I suppose there’s some tremendous meditation there on republicanism and human nature, but I haven’t got the brains for it this morning.”
“Have you been there often? Miami Beach?”
“Oh, back and forth, really. Samuel goes to Miami on business, and I won’t be left by myself in dull old Cocoa, not if you paid me. I’ve done enough of that all my life! Being left behind.”
“What kind of business?”
“Heaven knows. Banks, I suppose. Or estate agents. Everybody’s buying land in Florida these days, you know. Oh, look! There’s the ocean. Isn’t it dazzling? You couldn’t pay me to return to England, either. For one thing, there aren’t any men left, and you’ve got heaps of strapping young fellows here. To be perfectly honest—you don’t mind if I’m perfectly honest, do you?”
“I don’t think I could stop you.”
“Well, as I said, to be perfectly honest, I was rather shocked to discover that you were still married at all. To Simon, I mean. That you hadn’t divorced him and married someone else. Some devastatingly attractive Yankee chap. You can’t have lacked for admirers.”
The Packard’s wheels slip in the mud, and I use this momentary distraction—righting a motorcar on a treacherous road, a nimble skill I still possess, thank God—to think of a suitable reply. When the Packard’s running straight and smooth once more, I squint briefly at the sun and say, “Not really. I didn’t go out. I was too busy with Evelyn.”
“But your sister! Surely your sister must have wanted to go out. Didn’t you chaperone her, or something like that? I think I read she had a suitor.”
“Read where?”
“Why, in the papers, of course! How do you think we discovered where to find you? Your father’s trial occupied all the headlines. I’m afraid I devoured them shamelessly. You were such a mystery to us, after all.” She pauses and turns to me. “I hope you don’t mind? I couldn’t very well not look. I’m not that noble.”
Unlike the sloppy road, the sky is blue and clear, the sun white against the windshield. Not so hot as yesterday, either, though it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Plenty of time for the heat to build, plenty of time for the tropical air to move in like a well-cooked sponge. For now, though, I’m enjoying the coolness of the breeze on my neck, the tiny goose bumps that raise the hair on my arms. I glance in the rear mirror, almost as if I’m expecting another car behind us, and say, “Then I guess you probably know more than I do. I haven’t looked at a newspaper in five months.”
“Really? Don’t you want to know what people are saying?”
“Not at all.”
“But your father! My goodness! Aren’t you curious to know what becomes of him now?”
I glance down at my daughter, nestled between my right leg and Clara’s left. Her soft head is already drooping against my ribs, her eyelids heavy and inattentive. The honeysuckle smell of her hair drifts upward into my throat. I turn a few inches to make absolutely sure my sister-in-law can hear my words over the engine.
“A court of law has just convicted my father of the crime of capital murder, Clara. So you’ll forgive me if I really don’t give a damn what becomes of him now.”
TWO HUNDRED MILES AND SEVEN hours later, I point the Packard eastward along a narrow causeway, according to Clara’s confident directions. The afternoon sun glitters joyfully on the water around us. To the left, a pair of oval islands slumber in the sunshine, too perfect for nature.
“Isn’t it clever?” Clara says, standing up on the floorboards, clutching the top of the windshield. The draft whips her bobbed hair about her cheekbones. “Carl’s dredging the bay to make beaches and islands. Just wait until you see the hotel.”
“Who’s Carl?”
“Carl Fisher, of course. He’s an absolute genius. He’s the one developing all this.” She makes a sweeping arc of her right hand, taking in everything spreading out before us: the oval islands made of dredged sand, the long strip of palms and mangrove and building plots on the barrier island beyond. “Miami Beach,” Clara says dreamily, and closes her eyes.
“I don’t see any beaches.”
“Those are on the other side, facing the ocean. The hotel’s right over there, along the bay, so you can watch the speedboat regattas right from your window. Or moor your yacht out front!” She laughs.
“If you’ve got a yacht, of course.”
“Even better if it’s someone else’s yacht, though. That way you haven’t got to take care of it, or remember to pay your staff.”
“Crew.”
“Yes, of course. Crew!” She laughs again and sits down, pulling Evelyn onto her lap. “You’re going to love Miami Beach, darling girl. We’ll take you to the casino first thing tomorrow.”
“The casino?”
“Oh, it’s not that kind of casino. At least, not by daylight. It’s a bathing casino. Lovely beach right on the ocean. Swimming pools. It’s heavenly. If I were going to build a mansion, I’d build it right here in Miami Beach. On the ocean side, I think, so I can watch the waves arrive from across the world.”
I don’t know if I agree with her. In the first place, I wouldn’t want to live in a mansion—too much grandeur, too much trouble—and in the second place, the ocean’s such an unreliable neighbor, isn’t it? Noisy, wet, tempestuous. Apt to spit up storms and unwanted visitors on your doorstep, without warning.
But my eyes and my shoulders are drained by the long drive in the sun, and I don’t possess the strength to argue, or really to speak at all. I grip the Packard’s large steering wheel between my hands—the white cotton gloves gone gray with dust—and concentrate what force remains on the slim, straight causeway before me, until our wheels roll onto dry land once more, and Clara points me left, up a wide and unhurried avenue, toward the Flamingo Hotel.
AN ELEPHANT BROWSES THE LAWN outside the hotel entrance.
“Look, there’s Rosie!” Clara exclaims. She hoists Evelyn onto her lap—much hoisting has been done this day—and points one graceful finger toward the beast, while I attempt, between astonished gapes, to keep the Packard in a straight line for the hotel entrance. If I’m not mistaken, a pair of golf bags hangs on a yoke from Rosie’s shoulders. Evelyn squeals and throws herself against Clara’s restraining hands.
“Why on earth do they keep an elephant?” I ask.
“For fun, darling! My goodness. Haven’t you ever heard of fun? There are two of them, actually. Elephants, I mean. Carl and Rosie. They do children’s birthday parties and caddy for the golfers and that sort of thing. Better than being cooped up in a zoo or a circus, I should think.”
Evelyn wants to stop the car and say hello to Rosie. I tell her we’ll meet the elephant later. My daughter’s face is brown from the sun, and she’s full of spirit after being cooped—in the manner of an elephant in a zoo, I suppose—inside the narrow front seat of a Packard roadster all day. Our several stops at fruit stands and service stations seem only to have fueled her excitement. She exclaims at
