On the return drive across the Everglades, the young man pulled over numerous times to throw up. The last of these pit stops occurred near a kidney-shaped pond in which a large alligator was wolfing down a purple gallinule. Honey got out of the car to watch, aghast but fascinated. After a while she went back to the Lincoln and found her date snoring in a splash of his own vomit. She took a long thoughtful walk around the pond, counting three more alligators and five old beer cans, which she gathered up.

From the road came the sound of squealing brakes. Honey turned and saw a westbound pickup skid to a halt, tires smoking. The man who stepped out wore a dark flannel shirt and pale dungarees and white rubber boots that came up to his knees. He walked over to Honey and asked if she was all right. Then he took the rusty beer cans from her arms and lobbed them one by one into the bed of his truck.

Immediately Honey Santana forgot about the tuxedoed nitwit passed out in the Continental.

The man in the rubber boots had broad shoulders, his hair was sun-bleached and his face was baked caramel brown. Honey thought he was uncommonly good-looking. He told her he was a commercial fisherman from Everglades City, and a volunteer firefighter. He said he was heading home from Dania, where he’d purchased two new propellers for his crab boat. He said his name was Perry Skinner.

“Perry, do you have a pen I can borrow?” Honey asked.

In the console of the truck he found a black marker that he used for numbering boxes of crab claws.

“That’ll do fine,” Honey said.

She walked over to the Lincoln and picked up the limp right arm of her date. She removed the silver cuff link and rolled up the sleeve. With the black marker she wrote out the word LOSER in fat block letters stretching from the young man’s wrist to his elbow.

Perry Skinner, who was standing behind Honey, said, “I can’t take you home. I’ve gotta work tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go home,” she told him. “Anywhere except home would be lovely.”

“Look, I’m married,” he said.

“Liar.”

He grinned. “How’d you know?”

Honey hooked a finger in the waistband of his dungarees. “See, you missed a loop with your belt. My mom would never let my dad out of the house if he did that. No wife would-or girlfriend. I got ten bucks says you live alone.”

Skinner raised his hands in surrender. Honey let go of his pants.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Honey told him. She was thinking about his outstanding smile.

“How old are you, Perry?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Well, I’m only eighteen and a half,” Honey said, “but if I stay in Miami ’til my next birthday, I’ll go totally fucking insane. Honest to God.”

Perry Skinner said he’d seen it happen before. He opened the passenger door of the truck and she climbed in.

“You didn’t even ask about my ridiculous dress,” she said.

“And you didn’t ask about my rubber boots.”

Three weeks later they got married.

Honey Santana was surprised to see Fry’s skateboard on the sidewalk when she parked in front of her ex-husband’s house. The screen door was half-open so she knocked lightly and let herself in. The two of them were in the kitchen, pretending to talk about something other than her. Honey wasn’t fooled.

“Don’t you have homework?” she asked her son.

“Just algebra. Quadratic equations-totally easy.”

“Get a move on.”

Fry looked to his father for a reprieve. Perry Skinner tossed him an apple and said, “See you at the track meet tomorrow.” Fry slung his book bag over one shoulder, shuffled out the door and skated away.

Honey said, “Let me guess-he thinks I need to start back with the shrink.”

“Be grateful you’ve got a kid that gives a shit,” Skinner said. “Want something to drink?”

“I’m fine, Perry.”

“How about an orange?”

“No, I mean I’m fine. As in, not loony,” Honey said. “Fry worries too much, same as you.”

Skinner went out on the porch and sat down in his rocking chair. Honey followed but remained standing.

“He said you found some decent kayaks,” Skinner said.

“I didn’t really come to talk about that.”

“Or say thanks, either, I guess.”

Honey was stung. “Knock it off,” she told him.

“I’m dying to hear more about these ecotours. Where exactly do you plan to go?”

“Back in the islands.” She waved her hand toward the river. “I’ve got the trip all charted out. Give me some credit, okay?”

Skinner took out a joint and lighted it up.

“Oh, that’s polite,” Honey said.

Skinner ignored the bite in her tone. “You got your medicine, I got mine. By the way, Fry can stay with me for as long as he wants.”

“What?”

“He said you needed his room for those friends who’re coming into town.”

“Oh. Right,” Honey said. “Thanks.”

“See, that wasn’t so painful.”

She let it slide. She was watching an osprey fly upriver with a fish wriggling in its talons. Her skull had filled up with two songs playing simultaneously. It sounded like “Bell Bottom Blues,” which she loved, and “Karma Chameleon,” which made her bowels cramp. Honey wilted under a churning wave of vertigo.

“You okay?” Skinner got up and guided her into the rocker.

She waited until the boom box in her brainpan went quiet. Then she said, “You heard what happened to Louis Piejack.”

“Sure did.”

“You hire those thugs to maul him?”

Skinner smiled. “And why would I do that, Honey? To avenge your honor?”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“Go get your purse. I want to check your prescription bottles.”

“That’s real funny.”

Skinner took a heavy drag off the joint. “Louis owed money to lots of people, including one old dude in Hialeah who I know for a fact has a wicked sense of humor and no appetite for excuses.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t you? You didn’t pay those guys to feed Louis’s fingers to the crabs?” Honey said.

Skinner blew smoke up at the cedar beams. “You act disappointed.” He pinched the joint and dropped it into a breast pocket. “Makes you feel better, I probably would’ve done something worse if I’d been there when he touched you.”

“Yeah, such as?”

“Gutting him from his asshole to his nose with the dirtiest blade I could find.”

Honey heard herself gulp. “You’re just saying that ’cause that’s what you think I want to hear. Don’t patronize me, Perry.”

“Unbelievable,” he said quietly.

She studied his expression for a trace of something more than the usual exasperation. He walked to the door of the porch and held it open.

Honey rose from the rocker. “Promise me one thing,” she said. “Promise you won’t have anyone over while Fry’s here-that girl who sells propane to the RV parks, and whoever else you’re sleeping with these days. Not with Fry in the house, okay?”

“I’ll try to restrain myself.”

“Oh, and the dentist wants him to floss twice a day.”

“For God’s sake, Honey.”

“He’s a teenager. Somebody’s got to be the drill sergeant.”

“Is he allowed to whack off once in a while?” Skinner asked.

Honey jabbed him in the ribs on her way out. “Only after he’s done his algebra,” she said.

Packing for Florida, Eugenie Fonda endeavored to convince herself that she truly wasn’t a desperate woman. Chronically restless maybe, but not hard up.

She expected that the trip would cause Boyd Shreave to get so carried away that he would stamp a romantic interpretation upon every casual sigh and gesture. This was common with inexperienced philanderers. Eugenie was determined not to repeat the big mistake she’d made with Van Bonneville, which was to underestimate the besotting power of routine sex. Certain men could misread the most perfunctory hand job as a pledge of lifetime devotion. Although Boyd Shreave wasn’t the type to rush out and murder his wife, he was probably capable of other lust-crazed misbehavior.