Page 15 of The Dirty Version

Tash chose the scenic route to the cantina to let the local landscape show itself off for Caleb: They strolled down the soft-paved bike lane, toward the myrtle- and azalea-choked beach gate, which led to a private stretch of boardwalk and Tash’s special slice of sea.

“Dinner alone, huh? Every night?” She snuck a sideways glance at his profile. “What happened to your reunion?”

He’d matched her relaxed gait, both their flip-flops padding on pressed sand. Dusk teemed as the palms swayed, the hedge on either side of them a quake of tiny, iridescent insect wings, the coastal glade readying itself to slide into sun-drown.

“My friends took a side trip for a few days.” Caleb’s posture telegraphed abandoned puppy dog. “They went north to take lessons at a surf school in Vesper Beach.”

Tash had always thought Vesper Beach the perfect setting for detective fiction—very underground-dogfight and counterfeit-ring neon. “I hope one of them gets to wrestle a gator or comes back married to a tidal shaman.” She played at scandalized. “I want that for the plot of my next book.”

“What’s a tidal shaman?” Caleb had stopped walking, confused behind his smoked-mirror aviators. “Who’s wrestling a gator? Should I be worried?”

Tash immediately regretted what she’d said. “No! Vesper Beach is great for surfing. It’s a nice place for them to learn.” She began to stroll again.

But Caleb remained unmoved—he only crossed arms, not buying it, the sunset squawk around them growing dimmer.

“You don’t need to worry. I love Vesper Beach.

” Tash turned to face him, thinking about the way she discussed literary settings with her students.

“It’s just—It has this quintessential Florida shamelessness.

Sin and swamp and sweat and shoreline, our unique underbelly.

There’s actually a whole genre of crime fiction called Florida Noir, set in ‘a sunny place for shady people.’”

Caleb’s mouth bent. “Where Astrid took my aunt Ilsa.”

Tash wasn’t sure about Aunt Ilsa, but Caleb’s swell of protectiveness was not an unattractive look.

All that brainstorming closely with him had briefed Tash on his tells: He raked his hair when he was troubled.

Now he stubbornly set his hands on the waistband of his cargos, clearly not budging until Tash assuaged his concern.

“Vesper Beach can also be very pretty. I swear. Seriously, Caleb—what I was talking about is right here, too.” She turned in a circle, opening her palms to the tall saltwater overgrowth on either side of the lane.

To the green walls of hedgerow vibrating thickly, all common beach shrubs with perfectly Florida names: fiddlewood and sea grape and varnish leaf and black torch, bird pepper, swamp privet, horizontal cocoplum.

Neck-high on both sides, blade and needle and leaf, the bike path swath a dry strip of land in a plant sea.

“Look, anything can be happening in there, right?” Tash trod backward in her cutoffs, pointing into the dense bush.

“Rattlesnakes could be hatching right now, and you and I would never know it. An airboat filled with cocaine could be sinking. Alligators could be tearing off a corrupt prosecutor’s limbs.

That’s all I meant—Florida is the perfect backdrop for stylized mysteries.

” Self-consciously: “I teach a class called ‘Heroes and Villains,’ okay? I can’t help it—that’s where my mind goes. ”

He peered at her over the top of his sunglasses. “You know what? You’re dark.” But he said it like praise. He recommenced the walking, making a show of checking over his shoulder. “I’m a little scared now.”

“You should be.” Tash took his response as license to elaborate.

“The feminine earth here isn’t wholesome, Rafferty.

She isn’t your California fruit. She’s destructive, like a hurricane.

” Tash trailed her fingers deferentially along the texture of the shrubs, digging into her mental bag of class notes.

“She’s wise, like the roots of a banyan, and she’s mystic.

She has the power of wetland abundance, but she’s also the undertow.

” Tash windmilled her arms in two directions—back toward the Intracoastal and forward toward the sea.

“And we’re these dumb humans who pave over her heart.

We just don’t get it. So now and then, she rises to smite us. ”

Caleb smiled. “When you talk like that, you sound just like you write.”

“Well.” Tash faltered slightly in his spotlight. “The vicious female protector-predator is both my favorite Hero and my favorite Villain. I’d be happy to give you a semester’s worth of lectures.”

“You might have to.” Caleb unhinged the flower swarm of the beach gate, holding it open. “Really, Tash. You’re great at what you do.”

They chose a table by the cantina’s rear gallery of open windows, where sunset lanterns rested on narrow ledges, welcoming the dunes.

Sand dusted the floor, ranchera music competing with the salt spray.

Tash and Caleb squeezed lime into the long necks of their beer bottles and descended on avocado salsa and fresh chips.

They ordered fish tacos, street corn, spicy jalapeno rice. Caleb admitted he was ravenous, and Tash scolded herself for not feeding him sooner. Starvation was no way to treat a visitor, a blocking playmate, a lonely castaway.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice that you said ‘next book’ back there.” Once they were settled, once the mango pico de gallo nachos had come and gone, Caleb sprawled low in a carved, wooden chair, a Mexican-blanketed cushion at his back.

Tash took a long swallow of her second beer, wishing she hadn’t been so glib when they were walking; she’d never mentioned writing another novel to anyone—not even Janelle.

He watched her hesitation. “How about this: Did you go to school for creative writing? Start there.”

That, Tash could answer. “I went to school for English literature. I thought I’d be a scholar, get my PhD.”

Caleb red-penned her with his eyes. “You are a scholar.”

She broke a chip in half, shaking her head. “I never finished grad school.”

“Why not?”

“New York winters.” Her usual line, and then Tash caught herself.

They’d just shared four days of safe space—Caleb could probably handle something truer.

“And a very unpleasant breakup.” She tried to make it punchy: “With my master’s program, my thesis adviser, and my boyfriend, all at the same time.

I was naive and young, and I let a bad relationship ruin my academics.

I took a leave of absence”—Tash mimed looking at a watch—“approximately nine years ago.”

Caleb appeared to accept this without passing judgment. “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

Tash toyed with a coaster, knowing she would not.

“Not to the same program. The guy I had been dating launched a journal, and it’s still affiliated with the school.

” A bit of self-help diagnosis: “It would be unhealthy for me to reengage with that dynamic.” She lifted her beer ironically, impugning the very thing she’d just said: “Although. I’m going on his podcast in two weeks. ”

Caleb lifted his beer, too. He lifted an eyebrow. “What’s the podcast about?”

“Literary critique.” She offered it bashfully, knowing it had the potential to sound ridiculous.

She’d already gotten an earful from Rohan, who despised Leo and did not approve of Tash’s plan to reclaim her narrative from Braverman by gracing Leo’s stage.

“During the summer, he interviews his subjects live, like on a tour—just with book nerds instead of rock stars. It’ll be me and two other Florida writers. ”

“That’s cool.” Their food arrived, and Caleb surveyed the spread. Over yellow rice and grilled fish tacos and pomegranate-sprinkled corn, he lit with the idea: “Are there any tickets left? Can I come? Maybe I’ll bring Astrid.”

Tash stalled, hedging, unsure if she’d want Caleb to watch. The podcast would be snooty. She also intended to use it as a clearing of her name—to balance out the besmirch of Braverman Productions, who’d taken the liberty of speaking for her in the entertainment press.

She would speak for herself with Leo. “You might think it’s really boring.”

Caleb laughed. “Is that your way of saying it’ll be over my head?”

“No!”

He passed Tash a sharing plate. “Good. Because I’d like to come.

Astrid’s been begging me for time with you anyway.

This sounds like it could be great background.

” He spooned rice, glancing at her slyly.

“Actually. Maybe then you’ll come with us to the reception for Vaudeville Striptease .

That might be great background for you.” He smirked.

“Since you’re already putting burlesque into our blocking. ”

Tash shook too much hot sauce on a taco. Caleb’s interest burned behind her chest. It burned her lips as Mexican folk music swayed around them in the sandy shadows, convincing her to have a third beer.

And the third beer convinced her it was okay to ask: “So. Astrid’s like your sister?”

Caleb rolled with the invasive question, picking up on Tash’s reference to what he’d said the other night at Manta Ray’s.

“Yup. I was twelve when she was born. Her mom was Viv’s lead, and we all spent a lot of time together at Calypso.

Even after Viv and my dad split, we were always at the club.

He’d use any reason to be near her. She never really let him go.

” Caleb’s mouth had gone nostalgic, the memory seeming to jog a solemnity.

But Tash couldn’t shake the image of Astrid’s lacquered fingernails territorial on Caleb’s bicep when they’d collided at the Seashell. “And you and Astrid never dated?”

Caleb evaluated her. “Have you ever dated one of your students?”

“No!”