Read Online Without a Grave by Marcia Talley - Free Book Online

restaurant filled up we knew we’d probably end up sharing a table with other diners, family-style, but that was sometimes half the fun.
    Paul and I took seats across from one another at the end of the table farthest from the door. By the time we got settled, Al had returned with the menu, hand printed on a tall, narrow chalkboard with ‘Cruise Inn and Conch Out’ painted across the top in pink and orange script. He propped the chalkboard up on a chair and gave us time to study the selections while he went to fetch iced tea and glasses for our wine.
    Around these parts, there are usually only four entrées: mahi-mahi, grouper, conch and lobster. It’s how they’re prepared that makes all the difference, and Cassie was a genius. No lobster, alas, but that night the mahi-mahi came broiled with a Parmesan cream sauce, and Al must have made a visit to the grocery in Marsh Harbour because there was a special – prime rib – heading up the menu.
    No need to specify sides. I knew everything would be accompanied by coleslaw and by a rice and bean combination Bahamians called ‘peas-and-rice.’ Fried plantains, too, if we were lucky.
    While Paul made up his mind, I looked around, checking out the other diners and admiring the décor. Plantation shutters covered the windows, with valences made of Androsia, a colorful batik woven and hand dyed on the Bahamian island of Andros, many miles to the south. Matching fabric covered the tables, which were protected from stains and splatters by paper place mats printed with a fanciful, not-to-scale drawing of Hawksbill Cay and the neighboring islands. Numbers on the map were keyed to local businesses whose ads framed the place mat.
    One of Andy Albury’s ship models hung on the wall over the salad bar, and paintings by other local artists decorated the remaining walls. One image in particular caught my eye, a huge satellite photo of Hurricane Floyd.
    I excused myself for a moment to use the restroom, stopping on my way to take a closer look at the photo. At the moment it was taken, in September 1999, Floyd was a dense white donut almost six hundred miles in diameter, and the hole of the donut – the eye of the storm – was smack dab over Abaco. Floyd looked surprisingly benign from that altitude, yet underneath that snow-white swirl I knew that from the Abacos to Key West to Cape Fear, homes and lives were being devastated.
    I found the restroom – a small room with two stalls – clean, as usual, and pleasantly pine-scented. Curtains made of patchwork Androsia covered the single window and hid the spare rolls of toilet paper, paper towels and cleaning supplies Cassie kept under the sink.
    I did what I had to do and was washing my hands when the door to the other stall creaked open. In the mirror, I saw the reflection of a young woman wearing white shorts, a blue T-shirt, and a pair of oversized Jackie-O sunglasses. In spite of the sunglasses, I recognized her right away. I turned around. ‘Alice!’
    The girl smiled when she recognized me. ‘Hi, Hannah.’
    â€˜You eating here tonight? I didn’t see Jaime.’
    Alice stepped up to the sink and twisted the hot-water tap. ‘Nah. I was out taking a walk. Just stopped in to use the bathroom.’ She put a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t tell.’
    I laughed. ‘I’m sure nobody minds.’ Meanwhile, I wondered why Alice kept her sunglasses on indoors; the sun wasn’t exactly blinding inside the Cruise Inn and Conch Out ladies room at six fifteen in the evening. Then I noticed a stain on her fair face, a purple discoloration that began at the corner of her eye, mutating into shades of green and yellow as it merged into the hairline at her left temple.
    â€˜Ooh,’ I gasped before I could stop myself. ‘What happened to your eye?’
    â€˜It’s awful, isn’t it?’ Alice tipped the sunglasses up to her forehead so I could