It Wasn't Always Like This by Joy Preble Read Free Book Online Page B

Spain sent him on a mission,” Frank was saying. The tale of Juan Ponce de León was one of his favorites, especially the parts that took place right here in St. Augustine. “It was a long and dangerous sea voyage. Juan Ponce de León was only thirty-eight years old.”
    Emma rolled her eyes. Only thirty-eight? That was ancient.
    “No wonder he wanted the secret to youth,” Emma muttered under her breath.
    Charlie squeezed her hand. His thumb wandered to the center of her palm, making gentle circles.
    She whispered in his ear, “If Grandma Ester was alive, she would die from boredom right now. You know it’s true.”
    “ Es verdad ,” she and Charlie both said at the same time.
    Charlie bit his lip, trying not to laugh. He turned beet red.
    “ Es verdad ,” she breathed again in his ear, teasing.
    “Shh,” Charlie whispered furiously. But he leaned in. His soft earlobe met her lips.
    Something in Emma’s tummy went f izzy. He was a bold one underneath all his quiet, that Charlie Ryan. His father was still yammering away.
    “Juan never found the fountain . . .”
    This part of the story always made Emma sad. That a man would risk life and limb to travel across the ocean for something that he never achieved, never could achieve—because of course, what he was after didn’t exist.
    “Everyone thinks they know Juan Ponce de León. But they don’t.”
    Emma straightened in her chair. This was new. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie’s jaw tighten.
    “Juan Ponce de León didn’t f ind the fountain because he never planned on doing so.”
    “But wait, everyone says—” Emma began, and then shut her mouth as everyone turned to her, even Charlie. But it was true. Everyone did say that the whole reason Juan Ponce de León sailed to the New World—bringing the Ryans’ supposed ancestor, Hernando de Escalante Fontenada, with him, only to get shipwrecked and wind up with the Calusa tribe—was to f ind the Fountain of Youth. That’s why their families had a business! Tourists f locked in small clumps to the small, burbling stream by the river a few miles from the center of town. The huckster who ran it swore it was the real deal: the one Juan Ponce de León had discovered. People dipped cups in the water and everything.
    Charlie’s father waved a hand dismissively at her.
    “It’s the girl’s birthday,” her own father protested.
    “The world remembers Juan Ponce de León for something he didn’t do,” Frank Ryan said, suddenly speaking in his normal voice. “For a place he didn’t visit. Yes, that’s right. He never came here to St. Augustine. Not ever. That was King Ferdinand’s dream, not his. You can’t f ind a dream that isn’t yours. You have to want it enough, and Juan didn’t. He’d found the Gulf Stream, not that those royal bastards gave a damn.”
    Maura O’Neill narrowed her eyes at the salty language.
    Emma frowned. “But the Fountain of Youth?” She couldn’t help herself.
    “It’s here,” Charlie’s father concluded. “I know it is. I just have to f igure out where.”
    “Careful, Frank.” Emma’s father laughed. “Wouldn’t want a Calusa to put a poison arrow in your leg.” This, they all knew, was how Juan Ponce de León had actually died. A poison arrow, care of the local Indians, the very ones that had supposedly spawned Frank Ryan down the ancestral line.
    “Hell, they’re my own people,” Frank Ryan conf irmed, and poured a glass of whiskey. “I’m not worried.” He toasted the tribe that, according to his own legend of himself, had given him and Charlie their sharp, broad cheekbones. He held his glass high. “Here’s to eternal life!”
    He winked at Emma. She pretended she didn’t see. Life—and the shortness of it, in particular—was no joke these days; there’d been a polio epidemic the previous summer. Lots of people had died. The threat still hung in the hot, humid air. It was like the smell of salt: always present, f illing the