Florida Straits(5)

Sandra watched him out of the corner of her eye. Joey was not usually so chatty, almost never before noon. Most days he woke up grumpy, his mood as rough as his morning stubble. Sandra wasn't crazy about that, but at least she was used to it.

"You say you've never been here before?"

Joey was too wrapped up in the scenery to notice that the question had a suspicious edge to it. True, there were things he didn't tell Sandra, though they were not the sort of things a girlfriend needed to get jealous about, just things it was better she didn't know. But he'd never been to the Keys before, and he said so.

"You seem to know a lot about the place."

He let go of the steering wheel and shrugged. "I know people who've been here."

"Like your Uncle Tony."

"Yeah, Uncle Tony. And my mother."

Sandra paused. She seemed surprised—not that Joey's mother had been to the Keys but that Joey mentioned it. His mother had been dead six years. Sandra had never met the woman, and Joey never talked about her if he could help it. Three, four times a year, she came up in conversation, usually around some holiday, when everyone was feeling lousy anyway. Not that Joey hadn't loved his mother. That was just it. He had, Sandra knew that. But Joey was not one of those people who managed to pull some sweet juice out of being sad. For him, to linger on a sad thing that couldn't be fixed was as pointless as sticking your finger in your eye.

"When was your mother down here?" Sandra ventured.

Joey looked away from her, out the window at the pelicans, and waited to see if he'd get the usual knot in his belly and if it would clamp his mouth. It didn't happen. Maybe it was the sunshine, maybe just being away from Queens. "I think she was here a few times," he said.

Sandra stayed still and quiet.

"I never really got the story straight," Joey continued. "And of course I'm never gonna hear it from my old man. But as well as I can make out, what happened was like, if my father had business in Miami or Tampa or even Havana in the old days, he'd arrange for my mother to come down, and they'd have a few days together. You know. Some lobsters, some champagne, some dancing, some jazz, some walks onna beach. Pretty romantic, I guess. Then he'd go back to the wife and baby Gino, and my mother would ride home on a separate train."

He squeezed the steering wheel, pursed his lips, and tugged on an earlobe. "Fucking sordid, isn't it?"

"If they cared for each other. . ." Sandra began. But then, as though the notion didn't convince her, she let it trail off through the open roof. Joey flashed her a bent look that seemed to say, Thanks for trying, but the notion didn't persuade him either. He blew out a long breath, turned on the radio, and listened to static for a while.

"Reception sucks down here," he said.

—

It took Seven-Mile Bridge to pull him out of his sulk.

"Now this is really something, Sandra. Seven miles, nothing but water. How'd they do it? Like hammer some stakes innee ocean? I mean, this whole road is just like. . . like if they had a pier at Coney Island that ran practically to Sandy Hook. I mean, look at this!"

Sandra held on to her armrest and squirmed, as if trying to find a shady place in the roofless car. Pelicans scudded by, big and slow as clouds, and terns dove underneath the trestles. Joey clicked on the cruise control and half stood in the driver's seat to get a better view of the green water dotted with clumps of dusty mangrove and splotched with reddish patches of submerged coral. The salt wind steamed his sunglasses even though the air felt dry.

"You love it, huh?" Sandra shouted skyward.

"Love it," Joey said. "Feels like home."

He let the Caddy steer itself and spread his arms out wide, laying claim to the green water, the diving birds, the tinted sky. Sandra glanced up at him and tried to shield her sunburned forehead. All the sunblock in the world wasn't going to keep her from turning pink.

"I mean, Sandra baby, I got no waya being sure, but like, the way it feels, I think maybe I was conceived down here."





— 4 —

"Joey, you believe in omens?"

He cracked an eye and glanced in the direction of the voice. Sandra was standing in the open doorway of their dank room at the Farthest South Motel, and Key West's morning light was searing white behind her. He put a slightly mildewed pillow on his head. "Wha?"

"Omens, Joey. You believe in 'em?"

"Nah," he said. The sound came out from under the pillow like a bubble from underwater.

"Good," Sandra said. " 'Cause a coconut fell on the car and smashed the windshield."

"Ah fuck."

"Don't curse, Joey. Try at least."

He rolled over onto his back, the pillow still covering his pulsing eyeballs. "Sandra, I'm not even awake yet, and you tell me my goddamn car is trashed. Lemme curse."