Dreamland Social Club(28)
Venus had her hand on the doorknob of Room 222 and twisted it before saying, “I think it’s lame of you to not give them the horse, by the way.” She opened the door, and Jane heard voices and laughter all mixed up together. “I know that’s not the popular opinion, but there you have it.”
“Thanks for sharing,” Jane said, surprising herself, and Venus said, “Are you giving me attitude?”
“Of course not,” Jane said, and she headed down the hall.
Any club that Venus was a member of was not a club for Jane, even if her mother had founded it.
There were keys in the drawer next to the sink, keys in the small drawer in the table in the front hall, keys in a dusty red glass jug on a shelf in the living room, keys on hooks inside a kitchen cabinet. None of them worked on the lock on the carousel horse.
“Whatcha doing over there?” Jane’s father said from the hall when he came in and found her on the floor by the radiator, surrounded by keys. “Planning on riding off into the sunset?”
“Something like that.”
Her father started down the hall toward the kitchen but Jane said, “Dad?” and he came back.
“There are kids at school whose grandfather made this horse. Carved it and painted it, the works.”
“Well then, they had quite the artistic grandfather.”
“Yeah.” Jane hadn’t really thought of it like that. “But they’re sort of, well, mean. And scary. And Preemie refused to give it back but now they want us to.”
“Fascinating.”
Not the word Jane would have chosen, but that sure was another way of looking at it.
“So why not give it to them?” he said. “We’ve got to clean this place out anyway.”
“That’s what I thought, too. At first. But it’s just, well, they’re so mean about it. Threatening to break into the house and stuff.”
“Well, I think they would’ve done that by now if that was their big idea.” He sat on one of the couches. “I mean, the place was empty before we got here.”
“True.” The idea that the Claveracks were all talk was sort of appealing.
“Well, anyway.” Her dad got up. “I trust you to decide what’s best.”
“Why would you do that?” Jane snorted.
“Because you inherited your mother’s good sense.”
She was down to the last key. It didn’t work. “She doesn’t sound to me like someone who had a lot of sense.”
“Well, at the very least, she had the good sense to leave Coney.”
Jane studied one of the horse’s hooves. The detail really was amazing. “Why do you think Preemie even has it? I mean, why did he bother?”
Her father shrugged and said, “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”
CHAPTER ten
THE TABLES OUT IN FRONT of the Anchor that Thursday afternoon were crowded with people, but Jane was trying to avoid eye contact with any of them lest they see how wildly underage she was. So as Leo snaked through the tables, she saw only flashes of tongues licking beer-frothy lips, and fingers sandwiching white cigarettes, and teeth chewing on puffy hot dog buns. She soon found herself standing inside next to Leo, who was beside two empty bar stools. He nodded at the shirtless man behind the bar, who nodded back. The man was opening bottles of beer for two men a few feet away, then he turned to the ancient register with some bills and Jane saw the huge serpent tattoo on his back. She softly asked, “Is that your dad?”
“I’m afraid it is,” Leo said, and then his father came over. “Dad, Jane. Jane, my dad.”
Jane reached out her hand when Leo’s father extended his to shake. He said, “Name’s Jimmy.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jane said, and then Leo said, “What happened to your shirt?”
His father reached across the bar and pinched Leo’s face. He walked away and said, “What can I get you?” to two more people who’d just come to the bar, then slapped coasters onto the bar in front of them.
“I’m not really sure I could tell you the last time I can be certain that my father wore a shirt.” Leo seemed genuinely embarrassed.
“Shirts are overrated,” Jane said, and Leo said, “That’s what he says!”
She took a seat on a high stool beside Leo and looked up at a collection of nautical-themed signs and figures hanging on the wall above the bar. There was a small cluster of “Gone Fishin’” signs next to a cluster of beach-themed ones: “Life’s a Beach,” “Life Is a Beach: Watch Out for the Crabs”—and then a bunch of signs like “Thataway to the Beach,” pointing in the wrong direction. There were handwritten signs—things like “No Credit. No Exceptions” and “Not Responsible for Lost or Stolen Items”—and official ones, like one about how pregnant women shouldn’t drink. The rest of the wall was covered in postcards—some with the picture facing out, some with the message out—from all over the country and the world.
The jukebox must have been between songs when they’d walked in, because right then a Beach Boys song filled the air. Jane turned to see if she could see the person who’d put on “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and took a guess that it was the guy wearing a green-and-yellow-checkered swimsuit who was pretending to surf on one of the bar tables—also shirtless. It was hot out. And in—since in wasn’t really in with the bar open onto the boardwalk like that. Jane sort of wished she could be shirtless, too.