Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

hello.”
    The yellow Lab was old, too, and walked slowly. She still had her leather harness on. Maybe he was the night man and he’d just come on duty and hadn’t had the chance to take it off her. Maybe she kept it on while she was in the office, to let her know she might be working at any time. I bent and stroked her big head. Then walked up to the counter, where I’d intended to show Sally’s picture.
    “Can I help you?” he said, looking somewhere to the left of me.
    “I was just wondering if there was someplace good to eat around here. I thought you might know.”
    “Why, sure I do. Anita’s. Good home cooking, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, Key lime pie. You’re not from around here, am I right? You got to try the Key lime pie before you leave. You promise?”
    “I do. And thanks,” I said.
    I waited for a refrigerated truck to pass, then crossed the road to the small white beach across from the Madison. The beaches dotted the coastline, trees in between, not a place for much action, for socializing, just a convenient place to swim, if that was your thing.
    The beach was empty, a 7UP can half buried in the sand to my right, a broken flip-flop near it. I stood watching the long, low waves come into the shore, then I headed down the road to find Anita’s. At least there was one promise I could keep.

CHAPTER 23

    For the next three days, I woke up with the first light, before six, put on my bathing suit with a pair of shorts over it, ate quickly at the coffee shop and headed out. I saw a lot of heads shake. I heard a lot of people exclaim that I must be down from New York. I ate a few more bad breakfasts and a couple of really good meals at Anita’s. I even lost some of my northern pallor. But there was no sign of Sally Spector.
    On Sunday morning, I finally found Hank. The door to his shop was ajar and Hank himself was outside sitting on an old wooden straight-backed chair, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup.
    “Too early to get some flippers?”
    “Not around here it isn’t. You signed up for the boat?“
    “No, just swimming here,” pointing across at the ocean. “Good a place as any,” he said. He was shorter than me, wider than me, much more muscular than me, older, too, probably at least sixty. His hair was a yellowy gray, but he had a full head of it and I wasn’t sure if it was wet from an early morning shower or maybe an early morning swim because all he was wearing was a bathing suit and an old T-shirt, both wet.
    He looked down at my feet. “Seven and a half, I’d say. That means you’d get an eight.”
    “I’ll need a mask and a snorkel, too.”
    “Got those. No problem.”
    As in the little corner delis in New York, I couldn’t believe the amount of stuff crammed into what was no more than a shed, the wooden door barely closing properly, the two small windows, one of which I’d peered through the day before, painted shut decades earlier.
    I took out my credit card while Hank was putting my things into a paper bag, “Hank’s” stamped on each item. Good advertising, I guessed. When he looked up, he began to shake his head.
    “For your convenience, we take cash only.”
    I pulled out the cash. Then pulled out the picture of Sally and told him my story. Hank took it in his bent fingers, the tip of one pinkie missing, and held it flat to try to catch the light from the open door. I stepped out of his way.
    “So what happened in between?” he asked, putting the picture down on the counter.
    “In between?”
    “In between when you took her picture and now?”
    “You mean why did I wait all these years?”
    “Ah-huh.”
    “Well, I didn’t. We’ve been writing and calling, but, you know, not all that often. Then I called on her birthday and the number was disconnected.”
    “You from New York?”
    My heart made a little hop. “Yes,” I said. “Do you...“
    “It’s just the way you talk so fast,” he said. “Hard for me to keep up with what you’re saying.”
    “Oh. Sorry. It’s a—”
    “I know. It’s why I live down here.”
    I picked up the photograph. “She’s older now, of course. But—”
    “Never seen her,” he said. He picked up the bag, folded the top down and stapled the receipt onto it, an odd touch, odd that he even had a stapler in the shop. He handed me the bag. “I hope you have a good swim,” he said. “You change your mind about the boat, you know where to find me. Seven days a week, at least when I’m in the mood.”
    I