Star Read online

  “We really need you,” Randy put in. “It’s a Zax thing and we need more bodacious babes like yourself.”

  “So you two won’t look like losers?” Star teased, crossing her arms.

  “Exactly,” Andy agreed. “We want to show people that if they drink Zax, they can come to the Dolphins games with you.”

  “But you’re not going to promise them that, right?” Star asked to make sure. With Randy and Andy it was never wise to leave such things to chance.

  “Well, if you put it like that…no,” Randy said with a little pout.

  “I don’t know, guys,” she said with a toss of her hair. “I haven’t been spending enough time with Adam lately.”

  “Oh, come on, Star,” Andy urged. “You have to embrace what life has to offer you.”

  The phrase she’d heard so often from her grandfather stopped her in her tracks and stunned her into silence. Here was a small but very real opportunity to say yes to life.

  “So, we’ll pick you up tomorrow evening?” Andy asked tentatively when she said nothing else.

  “No tricks?”

  “Zax honor,” both guys said, raising their bottles.

  “And two more?” she asked, writing down their order.

  “Always,” Randy said.

  “As luck would have it, I’m off tomorrow night and I’m pretty sure I saw two more cold Zax in the fridge, so you guys get both your wishes,” she said, turning to go.

  “Pick you up at six,” Andy called after her.

  Time passed with no sign of Mother or Adam. Star was having a pretty good night of it. Along with the Miami tourists, there for the T-shirts and what was in them, one of the regulars had a birthday party. That meant the traditional Mother Pearl’s Gob Smack—a Polaroid of a kiss on the cheek from one of Pearl’s Girls and, of course, a souvenir T-shirt the birthday boy was required to wear in the photo. Star was just presenting the birthday party with the Polaroid in its cardboard oyster-shell frame when Theresa brushed by and whispered in her ear.

  “You might want to take your break now,” Theresa said with a note of warning in her voice.

  Star’s head snapped to the front door in search of Adam, and to the office door in search of Mother. Spotting neither, she caught up to Theresa, already on her way to the back. “What’s up, Ter?”

  “The leech,” Theresa said, moving on.

  “Theresa,” Star sighed, following her. “You have got to stop calling Brandi that.”

  “Okay,” Theresa said, raising her shoulder mockingly. “The mooch then. Is that better?”

  “Theresa,” Star warned.

  “Okay, lookit,” Theresa began. “When was the last time you heard from Brandi—there, I said her name. Are you satisfied? When was the last time you heard from her that she didn’t want something?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t keep track,” Star said as the two turned in their drink orders at the service bar.

  “Yeah? Well, how about never? She’s always borrowing your clothes, your time, even your boyfriend.”

  “Alvin was not my boyfriend,” Star cut her off. “He had a crush on me but I was not interested. I’m glad they got together.”

  “But she only wanted him ’cause he was with you,” Theresa said, exasperated. “Why do you refuse to see it? She’s a loser and a leech.”

  “She is a figure skater and she has all her badges,” Star defended. “That can’t be a bad thing.”

  “Yeah, right. Tonya Harding turned out okay.” Theresa laughed. “And remember her modeling portfolio? Borrowing your clothes and wearing them to get her pictures made in the photo booth in front of Kmart? And then passing them out to people at school and sending them to magazines and modeling agencies?”

  “That was a little odd,” Star agreed reluctantly.

  “Everything about her is a little odd,” Theresa said, starting to get herself wound up. Theresa was protective of Star. She loved her best friend dearly but worried about her tendency to trust people too readily. “Those underwear shots her step-dad took of her and sent into the Star Search spokesmodel competition?”

  “They were lingerie shots,” Star corrected without much conviction, as she loaded up her tray with beers and drinks.

  “No, lingerie shots are sexy and provocative and tasteful and, most of all, professionally done,” Theresa insisted. “These were just sleazy snapshots of her lying on her Sears French Provincial canopy bed in her bra and panties.”

  “I always liked that bed.”

  “Star!”

  “It was the best they could do.”

  “You are always trying to find the best in people,” Theresa snapped irritably.

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “No.” Theresa sulked. “It’s one of the things I like best about you.”

  “Star, there you are,” Brandi called, approaching.

  “Hey, Brandi,” Star said with a little hug. “How’ve you been? I haven’t seen you since the Miss Dade Mall contest. Too bad about your baton catching that hairpiece on fire.”

  “Well, at least I met that cute fireman,” Brandi said with a snort of laughter.

  “Did Alvin get to meet him too?” Theresa asked primly.

  Star gave Theresa’s shoe a little kick.

  “Oh, hi, Maria,” Brandi said with a little smirk of a smile. “I’m sure one day if you ever get a boyfriend, you’ll understand.”

  “It’s Theresa. And maybe I’ll just ask Alvin to explain it to me, Shotzy,” Theresa said, dodging the second kick from Star. “Excuse me, ladies.”

  “What was that all about?” Brandi asked, rolling her eyes. “Oh, before I forget, new shots.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a strip of photo-booth pictures. She tore off a couple and handed them to Star.

  “These are nice,” Star said, squinting. “Isn’t that my vest?”

  “I’m so glad you think so,” Brandi said, hopping nervously and exuberantly from one foot to the other. “I’ve got a test shoot tomorrow for Mann magazine.”

  “Shut up,” Star gasped. “That is so cool!”

  “Yeah,” Brandi said, continuing her dance. “I sent in some of those shots my step-father took. The test is tomorrow.”

  Both girls squealed with excitement.

  “That is so great,” Star said, joining in the little dance.

  “I’m really nervous though. And I was wondering…could you help me out?”

  “Sure,” Star said, trying to wipe Theresa’s words from her mind. “If I can.”

  “Would you come and do my hair and makeup?” Brandi asked, suddenly still, taking both of Star’s hands in hers. “You’re the only almost-cosmetologist I know, and you do such a great job with your own. I really admire your taste. Please?”

  “Of course I will,” Star said, trying not to let on that she’d just given away pretty much her entire day off. “I’ve got to go the Dolphins game with Randy and Andy at six though.”

  “No problem,” Brandi said, embracing Star. “This is so great. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You gonna drink all those yourself?” Vanda asked as she breezed by, pointing at Star’s full tray sitting on the bar beside them.

  “I gotta work,” Star said with an apologetic shrug as she turned and hefted the overloaded tray onto her arm.

  “I’m sorry, of course,” Brandi said, climbing onto a nearby stool. “I’ll just wait at the bar and we can talk about it all on your next break.”

  “Thanks I—” Star began, but that was as far as she got. The tray full of drinks was knocked violently out of her hand. The room was filled with the sound of breaking glass, and then a shocked silence.

  “There you are!” Adam shouted. “Why the hell haven’t you called me back?”

  “You didn’t call me, Adam,” Star said irritably. “Look at this mess.”

  “I left a message on your machine.”

  “Well, when I get home at two o’clock in the morning, I’ll be sure and call you b
ack,” Star snapped, leaning down to pick up her tray off the floor. “Meanwhile, I haven’t been home since seven this morning so there’s no way I could have heard your message, let alone called you back.”

  “Always a smart answer,” Adam said, knocking the tray from her hands again. “And why couldn’t you call last night? Tell me that. Was it because you were at a party half-naked?” he demanded, grabbing the front of Star’s T-shirt and ripping it straight down the front. “There. Now you can run around naked at work too.” As he reached for the waistband of the onionskin running shorts, Adam’s feet left the ground. The silence more than the sound of breaking glass had alerted Mother’s trained ear, and he had emerged from his office, mama bear on the charge. Adam’s legs wiggled helplessly in the air as Mother bore him toward the glass doors that opened onto the restaurant’s crowded bayside deck. Andy held the door for them as the ambivalent weeknight crowd looked on in horror and satisfaction. The patrons on the deck, unaware of the disturbance inside, had almost no time to react as Mother emerged from the main dining room under full steam, made his way to the railing, and threw Adam overhand into Biscayne Bay.

  “There,” Mother called down as Adam splashed and spluttered in the water below. “That should cool you off a bit. Stop by later and you can settle up with me for that tray of drinks.”

  The crowd stood and cheered.

  “Quick,” Theresa said, grabbing Star. “You’ve got to get out of here. Mother is going to kill you.”

  “Oh, he is not,” Star said, clutching her gaping T-shirt. “He’ll just yell and tell me Adam can never come in here again. And then at the next big party all will be forgiven.”

  “Maria’s right,” Brandi said. “You should get out of here now. Even if you’re not worried about Mother, Adam isn’t going to be too happy with you when he does get out of the water.”

  “I do have to get dressed,” Star said as they hustled her into the back and toward the rear exit. “Although I kind of think this is a cute look.”

  Arcady Key was a little spit of land in the Gulf of Mexico, just west of Key Largo between Buttonwood Sound and Spoil Banks. Brandi and Star had both grown up there along with Theresa and Adam. Despite its more famous and prestigious neighbors like nearby Key Largo or, far to the south, Key West, life in Arcady Key was more like the small-town life of southern and central Florida than anything else.

  The town’s only nod to being island dwellers was the annual bathtub race across Buttonwood Sound to Pelican Key. Star’s father, along with the other drunks and would-be engineers on Arcady and the surrounding keys, added motors and sails and all manner of shade-tree mechanical inventions to old-fashioned footed bathtubs in an attempt to navigate them across the half mile of sheltered gulf waters to Pelican Key. It was about the only seagoing that any of the locals ever did. Otherwise, they might just as well have lived in Homestead or Florida City a few miles north on the mainland.

  Star’s parents, Lucille and Rick, had lived there all their lives. But for Star, the tiny island lacked room to run and fuel for her imagination. At fourteen, possessed by her dreams of independence and life in the big city, she had actually run away in search of something she couldn’t define, but knew she couldn’t find on the key. Her mother had known full well where Star was and arranged for her to stay with her sister June in Coral Gables. For several weeks Star pretended to be a young career woman, dressing in her aunt’s suits and taking the bus downtown to Brickell Avenue to wander among the glistering towers as they refracted that south-Florida sun and showered her with rainbows. In truth, she mostly hung out at the museum complex on Flagler, also a perfect setting for dreams. They had all indulged the fantasy as long as it was practical, but eventually Star’s dad showed up with the family pickup and piled her and her belongings into the truck, back home to reality and Arcady Key.

  It had been a struggle, but Lucille was a wise woman, and in exchange for Star’s return she had offered her daughter the one thing she knew she couldn’t resist—a dog. His name was Mutley and he had been chosen only after Star had picked up and hugged every single solitary puppy in the Dade County Pound.

  “It’s his eyes,” Star had said cryptically, when pressed to explain what seemed to others so humble a choice after such an exhaustive search. “He seems very wise, like he has an old soul. And I like his smile.”

  Star was forever rescuing strays, curing abandoned baby birds and broken-winged gulls, and bottle-feeding lost baby raccoons. It got to the point where her mother had strictly forbidden the presence of any bird, mammal, fish, or varmint in or near the Leigh household. So, Mutley’s arrival had been much heralded. This inscrutable interloper was the center of Star’s life, keeping her at home until she was nearly nineteen years old.

  But at last even Mutley was unable to hold Star’s desire for more dreaming room, and she moved the forty-something miles up the Overseas Highway to Miami and the world outside. Still, Mutley’s siren call drew her home frequently. Her mom always joked that if anything ever happened to Mutley, they might never see Star again. It wasn’t true, but it wasn’t far from wrong.

  Life was different for Brandi. She lived with her stepfather, O.Z., the neighborhood pot dealer. Her mom had fallen in love with long distance, leaving Brandi and her stepfather on their own when Brandi was twelve.

  There had always been plenty of drinking in and around Star’s home, but that was as far as it went. She had never even tried pot and with her passion for athletics had no interest. She’d always taken the reputation with a shrug. She didn’t smoke but it didn’t bother her, so what’s the difference? It was the kind of live-and-let-live attitude most of the locals shared. Even so, Star had never liked being around the Fescue household. They seemed nice enough, Brandi and her stepdad. And he was a good guy, driving Brandi all the way to Miami, sometimes four and five times a week for ice-skating lessons. Brandi’s interests had shifted to modeling when she turned fifteen, and O.Z. had taken up photography to accommodate her. They made rolls of what they had called “lingerie shots,” but Star had to admit that Theresa was right on this one. They were just pictures of Brandi in her underwear. When O.Z. had offered to take some similar shots of Star, she had politely declined and stopped visiting, though Brandi was frequently at the Leigh house.

  So, it was with much trepidation that Star made her way over to the Fescue house that night. As the girls scrambled in the kitchen to get Star into a chef’s smock, out the door, and into Brandi’s purple Gremlin, they had decided that the best way to avoid Adam was for Star to hide out with Brandi at the place she still shared with her stepfather on the key, so they left Star’s car at the restaurant to decoy Adam and give themselves a considerable head start.

  “Hi, Mr. Fescue,” Star said, wiggling her fingers in a pale wave as the creaky screened door snapped shut behind her, causing her to jump.

  “Well, if it isn’t little Esther Leigh,” O.Z. said, rising.

  “O.Z., it’s Star,” Brandi corrected. “Everyone calls Esther ‘Star.’ You two entertain each other, I’ll be right back,” she instructed, giving her stepfather a kiss and heading back in the direction of her room.

  “Well, it has been a while,” O.Z. said as he bore down on Star with open arms. “If Brandi hadn’t told me you were coming, I’m not sure I’d have recognized you. I like that hair color, and you’ve filled out right nicely,” O.Z. said with a hungry look that made Star shiver.

  “Thanks, Mr. Fescue,” she said, frozen just a few feet inside the front door.

  “Oh, honey, call me O.Z.,” he said, giving her as much of a hug as she’d let him and gesturing to a chair near the TV. “Everyone does.”

  “Okay, O.Z.,” Star said with a nervous laugh as she edged in toward the chair. “Thanks.”

  The decor was what Star’s mom would call “a trailer without the wheels.” All prefab and machine-matched, lifeless, cold, and made entirely out of petroleum products. It was the sort of room that could only accurately be described with t
erms like wood-tone and leatherette. The chair made farting sounds as Star sat down.

  “No problem,” O.Z. said, flopping down on the chair beside hers, oblivious to the embarrassing noises. “You want a beer?”

  “Yes, that would be nice,” Star agreed, still shaken from the events of the evening and not feeling the least bit calmed by the change of scenery.

  “Well, here you go,” O.Z. said, opening the lid on the cooler beside his chair and pulling out a couple of bottles of Zax.

  “Thanks,” Star said, a little startled by the gesture and the cooler. The Leigh house may not have been the center of sophistication, but unless it was Super Bowl Sunday or the Daytona 500, coolers full of beer were not kept in the living room.

  “Well, certainly,” O.Z. said, patting her knee with a cold, clammy hand straight from the cooler. “Brandi, you want a beer?”

  “No, thanks, but roll us a fat one for the road, would you?” she shouted back from wherever she was.

  “You got it, little missy.” O.Z. took out an old metal Zax beer tray already strewn with a packet of papers and a lid of dope. “You all will have to forgive me for a little while,” O.Z. said apologetically as he began to clean a joint’s worth of dope on the metal tray, tapping it gently with his index finger to separate the stems and seeds from the buds. The seeds rolled free down the smooth metal tray as he tapped and then scooped the partially cleaned dope, moving it up the slant of the tray he had balanced in his lap, before tapping again. “I’ve got a couple of associates coming by and they prefer to keep their business confidential, so if you two can give me a couple of hours here on my own, why that would be great. Then we can have ourselves a high old time when you get back.”

  “Well, Brandi has her shoot tomorrow, so we’d probably better make an early night of it,” Star suggested.

  “Brandi? Early?” O.Z. guffawed. “That’ll be the day. It’s good of you to help her out with the shoot tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad to do it,” Star said, moving her knee in time to avoid a grateful pat from O.Z.’s big paw.

  “Okay,” Brandi said, returning with a couple of bags of chips, a small Playmate cooler, and a man’s dress shirt, which she tossed to Star. “Here, this will be better than that galley-slave uniform. Put this on and let’s get out of here before O.Z.’s creepy friends get here. How’s that jay coming?”