Page 11 of As a Last Resort
“Good.Enjoy your last weekend in the city for a while.”Glenn clinked his glass against Robby’s again and turned to spread his sparkling personality to the others.
Ivy locked eyes with me.“I’ve heard it’s beautiful down there.How is it that you always get assigned the tropical destinations, again?We must be selling our souls to the wrong devil, Samantha.”
“Tropicalis code word forsweltering heat,” Robby said.
I rolled my eyes.“Yeah, it’s awful.Sunshine and palm trees for days.”
Ivy lowered her voice.“I heard people don’t wear shoes.”
“Or shower,” I added.“And it’s not like you’ll have time to actually see the sunshine, even if Florida does have the most gorgeous sunsets you’ll ever see.”
“Aren’t you from down there?”Robby asked.I paused, quickly racking my brain for how he’d know a fact I never talked about.
Ivy stood and turned toward the bar.“I’m going to grab another round.”
Robby turned his sparkly eyes on me and I could tell he was about to dive headfirst into the whole hometown situation.
“Are you really not excited about your trip?”I preempted him.
“I’m excited about a twenty-million-dollar deal.I’m not excited about being hot.Or the mosquitoes.”
“They’re not that bad,” I said smiling, “as long as you don’t go outside.”
“I have a meeting first thing Monday with the seller.I can’tbelieve this guy’s been sitting on this jewel for thirty years.It’s completely undeveloped with over ten miles of oceanfront property.”
“I know.I pulled together the pitch, remember?”I wasn’t expecting a response.
“It’s going to be amazing once we’re done with it.I couldn’t imagine living there now though.That’s really where you grew up?”
He was looking at me like I was in a glass case.There was a hard line between work and home for me, even though by choice, the latter barely existed at this point in my life.Once you started to let people see a more personal side, there were always questions.Lots of questions I didn’t want to have to answer.
“Yep.”Short and sweet usually moved the conversation along.
“What’s it like?You know, so I can properly prepare myself for any alligator run-ins or shoeless people I may encounter.”
The least I could do was help him prepare for the climate that was about to smack him in the face.“Honestly, it’s hot, especially now in the summer.The days are really long.It’ll be light by six a.m.and stay that way until almost nine p.m.”
“Do people get all turned around like in Alaska when the sun never sets?”he asked.
“I don’t think officially, but there are some super weird people who live in Florida, so you might want to carry pepper spray just in case.”
“I think there are super weird people that live everywhere.They just hide in other places and in Florida it’s too hot to care.”
That’s something we could agree on.
“Do you still have family there?”he asked.
I hesitated.
“Let me guess.The answer is yes and that’s the reason you haven’t been home in a while.”For someone who kept his eyes mainly on golf and Glenn’s rear end, he was coming across as quite intuitive.
“First of all, not sure I would actually use the wordhometo describe that place for me.And second, how do you know I haven’t been back in a while?”
“I may not be the most observant person, but I have noticed you haven’t taken a single vacation in years.”
I paused.“It’s a long story.”And not one I necessarily wanted to dive into, thank you very much.
“It always is,” he answered.After a few seconds of silence, he spoke.“Drugs.”
