The Water Keeper(22)
“A dozen or so.”
“You performed on Broadway more than a dozen times?”
“Well, no. I played a role in more than a dozen shows, which performed a couple hundred times.”
“What happened?”
She stared out the window, then back at me. She folded her arms, bracing herself against a cold breeze I didn’t feel. “Bad decisions.”
“How is it that you never learned to swim?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “City girl trying to dance. Never made time.”
“What were you doing out there?”
“Looking for someone.”
“Looking for or chasing?”
Raised eyebrows told me I’d hit some corner of the truth. “Both.”
“Someone who doesn’t want to be found?”
Her eyes found mine.
I scratched my chin. “Is she sixteen, looks twenty-one, has legs like yours, a new tattoo at the base of her back, likes to twirl when she enters a room, and is now hanging out with some bad people she thinks are okay people?” I held up the picture I’d snapped with my phone. “Answers to the name Angel?”
She reached out and touched the screen with her fingertip. She held it there a long time. The waitress delivered our food, and I told her the story while she shoved eggs around her plate. The truth did not comfort her, as evidenced by the tears. Finally, she wiped her face and nodded.
I thumbed behind me. “I was on the dock when you perfected that seventeen-point turn in an attempt to exit the marina.”
She nodded again. A little less uncomfortable.
“I had a feeling if you stayed in that dinghy long enough, you’d end up wet. So I went looking.”
She looked up at me. “You always go looking for stupid folks you don’t know?”
Funny how one simple question can sum up so much. I pushed my eggs around my plate and smiled. “Sometimes.”
We sat in silence while the waitress refilled our mugs. The waitress asked Summer, “Baby, could I get you something? We make a pretty good apple pie. Oreo milkshake?”
She shook her head. “No. Thank you.”
The waitress looked at me with suspicion and then turned sideways and whispered again to Summer while scratching her right eye. “Baby, you want me to call the police for you?”
She reached out and touched the waitress’s hand. “No, but thank you.”
Summer spoke as the waitress returned behind the counter. “I don’t think she likes you.”
“No, but I love the way she says ‘Baby.’”
She laughed.
I sipped. “Tell me about Angel.”
Summer told me about her daughter and their rocky relationship. As Angel grew and blossomed into a staggering beauty with an innate and easy dramatic ability—landing her the lead role in every musical since she was seven—Summer, based on her own mistakes, became more protective. In the last year or so, Summer had been unable to corral Angel at home. Eventually, Angel made her own poor choices. Culminating in the decision to hop on a yacht with a mysterious muscled man and a bunch of equally disoriented kids and spend a promised month in the islands bending reality with mind-altering drink and drugs.
“You got any family? Anybody you can call to help you out?”
“No. It’s just us.”
“Husband?”
Her eyes found mine, then looked away. Another single shake.
“Any idea where they’re headed?”
She shrugged. “South. Miami. The Keys. Bahamas. Wherever the wind blows, the water’s clear, and rum flows.”
“You got a plan?”
She laughed. “Yeah.” Wiped her face with her right hand. “But it’s at the bottom of the Intracoastal right now.” More silence. When I paid the check, she looked away.
She didn’t like leeching off me. “On the dock, you were wearing a uniform. Like a server . . . ?”
“Angel has . . . had . . . a partial scholarship to this really good school. But seventy-five percent still leaves twenty-five percent. I was working three jobs. One was an all-night diner where I work six nights a week.”
“And the other two?”
She didn’t look at me. “I stock shelves at an auto parts store on Sundays when they’re closed.”
“And?”
“I own an appointment-only dance studio.”
“Why appointment only?”
Her voice softened. As if the admission were painful. “I don’t have enough clients to keep normal hours.”
“What do you teach?”
“Mostly, I teach two people how to stand in the same space and not kill each other.”
I laughed.
She continued, “Other than that, I teach women how to follow men who don’t know how to lead.”
“Sounds tough.”
“Following is not as easy as it looks.”
“How so?”
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, backward and in high heels.”
“Good point.”
“Most guys think they’re Patrick Swayze until you show them what to do. Then they melt into egg yolk.”
“Sounds messy.”
“Most of my appointments are wedding parties. A bride and groom.”