Page 9 of Key West Homecoming

“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.