“Well, thanks for listening to me bitch about my life,” Colleen said.
She picked up her near-empty beer bottle and took the last swig. When she set it down, something caught the corner of her eye, and she turned to see a man looming behind Danny. He was dressed like Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, complete with the dirty hockey mask and tattered black union suit. Danny had no idea that the man was there until he saw the look on Colleen’s face. Then he turned his head and peered over his shoulder. He gave a weak smile, and then he made a face at Colleen and laughed like he didn’t know what else to do. The man wearing the hockey mask groaned and shuffled his feet as if he were trying to go through Danny to get to the bar. Danny tried to laugh it off, but when the man didn’t stop leaning into him, Danny put his forearm against the man’s chest. “All right,” Danny said. “That’s enough. You’re going to spill my beer.”
The man in the hockey mask lifted a machete that had remained hidden until that moment. It all happened so quickly that Colleen realized that the machete was made of plastic only when it grazed Danny’s cheek without drawing blood. Danny slapped the machete away from his face and sprang from his bar stool. Colleen had never seen Danny fight—had never even imagined him in a fight—and she did not know what would happen if one broke out now.
But a fight didn’t break out. The man with the machete laughed and lifted his hockey mask, revealing a handsome face and a blond haircut that reminded Colleen of nearly every guy she’d known in law school.
“Come on, Danny,” the man said. “I’m just messing with you.”
“Jesus, Brad,” Danny said. He collapsed back onto his bar stool as if he were suddenly exhausted by the specter of an altercation. “I didn’t know who the hell you were.”
“I’m Jason Voorhees,” the man said. He looked down at his costume as if checking to make sure he’d worn the right outfit. “Come on, I got the hockey mask and everything.”
“That’s not what I meant, Brad,” Danny said. He shook out another cigarette and lit it.
Brad reached around Danny and set his machete and mask on the bar, and then he put his hands on Danny’s shoulders and made a show of massaging them. “Relax, Danny,” he said. “Relax and tell me what’s up with the sales out in Plantation Cove. I thought you’d be slinging some more home sites for me.”
“Market’s been slow this fall,” Danny said. “It’ll pick up. It always does.”
“Yeah,” Brad said. He stopped his massage and patted Danny’s shoulders with both hands. “Let’s hope it does.” He looked over at Colleen and smiled. “Is this your girlfriend?”
“This is Colleen,” Danny said. He gave Colleen a quick look that was part apology and part cry for help.
“Colleen Barnes?” Brad said. He reached out his hand, and Colleen took it firmly in her own. It was soft and warm.
“Colleen Banks,” she said.
“Shoot,” Brad said. “I know who you are. Your daddy’s a good man. It’s a shame that he’s going to lose next week.”
“Okay,” Colleen said, mostly because she didn’t know what else to say.
Brad turned his attention back to Danny. “Danny’s a good man too.” He smiled, and then he reared back his hand and smacked Danny on the ass as if they were on a football field and Danny had just made a game-winning catch. “But he needs to get this sweet ass in gear and start selling some home sites.” Danny didn’t react, just took a drag from his cigarette and then knocked an ash into the empty bottle sitting in front of him. Brad leaned close to Danny’s ear. “What did you dress as, Danny?”
“Dracula,” Danny said, not turning around.
“What?” Brad asked.
Danny turned his head and spoke louder. “Dracula.”
“Is that right?” Brad said. “You out sucking blood tonight?” He laughed, placed one hand on the back of Danny’s neck, and squeezed.
Danny shrugged off his hand. “Just sucking down beers,” he said.
“I bet you are,” Brad said. He leaned forward again and picked up his mask and machete off the bar. “Well, y’all have a good night.” He winked at Colleen. “Tell your daddy I said hello.”
Brad left them and walked across the dance floor to a table on the other side of the bar where two other men sat. They were about his age, but they wore polo shirts and jeans. They looked like old college buddies who’d just left the golf course and had come to the bar to make a lot of noise and look for women to take home.
“What an asshole,” Colleen said.
“Yep,” Danny said. “Always has been. I hope your dad beats his ass.”
“I thought you were about to try.”
“Shoot,” Danny said. “I should’ve.” He looked at the bartender and raised his empty bottle, and a second later she came by and removed it and set down a fresh beer.
“What’s Plantation Cove?” Colleen asked.
Danny took a long sip of his beer and set it down. “What was Plantation Cove, you mean.”
“What was Plantation Cove?” she repeated.
“It’s sinking,” Danny said. He laughed. “In more ways than one.” He picked up a napkin from the bar and wiped his mouth, and then he wiped the beads of cold sweat from the bottle.
“What do you mean ‘it’s sinking’？”
“Well, it’s literally sinking,” Danny said. “It’s a new development off Long Beach Road. Brad came in and cleared swampland and decided to build huge houses on tiny lots. Some of the most expensive waterfront lots are literally under a foot of water, depending on the tide. And he can’t sell the lots and build fast enough to keep it in the black.” He looked over at Colleen, turned his head farther as if making sure Brad wasn’t still looming behind him. “So,” he said, “it is all, therefore, underwater.”
“I thought he was some rich kid,” Colleen said.
“He is,” Danny said. “At least he was, anyway. He’s still an asshole.”
“I’m sorry that he was mean to you,” she said.
Danny waved his hand. “Please,” he said. “I can handle guys like Bradley Frye.”
“I hope my father can handle him.”
“Hell, the only reason Bradley Frye wants to be sheriff is so he can get a piece of whatever’s out there.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“He’s going around telling everybody that that airplane was part of a drug-smuggling operation and that Rodney Bellamy was the ringleader.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “Shit, if that’s true, I bet Brad’s jealous as hell. I bet he wishes he’d thought of it.”
“You think that’s why he wants to be sheriff?” she asked. “To make money illegally?”
“Aside from your daddy, I’d argue that’s the only reason anybody in this damn county would want that job.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and Colleen looked at Danny out of the corner of her eye. For some reason, at that moment, she saw him as the older man he would become, still handsome, still pretending to be as happy and reckless as he was before Bradley Frye had arrived and stolen whatever joy their evening together had conjured. Colleen knew that even as an older man Danny would be alone, at least alone in the way of those who live full lives while never sharing the breadth of their lives with certain people. And Colleen knew that she was one of those certain people with whom Danny had never shared his life. When she was younger, she’d had questions she wanted to ask Danny, but she didn’t have the vocabulary to frame them. Now she had the vocabulary, but she no longer had the questions.