how about Mandi?” Goldy asked.
Karma had experienced some success in placing Mandi, who also lived in this apartment house, but most guys backed off after they realized that artfully streaked hair, acrylic fingernails, and weekly massages did not come without a steep price.
“Could be,” said Karma noncommittally. She turned to go.
“Oh, by the way, Geofredo’s probably in your apartment right now. He’s respraying the whole third floor.”
Karma stopped and frowned. “I told you I didn’t want that exterminator guy coming into my place. You know I don’t believe in killing anything.”
Goldy spared her a meaningful look. “You told me you had a family of roaches living under your refrigerator.”
The roaches were palmetto bugs, enormous and all too prevalent in the state of Florida. These were big brown insects the size of hummingbirds, and they also flew. For palmetto bugs and spiders, which creeped her out bigtime, Karma was able to relax her standards slightly as long as she didn’t have to do the killing.
Goldy said, “You tell Geofredo to check the supply room on your floor for spiders.”
“Will do.”
Karma started up the stairs to the third floor; there was no elevator in the building. She figured the stairs were good exercise, which she needed now that she was going to be sitting behind a desk every day. Not that she had done much sitting so far, since the chair was usually piled high with papers. Most of the hours she had put in at the Rent-a-Yenta office had been spent painting and cleaning, with an occasional client thrown in for good measure.
Speaking of clients, Goldy’s niece Jennifer was skipping toward her down the stairs, probably on her way home from visiting Mandi. Jennifer’s hair was long, straight, and bouncy. She wore a tight cutoff Planet Hollywood shirt with low-slung white capri pants that showed off her silver navel tassel.
“Hi, Karma,” she said, stopping before they passed. “Hey, are those real?”
“Are what—?” Karma began before she realized that Jennifer was unabashedly staring at her breasts.
Karma shook her head as if to clear it. Was she supposed to answer such a question?
“I don’t mean the boobs, silly. If they were fake, you’d have chosen bigger ones. No, I mean the nipples.”
“What?” Back in Connecticut, where Karma came from, people didn’t ask such personal questions.
“Oh, well, I guess they must be. Forget I asked—I was only wondering if your nipples were fake because I’m going to buy some if I can figure out where to get them, and I thought you could tell me.”
“Sheesh, Jennifer, what are you talking about?” Karma had thought, erroneously it appeared, that she had outgrown being freaked by the wacko characters in Miami Beach.
Jennifer tossed her head so that her hair gave off the overpowering scent of mango-coconut shampoo. “Nipples, silly, you can buy fake ones to stick on. My own are kind of puny, and the idea of all these guys I’m going to meet through Rent-a-Yenta has been making me think. Do I want a steady boyfriend? Yes! Do I want to use every means at my disposal to attract one? Yes! Guys love huge nipples, Karma, believe me. It’s a major drawing point. Point, that’s funny!” She laughed uproariously.
Karma made herself keep a straight face. “I can’t help you, sorry. But if I were you, I’d try that place advertised on the big billboard near the airport—The Booby Trap ‘n Boutique.” The billboard featured an overendowed winking woman wearing nothing but a large pink feather.
“Oooh! Good idea! Thanks, Karma.” With that, Jennifer resumed her skipping down the stairs, and Karma readjusted her blouse so that it didn’t cling.
The exterminator, Geofredo, was backing into her apartment with his bug-spray equipment as she arrived. Karma considered if maybe this was the man she was going to marry, like in the song. She also considered readjusting her blouse so that it did cling, but she quickly gave up the idea until she knew more about him.
As he went around her apartment spraying and smiling shyly between squirts, Karma decided that if this guy had any intention of marrying her, he wasn’t letting on.
He gave her one last bashful smile at the door. “Hasta la vista? Baby?” he said, looking more tentative than forceful.
“Don’t forget about the spiders in the supply room,” she said, doing a finger-play demo of the kindergarten song about the itsy-bitsy spider. “In el rooma de supply.” This was the best shot she could give Spanish; she’d taken French in high school.
Geofredo shoved the bug bomb he was carrying into his pocket and grinned widely, exposing a row of teeth as white and as straight as a row of Chiclets. “Spi-der,” he said, mimicking her actions. “Araña.” That’s when Karma spotted the wedding ring on the third finger of his left hand and realized that he wasn’t the man for her.
“Hasta la vista to you, too,” she told him, and then she shut the door behind him fast.
Besides, she really dug cowboys. Or at least she had ever since she’d set eyes on Slade Braddock.
2
SLADE SETTLED BACK in a deck chair, popped the top off a Guinness, and resigned himself to listening to intermittent jabber and Cuban music wafting over from D Dock. He was trying his best to impersonate a yachtsman, but even after two days in residence on Toy Boat, he felt like an interloper. The habitues of the Sunchaser Marina were a tight-knit group. They didn’t so much ignore him as act as if he didn’t exist.
Well, his clothes might have had something to do with it, but whenever he shucked the jeans and boots for one of Mack’s designer swimsuit outfits, he felt like a complete idiot. Silver reflecting sunglasses and a cabana shirt thrown open at the throat weren’t his style.
Still, he might have gotten along with his companions better last night if he’d been dressed in Miami Beach mode. The two guys he’d met at the beach had taken one look at his boots and hat and mistaken him for a rube. They’d invited him along on a little bar-hopping jaunt, set him up with a sumptuous redhead at a party, and tried to steal his money in a back alley. Bad mistake. The guys were nursing aching heads today, no doubt, and not as a result of hangovers. As for the redhead, she’d split, yelling at the top of her lungs. Good riddance.
He was by nature soft-spoken and quiet, and he was well aware that it gave him an advantage to be seen as naive. He’d never thought it necessary to advertise the fact that he’d graduated from the University of Florida and been a star on the rodeo circuit for a couple of years afterward.
Slade Braddock had seen enough of the world to appreciate who he was and where he’d come from, which was why he knew he wanted to live in Okeechobee City for the rest of his life. Here in Miami Beach, he felt misplaced. Like a fish out of water, so to speak. He didn’t belong here, he didn’t really want to be here. He’d made progress today, though. He was on the way to finding himself a wife.
The marina was bustling with activity as boats came back from fishing trips, people returned to their houseboats from their day’s activities, and fishermen weighed in their catch. The breeze felt good after this typically
