Silver Alert

by Lee Smith

Genres: Family Life; Southern; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

This funny and endearing novel of family, secrets, and aging follows an elderly man who heads off on a joyride with a new young friend—who may have some secrets of her own.

A driving force in literature, the one and only Lee Smith returns with a road trip novel, a story full of hope and humor about not going away quietly—at any age.

Aging Herb’s charmed life with his dear wife, Susan, in their Key West house is coming undone. Susan now needs constant care, and Herb is in denial about his own ailing health. The one bright spot is the arrival of an endlessly optimistic manicurist calling herself Renee. She sings to Susan during manicures, gets her to paint, and brings her a sense of contentment.

But then Herb and Susan’s adult children arrive to stage an intervention on their stubborn, independent father, and as a consequence, Renee’s gig with Susan—and her grand plans for her own life—start to unravel as well. So much had seemed as if it could change for Renee, who is not the happy, uncomplicated young girl she pretends to be. She is actually named Dee Dee, and she’s fleeing a dark past.

And Herb can’t just let go of all that he has ever had. So, he suggests one last joy ride in his Porsche. And the two take off north out of Key West, soon setting off a Silver Alert. As the unlikely friendship between Herb and Dee Dee deepens, we see how as one life is closing down, another opens up.

In this buoyant novel, the masterful Smith asks: What do we deserve? And how do we make it our own? Sometimes, you just have to seize the wheel.

Fans of Smith’s many books in her storied, bestselling career won’t want to miss her newest novel. And readers of novels like Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes will adore Silver Alert.

Release date: April 18, 2023

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Print pages: 240

Sample

The doorbell rings promptly at 10 a.m. (exactly when Pat said), sending its jazzy little Hawaiian tune throughout the stately rooms of their big pink tropical house—hell, mansion is more like it—in Key West: 108 Washington Street, a primo address only one block from the classy Casa Marina Hotel and also Louie’s Backyard restaurant, also classy, also pink. Too much pink in this goddamn town for a man, a real man anyway, a man like Herb used to be, yeah right, ha. Shit. Their house would go for a coupla mil right now. The song sounds again through the scented air of the solarium, big flowers blooming everyplace in here, Susan used to love them so, bless her soul and damn it all to hell.

“We are going to a hukilau . . .” Herbert Atlas sings along as he pads across the marble floor in his lime-green crocs toward the carved mahogany front door, his red-and-black plaid pajama pants held up by his considerable gut. The blue-flowered Hawaiian shirt is open three buttons down, exposing curly white chest hair. But shit. He’s gotta pee again already, he’s only been up since 8:30 and he’s peed, what? Five or six times. Old age is all about urine, who knew? Who woulda thunk it?, as his first wife Roxana used to say, back in the day, that sainted woman, bless her soul, too.

Herb crosses the black-and-white vestibule to throw the deadbolt and turn the large brass knob.

The girl stands before him in a patch of sunlight that falls through thick palm fronds to surround her like a spotlight. She’s smiling already. She looks like a kid, with those wide brown eyes beneath the blond bangs, her high, shiny ponytail swinging as she steps forward in her white, white tennis shoes. They look brand new. She wears jeans and some kind of a pink tunic, professional looking.

“Atlas residence? Pedicure?” Her voice is low, nice.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m the husband, Herbert Atlas, call me Herb.”

“But I was contacted by a Miss Pat DeVine . . .” The girl twitches her nose as she pulls a little notebook out of her big sparkly purse and looks at it.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right, that’s my wife’s daughter’s partner, if you can follow that, but what the hell, this is Key West, isn’t it? You got all kinda situations down here, am I right?”

The girl grins at him, one snaggletooth, which is adorable.

“So this pedicure is for my wife Susan, she’s the one getting this pedicure, if you can get her to sit still long enough to get it. She’s got some kind of toe problem going on, Jesus, who knows? I can’t take her back to the salon where she used to go, over on Simonton, they said she caused a disturbance over there, this classy lady. Well, you’ll see. Oh, you’ll see. So now her daughter, that’s Maribeth, she’s the hippie one, and Maribeth’s partner, that’s Pat that called you, she’s the bossy one, they’ve come down here for a couple months to see how Susan’s doing, to help me take care of her, that’s a crock. I never asked them, you understand. I don’t need them, this is a classy operation. But this Pat, you can’t tell her no, you can’t tell her nothing.”

The girl smiles steadily at Herb, her head cocked like a bird, listening. She acts like she’s got all the time in the world.

“Sorry.” Herb hitches up his pajama pants. “Well, you can give it a try.” Then he remembers to ask: “Your name, honey?”

“Renee Martin.” She holds out her pretty manicured hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Herb is beyond charmed. “Likewise.” He gives her hand a quick squeeze. “Come on then. What the hell.” He steps back and holds the door open, only then noticing the big, boxy bag she lifts up to carry along with the sparkly purse, and something else that looks like a tool kit. “Hey, can I help you with some of that?” he asks, too late.

“Oh no,” Renee says, and clearly means it, almost prancing through the door.

Youth, he’s thinking. Ah, youth.

She follows him through the solarium and down the hall to the left, through the gazebo garden and into the guest wing, which is now devoted to Susan, to Susan’s care, goddamnit, and Herb doesn’t care what anybody else thinks about it, he thinks he’s doing a goddamn good job of it, and it’s going fine. It’s all going fine.

Under the circumstances.

He rings the bell twice, his regular signal. This time it’s Cheri or Shari or maybe Kari, whatever her name is, from the islands, speaks with a lilt. He’s got them coming around the clock.

She opens the door. “Mister Atlas, where you been? I tried to call you on the telephone, two time. You no answer your phone.” Her musical voice has gone up an octave.

Damn it, Herb’s thinking. “What’s wrong, honey?” he says. He’s got to pee something awful.

Cheri or Kari opens the door further. “Okay. You come in then, you see what she do here, you looka here at this mess. And you looka here at my arm. You see what she do, she cut me, Mister Atlas, she break the plate and then she won’t give it to me and then I pull it away and it cut me right here—” A bloody dish towel is tied around her thin dark arm. “I cannot do this no more. I call Rita already.”

Damn it to Hell. Rita runs the Island Home Health Agency. “Well, I’m real sorry, honey, but you’d better let me in.”

Cheri/Kari opens the door and Herb steps in, surprised that Renee’s right behind him, like his little shadow, he figured she’d get the hell out of Dodge while the getting was good.

So it’s gone up to another level now. Susan, his once very charming third wife Susan, is having a really bad day, maybe her worst so far. You can always tell it’s gonna be bad when she won’t sit down but stands up drumming her hands like this on the countertop, like the goddamn Little Drummer Boy.

“Susan,” he says. “Oh honey.”

“Rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat,” she chants, glaring at them, drumming. The small kitchen area is strewn with dishes and silverware, a barstool turned over, milk spilled on the floor.

“Oh baby.” Herb steps forward to touch her but she pulls away, still drumming on the countertop. “Rat-a-tat, rat-a tat,” she chants. Then “I hate you,” she hisses at him. She sticks out her tongue. Something new. Susan’s whole face is different now, like it’s, what? What’s the word? Warped or something. It’s impossible to believe what a beautiful woman she was, and not that long ago, either. Herb massages her shoulder, chilled to the bone when she turns to stare at him with nothing, absolutely nothing in those blue eyes that look too big for her thin face now. “You go away,” she says. “I hate you.”

“That’s what she been saying all morning. She hate everybody today.” Cheri/Kari starts to clean things up, obviously relieved that he’s there.

“She doesn’t really hate anybody,” Herb says, for Renee’s benefit, and the girl answers unexpectedly, “I know,” while Susan keeps on drumming on the countertop wearing her beautiful flowered silk robe from better days. She looks terrible of course, Herb realizes even more now with the girl here, Susan is really scary-looking with her hair standing up like that, all the blond growing out and the rest of it gray, like iron or something, and since he can’t get her to the beauty salon, the home health girls have also been doing some powder thing to her hair and it looks like hell, he sees that now.

“Sorry, back in a minute!” Herb makes a break for the bathroom, which is a wreck, too, shit on the seat. Tough morning. Well the girls have got those Depends to deal with, he can’t blame Cheri/Kari one bit, or any of them.

“Now you wait just a damn minute here, please,” Herb starts, not knowing what he can possibly say under these shitty circumstances—he almost has to grin at that—but Cheri/Kari’s gone, she’s out the door, he hears her lilting voice raised as she starts going on and on to somebody who must be right there in the gazebo, must be Pat, that calm, level voice, which for once Herb is glad to hear. Okay, things are getting out of hand here. He goes to the door to join them, then realizes he can’t leave the guest house, he can’t leave Susan alone with this girl who doesn’t even know her.

Turning back, Herb is surprised to find Susan silent for once. She’s sitting calmly in the big puffy rattan chair by the bay window, only her fingers moving over its creamy cushioned arms, staring fixedly at Renee who moves around the chair singing something—singing? What is she singing, it sounds familiar but who knows what they sing anymore, young people? Renee leans over to open up that toolbox thing on the floor, which turns out to be like a little showcase displaying all the tools of her trade. Lotsa little different colored bottles, some shiny, pointy silver things that look dangerous to Herb, he starts to say something but does not because Susan sits so still now, watching Renee, who keeps singing while she opens up the other bag and gets out this fancy fake marble tub thing, which she fills up at the kitchen sink and then places at Susan’s feet, plugging a cord into the outlet beside the big chair. What the hell? Herb thinks, then he realizes: hot. She’s gotta heat it up for the pedicure. Who knew so much would be involved here?

Herb sits down in the breakfast nook to watch. Now Renee kneels right down on the soft blue carpet in front of Susan to take off her golden slippers—from an earlier, better time, Jesus!—and picks up her bony feet one by one to place them in the water. Renee throws some kind of salts or powder stuff or something in the water, too, which fizzes up and gets bubbly now. “Somewhere over the rainbow . . .” Renee keeps on singing and Susan sits perfectly still, it’s like she’s hypnotized. Herb can’t believe he’s seeing this.

Renee leans forward and slips from singing into speaking in a soft, musical voice that is much like a song itself. “Oh my goodness now, you just relax, Miss Susan, you’re so tired aren’t you, sweetie? I know how tired you are, doesn’t this feel good now” as she massages Susan’s feet one by one for a long time, examining each toe carefully, nodding before she places them back into the bubbly water, which shines iridescent as the sun from the bay window creeps across the blue carpet. Susan nods and relaxes, you can see her shoulders slump as the girl massages her long, skinny legs one by one, slowly, slowly, singing again but softly now. This goes on for a long time.

Herb relaxes, too, leaning back in the breakfast nook. Susan. Goddamn. Susan who looked like a goddamn fashion model the first time he ever saw her, this was what? Only twelve years ago, at a big party for the opening of a show in her art gallery, her own classy art gallery in that building of his in Palm Beach. Herb only attended that party because Marco made him, he almost didn’t go, he wanted to get a steak at Shula’s instead—shit, what if he hadn’t gone? Because then he never would have met Susan Summerville with those long, long legs that go on forever, a woman like a long drink of water on a hot day. Herb doesn’t mind a tall woman himself, a woman taller than he is, what the hell. Or a big woman, or a heavy woman. Herb just likes women, all kinds of women. But this Susan Summerville, she was something else, something new for Herb, an educated woman, an artistic woman, a cultured woman. Turned out she’d opened the gallery mostly to sell her own husband’s paintings since he’d crashed his plane in some Louisiana swamp. This husband had been a wild man from all accounts, Cajun or something, a good painter everybody said, though Herb couldn’t see it, these paintings didn’t look like whatever the guy was supposed to be painting, they were all wavy and weird. But what the hell. Herb bought two big ones at the opening, $4500 and $6800, and took Susan Summerville out to Shula’s with him afterward, where she did not order the steak. She ordered some kind of raw fish thing instead, and champagne. She thought he was funny, she kept laughing at him. She had this way of throwing her long hair back and winking at you. So the next day he showed up at her gallery at noon to take her out to lunch, but she just laughed at him some more. “I can’t do that!” she said. “I’m the only one here, I’m running this gallery on a shoestring, that’s the whole idea.” Turns out she was raising money to send her kids to college. She said she couldn’t go out to dinner that night either, she had a commitment.

“Well, whaddya want to do, then, honey?” Herb had asked, sitting down in a weird arty chair. “Look, this is a courtship. This is my courtship of you. And I’m old, so I don’t wanna waste any time here. You better take advantage of me. So whaddya want to do? Look, I’m ready for some culture, just try me. Expand my damn horizons.”

The upshot of it was, they went to Paris. Then Barcelona. Then the Serengeti. They saw paintings and cathedrals and lions. He bought her a Tanzanite ring at Harry Winston in New York, they stayed in a suite at the Four Seasons.

His daughters had hit the roof.

“Daddy, what do you think you’re doing?” Ashley said at the time. “It’s not fair to her, you’re too old. She’ll just have to take care of you. That’s not fair, is it?”

And his daughter Marcie said, “She just wants your money.”

“Listen,” he’d said. “Susan Summerville has got her own money”—which was not quite true—“and she is a damn sweet lady. A Southern lady.” Which was true, goddamnit, she’d made her damn debut in New Orleans and she had the best manners in the world, and the best taste.

Turned out his girls loved her the minute they met her, of course, and his son, Brian, too. And his previous wife Gloria, too, which is important because Gloria’s running the business now, along with her boyfriend Marco, that’s another story.

“I’m Susan Summerville, the last wife!” Susan used to introduce herself to everybody, laughing, winking, she was beautiful, and famous for that wink. Everybody always felt better when Susan walked into a room. It was kind of a gift that she had. Before he knew it, Herbert Atlas became a major art collector of Haitian art and wildlife paintings by Walton Ford and also a patron of the arts in Jacksonville, with two tuxedos and the new wing of the museum named after himself and Susan. Who woulda thunk it? Roxana would have laughed her head off. “Aw Herbie,” she would have said. Soon Herb owned a Lincoln touring car, a little Mercedes sedan, and the Porsche Ca. . .