States of Grace by Mandy Miller (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

“Go on. Take it, would ya? I’m busy here.” Vinnie digs deep in his pocket for a doggie treat. Without being asked, Miranda gives him a paw, takes the treat like a delicate treasure, and crunches it into rubble.

I grab the envelope and drop it on the futon.

“I take it you know what’s in there.”

“Final divorce papers.”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Endings are never easy, sweetheart. Maybe think of it as a new beginning.”

I wipe my nose on the back of my hand. “It’s just…” I drop onto the futon and rub the fading tan line where my wedding ring used to be. “Who am I now, Vin?”

“You are still you. And stronger than ever. And if it makes you feel any better, I was married and divorced three times, and not one day do I want any of them back.”

I let out a snotty laugh. “You sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

“Always with the smart mouth. Like I said, you’re still you, Gracie.”

He looks deep into my eyes, his own flinty. “You’re better off without that cheatin’ rat bastard, kid. You’re a force of nature. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

I rip open the envelope, grab a pen, and scrawl my signature on every line marked with a Sign Here sticky arrow, and stuff everything into the enclosed return envelope.

“Can you take this for me?”

“You mean keep it for you?”

“No, I mean send it for me.”

“Sure. I’ll take it to FedEx in the morning.”

“First thing, okay?”

“Sure. Anything you need.”

“Can you look after Miranda while I take a run?” I glance down at Oscar. “Or more like a hobble.”

He grabs the leash and dashes out before I can say “Thanks.”

***

The beach is a black desert, the scorched tourists all back in their hotels, dining on stone crabs and key lime pie. I close my eyes and inhale, the air a cocktail of salt, magnolia, and a blanket of dense humidity. It’s the kind of air tourists spend thousands to breathe, the kind that made me fall in love with Florida.

Obscured from prying eyes by the darkness, I start to jog, the odd outward sweep of Oscar something I’m still not used to. I pass couples making out in parked cars. And a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart, searching for a safe place to sleep out of sight of predators.

Farther south, the Strip, several blocks of touristy restaurants and souvenir shops emerges, the ferocity of its garish neon in stark contrast to the night. Flashing signs promising 2-4-1 and The Biggest Margarita on the Beach. A tattoo parlor called Pink’s Inks wedged between a frozen daiquiri bar and a psychic offering readings for five dollars, three for ten. On the corner of Las Olas, the Elbo Room is humming along as it has since World War II, the overflowing crowd corralled by a rope line monitored by off-duty cops. Beers in hand for locals, weak umbrella drinks for tourists, all sway along to the strains of the ubiquitous Jimmy Buffet wannabe playing the unofficial state song, “Margaritaville.”

From the top of the Las Olas bridge, I look west, to my destination, Idlewyld, a finger of coral rock lined with mansions. Perhaps I’m doing this to feel pain, to feel something other than regret, but I tell myself it’s to close the book on my old life once and for all.

I wail into the night like a banshee. “Face up! You need to get on with your life, soldier!”

The four-story contemporary looks more like a modern art museum than a home. I’d wanted contemporary, Manny, Mediterranean. We flipped a coin and I won. And while the money came pouring in from his real-estate-development business to build the house and fill it with designer furnishings, more than we’d ever imagined as broke students, the kids never arrived to sleep in its many bedrooms.

I stand in the shadow of the huge banyan tree and take a deep breath, the scent of night jasmine filling my lungs. It’s been less than a year, but it feels like much longer since I was last here. I lean my face against the stainless-steel railing atop a half wall, like a kid at the zoo, and take inventory. The sun-bleached Florida pine bench by the front door. The banana palm I planted is still there too. The foliage in the courtyard is neatly manicured, although Manny loathes anything to do with the garden. Clearly, he’s hired a new gardener, one to replace the one he fired because he saw the guy spying on me out by the pool.

I recognize the outline of my Jaguar under a tarp in the driveway, alongside Manny’s black Mercedes S Class, its high polish reflecting the sharp, geometric lines of the house.

A light goes on in the master suite upstairs and I crouch out of sight.

Manny stands in the window, staring into the night. He’s wearing the robe I gave him on our last Christmas together, a few weeks before I was arrested. Crimson silk with his initials AAM, Armando Alonso Martinez, monogrammed on the breast pocket. After a couple of minutes, he recedes into the bedroom. I’m about to stand when he reappears, scanning the street.

A chill blooms inside me, my sweat-soaked running clothes stuck to my body. I need to get moving. As I jog away, crickets accompany my retreat, chirping their night music. I forgot about the crickets. I am enchanted by the sound, until a white Bentley convertible rolls to a stop in front of the house, a halo of blonde hair in the driver’s seat.

***

The 11 p.m. NA meeting at St. Anthony’s is always a macabre circus, but I need to go. For the Bar, yes, but more for me. The late hour brings out the most broken, the most bold in their denial, the ones who cannot help but tempt fate. I cross the parking lot, drawn by the light streaming from Fellowship Hall. Two police cruisers are parked outside the entrance, driver’s