Duma Key

It was my ears I didn't believe, but when a spontaneous spatter of applause erupted from the doorway, where the real aficionados had gathered to chat and take a little fresh evening air, I understood why Jack and Wireman had been late.

v

"What?" Pam asked. " What? " I had her on one side and Illy on the other as I moved toward the door; Linnie and Ric bobbed along in our wake. The applause grew louder. People turned toward the door and craned to see. "Who is it, Edgar?"

"My best friends on the island." Then, to Ilse: "One of them's the lady from down the road, remember her? She turned out to be the Daughter of the Godfather instead of the Bride. Her name's Elizabeth Eastlake, and she's a sweetheart."

Ilse's eyes were shining with excitement. "The old gal in the big blue sneakers!"

The crowd - many of them still applauding - parted for us, and I saw the three of them in the reception area, where two tables with a punch-bowl on each had been set up. My eyes began to sting and a lump rose in my throat. Jack was dressed in a slate gray suit. With his usually unruly surfer's thatch tamed, he looked like either a junior executive in the Bank of America or an especially tall seventh-grader on Careers Day. Wireman, pushing Elizabeth's chair, was wearing faded, beltless jeans and a round-collared white linen shirt that emphasized his deep tan. His hair was combed back, and I realized for the first time that he was good-looking the way Harrison Ford was in his late forties.

But it was Elizabeth who stole the show, Elizabeth who elicited the applause, even from the newbies who hadn't the slightest idea who she was. She was wearing a black pantsuit of dull rough cotton, loose but elegant. Her hair was up and held with a gauzy snood that flashed like diamonds beneath the gallery's downlighters. From her neck hung an ivory scrimshaw pendant on a gold chain, and on her feet were not big blue Frankenstein sneakers but elegant pumps of darkest scarlet. Between the second and third fingers of her gnarled left hand was an unlit cigarette in a gold-chased holder.

She looked left and right, smiling. When Mary came to the chair, Wireman stopped pushing long enough for the younger woman to kiss Elizabeth's cheek and whisper in her ear. Elizabeth listened, nodded, then whispered back. Mary cawed laughter, then caressed Elizabeth's arm.

Someone brushed by me. It was Jacob Rosenblatt, the accountant, his eyes wet and his nose red. Dario and Jimmy were behind him. Rosenblatt knelt by her wheelchair, his bony knees cracking like starter pistols, and cried, "Miss Eastlake! Oh, Miss Eastlake, so long we're not seeing you, and now... oh, what a wonderful surprise!"

"And you, Jake," she said, and cradled his bald head to her bosom. It looked like a very large egg lying there. "Handsome as Bogart!" She saw me... and winked. I winked back, but it wasn't easy to keep my happy face on. She looked haggard, dreadfully tired in spite of her smile.

I raised my eyes to Wireman's, and he gave the tiniest of shrugs. She insisted, it said. I switched my gaze to Jack and got much the same.

Rosenblatt, meanwhile, was rummaging in his pockets. At last he came up with a book of matches so battered it looked as if it might have entered the United States without a passport at Ellis Island. He opened it and tore one out.

"I thought smoking was against the rules in all these public buildings now," Elizabeth said.

Rosenblatt struggled. Color rose up his neck. I almost expected his head to explode. Finally he exclaimed: " Fuck the rules, Miss Eastlake!"

"BRAVISSIMO!" Mary shouted, laughing and throwing her hands to the ceiling, and at this there was another round of applause. A greater one came when Rosenblatt finally got the ancient match to ignite and held it out to Elizabeth, who placed her cigarette-holder between her lips.

"Who is she really, Daddy?" Ilse asked softly. "Besides the little old lady who lives down the lane, I mean?"

I said, "According to reports, at one time she was the Sarasota art scene."

"I don't understand why that gives her the right to muck up our lungs with her cigarette smoke," Linnie said. The vertical line was returning between her brows.

Ric smiled. "Oh, ch rie, this after all the bars we-"

" This is not there, " she said, the vertical line deepening, and I thought, Ric, you may be French, but you have a lot to learn about this particular American woman.

Alice Aucoin murmured to Dario, and from his pocket, Dario produced an Altoids tin. He dumped the mints into the palm of his hand and gave Alice the tin. Alice gave it to Elizabeth, who thanked her and tapped her cigarette ash into it.

Pam watched, fascinated, then turned to me. "What does she think of your pictures?"

"I don't know," I said. "She hasn't seen them."

Elizabeth was beckoning to me. "Will you introduce me to your family, Edgar?"

I did, beginning with Pam and ending with Ric. Jack and Wireman also shook hands with Pam and the girls.