Holly Knight was heading east on Southern Boulevard, top down, on a blow-your-hair around perfect Palm Beach day, when she first felt the vulture.
It wasn't until she passed the airport, and was winding 'round a round-a-bout that beckoned to Mar-a-Lago -- Donald Trump's take on old Palm Beach -- that she stopped shivering with revulsion.
Her neck, her shoulders had taken on an identity of their own -- a late night movie persona where evil shimmies up close, paralyzing and personal: a stalagmite-chilled calling card in its ravenous beak.
And the thing of it was, the vulture was on the other side of the road, nowhere near her, not a feather out of place, minding his own business.
Minutes later, she learned that her father had died.
*
Her great-great grandfather, Eli Knight, had started a small shirt business. Generations and an obscenity of family lawsuits later, the company had changed its label from Knight/Mills to Von Clyde, the name of a shirt collar that some unsuspecting Dutchman had never thought to patent.
Von Clyde had journeyed from Delancey Street to Macy's and on to outlet centers at convenient turnpike exits.
The Von Clyde lawyers lucked-on to million dollar retainers as Knight brother sued brother; father sued child; and take-over wanna-bes made a swift killing. The collar choked on.
Love horse stories? I'd appreciate a leg up on mine.