Scene 11

Scene Eleven...Sneaking Around
Time: 7:00 PM, Saturday, January 12, 1946
Place: Outside Joe's Stone Crab, South Beach
Storyteller: Janet

My date and I are strolling South Beach, near Joe's Stone Crab. Lots of tourist milling around. Is that a tap on my shoulder? Turning around, I'm face to face with my sister. I cough cigarette smoke. William pats me on the back.

Betty swipes the Lucky Strike out of my hand, throws it on the sidewalk, and stamps it out. "Who's he?" she demands.

"Ah, ah...Don, this is my sister..."

She interrupts, "Goodnight, Don. Janet is only fifteen, and coming with us."

Don grabs my arm and says, "We're going to a party downtown. I'll have her home by 2:00."

William grabs my other arm, "Not tonight."

Don releases me, laughs, and turns his back on us. "Good, he's leaving," I assume. 

Wrong! He swirls around and takes a swing at William who ducks.

Betty screams.

The two men size each other up. William is calm, but focused. Don's face is red; he swings again and misses again.

William punches him in the gut; my date falls to his knees. He takes forever to rise...then disappear in the crowd.

"What a jerk. Thankfully you two saved the day. Don was going to take me out to eat. I'm starved."

"Betty and I have reservations at Joe's, across the street. Let's get over there before it's too late."

"Janet can have bread and water." My sister is fuming as we walk toward the restaurant.

The dining room appears full, but they escort us to a table intended for a couple. The waiter squeezes in another place setting. I order sloe gin and coke, but he asks to see my I.D.

"I forgot my purse..."

William cuts me off. "Shirley Temple, coke with rum, and club soda."

"Are you going to tell Dad?" I look at Betty with puppy dog eyes. 

"I really should, but such news might give him a stroke. He said no dating til sixteen. Can you behave for two months? Promise me you won't sneak around again. That juvenile delinquent might have...oh my gosh...I can't think about it."

Our hero buts in, "Well, you're very fortunate to have an understanding sister. I would feel obligated to squeal...on moral grounds."

The drinks arrive. We place three stone crab orders. I request extra Joe's mustard sauce. The waiter dashes off.

William brings up the most boring subject. "People keep dropping tidbits about the '26 hurricane. Betty, were you too young to remember it?"

"Oh, don't get her going on that. She has it memorized."

"Be quiet, Squirt. Please Betty. Before the food gets here."

"I was seven and Paul, barely a toddler, on September 15, 1926. No TWA or Pan Am airlines back then."

"Daddy puts us in the car for a trip to Grandma's, because the weather bureau keeps issuing hurricane advisories."

"Three days later it makes landfall with a hundred and fifty miles per hour winds. The storm surge peaks at fourteen-fifteen feet inside our Coconut Grove home. Daddy leaves us in Pennsylvania, because his office, in a Miami sky scrapper, is still standing. The hurricane aftermath keeps his law firm very busy. He sleeps at work."

"Daddy drives up for Christmas, Easter, and summer vacations. Mother and I are thrilled to see him, but Paul is so young...he can't remember his own father...and he's in a house of all women...men scare him."

"Fast forward to summer of '28. Daddy buys us a new home in Coral Gables. I enroll in a private school on Miami Beach. Mother drives me there and then takes Paul to the ocean."

That was eighteen years ago, but right now a toddler runs by our table, almost crashing into the waiter carrying our crabs.

"Hard to believe Janet wasn't even with us back then," my sister concludes.

"But on March 22, 1930, I was born and the Robertson family lived happily ever after." I'm joking, but Betty doesn't laugh.

Her jaw drops. She glares at me. "How could you be so flippant and conceited? Important and tragic things happened in this world before you graced us with your birth."

"I'm sorry. That was a childish thing to say. Don't know what comes over my mouth sometimes. People died in '26 and you suffered so...being away from Dad. Paul's never gotten over it; look at the way he fights with Dad. And Mom's afraid to leave the house except for grocery shopping. Did the storm cause that, too? What do you think?"

William grabs his fork. "I think we should eat...or does your family have any other skeletons in the attic that must be discussed first?"