Coffee Grounds and Tangelo Seeds

Chapter 4 of Snowbirds, a serialized novella-in-flash by Margo Rife

We hope you’re enjoying Margo Rife’s novella-in-flash, Snowbirds. Go here to start at the beginning. View the table of contents here.

Mother yells from the living room, “Lyla, did you track in sand?”

My sister who is outside working on her tan is the only one going in and out. I’m tackling homework that’s due when we drive back north in January. My teacher took me aside before Christmas Break and said, “Lyla, find ten words that capture your Florida trip. Use them in a story.” Mrs. Otter likes my writing so I’m very excited.

These are the Florida words I chose to use in my essay: causeway, intracoastal, hurricane, jalousie, chameleons, scrub pine, bougainvillea, prevailing, snowbird.

In Florida, we don’t stay at a motel. We rent a vacation home tucked under the causeway on the intracoastal waterway. A causeway is a land-linking bridge. We are forever driving over them. “Water, water everywhere,” my dad recites. The old people that move here like a good ocean view. They sit and stare at the water from balconies, park benches, and lawn chairs. It keeps them calm. My first drawing is of our German landlord, Mr. Zeller, sitting on his bench counting the waves under the causeway.

Mother keeps distracting me with demands while she watches The Price Is Right.

“Lyla, pour some orange juice and take it out to your sister. And why don’t you get some sun too instead of writing in that notebook.”

Our rental house has one floor. At home I sleep upstairs under cozy eaves. “Cozy” is not a Florida vocabulary word. Tropical is not cozy. Here I sleep in what’s called a Florida room with hurricane shutters and heavy glass jalousie windows. The first day, I crank them open to feel the prevailing salty breezes coming off the causeway. Tiny chameleons cling to the screens and magically change colors— fuchsia, lime and melon— the prevailing colors of Palm Beach. It’s fun to flick them off, gently of course. They hop right back. For my second drawing of the chameleons, I will use the whole box of colored pencils.

Under Mother’s order, I walk to the yard and hand my sister her orange juice. Barefoot, I step on a sand spur. “Ow, ow, ow.” Hopping on one foot into the living room, I yell “OW” at Mother. “Must you be so dramatic?” she chides. “Just a bur. Such a baby.”

I sit on the floor in front of the TV and unsuccessfully try to remove the stickers. I rotate to position my foot near Mother’s lap for help.

“Get that filthy thing out of my face!” She pushes my foot away. I limp to the bathroom and fill the sink to soak my throbbing foot. I need to finish my homework.

The yard in Florida is mostly sand with a few scrub pines. Once you leave the coast and head a little bit inland, that’s the only tree you see. Poor people live away from the water with the scrub pines. Both are scrawny but durable.

My mother unpacks a silver aluminum Christmas tree that looks like a scrub pine. She places it in the picture window overlooking the shuffleboard courts. My dad and I play daily. He likes to win. One time after a close game, he did a victory dance with his arms overhead. I didn’t mind. My third drawing is a scrub pine with pastel ornaments.

“When’s dad getting back?” I yell into an empty living room. The door opens and Dawn runs by to retreat to her room. She’s becoming less my sister. Like the chameleons, she hides from me behind her many changing moods.

Through the open jalousie windows, I see Mother talking to our landlord in front of his house next door. The water below the causeway is turning dark and there are white caps. The tropical cloud system produces low, flattish gray clouds that completely cover the sky. Raindrops the size of sea grapes pelt the glass. Mother and Mr. Zeller escape under his car port and sit on the hood of his sea-salt-ravaged Mercedes. He shakes his hat. She fluffs her soaked hair and tugs on her clinging clothing. Mother looks almost vulnerable. Mr. Zeller with his tanned shaky hands helps smooth the bunched fabric on her wet blouse.

I know what you’re all thinking. Does it feel like Christmas in Florida? No. Holiday wreaths made of shells? Opening presents under a metal tree on a humid day in your shorts? No.

But snowbirds do enjoy live poinsettias and the red flowering bougainvillea. Nighttime helps. Twinkling Christmas lights on a royal palm can be fanciful. Almost better than lights on a fluffy northern pine. Red and green lights reflecting on water are pretty. Almost better than lights on new snow. My fourth drawing is a snowbird nesting in bougainvillea. More fuchsia.

“Close those windows,” Mother commands. “Can’t you see the storm? Damn it, Lyla. Everything is soaked. Mr. Zeller will be putting us out on the sand if we ruin his house.”

Mother lifts the stack of papers I’ve left on the table under the window—my homework and drawings. I’m throwing these papers out,” she says. They’re wet and worthless.”

When she storms out, I rush to retrieve my homework, and carefully brush off the coffee grounds and tangelo seeds.

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Margo Rife is a playwright and fiction writer. Go here to read a complete bio and interview with the author.