“Hey, stranger.” Jo sat on the stool in front of him.
He lifted his head and smiled wide. “Hey, Jo. I thought that was your boy I saw earlier. When did you get in?”
“This morning.”
“You look good.” His dark eyes settled on hers. His long hair was tied in a ponytail, and a sweat-stained red bandanna was wrapped around his head. “Do you want a beer?”
“I thought you were closed.”
“Not to you.” He popped the cap off a cold bottle and set the beer down in front of her. She took a long swallow before reaching for a cigarette. He was quick with a light, and when she leaned into the flame, she couldn’t help but notice his missing thumb tip, the one the snapper had bitten off when they were sixteen years old.
He glanced at his thumb, and she was embarrassed to have been caught staring. After all these years, she struggled to shake the image of him flapping that turtle through the water, screaming, splashing, and later, sitting on the beach, staining the sand black with his blood, his then girlfriend, Sheila, holding him.
She had been Billy’s girl back when it had happened. Everything in her life, good or bad or in-between, always led back to Billy.
* * *
She polished off the bottle of beer and set it on the bar, raising her pointer finger, signaling to Eddie for another. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gotten drunk in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe as far back as last week when she had split a bottle of wine with one of the other maids while they were scrubbing the floors in the half-a-million-dollar mansion they were hired to clean back home in New Jersey.
“So are you planning to stick around for a few days?” Eddie asked.
“It looks like it.” She didn’t have much choice. Gram was adamant about needing her help, although she still had to clear it with Rose, her boss. She raised the bottle to her lips. “Apparently, I have chores to do around the cabin,” she said before taking a long drink.
“Is Kevin joining you?” he asked.
“He had to haul a load to Arizona.” Although he was most likely on his way back by now. Kevin drove a big rig for a trucking company. He was on the road more than he was home, and she was okay with that. She understood it was easier for him to be away. He had given up so much, sticking by her when she became pregnant at sixteen with Johnny, marrying her when he could’ve walked away. She loved him for it. Sometimes she loved him so much, it hurt.
The delivery guy made an appearance with several cases of beer stacked on a dolly. Eddie rushed to help him. While the guys unloaded the order, she continued to smoke and drink, wondering how she was ever going to get through the next couple of days.
By the time Eddie returned to the bar, she was feeling dizzy from the heat. Frank Heil, the owner of the Pavilion, the bar, and the beach, was too cheap to leave the air conditioning on when the bar was technically closed. Eddie had to work in the heat until the sun went down and the doors were opened to customers.
“Here.” He opened another cold bottle and set it in front of her. “You know, I didn’t want to say anything earlier, but your boy was all over one of those Chitney girls.”
“So soon? It didn’t take him long.” She picked up the cold bottle and placed it on her cheek.
“Those Chitney girls are, well, you know what I mean. I’d make sure Johnny knows what he’s getting into. The oldest sister, she’s got two kids, and she doesn’t even know who their father is.” He was about to say something more but then stopped.
People were shouting on the beach below. Their voices traveled through the open balcony and to the second-floor bar. Eddie looked at her. “That doesn’t sound good, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said.
A woman screamed.
CHAPTER THREE
Caroline crashed into the circle her friends made on the beach. She peered at the object in Adam’s hand. It looked like two pieces of rusted metal joined by an even rustier circular ring.
“What do you think it is?” Adam asked.
“It’s definitely old.” Ted picked it up and turned it over.
“If you’re cut,” Ned said to Adam, “you’re going to need a tetanus