“Natasha.”
“Charlotte.”
Her silky accent magnified the differences between us, though she never held it against me. What I once heard as disregard now sounded friendly. Natasha was amusing, almost as charming as Philip. She never failed to mention how grateful she was I’d come along. She’d once said that my down-to-earth personality was a good match for her ex-husband, and at the time, I believed her.
“Where’s Philip?”
“Showering.”
She paused. Something Natasha rarely did. She was purposeful and matter-of-fact. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“What could be the matter?” The change in her voice was slight, but I picked up on it at once. “A dreary day here in London”—and she laughed—“though every day in London is dreary. You’ll be a doll and have Philip ring me?”
Natasha was hiding something from me. “Is everything okay?”
Her nervous chatter took over, and I listened as she recounted an episode with a recent client—an old acquaintance of hers and Philip’s—and the work she was doing on his home in Holland Park. She thought I wouldn’t notice her attempt to distract me.
“Natasha. Spill.”
A door slammed shut in the background. “Charlotte, I’ve got to run. Bruce just got home. Pass along my message to Philip. He needs to call me at once.”
I met Philip outside the shower as he was toweling droplets of water from his body.
“Natasha called. She was strange.”
“She’s always strange.”
“No, this was something else.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing, Charlotte. What’d she say?”
“It’s what she didn’t say.” I grabbed the towel and dabbed the spots he’d missed. His skin was soft, and I noticed a freckle I hadn’t seen before.
“Philip, is something going on?”
He touched my nose with the tip of his finger. “You worry too much, darling.” The horn outside signaled he was late, and I watched as he readied himself for the drive to downtown, tucking my concerns away in the folds of washed linen.
“This was poor planning,” I reminded him. “You should’ve gone straight from the airport.”
“But then I wouldn’t have had this, Charley,” he said, pulling me into his arms for a deep embrace.
He was on his way to his Brickell office when I planted myself at the island in our kitchen. The drive to downtown was over an hour, and Philip spent the time perusing newspapers and catching up on calls. With elbows resting along the white marble, I stirred my tea in a daze and stared out at the choppy water. I was used to our fleeting, abrupt meetings, Philip coming and going before we had a chance to recalibrate, though a feeling gnawed at me. Sunny whimpered at my feet, echoing the sentiment. For him, the need to be touched, to be petted, was primal. He had become my shadow, following me wherever I went.
My phone buzzed as it always did. He’d be traveling “the Stretch,” the eighteen-mile section of highway US 1 that connected Florida City to Key Largo.
Stop worrying, Charley. Everything’s fine.
The tension I’d been holding in released, taking with it my earlier concerns. I patted Sunny’s head. “Your daddy’s crazy,” I said to his pouty eyes and shiny black nose. “What should we write him?”
Sunny panted, and I reached for the phone and began typing.
I love you. And I did. I loved the way he chuckled, not quite laughed. How he woke me in the morning by kissing the bottoms of my feet. How he thought nothing of watching marathon sessions of chick flicks on lazy Sundays and eating breakfast for dinner. I loved his stupid, senseless facts: Prince Charles’s last name is Mountbatten-Windsor, the scent of the rain is termed petrichor. His raunchy jokes. I loved each and every cheesy snow globe he brought me from all the cities he visited. Better than the gifts was imagining him entering souvenir shops and requesting the location of the snow globes. He’d be dressed in his pressed suit and Italian loafers, and the salespeople would follow him down the aisles, curious to know whom he was buying for. Was it his daughter? His girlfriend? Wife?
Wife.
The word spread through me and down to my fingers. I typed. I can’t wait to be your wife, Philip.
He replied at once: You already are. Dinner’s at 8. Goose can’t wait to meet you.
I dropped the phone in my bag and left Sunny downstairs with access to his doggy door. As I made my way to the front gate, our clapboard guest house smiled down at me, her demeanor much like Philip’s. Silly. Obtrusive. Evocative. She’d come with the property, an island bungalow on stilts, and we’d left her in her original beach getaway condition. It was for our guests, complete with a kitchen and bath, and her sign dangled across the porch: “The Love Shack.”
The air was warm, as it always was in the Keys, and I began the short walk to Liberty’s clinic. Philip had never really wanted me to work. He encouraged ambition and supported my job search, but he kindly reminded me that I didn’t need to work ever again. The schools down south were heavily staffed with capable teachers, and the union members eyed me sympathetically before letting me know they’d be in touch. A yearning for my students tucked itself away, and while doing nothing was foreign to me, the tides turned when I’d met Liberty.
When I first saw Liberty traipsing up and down Anne’s Beach, I remember thinking she was the kind of pretty that meant a life well lived. Before she’d handed me her business card and drawn me under her spell, I was caught in her lively energy. Liberty was a frenetic speaker, rarely stopping to catch her breath, her words jamming into each other like one exhausting monologue. Sunny had been pawing at something in the nearby sand that resembled a bone, and Liberty called out, “Don’t be fooled by those bones.” I hadn’t had a clue what she meant, and quite honestly thought she might be a little nuts, so I tugged on Sunny.
That only made Liberty move in closer. She had pale, flawless skin. “You’re new here?”
I’d nodded, and she sidled up next to me, grabbing hold of my wrist. Sunny hadn’t flinched. “Legend has it there’s human remains along this beach.”
It had been our second week in town. Philip and I had finally finished unloading boxes, and I was not in the mood for farfetched tales. I wrested my arm from hers, but she latched on tighter. Sunny and his discriminating taste and fiercely protective watchdog skills were of no assistance either. He liked the lively woman, choosing to sit patiently by her feet, biting down on the object that might or might not be mired in folklore.
She continued, detailing the grisly story of the great hurricane of 1935. Roosevelt had sent veterans to build a highway connecting Key West to Miami, and they tragically perished in the strong storm. “A horrific aftermath,” she’d continued. “The lost souls, without refrigeration, without transportation . . . there was no way to give them a proper burial. The only option was to burn the bodies.”
Try as I might, my feet were unable to take me in a direction away from Liberty Scott. Her story tethered me to the ground.
“I think the skeletons of those poor souls wash up on the shores from time to time.”
I’d reached down and inspected the matter hanging from Sunny’s jaws.