The Invisible Husband of Frick Island - Colleen Oakley Page 0,17
though at least fifteen minutes had passed, the woman—what had the bartender said her name was? Piper?—was still sitting very much alone.
* * *
—
It took two long blinks for Anders to recall exactly where he was Friday morning. He lifted his head off the pillow. Radiant sunlight beamed through the rips in the canvas window shade and directly into his face, causing him to squint as if injured.
“Freakin’ Frick Island,” he muttered to the water-damaged wallpaper, the Bible on the nightstand, the silent air. He let his head fall back down on the pillow, then eyed the Bible once more. Did the Gideons really come all the way to Frick Island just to deliver them to a five-room motel? That was dedication.
Then he sat straight up, remembering the times of departure BobDan had quoted for the buy boat (5:30 a.m.) and the mail boat (7:00 a.m.). He checked his phone—6:36 a.m.—and realized he’d missed one but may still have time to catch the other. He stuffed his feet in his loafers and left the room, dropping his key in the rusty metal box beside the glass front door—and not even glancing inside to see if the mirthless woman working the front desk when he checked in was still there. (When he inquired about a room, she had waved her hand to five hooks on the wall behind her head. Four of them had keys hanging from them. “You can take your pick,” she said, her eyes never leaving the magazine she was lazily flipping through. “Except the penthouse. It’s booked.” It took Anders ten seconds longer than it should have to realize this was a joke.)
Carrying his still-damp shirt in one hand, he eyed the road back into the main strip of town and, seeing the cracked, potholed, sun-bleached asphalt in the light of day, wondered how on earth he hadn’t turned an ankle during his dark walk to the motel the previous night. Quickly, he realized it wasn’t the only thing in need of repair. The houses all were in their own state of disrepair—slanting staircases, grimy windows, splintered wood, missing shingles. They weren’t abandoned-looking—no broken glass or boarded-up doors—just worn, lived in, loved. The Velveteen Rabbits of real estate.
Air always feels fresher after a storm, and the air on Frick Island was no exception. As it was too early in the morning for the mugginess to have set in, Anders might have enjoyed the stroll, appreciated the cloud-streaked morning sky, the rustle of wind through the blue-green seagrass between the houses, but he was too focused on getting away from it all, and he didn’t want to miss the boat. He picked up his pace and was out of breath by the time he got to the marina at 6:51.
The docks were alive with men attending to various duties, tossing metal cages and ropes around as if they were as light as footballs. Anders scanned the various skiffs tied up, searching for a mail boat, but supposed it might be too much to ask that it would actually say that on the side. He spotted BobDan Gibbons wearing the same faded ball cap he’d had on the day before, talking to a man in waders in front of a bench. Anders approached him, and both men fell silent. BobDan looked him up and down.
“Found the hotel, I reckon?”
“I did,” Anders said. “Is the mail boat still here? I was hoping to catch a ride back to the mainland . . .”
“No. Left about ten minutes ago.” BobDan looked back to the man in waders, picking up where he left off about the rising price of gasoline. “Fifteen cents more than last week and prolly go up again ’fore August is over.”
Anders’s shoulders fell, and he turned on his heel to leave, before realizing he had nowhere to go. He had half a mind to jump off the dock into the water and attempt to swim the twelve miles in his khakis, or drown trying. Instead, he bent his knees and plopped down on the bench to wait. For four hours.
The two men talked for a few minutes longer and then the one in waders walked off in the direction of the boats while BobDan turned toward the marina. Anders shoved his hands in his pockets, closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and exhaled a long breath. His stomach gurgled, demanding its daily slug of coffee and twosome of raw Pop-Tarts. He wondered, briefly, if the One-Eyed Crab