Chivalry, being dead—
The scene: it’s 1965. Travis McGee, that amiable skeptic, that waterfront gypsy, thinking man’s Robin Hood, killer of small fish, ruggedly sexy boat bum, that big, loose chaser of rainbows, that freelance knight in slightly tarnished armor, Travis McGee has picked up an old friend, Nora Gardino, who puts on a deep shade of wool, not exactly a wine shade, perhaps a cream sherry shade, a fur wrap, her blue-black hair glossy, her heels tall, purse in hand, mouth shaped red, her eyes sparkling with holiday for their date. He takes her out to the Mile O’Beach for steaks and cocktails in the Captain’s Room and when dinner’s over and the old-times talk is just about spent he tells her why he’s called her for the first time in a year or so to take her out to dinner: Sam Taggart, the man who left her hard and bad and stupid as hell three years before and lit out for parts unknown is coming back, and it turns out he is still carrying a torch, as big as the one she’s got in her own hands.
So Nora’s pole-axed, wheels around, drops her head between her knees. Trav motions the maitre’d over to bring some smelling salts. Out in the parking lot, she leans against a little tree and pukes up the steak. He takes her home in his electric blue Rolls Royce pickup truck to his place, his houseboat, the Busted Flush, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, where he turns up the heat (it’s February, hence the fur in Florida) and makes her a mild drink and they settle down to talk about how maybe Sam let her catch him in bed with her shop assistant a month before the wedding because maybe he’s the sort of guy who’s afraid of being tied down, how a real live complete woman can be a scary thing, how even if maybe she thinks she came on too strong she has to be what she is, and how Trav heard from him and knows he’s coming back, and how he’ll set it up so she gets to see him again. And as the talk winds down again, he says,
“Don’t plan anything. Play it by ear, Nora. Don’t try to force any kind of reaction. It’s the only thing you can do.”
“I guess,” she said. She gave me a shamefaced look. “This is idiotic, but I’m absolutely ravenous.”
“Nora, honey, you know exactly where everything is, including the drawer where you’ll find an apron.”
“Eggs? Bacon? Toast?”
“All there. All for you. I’ll settle for one cold Tuborg. Bottom shelf. No glass, thanks.”
chivalry is not dead as long as Mr. Manley continues to write …