Chapter 3
Tess Lawrence had been polishing the same spot on the bar for the better part of two minutes while she tried to decide how to bring it up. For Tess, two minutes was an impressive amount of restraint. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to appreciate it.
Monday afternoons at Margarita Max's were like that.
The lunch crowd had already gone back to work, and it would be another few hours before people started wandering in for drinks before sunset.
For now, the place was quiet, except for the hum of the ceiling fans and Lloyd, who sat at the far end of the bar in the same seat he'd been claiming for years.
At the register, Tess’s sister Leah had the linen invoice spread out, her reading glasses on and the expression of a woman who had found something unexpected and shocking.
“They’ve charged us for eighty bar towels.”
“Is that a lot?”
“Tess, be serious with me for one minute.”
“I don’t know what a normal number of bar towels is. Nobody does.”
“It’s twice what we use in a month, and I’ve now found it three months running,” Leah said, “which means somebody in that company has been quietly making a boat payment on us since February.”
“See, this is why we keep you,” Tess said, putting the cloth down. “Speaking of ideas.”
“I wasn’t speaking of ideas.”
“You were leading up to them.”
“I was speaking of towels.”
Tess came down the bar to pitch her idea once more.
“Sunday afternoons,” she said. “Three till six. One guy with a guitar, no amp, no cover, and we put out the small tables. Nothing loud, just something so the room isn’t dead between the lunch people and the dinner people.”
Leah took her glasses off, which she did when she wasn’t reading something.
“Who’s the guy?”
“Joey’s cousin. Or Joey, Joey would do it for tips and a plate of food.”
“It’s not a terrible idea.”
Their partner, Connie, who had been running Margarita Max’s for years, came out of the back room with a case of tonic on her hip. She set the box down on a table at the end of the bar.
“Connie,” Tess said. “Sunday afternoons, music, three until six.”
Connie straightened up and looked at her. “No,” she said.
“You haven’t heard the whole thing.”
“I heard it in March, I heard it in April, and now I’ve heard it in May.” Connie picked up her towel. “The answer’s the same one I gave you before.”
“Can I have a reason this time?”
“It’s my building,” Connie said, and went back through to the kitchen with the door swinging behind her.
Tess stood there with her mouth open, then yelled out. “That’s not a reason,” she said to the door. “That’s a deed.”
Leah folded the linen invoice in half and put it under the register drawer, taking her time about it.
The sisters looked at each other down the length of the bar they now owned a third of, which still struck Tess as improbable.
Changes were in the air and both sisters could sense something was bothering Connie. No one talked about it, and neither sister felt they could approach Connie, at least not yet.
“She’ll tell us when she tells us,” Leah said. “You can’t push Connie, you should know that by now.”
“I’m worried about her. She doesn’t come in some days and doesn’t say a word about why.”
“Let it go, Tess. When she’s ready, she’ll talk about it. In the meantime, I’m going to fight the towel people.”
“Please fight the towel people, I want to watch.”
A few minutes passed and then Tess continued, “Do you ever think,” she said, “That a year and a half ago we were selling candles that most people didn’t want?”
“I think about it every time I get a paycheck.”
“I’m just saying it worked out.”
“It worked out because we stopped having crazy ideas.”
“I’ve just had an idea, and it’s a good one.”
“And it got voted down five seconds ago,” Leah said, “so the system’s holding.”
“That wasn’t a vote. If there was a vote, you would have supported me and we would have had the majority vote.”
Leah looked at Tess, “Are you sure about that?”
Tess was going to answer but just then the screen door opened and a woman in a linen blazer walked into Margarita Max’s. The woman had a designer handbag and looked tired. She stood just inside the doorway the way people do when they haven’t decided yet whether they’re going to stay.
“This looks serious,” Tess whispered. “Maybe the towel people sent her to have a meeting with you.”
Tess looked at the woman and said, “Well, hello there. Welcome to Margarita Max’s.”
Earlier, Emma had pulled over at a stop sign and let the car idle. She’d driven three blocks from the cottage before she noticed she had no idea where she was going.
She’d left without a plan for what came next.
No hotel booked, no restaurants scouted, none of the things she’d have handled hours ahead of any other trip.
Her stomach turned over and she realized the pie wasn’t enough food to carry her through the rest of the day.
What she wanted was to sit down somewhere for an hour and think.
She remembered her grandmother telling her a story about a hurricane party she’d been to in her sixties.
It was the kind of story an older person tells as much to hear it out loud as to pass it on.
Emma loved the name of the place, Margarita Max’s.
Gloria had laughed the way she used to laugh and said everyone in Key West ended up at Max’s sooner or later.
The map on her phone found it in under a minute.
It was closer than she expected, too, in Old Town, on a corner where two side streets crossed at an angle. She found a space half a block away and walked. The heat had eased since she’d left the cottage and there was a cooler breeze blowing.
The bar had a hand-painted sign of a cartoon parrot wearing sunglasses and holding a cocktail. Fishing nets were draped along the outside wall. Through the open window she could hear laughter and the low thump of a jukebox playing something with steel drums.
She pushed through the screen door.
The bar was dim and cool after the bright afternoon sun. She stopped inside the door and waited for her eyes to adjust. The air smelled of lime and fried food, with a hint of the mustiness that came with an old Key West building.
White lights were strung along the wooden beams overhead.
Faded photographs covered the walls. Some showed fishing tournaments and various events.
Others were of sunburned tourists holding enormous drinks and grinning at the camera.
An old paddleboard hung from the ceiling with the bar’s parrot logo painted on its side.
The long wooden bar was scratched and dented from years of use. Two women stood behind it. The one closest to the door had honey blonde curls and was drying a glass. The other looked a few years older with dark hair pulled away from her face.
“Well, hello there,” the blonde one said, looking up. “Welcome to Margarita Max’s.”
She had the easy warmth of a woman who was happy to see a stranger walk in.
“Come sit anywhere you like. Are you hungry? You look hungry.”
Emma hadn’t realized her exhaustion showed.
“I am. Thank you.”
“Bar or table?”
“Bar’s fine.”
Emma slid onto a stool near the middle.
“I’m Tess,” the blonde said. “That’s my sister Leah. She’s the responsible one. I’m the fun one. Menu’s right there, but if you want my honest opinion, the conch fritters are the reason everyone comes in, well that and our key lime pie. What can I get you to drink?”
“Iced tea, please. Unsweetened if you have it.”
“Sensible choice. You’re going to fit in here better than the rest of us.”
Leah looked up from a coil of receipt tape and smiled at Emma. “Don’t listen to her. She tells everyone they’ll fit in.”
“Because everyone does,” Tess said, already pouring the iced tea. “That’s the thing about this bar. Even the people who don’t fit in fit it.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Tess.”
“It makes plenty of sense. Our new friend gets it. Don’t you?”
Emma smiled, “I think I do.”
The iced tea came in a tall glass with a wedge of lime and a lot of ice. She took a long swallow before she set it down.
“Fritters?” Tess asked.
“You’ve talked me into it.”
“Anything else? Salad? I’ll bring a small salad, it’s on the house. You look like you’re hungry.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know that; that’s why I’m offering.”
Emma didn’t argue. Tess disappeared through a swinging door into what she guessed was the kitchen. Emma sat with her iced tea and the low hum of the bar around her.
A man at the far end of the counter was reading a paperback and drinking a beer. Behind the bar, an older woman with steel-gray hair moved cases of something without seeming to strain.
“That’s Connie. She owns the place. Well, the three of us do, actually. Where are you visiting from?”
“Chicago.”
“Long way.”
“Yes.”
“Business or pleasure?”
Emma took another sip of her iced tea before she answered. She’d known this question was coming from the moment she walked in. She’d been thinking about how best to answer whatever questions came her way.
“Family. My grandmother had a place here. It’s been a long time since I visited.”
Leah’s expression softened. “Had?”
“She passed a little over a year ago.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“What was her name? Maybe Connie knew her. Tess and I are relatively new to Key West, but Connie’s been running this bar for more than thirty years. She remembers everybody who ever came through the door.”
Emma set her glass down. “Gloria Kendrick.”
Leah’s eyes shifted to the back of the bar, then came back to Emma. “Give me a second.”
She walked down to the end of the counter, and Emma watched her lean close to Connie and say something Emma couldn’t hear. Connie set down whatever she was working on and looked up in Emma’s direction. Then she wiped her hands on a bar towel, said something to Leah, and walked toward Emma.
Emma sat up a little straighter without thinking about it.
Connie stopped across the bar from her. Up close, her eyes were pale blue. She took her time before she spoke.
“You’re Gloria’s granddaughter?” she asked.
“Emma, yes.”