Duma Key(31)

"What?"

"Dunno. But I think you ought to show these to someone who does know. Someone who can tell you how good they really are."

I felt flattered but also uncomfortable. Dismayed, almost. "I wouldn't know who or where to-"

"Ask Jack. Maybe he knows an art gallery that would look at them."

"Sure, just limp in off the street and say, 'I live out on Duma Key and I've got some pencil sketches - mostly of sunsets, a very unusual subject in coastal Florida - that my housekeeper says are muy asustador.'"

She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to one side. It was how Pam looked when she had no intention of letting a thing go. When she in fact intended to throw her current argument into four-wheel drive.

"Father- "

"Oh boy, I'm in for it now."

She paid no mind. "You parlayed two pick-ups, a used Korean War bulldozer, and a twenty-thousand-dollar loan into a million-dollar business. Are you going to stand there and tell me you couldn't get a few art gallery owners to look at your pictures if you really set your mind to it?"

She softened.

"I mean, these are good, Daddy. Good. All I've got for training is one lousy Art Appreciation course in high school, and I know that."

I said something, but I'm not sure what. I was thinking about my frenzied quick-sketch of Carson Jones, alias The Baptist Hummingbird. Would she think that one was also good, if she saw it?

But she wasn't going to. Not that one, and not the one of the person in the red robe. No one was. That was what I thought then.

"Dad, if you had this talent in you all the time, where was it?"

"I don't know," I said. "And how much talent we're talking about is still open to question."

"Then get someone to tell you, okay? Someone who knows." She picked up my mailbox drawing. "Even this one... it's nothing special, except it is. Because of..." She touched paper. "The rocking horse. Why'd you put a rocking horse in the picture, Dad?"

"I don't know," I said. "It just wanted to be there."

"Did you draw it from memory?"

"No. I can't seem to do that. Either because of the accident or because I never had that particular skill in the first place." Except for sometimes when I did. When it came to young men in Twins tee-shirts, for instance. "I found one on the Internet, then printed-"

"Oh shit, I smudged it!" she cried. "Oh, shit!"

"Ilse, it's all right. It doesn't matter."

"It's not all right and it does matter! You need to get some f**king paints!" She replayed what she'd just said and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"You probably won't believe this," I said, "but I've heard that word a time or two. Although I have an idea that maybe your boyfriend... might not exactly..."

"You got that right," she said. A little glumly. Then she smiled. "But he can let out a pretty good gosh-darn when somebody cuts him off in traffic. Dad, about your pictures-"

"I'm just happy you like them."

"It's more than liking. I'm amazed." She yawned. "I'm also dead on my feet."

"I think maybe you need a cup of hot cocoa and then bed."

"That sounds wonderful."

"Which?"

She laughed. It was wonderful to hear her laugh. It filled the place up. "Both."

xi

We stood on the beach the next morning with coffee cups in hand and our ankles in the surf. The sun had just hoisted itself over the low rise of the Key behind us, and our shadows seemed to stretch out onto the quiet water for miles.

Ilse looked at me solemnly. "Is this the most beautiful place on earth, Dad?"

"No, but you're young and I can't blame you for thinking it might be. It's number four on the Most Beautiful list, actually, but the top three are places nobody can spell."

She smiled over the rim of her cup. "Do tell."

"If you insist. Number one, Machu Picchu. Number two, Marrakech. Number three, Petroglyph National Monument. Then, at number four, Duma Key, just off the west coast of Florida."

Her smile widened for a second or two. Then it faded and she was giving me the solemn stare again. I remembered her looking at me the same way when she was four, asking me if there was any magic like in fairy tales. I had told her yes, of course, thinking it was a lie. Now I wasn't so sure. But the air was warm, my bare feet were in the Gulf, and I just didn't want Ilse to be hurt. I thought she was going to be. But everyone gets their share, don't they? Sure. Pow, in the nose. Pow, in the eye. Pow, below the belt, down you go, and the ref just went out for a hot dog. Except the ones you love can really multiply that hurt and pass it around. Pain is the biggest power of love. That's what Wireman says.

"See anything green, sweetheart?" I asked.

"No, I was just thinking again how glad I am that I came. I pictured you rotting away between an old folks' retirement home and some horrible tiki bar featuring Wet Tee-Shirt Thursdays. I guess I've been reading too much Carl Hiaasen."

"There are plenty of places like that down here," I said.

"And are there other places like Duma?"

"I don't know. Maybe a few." But based on what Jack had told me, I guessed that there were not.