ways to start a story.
For instance, I might begin by telling you about Marnie. Marnie Blaine. Gosh, Marnie!
That stopped me dead. Marnie?
Marnie?
I read the words again and again. Are you kidding? The funeral guy called Grandma that! I’d thought it was just a mistake. Wasn’t it? This couldn’t just be a coincidence?
“Dad —”
I froze. Dad was still snoring in his bedroom. I couldn’t ask him, anyway. He might get angry and have another beer. My heart was pounding. I started to read again.
My heart thumps like a bebop drummer just saying her name. I could begin the story with her. I could end the story with her. Marnie’s everything to me.
Maybe I should start with the big old hotel. That’s a piece of the story, too, weaving in and out of it all the way to the end. I could tell you about that.
My father? Sure. He may even have started the whole thing, with his simple, “Hey, Nick —”
Or Florida. Crazy old Florida. The way it turns your mind around and makes you see things and feel things and think things that might or might not be there. Florida is as much a part of the story as the hotel is or I am or Marnie is.
I could even start by saying something smart. Like how everything that happens to me, to you, to everyone, is really part of the same long mystery.
But never mind all that. I’ll start with something dumb. I’ll start with the blue sedan.
The blue sedan. It’s funny how dumb things stick in your head, isn’t it? Dumb things and silly things and huge things. They all bobble around inside your brain and get mixed up until you can’t tell what’s important and what’s not.
Like the flash of bullets and a plate of fried eggs.
The glint of a dagger and the color of a guy’s socks.
Finally, just when you think your head will explode with everything knocking around inside it, your heart taps you on the shoulder and tells you what’s what.
That’s how it was the day I finally met Marnie Blaine.
It happened like this.
I was strolling out of a breakfast joint on Third North. It was wartime. I was nearly twenty. But the Army would have to pull up its bootstraps and march along without me. A bum left eye had kept me out of the service and idling on the home front, but I was doing my part with the Florida War Bonds effort.
I was heading for my office, humming a catchy little Cuban dance tune I had heard on the diner’s radio, the taste of home fries and eggs still in my mouth, when I heard a funny sound like chink. Chink.
I just had time to think, Funny sound, when the squeal of tires and the pop-pop of a rough engine filled the air. A blue sedan tore around the corner, a series of bright flashes bursting from its side window. Every flash was followed by one of those chinking sounds and a spray of brick dust off the wall next to my face.
“Holy smoke!” I shouted to whomever would listen. “I’m being shot at! Hey! Anybody! Help —”
Chink! Chink!
I ducked for safety behind a big green Pontiac just as its driver pulled away from his parking spot.
“It’s all yours!” he said brightly, and gave me a wave.
“Thanks a lot, pal!” I yelled, trying to hide behind the thin stalk of a parking meter. I failed.
Chink! Chink! The gunmen were testing their bullets against the sidewalk now. Even as the blue sedan careened toward me, I saw two deep dents on its left fender and a Y-shaped crack on its windscreen.
I remember the dents — dumb things that they were — because even as I scrambled for cover, even in that half second, my mind flashed back to another dented blue car.
The one that had roared past me eleven years earlier.
I was nine.
My father and I were crossing Central Avenue. He was angry, fuming, and panicked about I didn’t know what. A car that same color blue had nearly knocked us down in the street. Without thinking twice, we jumped onto the sidewalk, my father sputtering under his breath as the car wheeled by.
“Hey, Nick,” he said, “run in there and
For instance, I might begin by telling you about Marnie. Marnie Blaine. Gosh, Marnie!
That stopped me dead. Marnie?
Marnie?
I read the words again and again. Are you kidding? The funeral guy called Grandma that! I’d thought it was just a mistake. Wasn’t it? This couldn’t just be a coincidence?
“Dad —”
I froze. Dad was still snoring in his bedroom. I couldn’t ask him, anyway. He might get angry and have another beer. My heart was pounding. I started to read again.
My heart thumps like a bebop drummer just saying her name. I could begin the story with her. I could end the story with her. Marnie’s everything to me.
Maybe I should start with the big old hotel. That’s a piece of the story, too, weaving in and out of it all the way to the end. I could tell you about that.
My father? Sure. He may even have started the whole thing, with his simple, “Hey, Nick —”
Or Florida. Crazy old Florida. The way it turns your mind around and makes you see things and feel things and think things that might or might not be there. Florida is as much a part of the story as the hotel is or I am or Marnie is.
I could even start by saying something smart. Like how everything that happens to me, to you, to everyone, is really part of the same long mystery.
But never mind all that. I’ll start with something dumb. I’ll start with the blue sedan.
The blue sedan. It’s funny how dumb things stick in your head, isn’t it? Dumb things and silly things and huge things. They all bobble around inside your brain and get mixed up until you can’t tell what’s important and what’s not.
Like the flash of bullets and a plate of fried eggs.
The glint of a dagger and the color of a guy’s socks.
Finally, just when you think your head will explode with everything knocking around inside it, your heart taps you on the shoulder and tells you what’s what.
That’s how it was the day I finally met Marnie Blaine.
It happened like this.
I was strolling out of a breakfast joint on Third North. It was wartime. I was nearly twenty. But the Army would have to pull up its bootstraps and march along without me. A bum left eye had kept me out of the service and idling on the home front, but I was doing my part with the Florida War Bonds effort.
I was heading for my office, humming a catchy little Cuban dance tune I had heard on the diner’s radio, the taste of home fries and eggs still in my mouth, when I heard a funny sound like chink. Chink.
I just had time to think, Funny sound, when the squeal of tires and the pop-pop of a rough engine filled the air. A blue sedan tore around the corner, a series of bright flashes bursting from its side window. Every flash was followed by one of those chinking sounds and a spray of brick dust off the wall next to my face.
“Holy smoke!” I shouted to whomever would listen. “I’m being shot at! Hey! Anybody! Help —”
Chink! Chink!
I ducked for safety behind a big green Pontiac just as its driver pulled away from his parking spot.
“It’s all yours!” he said brightly, and gave me a wave.
“Thanks a lot, pal!” I yelled, trying to hide behind the thin stalk of a parking meter. I failed.
Chink! Chink! The gunmen were testing their bullets against the sidewalk now. Even as the blue sedan careened toward me, I saw two deep dents on its left fender and a Y-shaped crack on its windscreen.
I remember the dents — dumb things that they were — because even as I scrambled for cover, even in that half second, my mind flashed back to another dented blue car.
The one that had roared past me eleven years earlier.
I was nine.
My father and I were crossing Central Avenue. He was angry, fuming, and panicked about I didn’t know what. A car that same color blue had nearly knocked us down in the street. Without thinking twice, we jumped onto the sidewalk, my father sputtering under his breath as the car wheeled by.
“Hey, Nick,” he said, “run in there and
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