Dreams of Paradise Read online

  Forced to work two jobs, Susan’s days were long and hard and yesterday was no exception. Arriving home late from the real estate office, she had fallen into bed with her clothes on and slept until just a few minutes ago. Her job at the golf course was from 3:00 until 7:00 in the evening, so she only had a few hours left before she had to go to work, barely enough time to pay a few bills, fix a leaky faucet, clean a messy house and wash a few undergarments. Any significant washing and ironing would once again have to wait. Susan fell back into the chair again and slid her legs onto the foot stool. She grimaced at the sight in front of her. Her unsightly legs were pale and covered with black stubble. Too busy lately to take stock of her appearance, she was stunned by what she had seen in the kitchen mirror and now on the footstool. I look terrible, I have to get my act together.

  She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and gazed out the kitchen window at a scraggly palm tree swaying gently in the breeze outside. The hypnotic dance of the skinny palm seemed to have a relaxing effect on Susan. For the first time in a long time, positive thoughts began to creep into her mind. Always a fighter and survivor, Susan was ready to try and dig herself out of the mess. But how? The Doc, she thought. He’s alone and he’s got money.

  The man who was training her at the real estate office was a retired doctor. He wasn’t much to look at, but like most doctors, he appeared to have a lot of money. Could Dr. Joe Stone be her ticket out of the black hole in which she found herself? The very thought of it intrigued her. Could he be the man in her recurring dream that gave her a fat checkbook, a beautiful home and was always rushing her off to the bedroom? A tiny grin appeared on Susan’s face. Maybe there is a way out of this.

  Thanks to a small tax refund, Susan had managed to put a little money back for emergencies. Could that little bit of money be her ticket to a better life? She quickly reached down and slipped her cell phone out of her pocket. She flipped it open and scrolled down to the number for “Katie’s Salon”, her beauty salon of choice back in her better days. Her favorite hair dresser, Sarah Nelson, had just retired. With her awful appearance, she was glad that Sarah was gone. She would be terribly embarrassed if Sarah saw her like this. She would ask for a new stylist, one that wouldn’t know her. She punched the number, it started to ring.

  “Hello, Katie’s Salon. How can we help you?”

  “Hello, my name is Susan Harris. I would like to make an appointment for a cut, style and color. I would also like a manicure, pedicure, and wax.”

  “Certainly, we can handle that. Do you have a stylist in mind?”

  “No, no, I don’t have anyone in mind. Do you have any younger girls? I seem to do better with the young ones.” Susan laughed nervously.

  “You’re in luck, a young lady named Amanda just joined our group and she’s dynamite. She one of the best young stylists we’ve ever hired.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful! How soon can I get in to see her?”

  There was a pause--Susan could hear the pages on the schedule book turning. “Looks like you’re in luck once again. She just had a cancellation, so there is an opening at 11:30 this morning. Will that work?”

  “Well…uh, I have to be to work at 3:00, so that should work.” Susan’s mess at home had to be put on hold. She was on a mission now and everything else took second place.

  “That’s great, Susan, we will see you at 11:30, and once again, your stylist’s name is Amanda.”

  “Thank you, good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Susan flipped the phone shut, her arms slid to the side of the chair. For the first time in a long time she felt excited. Her active mind was now working overtime. She was sixty and in the autumn of her life. She had to do something and fast and she knew what she wanted more than anything out of life--she wanted to live in The Villages with a rich husband, in a million dollar home, and with a fancy car in the drive. But, could she do it? Could somebody as down and out as she was possibly have a relationship with a rich man like Doctor Joe? It all seemed so impossible, but yet she knew she had to try. She had to try or die, it was as simple as that. Her life had hit rock bottom and now was the time for action.

  An invigorated Susan jumped from her chair and hurried in to take a shower, shave her legs and get ready for her appointment with Amanda. She had a new blouse and jeans outfit hanging in her closet that she had purchased in an upscale consignment shop and had been saving it for a special occasion. She would wear that outfit today to her job at Sumter Landing. Dr. Joe won’t know what hit him! she thought as she hurried from the room.

  Chapter 3

  Joe Stone lifted the ratchet wrench off the shiny countertop. He paused for a brief moment to gaze at the long stainless steel tool cabinet in his three car garage. He shook his head, “Why does anyone need so many tools?” he murmured. He turned and hustled past his 1998 Chevy pick-up truck, moving briskly to the far side of the neatly-appointed garage. He stopped and leaned down on one knee next to his vintage, light green, 1950 Cushman Eagle motor scooter. He carefully placed the wrench over the lug nut on the front tire. He gave the wrench a hard yank and groaned--it barely moved. Good, he thought, it seems to be holding. For the past several months the large bolt had been working itself loose after a few hundred miles of riding, so Joe had put on a new grip washer a few months ago and it appeared to be holding tight.

  Joe stood and set the wrench on the top of a nearby cardboard box. He paused and looked around the expansive garage--he felt empty. After forty-seven years of marriage, Joe was alone now in his large four bedroom home in The Villages. Shortly after moving to their dream house, just two short years ago, Joe’s wife, Adele, was diagnosed with brain cancer. A private practice physician for over fifty years in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Joe was crestfallen by his wife’s death--he adored her. To make things worse, the unexpected tragedy left him with a terrible sense of guilt. She had been complaining of severe headaches for some time before her death, but her local doctor reassured her that it was a normal side effect of a relatively strong blood pressure medicine that she had been taking. Joe felt, as a physician, he should have been more proactive in protecting his wife’s health and insisted that she get another opinion, even though, their family physician, whom they both trusted very much, was advising otherwise.

  Joe loved his wife so deeply and his grief was so profound that for the past two years he had fallen into a black hole of remorse and regret. It was just recently that he was starting to climb out of that vacant spot and enjoy life a little bit. His daughter, Heather, and grandson, Mark, had recently moved to the nearby town of Leesburg to be closer to him. The minute they hit town, he started to feel better inside.

  In addition to his family, one of the great joys of his life had always been his old Cushman motor scooter. Growing up poor in intercity Pittsburgh, the only mode of transportation he knew as a boy was his old twenty-four inch hand-me-down Monarch bicycle. He once calculated that he must have ridden sixty to seventy miles a week on that rusty old bike. Back then he was jealous and in awe of his rich schoolmate, Johnnie Evans, who owned a Cushman motor scooter. He longed to have a motor scooter like Johnnie’s, but the $300 selling price for such a scooter was well beyond anything his struggling family could afford; so like most children of that era, he was relegated to peddling around town on his bike. He vowed back then that someday he would own a spanking new Cushman Eagle, just like Johnnie Evans. Never forgetting his promise, on his fortieth birthday with his wife’s permission, Joe bought the sporty scooter from a local motorcycle dealership in Pittsburgh.

  Ready for his daily ride, Joe climbed aboard and bumped up the kickstand with his foot. The seat felt cool as he began to duck walk backwards out of the garage. Once on the driveway, he pushed the button on the small garage door opener attached to the handlebars and the large garage door rolled quietly shut. He placed his right foot on the kick-start, raised up from the seat and dropped down. The engine groaned and sputtered, but didn’t start. He choked it a little, ra
ised up and tried again. This time it sputtered to a start with Joe quickly twisting the hand throttle a couple of times to keep the engine running. He lifted his bright green helmet off the hook behind the small seat and slipped it on. A few seconds later, he popped it into gear. He sped out of his driveway onto Sunset Ridge Drive and started his daily trip. The cool breeze felt good on his face as he sped along the winding road on this warm February evening.

  Always the persnickety one, Joe rode the exact same route every day. It was 15.6 miles long and it took him on a normal traffic day approximately thirty-seven minutes to complete the route, barring any unscheduled stops to “shoot the breeze” with friendly homeowners he passed along the way. At the end of the trip, he would take a short nap at the house, slip on a pair of jeans and an old shirt and get ready for his night job as a member of the cleaning crew at the real estate office in Sumter Landing.

  Always stressed out and weighted down with responsibility during his career as a family physician, Joe had always longed for a job where he just had to show up, do his job and leave with no lingering issues to worry about. When he read about an opening for the cleaning service on the bulletin board at his local mail depot last year, he jumped on it. After a short interview, he was hired and told he would be working from 11:00 at night to 5:00 in the morning. At first, the night hours were an adjustment for Joe. He felt tired during the day; but after a couple of months, he fell into a routine and had his old energy level back. His active schedule consisted of sleeping from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 in the morning, then eating lunch and playing golf or pickleball in the afternoon.

  Lately, he had been working with a new gal named Susan Harris at the Sumter office. His original work partner had abruptly terminated herself about three months ago and moved back to Ohio to be closer to her grandkids. After a few weeks of cleaning the expansive office area alone, he was glad when Susan was brought on board about a month ago. Even though she looked a little rough around the edges, there was something about her. She looked vaguely familiar to him. When he asked her if they had met before, she dodged the question and seemed hesitant to talk about her personal life, only saying that she was divorced at a young age and left alone to raise her now forty- plus year old son.

  * * *

  Nearing the end of his ride, Joe glanced down at his speedometer; the jittery needle was hovering around twenty-two miles an hour, which was his normal cruising speed. The scooter would go over thirty, but he liked to stay around the twenty range not wanting to push the stability of the smallish scooter. Suddenly, he leaned left and sped down Sunset Ridge Drive for the last leg on his journey home. About a half block from home, Joe punched the garage door opener and backed off the throttle. He coasted into his drive and rolled under the open garage door and eased to a stop in his normal spot. He hopped off the warm scooter, carefully lifted off his helmet and dropped it on its hook. He twisted the cap open on the gas tank, lifted a five gallon can of gas off the garage floor and topped off the tank, as was his habit after each ride. He replaced the gas can, tapped the handle bars gently with his finger tips as if to say, ‘Thanks for the ride old friend,’ and headed inside for his short nap before work.

  Chapter 4

  Susan played with the brake pedal, tapping it gently several times to minimize the loud squeaking sound her brakes made when stopping. Her most recent ex-boyfriend had told her that her brake pads were worn down to the metal and needed replaced; but short of cash, she was putting the much needed brake repair off as long as possible. She slowed to a stop in the parking area just across from the rear entrance to the Properties of the Villages Real Estate Office and killed the engine. She hoped that the squeak was quiet enough so that Dr. Joe Stone couldn’t hear it inside. She was sure he was there because his Mercedes was already parked in its usual spot. She rustled around in her purse and pulled out a tube of lipstick and carefully applied a fresh coat. She dropped the lipstick back in her purse, pulled out a small bottle of Shalimar and applied a couple of quick squirts behind each ear and another squirt or two on her shirt to give her a lasting scent. She wanted to look good and smell good for Dr. Joe. She lifted her cleaning supplies off the passenger side seat, shouldered the driver’s side door open and headed for the entrance. Surprisingly, she was greeted at the open door by a smiling Joe Stone.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Harris.”

  “Good evening, Dr. Stone, and please, it’s Susan. Mrs. Harris makes me sound so old, if you know what I mean.” She smiled warmly, tossing him a sexy wink.

  “Oh certainly. Susan it is. While we’re playing the name change game, please call me Joe. Dr. Stone makes me sound so boring.” He gave her a friendly smile.

  “Okay. Joe it is.”

  “I must say, Susan, you certainly look different today.”

  Emboldened by the bevy of compliments from her fellow workers at the golf course earlier, Susan paused on her way through the door, “Good or just different?”

  Holding the door open with his backside, Joe and Susan’s faces were only inches apart, “Why, you look wonderfully different.”

  “You’re such a deary.” She gave him a longer than appropriate kiss to the cheek, brushed against him and continued inside.

  Dumbfounded by the kiss, Joe stared straight ahead and didn’t budge.

  “Are you coming in, Joe? We have work to do, you know.” Susan had a sly grin on her face.

  “Why…yes, yes, coming right in.” Joe stepped away from the door and let if fall shut. He took a deep breath, straightened his shirt collar nervously, and turned toward Susan. “I’ve reviewed the instructions left by Mrs. Anderson and we are to wax the main corridor tonight. She said they had a lot of people through the office today because of the rainy weather and the floor got pretty scuffed up.”

  “Well, we’d better get busy. We still have all of the other cleaning to do too.”

  “Okay, then why don’t we do the other stuff first and then do the corridor.”

  “Do you want me to start dusting?”

  “Yes, and I will start mopping the floors in the restrooms.”

  “Okay, see you at break time.”

  “Alright.”

  * * *

  Still reeling from the unexpected kiss, Joe hurried toward the janitor’s room at the end of the hallway to find the mop bucket. His heart was racing. He had never seen such a change in a person. The drab rather unappealing co-worker he had been working with for several weeks had suddenly became this knock-down, drag-out, gorgeous lady. And he was amazed at how much younger she looked than her age. My goodness she could pass for fifty. Then the little kiss. For a man in Joe’s life situation, that was a knee buckler. He hadn’t even thought of being with a woman since his wife passed away. To have this now stunning creature give him a kiss, and a pretty long one at that, really got his attention. He was feeling things he hadn’t felt for a long time.

  As Joe approached the janitor’s room, his legs were shaking. All sorts of scenarios were running through his mind. He had to get himself under control. Working so closely together in this empty office in the middle of the night, why the whole situation was fraught with possibilities. Any woman who would just kiss him like that was a very aggressive woman. Who knows how she would react if he showed some interest in her. The very thought of it was exciting to this lonely man. He had to calm down, his wonderful Adele had only been gone for two years. It wouldn’t be fair to her--or would it be? Two years isn’t bad, I mean, he had known men who had gone out and found another companion just months after their wife had passed. He certainly wasn’t jumping the gun or being inappropriate by thinking about another woman two years later. Or was he? It was all so confusing; and to think that just a few moments ago he was just preparing for another long night at work. Women!

  Chapter 5

  “Somethin’ doesn’t feel right. I’m getting nervous.”

  “Shut up, Tubs, I know what I’m doing.”

  Eyes wide, the jumpy Tubs scanned the quiet street look
ing for approaching headlights. “What if the cops happen by? Our ass is grass if the cops come by.”

  “There’s no law against parking along side the road, is there?”

  Tubs shook his head, beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead. It was a warm winter night in Leesburg, Florida. “Oh hell no! Nothing suspicious about two men sitting in a car on a lonely street at 2:00 in the morning with one of them packing a .38 and they both have criminal records. Not a damn thing suspicious about that, is there, Willie?”

  “You’re right, Tubs. I guess it would look a little suspicious.” A wide grin broke out on the face of William “Willie” Harris, the driver of the vehicle and the architect of this endeavor. A coke head, he desperately needed cash to fuel his addiction. He had planned this late night robbery and had somehow convinced a reluctant friend, Tubs, to join him. Unstable and with violent tendencies, Willie did a short stint in prison for assault with a deadly weapon during a botched robbery attempt on a Seven/Eleven four years ago. His cohort in crime, Tubs, was a recreational user of coke who had served a couple of short sentences in the county jail for simple possession charges. He agreed to join Harris with this risky endeavor because he needed the cash to fund a ravishing gambling problem and catch up on back support payments to his ex-wife.

  “You’re damn right, I’m….:” Tubs stopped mid-sentence as two headlights appeared on the road ahead. Both men quickly slid down in the front seat of the faded ‘01 green Honda Civic. Tubs heard a thud over by Willie.