Deep Blue by Randy Wayne White

street. Christmas Luminary. He’d forgotten.
    â€œYou missed the oyster roast,” Ford said. “The guides brought in some pen shells and I made ceviche.”
    They talked about that; mentioned the dog and the pretty veterinarian, then their plans to dive the Captiva Blue Hole, Ford saying, “Let’s give the wind a few days to die down. The viz will be better.” He glanced over at Tomlinson. “Where were you?”
    â€œOn my bike? I bought a farm not far from here.” Tomlinson was fiddling with the truck’s ancient AM radio: right-wing talk shows, Mexican accordion music. “You don’t actually listen to this crap?”
    â€œThat’s what you call them now? Farms?” Ford asked. His palgrew marijuana on a couple of backcountry islands where there were shell middens high enough to plant. For a decade, he’d sold boutique weed, but had recently claimed he was leaving the business because legalization had taken the fun out of it.
    â€œA real farm where I can plant things legally. Almost four acres. Wait ’til you see it—just this side of Blind Pass Bridge. There’s an old rain cistern there, built, I don’t know, late eighteen hundreds, maybe. You know that old kind of concrete they made using seashells? It’s big. Big as a small swimming pool and five feet deep. Plenty of high ground. I was told Thomas Edison paid islanders to grow goldenrod on the acreage. Either for synthetic rubber or some kind of weird-ass experiment. You know, kill it and study it. The white man’s way.”
    This was news to Ford. “You already closed on the property or made an offer?”
    â€œDude, believe it or not, time doesn’t stop when you leave the island. You were gone for, what, a week? It came on the market, so I snapped it up. Hannah thought it was a good deal. Her mother, Loretta, she’s a master gardener. She’s been giving me advice. The Smith family’s been farming these islands for more than a hundred years.”
    Ford told himself,
Don’t react,
but couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How’s she doing?”
    â€œFull of piss and ginger, that woman. People think she’s nuts after they cut that clot out of her brain, but I think she’s been elevated to a whole new level of consciousness. It happens that way sometimes. When I stop by, Loretta will smoke the occasional doobie and tell me about conversations she has with a chieftain. A bigguy, really handsome, Loretta says. He lived on the islands more than a thousand years ago.” Tomlinson waited, anticipating a reply, then realized, “Oh . . . you meant Hannah, not her mom.”
    Still no response. Tomlinson cut to the chase. “I haven’t gotten Hannah’s knickers off, if that’s what you’re asking. She’s made it clear: don’t even try.” He snapped off the radio. “How can you live without music, man? You could buy a tape player cheap at Goodwill. Or skip ahead a few decades and install a CD player.” Tomlinson folded his arms.
    Ford, looking at rows of glowing paper bags, said, “Yeah, Luminary is kind of pretty.”
    End of subject.
    Ahead in the lights of the truck, Mack’s beat-up Lincoln Continental turned left onto West Gulf at the beach access and drove past the Island Inn, almost to Shalimar, where they turned left again into a shell drive shielded by palms.
    A wooden sign, not visible from the road, read
    GRIN N BARE IT
    BEACH COTTAGES
    â€œWhere we headed?” Tomlinson asked.
    Ford put the truck in park. “We’re already here. Mack’s thinking about buying this place.” He got out, the night dense with salt mist and jasmine, and spoke over the truck’s roof. “I must’ve jogged past this driveway a thousand times but never noticed the sign. You ever hear of it?”
    â€œHow much they asking?” Tomlinson, using his fingers, combedhis