Seventh Avenue (29 page)

Palm trees flicked in the light breeze from Biscayne Bay. The car, a pale yellow Cadillac convertible, driven by Douglas Fredericks, crossed the Venetian Causeway from Miami proper to the beach. The bay, on the beach side, had a jade crystalline color, which cut the glare of the sun. The red leather seat felt like a broiled lobster and Jay opened his collar, slipped his jacket off, and slumped back. Fredericks pointed to an electronic device fitted into the dashboard.

“
Ship-to-shore telephone. I haven’t missed a trick.”

“
Very impressive,” Jay said listlessly. “What’s it cost?”

“
About five
hundred .
. . you ought to get yourself one.”

“
Yeah, it’s just what I’m missing.”

Douglas laughed amicably and offered Jay a cigarette.

“You’ve got to loosen up, Jay. You’re not an old man, so don’t act like one. I’ve got twenty-five years on you and I don’t feel a day over thirty-five.”

“
What keeps you young?”

“Money and women. I made my first million when I was a couple of years older than you, and I’ve been sitting on top of the mountain ever since.” He pulled the car into Ocean Drive and shot up along the front at First Street. “When you’ve got a million, you’ve got to behave like a millionaire. Imagine, you haven’t been to Miami before.”

“
I’ve been too busy paying for my money.”

“I’ll tell you something . . . the day I met you in that real estate office, I knew you were meant for big things, but when you put the squeeze on me, I wasn’t so sure.”

“
It’s worked out, hasn’t it?” Jay replied, querulously.

“Who’s complaining? I thought you were going to bring your little redhead along.”

“
It’s finished.”

“
I don’t see any tears.”

“
I wear them inside.”

“
What’s your wife have to say?”

“
We’re thinking of splitting up,” Jay said wearily.

“Mistake . . . big mistake. Wear out a thousand women first, but don’t get divorced. Once you start you never stop. The first one’s the hardest. I’ve had a few rough patches with my wife, but we’d never break up. The trouble is you’re bound to remarry, and you never know for sure if a woman wants you for your money . . . the one you start out with is for love.”

Jay looked at the tanned bodies lying on the beach; a gay medley of swimsuit colors that reminded him of confetti, and he gradually awoke from his emotional stupor. They all appeared to be enjoying themselves, and he realized that he hadn’t ever had a holiday in his life, apart from an occasional weekend in the mountains. His chin sagged, and the sweat poured off his forehead, clouding his eyes.

“
What’s the deal, Doug?”

“
How do you mean?”

“You must’ve had something in mind when you invited me down.”

“
How long are you going to stay?”

“
A week maybe.”

“Well, relax first . . . and have a look around Miami to see if you like it. Then we can talk. Business’ll wait.”

“
I’ve got a lot to think about at the moment.”

“
Your
wife .
. . ?”

“Uh-huh. She thought it would be best for me to get away, so here I am.”

They turned off Ocean Drive at The President and cut into Collins Avenue where a loud-mouthed cop was holding up traffic as he gave a ticket to a driver. Douglas pulled out of line, into the lane that had on-coming traffic. The policeman turned his leathery bull neck and was about to scream, but when he observed the license plate and the driver, he merely smiled and saluted. The seigneurial manner that Douglas assumed made an impression on Jay, because it was a compound of nonchalance and unselfconsciousness. Perched on a raffia seat, his flowing blue scarf caught in the wind and flapping against his neck, Fredericks looked like a kindly but still dangerous form of vulture: secretive, cunning and with the patience of an idol. The elegance of the hotels they passed, white façades with dolphin, Atlantis and Sun-King motifs, suggested a lost city risen from the sea - impermanent, pagan, a monument to man’s ineluctable courtship of the elements, which he could not disavow.

“
It’s paradise,” Jay said.

“
One day it will be.
When it’s exploited.”

They turned into Indian River Creek, and Douglas parked the car at the edge of the pier. A tall, uniformed man in a starched collar, with skin the color of blanched almonds, lifted Jay’s suitcase out of the backseat. Fredericks mumbled something under his breath that Jay couldn’t quite hear, and they descended a flight of sandy stone steps to a small motor launch called
TERRY II
.

“The house is across the bay . . . on the island. Next to Firestone’s place,” Fredericks explained.

The water was a bit choppy and clapped against the side of the launch. Jay stepped in, and the chauffeur, his face a necklace of sweat beads, cast off. The water had a sapphire tint, and the air smelled of salt and lemons and mimosa, as the boat cut a steady knife-line through the water. The distance between the shore and the island appeared to be less than it actually was, and Jay, with the spray jumping into his face, was both puzzled and amused by his error of judgment. They approached the island from the west; a strip of pearl-white beach twisted around its circumference like a line establishing a tangential relationship. He could not yet see the house that lay behind an armada of trees. A large boat was moored to a silver speckled pier; when he got close, he could see that it was enormous - a fifty-six-footer, with a Chris-craft pedigree blazoned on its arched prow. The launch angled around the boat, and Jay noticed it was
TERRY I
. He wondered who Terry was, but his total ignorance of boats and the way they were named prevented him from asking. For all he knew, the boatwright, or the government, assigned names to them. He followed Douglas across the pier and down a shaded path that was lined with brilliant purple bougainvillea, orange trees, lemon trees, which he mistook for grapefruits, and there was a heavy fragrance of jasmine, which tickled his throat. Like a perfume factory, he thought.

“
We have to walk,” Fredericks said.

“
Don’t apologize,” Jay said with a laugh.

“
It’s good exercise, mind you.”

Jay peered up at a row of enormous palm trees with swaying coconuts and walked closer to the edge of the path.

“Fifty bucks if one of them hits you on the head.”

“I’ll take a merchandise credit.”

“It’s a local tradition. The city of Miami pays it.”

“I’m glad you told me . . . it makes all the difference.” His feet sank into the soft black gravel, which had a fresh wet odor distinct from the flowers that surrounded him. “If I didn’t see this place with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed anyone could live this way.”

“Stay married, and you’ll be able to buy your own island. I’m not kidding . . . divorces cost a fortune, and you’ll get the kind of publicity that you’ll never live down.”

“Thank’s for the advice.” Jay’s mouth opened into a wide yawn of astonishment when they came towards the house. It sprawled over a wide garden; a curving green shingled roof sloped down the front of the house and there was a small rounded arch, like that of a Spanish mission’s, leading to the entranceway that had a cluster of climbing roses over a wooden trellis. A twisting circular verandah ran around the house and a woman wearing gardening gloves, light gray gabardine slacks and a white straw hat tilted rakishly over one eye sat on a chaise longue sipping a drink from a frosted glass. She got up, with military precision, when she spotted them. Her face was the color of faded saddle leather, and the skin, as though stretched beyond human endurance, was drawn tightly round her watery blue eyes. One sagging bag, or old-age crease, might blow a hole in her face, Jay thought. She forced a smile to her lips and then dropped it, as though frightened it would cause too much skin tension.

“My wife, Denise,” Fredericks said, and Denise extended her hand. Jay didn’t know whether he was expected to kiss it. He shook it after a moment’s hesitation.

“We’ve waited lunch for you,” she said in a Back Bay Boston accent that sounded to Jay like someone playing a violin with a comb for a bow.

“That’s very nice of you.”

“Hope you’re hungry,” she said with some warmth, and Jay could tell that she wasn’t head over heels in love with him.

“He likes the place,” Douglas interposed.

“That is kind of him,” Denise replied.

She rang a little bell on the table, and a colored butler appeared, dressed like an intern, carrying two ten-inch-high glasses and a plate of olives stuffed with anchovies. Jay sipped his drink gratefully and realized that he was drinking a Tom Collins with about a quarter of a bottle of gin in it. The drink had a soothing effect on his abraded nerves, but Denise’s supercilious stare, and the glum, inebriated lip purses she rewarded him with whenever he glanced in her direction or made a harmless, irrelevant remark, contributed to the alarming sense of disorientation, which like a fever overpowered him. He wondered if he ought to make some excuse and check into a hotel on the beach, where he could relax and think. He was, however, reluctant to tamper with destiny; although he did not believe in a predetermined universe, he had a strong apprehension of some elaborately subtle web of plans that Fredericks had set in motion; and he did not want to upset them. Why had he been invited in the first place, and why had he accepted, unless he was prepared to listen to a business proposition that might have a profound influence on his future? Fredericks had the same significance in his life as an amulet does for a savage.

Cold lobster was set out on the table, and Denise, with a perfunctory flick of her spindly fingers, invited him to the table. The sound of wet bare feet padding on stone came from behind him, and he turned reflexively. A tall, suntanned girl, with the blackest hair he had ever seen, and eyes the color of jade, was drying herself as she walked. She had a small, puckish nose and a mischievous smile danced across her mouth; she walked with a wonderful swaying rhythm that announced like a hautboy at a coronation that grace was not merely a state of mind but a physical attribute. She was quite the happiest person he had been close to, and he stretched out his hand like a beggar eager for alms and the magical touch of beauty.

“
Hiya, Jay,” she said. “I’m Terry.”

“
I thought you were a boat.”

“I’m two boats.” She had a soft, amused lilt in her voice, and she motioned him to sit. “You here to ski or mountain-climb” - she pointed at his wool shirt and he felt himself flush – “or swim?”

“
Don’t be rude,” Denise said.

“I’m never rude, Mother, just aggressive.” She turned back to Jay, who was fiddling with a thin, miniature fork, and trying to imagine what if any use it had. He decided it was for decoration. “You’ll have to get rid of those ski togs. I’ll run you down to Lincoln Road after lunch, and you can get some beach stuff.”

“Thanks,” Jay said, munching a piece of toast that crumbled in his hand.

“See, Mother, he’s not as awful as you supposed.”

“Oh, sorry, are you disappointed?” Jay said to Denise.

“My daughter has a peculiar sense of humor,” Douglas said, “and she’s a very skillful liar.”

Terry opened her eyes wide and began to laugh with childlike amusement.

“I’m a very dangerous woman, Jay, so be careful . . .”

“I came on the spur of the moment,” he explained.

“Don’t apologize . . .”

“When did you say you have to go back to college?” Denise asked.

“On Monday I return to the city of our pilgrim fathers.”

Jay watched her spar with her mother, and he had a deep uncomfortable awareness of his own ignorance. He attempted to mask his confusion by keeping his face expressionless. He toyed with the small fork and watched her probe the lobster claws with hers. She had white regular teeth that gleamed like small beacons in her suntanned face. Douglas pinched her cheek with paternal affection, and Jay could see that although she was whimsical, irritating and forthright, she possessed a staggering charm and originality. He wondered if money had created the aura or if the aura was innate and money merely enhanced it, like the setting of a diamond. He ate his lunch quickly, and he caught her looking at him out of the corner of her eye and then winking provocatively. They moved out of the shaded dining area to the center of the verandah for coffee, and Jay had to move his chair out of the sun. Denice seemed to defrost slightly, and she said sympathetically: “Why don’t the two of you get going? Poor Jay looks like he’s frying.”