of us outside into a sweaty submission.
I hadn’t talked to Carter in several months. The last time we’d spoken, I was on a pay phone in Oklahoma, putting as much distance between me and California-and the memories of Liz-as I could. He’d called in a favor and told me to head to Florida. Gave me an address in Fort Walton Beach, told me Ike would know what to do. I didn’t ask what the favor was in return for. I didn’t need to know.
Ike had taken care of me. Got me a place to live and gave me a job. I was surviving.
Carter and I agreed that we shouldn’t talk for awhile, part of that whole plan to lay low. I had an email address that I checked once a week from a coffee shop or the library. If there was anything he thought I should know, it would show up there.
So far, it had remained empty.
I watched the vacationers bounce in the water, yelling and screaming and smiling. You could find a sunburn in every shade of pink and red if you strode down the beach. They didn’t notice me unless they wanted to drop twenty bucks on a big blue umbrella, thirty if they wanted the chair, too. They were there on the Panhandle because they’d chosen to be, to escape their everyday lives and enjoy a few days in the sun and water.
I was there because I had no place else to go.
FOUR
Colin was waiting for me as I carried the last two umbrellas back to the stand.
“Hey,” he said, lifting his chin. “Tough guy. I need to talk to you.”
I stepped around him and laid the two umbrellas on the pile of others inside the small box shed. I pulled the cable across them and snapped the lock into place. I closed the door on the shed and locked that. I picked up my backpack and started up the dunes toward the lot.
“Are you fucking deaf?” Colin growled from behind me.
I said nothing.
“I said I need to talk to you.”
I stepped off the sand and onto the planked wooden walkway.
“You need to mind your own fucking business, tough guy.”
I nodded at a couple heading the opposite direction on the walkway. I passed the shower and descended the stairs to the parking lot.
Colin scurried around and set himself directly in front of me. “Hey. Stop walking, asshole.”
I took a step to my right and he slid in front of me, blocking my path.
I exhaled and stared at him.
“You need to mind your own business,” he repeated. His chest was puffed out again like it had been earlier. His arms were at his sides, exaggerating the distance they needed from his body to show off his muscles.
“You should move,” I said. “Now.”
An evil slit creased his mouth. “Oh, good. You do talk.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You see that girl or that kid again,” he said. “Stay away. Got it?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I said do you got it?” he snarled again and poked his finger in my chest.
I grabbed his finger and bent it straight back. He swung at me with his free arm but I already had my arm up to block it. I stepped forward with my right leg and swept it quickly back into him. He went straight down to the pavement on his back and I dropped hard onto him, my knee smashing into his chest.
His sunglasses were gone and his eyes bulged. He opened his mouth but nothing came out of it, not even when his finger snapped and went limp. I loosened my grip and tears formed in the corners of his eyes but he still didn’t make a sound. I rose off him and then jammed my knee into his sternum again. He gasped, for air or because of the pain, I didn’t know.
I stared at him, months of rage bubbling in my system, begging to be released. The hair on my arms stood at attention and the heat on my skin had nothing to do with the air temperature.
Colin’s eyes squeezed shut in agony, his mouth open, eager for oxygen to find its way into his empty, compressed lungs.
I stood.
He coughed and wheezed as he whimpered over his finger. He rolled onto his side, hugging the broken finger to his chest, his eyes still closed.
I adjusted the backpack on my shoulders and scanned the parking lot. We were alone in the dimming sun and suffocating heat. I took a deep breath, trying to release the anger inside me. I felt nothing-no remorse, no sorrow, no guilt-for what I’d done to him. I knew that wasn’t a good thing, that it could take over in a fraction of a second and I’d end up doing more than just hurting him. Just like I’d done with Keene.
I tugged on the straps of the backpack and looked down at him. He was curled up in the fetal position. He’d need a cast and he’d be sore, but he’d be alright. Well and dumb enough to bother me again, most likely.
I walked away from him, leaving him there on the pavement, and hoped he would prove me wrong.
FIVE
I crossed the sand-covered street into the neighborhoods, across from the condos and hotels. Fort Walton Beach was a narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Gulf of Mexico to the south and a curving, twisting bay to the north. The neighborhoods were a combination of low-slung bungalows and newer homes that had been built on lots where bungalows had been torn down. Most of the front yards consisted of sand and rock, almost like a desert, but the newer homes-the ones with money-paid a pretty penny for irrigated lawns.
The residents were a mish-mash, just like the homes themselves-some had been there forever, some showed up just for the cooler months. Working class locals co-mingled with the
