Free The Mangrove Coast by Randy Wayne White Page A

little pissed off because we were imposing on his new life. I wouldn’t budge, though, so the police finally did come, but at least they made Merlot bring my mom to the door.
    “Doc, I hardly recognized her. In the six or seven weeks since I’d seen her, she’d lost maybe fifteen pounds. She looked pale and gaunt, all eyes and hair and cheekbones. Her eyes, she’s got the most unusual eyes you’ve ever seen. One green, one blue, and I know she’s sick when her eyes get this milky, glassy look. Well, that’s just the way her eyes looked. Glassy, like she wasn’t well. She even sounded different when she spoke. What’s that word—mesmerized? That’s the way she sounded, but more like she was dazed. She came out, gave me a big hug and kiss right there in front of the cops. Then she told Frank and me that we had to stop saying all the bad things we’d been saying about Merlot.”
    I interrupted and told her to explain that in a little more detail.
    “My mom told us that we had to stop spreading lies about her friend Jackie.”
    “She was convinced that you two had been lying about the guy?”
    “Exactly.”
    “Did she seem paranoid? Or as if the guy might have her on drugs or something?”
    “No. She just seemed absolutely confident that Frank and I had been spreading lies about her boyfriend. She said that she knew what we’d been saying and that we had to stop because we were making ourselves look silly.”
    “Had you and Frank said anything to anyone about Merlot?”
    “Nothing. Yeah, we’d talked between ourselves, but we hadn’t said a damn thing to anyone else. Then she told us that she’d never been happier.”
    “Judging from her voice, did she mean it?”
    “I don’t think anyone was forcing her to say it. But she didn’t sound normal, either. Not like she was drunk or anything, but, like I told you, kind of in a daze. Or like she was trying real hard to show Merlot that she was a hundred percent on his side. That she was protecting him. You know the way people behave when they’re trying to let someone know they care? Like that. She said that she was living with Jackie now and they’d soon be going on a trip.”
    “Did she say where?”
    “I asked her, but Merlot cut her off before she could answer. As we were leaving, she kind of blurted out that it might be a while before she’d be able to call me on the phone. Because they’d be sailing and some of the ports were remote.”
    “The police were still there, they heard that exchange.”
    “Yeah, and it was … awful,” Amanda said. “It was like one of those nasty little scenes you see on television cop shows. Lights flashing, neighbors staring out their windows, trashy white people arguing on the sidewalk. That’s the way I felt, trashy. And helpless. Helpless because of the way my mother was behaving. You know what the worst thing was? Mom, my own mother, she believed Merlot, not me. That business about Frank and me spreadinglies. It was like she’d been brainwashed or something. He’d been telling her that crap. Why? I mean, why go to the trouble? Christ, I wanted to scream I was so frustrated.
    “So then the cops tell us we’ve got to leave, stop harassing the happy couple. What choice did I have? I told Mom to please call me. I couldn’t make her believe that I couldn’t call her. She didn’t even know Merlot’s number’d been changed. So Frank and I go get in the car. Mom’s standing there behind the cops. Merlot, the fat ass, he’s got his arm around Mom, his Creole roommate standing there still looking pissed off, ready to fight. You know what Merlot does then?”
    “What.”
    “He flashes me this smug little smile as we’re pulling away. A very private smile, him looking right into my eyes, just him and me. It was kind of like he was telling me, yeah, you’re
right
about the kind of person I am. But your mother doesn’t know it and no one else will ever believe it, so screw you.”
    The way Amanda described