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“Thank you,” Ruby says, nodding slightly. “Please, call me Ruby. And this is my daughter, Athena.”
“Bev Byer,” he says, reaching up to twist one end of his mustache between two fingers. “I’ve lived on this luscious and beautiful island my whole life, and I like to think I’m sort of her caretaker. Unofficially.”
“Like a lighthouse caretaker?” Athena asks, putting her wallet away when she realizes that Bev isn’t actually going to look at her ID.
“Of sorts,” he says. “I know the whole history of the island, and I know everyone who lives here. I never seek out gossip, but somehow it always finds me.”
“Seems about right for a bartender,” Ruby says knowingly.
“True enough. And I think I just have that kind of face, you know?” His eyes are the gray-blue of a stormy sea, and his hair is as silvery and untamed as his mustache. He’s obviously somewhere in the ballpark of seventy, but his arms are strong, and he’s tall and lean. “Now, two grogs for our newest residents,” Bev says, patting their table. “Coming right up.”
He turns and walks back to the bar, leaving Ruby and Athena to resume their whispering.
“Is everyone on this island going to be in costume?” Athena wonders.
“Not everyone. The last time I was here, I saw lots of people just going about their business in street clothes. But I have to admit, there are quite a few who run businesses that rely heavily on the pirate thing. It’s definitely a tourist attraction.”
Ruby glances around the bar, half expecting to see a few wenches in tight corsets as they deliver foamy mugs of beer to thirsty sailors, but Bev Byer seems to be running the place pretty much singlehandedly. Over in one corner is her Secret Service agent, Banks, and in another is Athena’s agent, Corbin. The two men look far more serious than anyone else in the bar, and their eyes constantly scan the room, clocking the patrons, and watching the door.
It had been a real point of contention for Ruby and her daughters when they left the White House: keep their Secret Service agents, or refuse them? President Obama had signed the Former Presidents Protection Act, which provides lifetime Secret Security to all former presidents, their wives, and their children, and while both Ruby and the girls had battled the urge to refuse protection and just get on with their lives as private citizens, they’d been encouraged by several sources to consider maintaining it indefinitely. Sometimes it still feels weird to Ruby to have another human being shadowing her everywhere she goes, but she knows it’s for the best.
“Okay, let’s talk about the bookstore.” Athena waits politely while Bev delivers their grog (which turns out to be rum, lime juice, and sugar), and then looks at her mom again. “I know you’ve got the location and that you’re showing it to me tomorrow, but what about a name? Are you going to staff it with locals? Does Banks have to sit outside the bookstore all day, every day in the hot sun, having a heatstroke to protect the Great Ruby Hudson, bookseller extraordinaire?”
Ruby reaches across the table and pinches her daughter’s arm playfully. “No!” she says. “I’m not going to make Banks stand out there in a black suit every day. In fact, once I get things set up the way I want them and the initial curiosity dies down, I figure I’ll be just another local around here. No one will give me a second glance.”
“Mom.” Athena lowers her chin and gives her mother a disbelieving look. “Come on.”
“What?” Ruby asks innocently, sipping her drink. “I was a regular gal once, and I can be again. In fact, Iwillbe again. It’ll just take some time.”
Athena shakes her head; Ruby is anything but a “regular gal.” She still has the high cheekbones, almond shaped eyes, and the pretty face that makes her approachable and attractive at the same time. Before marrying Jack and devoting her life to being at his side through all his political endeavors, Ruby had been a reasonably busy commercial actress who paid her way through UCLA by hawking chewing gum, jeans, and dish soap in a variety of national commercials. In fact, when she first met Jack, he’d commented almost immediately on how much he liked seeing a pretty girl on his television screen frolicking on the beach in a pair of worn-in Levi’s. It had tickled Ruby that a man who was already a senator would have seen and remembered her in a commercial, and that charming admission had won him a date with her when he asked for one.
“I’m not holding my breath on you being a regular gal, Mom, but I do want this to be a good choice for you, coming here.”
Ruby’s eyes shine over the rim of her glass as she takes another sip. “Thanks, Bean. I appreciate that.”
In order to keep herself from crying, Ruby pulls a map from her purse and spreads it on the pockmarked and scarred wooden table. The flickering lantern between them throws off just enough light for Ruby to read the map as she flattens it with both hands.
“So,” she says, “we’re starting at one end of Seadog Lane. After this, I say we hit the Bodacious Booty Salon for manicures—“
“Stop,” Athena says, choking on a sip of grog. “You’re making that up! Like pirate’s booty?”
“I am not making it up,” Ruby says haughtily. “And after that, we need to run into Jolly Roger Rags and pick up some pirate gear for your sister. A t-shirt, or maybe a bandana.”
“Some pantaloons,” Athena adds, warming to the idea. “And maybe we can convince her that she has to show up here dressed like that, or they won’t let her on the island.”
Ruby lifts an eyebrow. “Do you really think Harlow needs an excuse to put on pantaloons and a bandana?”
“You’re so right.” They giggle together for a second, thinking of how game Harlow is for pretty much anything. “But Mom? I do have one question.”
“Shoot.” Ruby knocks back her drink and feels it warming her from within. A relaxed feeling of goodwill washes over her.
“Was there actually a shipwreck here, or is it all a marketing ploy?”
“Aye, lass,” Bev says, sneaking up behind Athena and answering her question before Ruby can even open her mouth. “TheFlor de Azucarwrecked in a storm just off our shores in 1513. Every man on board died, and they say that the only survivor was a woman who was a stowaway on the ship. Mistress of one of the sailors—everyone refers to her as Flora. She made her way to dry land and lived out her life here on Shipwreck Key.”
A creaking sound like a wooden boat listing from side to side on a rollicking sea comes from overhead, and Ruby glances up, wondering if it’s being piped in via sound system to add to the ambience. It wouldn’t surprise her.
“What doesFlor de Azucarmean?” Athena asks, clearly reeled in by this little bit of local folklore.
