Fins(7)

“That’s probably the biggest fish tank I’ve ever seen,” I gasped as I walked up to it, “apart from like, Sea World and the zoo.” It was much taller than I was and ran nearly the entire length of the wall. “Just how rich is Tammer?” I asked and watched a seahorse bob toward me.

“That’s the rudest question you’ve asked yet, Morgandy.” Mom was a bit put off, but I couldn’t help it. It was like looking at a train wreck – you didn’t want too, but you couldn’t help yourself. The seahorse stopped at the glass and eyed me.

“I’m not trying to be rude, Mom.” I put my finger to the glass. “I just can’t believe how rich he is.”

“Does that truly matter?” Mom asked.

I stood up straight and the little seahorse got a fright and squirted away as fast as he could back to the seaweed.

Turning to face her, I ran my hand through my hair and pulled a few strands up toward the ceiling. Mom had said I used to do that with my hair when I was little, as if to comfort myself. Remembering it made me stop.

“Yeah, money matters! You’ve got to have it, otherwise you’re nobody.” I said.

“Oh really?” She said. “This coming from my very wise and worldly seventeen year old?”

I wasn’t an idiot. Money makes you powerful and if you could have all your heart desired, why wouldn’t you?

“Money is very clearly not everything,” Mom added.

“Only rich people say that, Mom,” I pointed out.

“Not so much,” she said. “Poor people have been known to say that too. Some would say that having a relationship with God is everything.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We believe in God now?”

“We,” and she stressed the word, “have always believed in God, Morgandy. But I think that’s a conversation for another day.”

Shrugging, I took one last look at Naira’s room. “She’s a lucky girl.”

“So are you,” Mom said as we left the room.





Chapter Three




The Third Day



I’d spent two days at the house and on the morning of the third day, Mom decided she needed to show me around Vero Beach. Tammer and Naira stayed at the house. Mom and I piled into her Beemer and headed down the long driveway through the large black steel gates and onto the public road.

There wasn’t much to the town. It was a heck of a lot bigger than Stanley ever dreamed of being, but as far as towns went, it wasn’t anything grand. They had a Winn-Dixie, K-Mart, Dollar Store, Cracker Barrel and local Mall – the usual for the South.

Mom explained that many of the wealthy lived in Vero on the island as they did, and that if I lived with them, I’d finish high school at the private school there. I told her I didn’t plan on moving to Florida. Ever. I think I might have hurt her feelings, but she didn’t say anything.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called The Terrace that was practically engulfed in trees. I ordered the spinach and mushroom salad and Mom ordered iced tea.

“I haven’t seen you eat anything at all, Mom,” I complained when the waitress put my plate in front of me. “It’s starting to worry me.”

“We eat a special diet, honey. They don’t have the food in most restaurants.” She brushed her hair away from her face. “If I didn’t eat, I wouldn’t be alive, so you don’t have to worry.”

I didn’t laugh. It was really odd that Mom never ate. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Weren’t parents supposed to worry that their teenage daughter would become anorexic or start to cut herself – drugs even? Here I was, worrying about my forty year old Mom. Forty years old. A forty year old who looked like a thirty year old. Could even pass for late twenties.

I hesitated. “Can I ask you something?”

She nodded over the rim of her iced tea.

“Why do you look like you haven’t aged a day since your thirtieth birthday?”

She looked at me a really long time before she answered. “It’s probably the diet I’m on.”

I didn’t buy it.

“Did you get Botox or Restylane or something?”

She laughed and a table of businessmen looked our way.

“Good heaven’s no! I haven’t had any cosmetic procedures done, honey. It’s been a while since you saw me. Maybe you just don’t remember what I looked like a few years ago.”

“I remember just fine, Mom.” I stabbed my salad and shoveled it into my mouth. There was something fishy going on. I could just feel it. Mom shifted in her seat and crossed her arms on the table.

“Okay. There are just a few things I don’t think you could handle hearing.”