leaving the lot to carelessly stray onto the highway. Adam glanced left, then right.
“Palm trees,” he said and tore out onto the highway the second the light changed instead of heading toward Chapelle.
Winnie braced herself. “What?”
“Palm trees. Lorena Ranch needs some palm trees and a beach. Right over there, a nursery with palm trees, good-sized ones, too.”
“Are you sure Joe wants a beach and palm trees?”
“Doesn’t everyone? I’ll pay for them as my gift to Camp Love Letter—and to you.”
“I’ve been to the beach before. You shouldn’t do it for me.”
Winnie denied the grand gesture though her words were not entirely true. Her parents preferred learning vacations to big cities with streets full of museums and cultural opportunities on every corner. The couple of times she’d gone to north Florida with her college friends, a call from Nana preceded the trip. “Stay out of the sun. Mind you don’t make your complexion darker.” That advice sucked a great deal of fun out of the experience.
Adam took his hand off the wheel and made an expansive gesture. “Louisiana beaches are nothing. I do it for everyone who comes to the camp.”
He appeared to do everything with enthusiasm, whether running down a receiver or in this case cutting recklessly across traffic to reach the nursery. The rocks in the truck bed rolled and banged against its sides as they came to a crossover and turned sharply to gain access to a gravel lot rimmed with towering palm trees, their bulbous bases wrapped in burlap.
Winnie followed Adam in awe as he told an ecstatic nurseryman exactly what he wanted: all the palm trees, large and small, sand fine as sugar to cover an acre of land, maybe some plantings of hibiscus for tropical color. Could the man draw up a landscaping plan and a cost estimate by Friday and have the whole project completed by Super Bowl Sunday? The owner nodded like a bobblehead doll that should have had little dollar signs for eyes and scribbled down all of Adam’s directions.
Back in the truck, Winnie sat dazed by Adam’s impulsiveness. She doubted she’d ever done anything without thinking it through first, even marrying the white college boy who told her she was smart as well as beautiful and the hardest worker he knew. That had turned out very well for Douglas Hopper, not so well for her, so why not throw all caution to the trade winds and have a fling with the big, happy, uncomplicated Samoan? She still pondered that question when Adam swung the truck into a burger place by the highway.
“You interested in an early lunch? That oatmeal really didn’t stay with me,” Adam said.
“I guess I could eat a salad with an iced tea, unsweetened.”
He sent her to get a seat while he ordered for both of them. Minutes later, he returned bearing a tray crowded with two premium burgers, a super-sized sleeve of French fries, a sweet drink as big as a quart of milk, and of course, her salad and tea.
He attacked a half-pound burger and after swallowing a mouthful, remarked, “Did I tell you Samoans love their junk food?”
“No, but I think I could have guessed.”
Adam shoved the fries her way. “Here, share. My mother would say you are too skinny. Can’t I afford to feed you?”
“I’ve heard that remark before.” From Doug, but she accepted a few of the fries and fell silent.
“I think you are as lovely as a petal on a pale yellow plumeria blossom. Just saying what tin’a would think.”
“Thank you,” she said, flustered by the lavish compliment, and hastened to change to subject. “Teena, is that your mother’s name?”
“No, it is the word for mother or any older woman deserving of respect.”
“Interesting,” but she’d lost some of her joy in their outing.
Winnie looked down at her white slacks now soiled with dark marks from selecting lava stones. Not that her attire mattered here. An obese man downing a fried pie and a large orange drink in a corner booth wore a
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