An Unfinished Story(18)
Due to the disproportionate number of retirees that had once filled the Sunshine City, people had called St. Pete “God’s Waiting Room.” With the surge of youth the city was experiencing, God would have to wait a lot longer than usual to collect his souls.
Whitaker drove by an army of construction workers assembling yet another expensive, LEED-certified building under one of the many cranes that hovered over the city. A giant white sign read: GRANT CONSTRUCTION. BUILDING ST. PETE FOR GENERATIONS. His father was indeed the third generation of Grant Construction, and unless his sister—a feminist attorney—decided to don a hard hat, their father would be the last. His brother had already gone down his own path.
With the family’s latest project in the rearview, Whitaker passed a glass-blowing studio where he’d once taken a date, a New Age center where he’d had his palms read, and a CBD store that he surely would have visited in his teens if it had been there. He then drove by a tattoo parlor where a seventeen-year-old, Emory-bound Whitaker had gotten his first and only tattoo—a quill pen in all black ink up high on his right arm—for no other reason than his father had forbidden him from doing so.
Below the tall, skinny palm trees that reached higher than many of the taller buildings—though not as high as the cranes—the happy citizens of St. Pete (some of them certainly as high as the cranes) moved along the sidewalks with great pride. Proud they lived down here and not in the Midwest or Northeast, both of which were currently suffering from winter blizzards. And proud because something special was happening here in St. Pete: the artists, the refugees of all kinds, the aura readers, the coffee shops, the breweries, the museums, the festivals, the cultural diversity. Whitaker knew exactly how they felt, because he shared the same feelings.
He wound his way through the intricate streets that led to the fingers of land sticking out into Tampa Bay, eventually reaching his parents’ house. The mansion was the exact monstrosity one might picture when wondering what type of home an extremely successful construction company owner might own. A six-thousand-square-foot beast on deep water with more bedrooms and bathrooms than some small colonies could put to use. Whitaker wasn’t opposed to money by any means, but sometimes seeing this house made him wince.
Since there wasn’t room at his brother’s house for a bouncy castle, Sadie had offered to host the birthday party here. Sure enough, a giant bouncy castle bubbling over with happy kids, like a popcorn machine popping corn, stood in the middle of the immaculate front lawn. Apparently, his mother had neglected to mention that the party was dinosaur themed. A banner hanging from the house read: LET’S HAVE A DINO-MITE PARTY! Several of the kids and even a few parents wore dinosaur tails. Someone had carved a watermelon into an impressive T. rex opening its mouth. Clusters of adults stood nearby, munching on catered finger foods and pounding rosé and cold beer and probably talking about the best private schools, or the stock market, or the next coach for the Bucs. Whitaker was already wondering where they’d hidden the liquor.
He parked close by and grabbed his nephew’s present, which—for purposes of environmental concern and a lack of supplies—was wrapped in a Trader Joe’s paper bag turned inside out. Present under arm, Whitaker forced a smile and moved toward his family.
“Uncle Whitaker!” his five-year-old nephew screamed from the top of the bouncy castle.
Whitaker gave a big wave. “Happy birthday, old man!”
“What’s the present?”
“I’ll stick it on the pile. You’ll see soon enough.”
The typist worked his way through the crowd, saying hello to people he’d known most of his life. Four generations of Grants. No one had more cousins and uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces. To his dismay, nearly all of them mentioned something about his writing career. After hugging and kissing and making small talk with half of them, he finally made it to his mother.
Sadie was not born a Grant, but to marry one was to cut your roots low and be replanted into dangerous Grant soil. He saw his mother as a brave yet aloof southern equestrienne riding the white flag of surrender into a bloodbath of familial dysfunction, the female Don Quixote of Florida.
Sadie was a doll. Born a doll and had always been a doll. A southern belle without the accent—at least without much of one. As southern belle as you can be growing up in Florida. For every native of Florida who had shucked an oyster, cracked open a boiled peanut, or polished off a bowl of grits, there was a snowbird’s child next to them saying, “What in the world are gator bites?” No, you couldn’t really be a southerner, not with all the northern and midwestern influence. But Sadie was a doll, as innocent as a flower, and everyone in St. Pete loved her. How could you not love someone who couldn’t stop smiling?
“I’m so glad you came,” she said loud enough to be heard over the kids screaming in the castle twenty feet away.
“Me too.” Whitaker kissed her cheek and detected the familiar hints of gardenia from the perfume she’d worn for as long as he could remember. He was careful not to mess up her hair, which she’d kept the same way for forty years, a sort of bulbous helmet hardened by hair spray. The only change over the years was from brown to gray. Whitaker appreciated that his mom had let her hair gray without hiding behind dye. This devil-may-care attitude carried over to much of her life. She wasn’t afraid to show her gray hair, and she damn sure wasn’t afraid to show the scars and weaknesses of her family. In her aloof, high-pitched tone, she would ask, “Why be ashamed of being human, Whitaker?”