South Beach Sizzle
For disclaimer see chapter 1. The plot for this story is based entirely off of one of my favorite books South Beach Sizzle by Suzanne Weyn and Diana Gonzalez so that is where the plot comes from.
Now on to chapter 2. This Story will be hhr so if you have a problem with that deal with it.
"I can't get used to all these palm trees," Ron remarked as they stopped at a traffic light. "Do you think they're real or made of plastic?"
"Plastic," Hermione replied. "Definitely. I think that we've driven it to a postcard." This feeling of being in an unreal, naturally bright landscape had begun when they drove in to Georgia and had intensified as they continued on down the Florida's east coast.
Hermione had the Map Quest directions to Ron's uncle Billius' house pressed flat on her knee. Ron was going to live with him while he searched for work in Miami. "Go left at the next light," she instructed him.
The left turn brought them into a neat neighborhood of ranch-style homes. Ron stopped in front of number 94, his uncle's address. "This is it," he said, sounding decidedly nervous. "I don't really know my uncle Billius. He's an army guy, and he just retired this year."
Ron had worked all through high school as a prep cook in the restaurant kitchens, cutting, chopping, assembling, and garnishing food for chefs. He liked the restaurant environment and wanted to learn more about it. He thought it might even be a career he'd like to pursue, but he didn't have the money to enroll in a culinary school.
A grill cook he worked with had told Ron that he might find it easier to find cooks an chefs who would teach him if he started outside Manhattan, where it wasn't as competitive. With that in mind, Ron had come to Miami hoping to be hired as kitchen help in a really top-notch restaurant and learn that way. His dream was to someday become a chef. He wasn't sure if Miami was any less competitive than Manhattan, but it was the only city where he had a relative he could stay with.
"It was nice of your uncle to let you stay here," Hermione said as they sat in the car in front of his uncle's house. "This way you can go find a job with out paying for a motel."
"My mother is his big sister. I don't think that he could say no to her," Ron replied. He turned to Hermione with pleading eyes. "Come in with me?"
"Okay," she agreed. Together they walked up the cement path and knocked on the door. Ron rang the bell, and after a few moments a tall, neatly dressed man in his fifties appeared.
He stared at them with a wary expression. He seemed to have no idea who they were.
"I'm you nephew Ron." Uncle Billius stared at them with a stony face. Ron laughed nervously. "You know- Ron from Terrio. From New York. Your nephew, like I said."
His steely blue eyes were unwavering in his stone face. Hermione was sure that they had the wrong address. "We're sorry," she said, starting to back up. "We were looking for Billus Malloy and…"
"You're at the right address, little lady," he interrupted. "I'm just surprised, is all."
"Surprised?" Ron said. "I thought that Mom told you that I-"
"I would never have expected my sister to allow her son to dye his hair blue."
"She likes it, actually," Ron told him a nervous quaver in his voice.
"And are you telling me she also likes it that you wear women's jewelry?" Uncle Billus went on, peering at the small silver hoop in Ron's ear.
"Ron's mom thinks that guys with earrings are cool," Hermione put in feeling it was her duty as Ron's friend to defend him. "I do too. A lot of guys at our school have earrings. Some guys wear two or more."
Uncle Billus stared at her coldly. "Nor did I expect my nephew to arrive with a girl friend in tow. There will be no sinful cohabitating in this house. You will have to find other accommodations, young lady. This is a decent household."
Ron grabbed hold of Hermione's arm and began backing up. "Not to worry Uncle Billius," he said. "I'll be taking Hermione to her dad's place. I just wanted to stop by and let you know I'd arrived. I'll drop her off and be back later."
"We lock the doors at twenty-one hundred hours. Sharp!" he barked.
Hermione and Ron began counting on their fingers. Ron got their first. "Nine?" he said. "But it's already nearly eight now."
"Twenty-one hundred hours," he repeated, and shut the door.
"What a freak," Ron said as they hurried back down the walk way toward the car.
A black-and-white pug dog came charging around the side of the house, yipping at them with a maniacal intensity. Hermione and Ron froze. "Do you think that he hear what I said about his master?" Ron whispered. He glowered at the dog. "I bet Uncle Billius has trained him to spy."
"I hope that's all it's trained to do," Hermione muttered between lips clench into a frozen smile. "Nice doggie," she attempted to soothe the barking dog. "Sweet poochie."
A deep, fierce growl rose up from the animal's thick throat. It barred teeth and began to lunge at them. In bust of speed, they ran for the car. The dog raced after them. Ron dove headlong into the open convertible, Hermione right behind him.
With a horrible grinding of gears, Ron managed to start the car and sped away from the house. The barking dog chased the car for the entire length of the block before the lost sight of it.
"Well that was enjoyable," Ron, said with a shudder as they turned out of the neighborhood and onto the main road.
Hermione took out another set of Map Quest directions that would direct them to her dad's address. In just minutes they were entering a community of condominium apartments. Several two-story buildings were clustered around a large man-mad pond and connected by cement paths. "He's in building C," Hermione said when they'd climbed out of the car.
He had live her for the last twelve and a half years, but she'd never seen it before. During those years she'd only seen him at weddings and mostly family funerals. But she knew the building number from the return address of the birthday cards that came on most birthdays.
They found the building and the apartment. It was at the back of the complex and faced a long, rectangular community pool surrounded by a wooden fence.
Music blared from the apartment. Hermione rang the buzzer, and they waited. No one came to the door. She looked into the window on her right. Through the partially open blinds she could see that there was a party going on inside. "Do you see your dad?" Ron asked.
Hermione nodded. It would have been difficult to miss him.
He was standing on the table singing with the karaoke machine. Jon Granger was exactly as she remembered him: handsome, dressed in a half-button Hawaiian shirt, and the life of the party.
Hermione pressed the buzzer again and held it down. After a few minutes, a blonde woman opened the door. She was wearing a midriff top, tight short-shorts, and lots of makeup. She was probably on her mid thirties. "Yes?"
"I'm Jon's daughter," Hermione said, suddenly feeling very shy.
The woman seemed confused. "Jon has a daughter?"
"Yes!" Hermione replied, with a note of exasperation in her voice.
About twenty other people were there. A few looked casually toward the door to see who had arrived. Other were too busy talking, dancing, eating, or drinking to notice them.
"Jon!" the woman shouted over the music. Jon Granger didn't hear her. His eyes were closed, and his arms were spread wide as he enunciated every syllable of "Baby Got Back."
"My homeboys tried to warn me, but that butt that you got makes me so--" he raised a fist in the air to punctuate the next word but was cut off by the woman's shout.
"Jon!"
He stopped and looked at her quizzically.
"There's a kid here who say's she's your daughter!"
The music had stopped, and this time the works rang out loud and clear across the room. Everyone turned to stare.
"Mia!" her father cried, using the pet name he called her as a young child. "Your early!"
He jumped down easily from the table and crossed the room to them. She introduced him to Ron and apologized for being early, explaining that they'd made better time than she'd expected.
"Hey, no problema," her father said. "It's just that I have friends staying in my extra room, which I planned for you to let you use. But you can have the couch for tonight. Ron, are you staying too?"
"No," Ron answered. He turned to Hermione. "It's nearly nine. I'd better get back to Commander Demento and Terror Pup. I have to deliver the car early tomorrow."
"Okay. If you get shut out, come back here."
Ron said good-bye to her father and headed for the door. Hermione had to fight down the urge to wrap herself around him and cling on for dear life. She thought little of kids who grab their parent by the leg and wont let go while the stiff legged parent drags the unmovable child around the room. Right then she could totally relate to the separation anxiety that little kids felt. Even though she was with her father, it felt as if Ron was her real family member.
Ron noticed the anxiety on her face. He shot her and encouraging smile and a thumbs-up.
She responded with a tight, worried grin, though she retuned the thumbs-up. Don't leave me here, she thought as Ron disappeared out the door.
Rap changed to blasting Latin music, and the partiers formed a conga line. Dancing and stumbling on one another, the dancers wiggled their way toward the door.
"Come on, Hermione," her father said as he grabbed he waist of the last person in line.
"You go without me," she told him with a halfhearted wave.
She stepped out side and watched the dance line wrap around the pool. She heard the sound of a horn honking and looked to the far end of the pool. A red convertible Cadillac was approaching jammed with men and women.
Hermione clapped her hand to her mouth in horror when she realized that the car wasn't stopping! It had dropped the curb and was heading straight for the pool!
The crowd screamed and scattered.
The car knocked down the wooden fence around the pool and drove straight into the pool. The men and women inside laughed as they swam out of the slowly sinking car.
Jon Granger had climbed out onto the pool's diving board. "!Wepa!" he cheered, using the Spanish expression she'd heard him shout before. "Now this is a party!"
Hermione turned over in her father's couch further ensnarling her legs in the tropical print sheet tangled around them. It was almost 3:30 in the morning, but it was impossible to sleep. About six of her father's friends were still hanging out, laughing and drinking, in the open kitchen area.
He canvas bag, which she'd stashed at the end of the couch, began to ring. She flipped back around, bent forward and pulled the out her cell phone. "Are you okay?" she asked, knowing that it had to be Ron.
"Fine, except I got sent to my room at nine fifteen," he complained.
"That's not so bad. Have you just been reading or watch in TV all this time?" she asked.
"I wish its lights out at nine thirty! Sharp! If I had known, I would have brought a flashlight so I could read under the covers like I did at camp."
"Just go to sleep," she suggested.
"I did, for a few hours. But I woke up at two in the morning, and now I can't fall back to sleep!"
"At least you've slept a little. I'm exhausted. The party wound down after somebody called the cops around two thirty," she recalled. "But then they noticed the car was in the pool and-"
"The what in the what?" Ron interrupted, his voice filled with disbelief.
"I'll tell you about it tomorrow," she promised through a yawn.
"I can't wait," he said.
For a moment or two, they were silent. Then they spoke at once, their voices over lapping. "This is never going to work!"
Well that's chapter 2.
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