Free Fragile Beasts by Tawni O’Dell Page A

Spanish,” she laughs.
    “Tu eres el bicho mas feo que hay en el mundo.”
    Shelby frowns at me. She’s had enough Spanish to have some idea of what I said.
    “What did you say?” Rae Ann asks.
    “Good doggie.”
    “Ooooh,” she coos, pressing the dog against her neck. “Hear that? You’re a bee-show mass fay-o. Now go play but don’t go too far.”
    She sets him on the floor and he teeters uncertainly before walking off.
    Luis appears from inside the house dressed in cabana boy attire. He’s wearing a bright red Hawaiian shirt covered in white lilies, white pants, and sandals. He won’t make eye contact with me because it will make him laugh.
    “Buenas noches, señor Jack, señora Jack.”
    “Buenas whatever to you too, Louis,” Cameron replies disgustedly.
    “Cam,” Rae Ann says as she swats him playfully on his pudgy knee. “Be nice.”
    Rae Ann loves to hear Spanish. It reminds her of her homeland: Miami.
    “Buenas noches, Luis,” she replies with a lovely smile that isn’t lost on Luis.
    “Can I offer anyone a drink?” He switches to English but maintains a thick accent for Rae Ann’s sake.
    “Listening to you always reminds me of home,” she gushes. “Let’s celebrate! I’ll have a mojito.”
    Cameron screws up his face as if he might spit.
    “Bourbon, Mr. Jack?” Luis asks.
    “Yeah.”
    “¿Y usted, señorita?”
    “Can I have a mojito, too?” Shelby asks her mother.
    “No, they’re much too strong. Have a daiquiri.”
    “And you, Miss Jack?” he asks me while still unable to look me in the eyes. “Can I bring you some warm milk?”
    I watch his lips tremble beneath his bushy gray mustache as he tries to restrain his mirth.
    “Bourbon for me, too, Luis. A double.”
    “Bueno.”
    “He’s the cutest little old man,” Rae Ann comments after Luis leaves.
    I smile to myself. Her comment about his age and size serves him right.
    Luis brings us our drinks, some of his homemade allioli with ciabbata bread ripped into chunks, and a small blue bowl of olives, and we commence chitchat.
    Rae Ann’s centers almost completely on their homes. They have three: one here, one in New York, and one in Florida. She agreed to Cameron’s desire to continue living in a small town in rural Pennsylvania in the house where he was brought up and close to where his father established the family fortune only if they could also live part of the year some place where “other rich people live” and some place where there’s “tons of sun.” To Rae Ann’s credit, of all the truly horrid places in this country where rich people gather, she chose the only interesting one: New York. And as for her other choice, she’s one of a rare breed, a native Floridian. I can’t blame her for needing to migrate back to her original nesting grounds from time to time. She’s guided by an instinct stronger than common sense and good taste; she has Coppertone in her veins.
    Shelby sits cuddled up next to her mother sipping at a red frothy daiquiri Luis prepared especially for her with little rum, not saying much, which is unusual for her. This was supposed to be a visit between her and her parents but that particular exchange never gets under way.
    She dunks bread in the allioli for herself and her mother and pops one olive after another into her mouth.
    Cameron doesn’t eat. He doesn’t talk either. He’s tense, distracted, and fidgety.
    Eventually, he turns his oily charm on me and asks with his best salesman’s smile, “So what have you been up to, Aunt Candace?”
    “I’ve been keeping busy in my way.”
    “Right. In your way.”
    He runs his hand through his hair, then pats it down on all sides into a perfectly smooth pewter cap, a nervous gesture of his.
    “I hear you had a bit of a tragedy around here recently.”
    I rack my brain. I can’t come up with any recent tragedy other than this visit.
    “And what would that be?”
    “That guy. The one killed in a drunk driving accident.”
    “Oh, yes.