Alice's Island, page 29
“Why?”
“What time is it?” she asked, looking at her cell. “Eleven thirty. A little early, no?”
“A little early for what?”
“Mindy,” Julia said, “give us two of our usual.”
“They’re going to end up sending in inspectors, and then you’ll see . . .” Mindy complained without much conviction.
“Yeah, sure . . . And don’t even think about serving us in coffee cups again—this isn’t Prohibition.”
She didn’t even wait for the wine to get into her veins; she started opening up right away.
“I think that Mark is having or has had an affair. Did I say affair again? I’m hopeless . . .”
I was the one who drank my wine in two sips this time.
“So why do you think that?”
“Because all of a sudden, we’re fine. He started looking at me again. Seeing me. Being there again.”
“I don’t understand.” I did. “If being fine is a symptom of someone having an affair, that’s pretty messed up, no?”
“Guilt is one of the great driving forces of our society . . . Guilt, fear and vengeance are extremely poisonous, but in the right measure, they’re a revitalizing blend.”
“That’s kind of what your novels are about, right?” I said, just to say something, so she wouldn’t notice my nerves.
“That’s kind of what life is about, right?”
“I guess so . . .” I smiled and forced myself not to look down or take refuge in my almost empty glass of wine.
“You know what the novel I’m working on now is about? A successful novelist in a supposed creative crisis, because she always draws on what she lives and experiences, but since she’s just been through an extramarital relationship with another man, she doesn’t dare write about it for fear her husband will find out. But in the end she realizes her husband is having this torrid, passionate romance . . . Did I say a torrid, passionate romance? Good God, I’m awful. To hell with Nicholas Sparks, I sound like Danielle Steel. Which I also wouldn’t mind, as far as that goes.”
“Well, it sounds very interesting,” I said, forcing myself to speak. I was stiff with fear as she approached the truth, of being caught, as if she was setting out a trap for me. Unable to put a brake on my impulses, I asked, “So how does the story end?”
She took her time replying, as if she was celebrating something inside.
“You don’t want me to spoil it for you, do you? You’ll have to read the book. If I ever finish it . . .’
We laughed, and the relaxed tone of the conversation made any possibility of following up on the theme vanish. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad. Very.
Julia smiled.
“You know, someday I’d really like to write about you, Alice.”
And by her gaze and the silence that accompanied her words, I thought that what she was really trying to say to me was: I’m already doing it, already writing about you. This, all this, including Chris, is part of my novel. And that made me even more afraid.
APRIL 22–26
“HELLO, FAVORITE BLONDE! I missed you,” Antonio greeted me, effusive as usual.
Ever since I’d practically plundered Night Eyes with my purchase of fifty cameras, I hadn’t been back. Antonio smiled at Ruby, who was in the baby carrier, as usual.
“Hello, little kangaroo, you grew a lot.”
It was true. She had also become a great observer. In fact I had started leaving her outside the attic when I went in because I felt she was starting to absorb everything. She seemed hooked on the monitors, scanning the fishbowls, just like me. OK, so she was only a little more than ten months old, but I didn’t want her to become too familiar with the attic or feel it was a normal place for her to go.
“I need to hack a computer,” I said after the usual greetings.
“What computer? CIA computer? FBI? Pentagon? White House?”
“No, a normal one. Like mine.”
“You want hack your own computer?”
“No, Antonio, one like mine. Not mine.”
“It was joke, Blondie! Bad joke, but joke.” And before I could say anything, he added, “I know, you never like joke. So, you have access normal computer like yours? You can actually be in front of computer you want to hack alone?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess so . . .”
“Well, if you can be in front of computer one minute, it’s very easy. Even Spanish can do it.”
* * *
I waited for Olivia to make a perfect triangle with the piece of swordfish she was eating. She had learned to use a knife to make her cuts more precise. She wouldn’t eat just any piece of the swordfish: it had to be of uniform thickness, round, without gelatinous edges. Ray Schepler, drug-dealing fisherman and suspect number six, cracked up when I told him I used round metal pastry molds to cut the fish before I cooked it.
“That’s it? You’re going to leave the rest?” I asked her.
Olivia didn’t answer. She looked a little frustrated, as if she didn’t know how to keep eating but also preserve the geometric figure.
“I know you’re hungry and want to eat more, right? You love swordfish.”
Again she didn’t answer.
“You know what you can do with the triangle? Turn it into a rhombus by cutting off the lower right- and lower left-hand corners diagonally.”
I brought my knife over to show her where to cut.
“Don’t touch it. I already know how to make a rhombus. Wendy showed me.”
And in fact she did know. She gobbled up the two just-excised pieces. Then she looked at the fish again, unsure how to proceed.
“And now, if you cut the rhombus down the middle, you have . . .”
“Two triangles . . . I know!”
“By the way, Oli. Would you like to make a deal?”
“No, because you won’t keep your side . . .”
“That’s not the best way to negotiate, Oli. You want to go back to the horse ranch tomorrow to see Sunset and ride Panda?”
“OK, I accept.”
“No. Not just I accept. There’s got to be an exchange. It’s a deal, remember?”
“In exchange for what, then?”
“You say good morning each day to Pony and put food and water in her dishes.”
“Do I have to touch her?”
“It would be nice if you’d pet her, but for now I’ll be happy if you don’t hit her.”
“OK.”
“And one more thing . . .”
“No, now it doesn’t count, that’s a trick. We already have a deal.”
“Don’t worry, it’s something small, you’ll love it. It’s a game.”
* * *
It was the first time I had had dinner in Julia’s house. Though in reality, Oliver and Olivia were having dinner while Julia and I ate oysters from Bishop Oyster Farm that I had bought beforehand because it was part of my plan. Mark was still gone. I wasn’t sure whether in New York or exiled to The Office. He hadn’t written me again. And tell me, Alice, how does it make you feel that he’s stopped looking for you and begging desperately for your presence? You like that?
Julia, like me, locked the door to her office. She didn’t like her space to be invaded. Even in Mark’s absence, she kept doing it. During one of our meetings, she explained it was a writer’s paranoia, as if she were afraid the words she had written might escape. She kept the key in her purse, which she always left in the entrance, hanging on a coat-tree.
I had calculated that in total I needed three or four minutes. I could step away to go to the bathroom, but the office was on the upper floor, and the bathroom was next to the kitchen. It would be very weird and suspicious. That’s where Olivia came into play.
“Look, honey, it’s very simple. You remember three months ago, when you messed something up in the bathroom?”
“With the paper?”
“Yes, with the paper, you were wiping your butt and you insisted you had to tear the toilet paper off right where the line was and since you didn’t manage to, you kept pulling more and more paper out and throwing it all in the toilet and you used practically a whole roll before you got it right. And of course, you flushed afterward and what happened?”
“I stopped it up . . . and you had to call the plumber. Chloe’s dad.”
“Yes, Mike . . . You think you could do that again?”
“I learned to tear the paper better. Now I almost always do it right the first time.”
“Right, but stopping up another toilet, could you do it?”
“I don’t want to see Mike again. He scares me.”
“Well, this time you’re just going to have to do it.”
* * *
Olivia carried out Operation Stop up the Toilet in the Bathroom Next to Julia’s Kitchen to perfection. Ten minutes of chaos, the excuse that an oyster was making me ill, a fleeting visit to the upstairs bathroom after fishing out the keys to Julia’s office, a moment of panic when I couldn’t find the right key, a second moment of panic when I thought maybe Julia had security cameras inside, a third moment of panic when I put the pen drive with the Trojan in the USB slot of her computer, a fourth moment of panic when I left the office and realized like an idiot I had left the pen drive inside, self-induced vomiting in the bathroom to make my absence seem more plausible, another round of vomiting because of my nerves, and that was that: I had access to the writer’s fortress.
When I got back home, I felt invincible.
“Mommy, do you think Julia got mad at me?”
“No, no way.”
“And Oliver? You think he might think I’m stupid?”
“No, Oliver was cracking up.”
“Yeah, he did laugh a little.”
“See? Everything’s OK.”
“Why did you want me to do it?”
“We agreed there would be no questions. You’d do it and that would be all. That was the deal.”
“Are we going to keep doing stuff like that?”
“Not for now.”
“I like helping you.”
“And I like for you to help me . . . Hey, that thing you said to me about wanting to leave the island . . .” It had come during a temper tantrum, but it had still worried me.
“Not anymore. I was just upset.”
“What a fibber you are . . .” I laughed and kissed her. “See you tomorrow, honey. Sleep well. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mommy, lots. See you tomorrow.”
A roll to one side, a roll to the other.
* * *
I took advantage of the times when Julia wasn’t in front of her computer or in the office to go through all her files and documents. I was afraid when I used the Trojan that something would go wrong and she would figure it out. The first thing I did was go through her emails. I did a search for Chris. Nothing. Then for Williams. Nothing either.
It took me four days to read the unfinished novel. I started reading with my heart pounding, looking for Chris to be wrapped up in it, hidden or running along in broad daylight through any of its pages, but then I was the one who got wrapped up, trapped, hidden and running through the pages. For those four days I didn’t go to Le Café, among other things because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold back from saying how much I liked it or asking about the characters or the ending. It was the story of a forbidden love, very intense, but kept hidden, probably the same way she had lived it. It submerged you in a universe of absolute normality and apparent happiness that was nothing more than a thin, delicate layer, a slippery surface that barely let you intuit the inner abyss of the characters. The characters didn’t have names, which only accentuated the mystery around the truth they were struggling to hide, the lie of their own existence. As anonymous as they were recognizable.
The fifth day, I went.
“I thought that after almost dying at my house from the oysters you wouldn’t want to hear from me again.”
“Come on. It was to leave you alone. I’ve been seeing you here for weeks, and I have the feeling I’m not letting you write.”
“You’re wrong, and believe it or not, I’ve been writing a lot since I’ve been hanging out with you. It’s lit a spark. And here’s the proof.”
She rested her hand on top of a thick, white envelope. I knew immediately it contained her novel. All my grand efforts for nothing. But what about the fun you had, Alice? That adrenaline rush you felt, right? What do you have to say about that, spy junkie?
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
“I don’t have an agent or an editor or a husband. So you’re up. Sorry . . .”
“Wow . . . what an honor . . . I don’t know what to say. But I’m not a professional. I mean my judgment . . .”
“Your judgment is your judgment, and that’s what interests me right now. Here.” She handed me a new pencil. “I hope that when you’re done reading it, you’ll have worn it down to the nub making notes in the margins.”
“But, is it done?” I asked to dissimulate and because for a moment I thought that the abrupt ending without an ending was the ending. Aren’t almost all endings in life like that?
“Novels are never finished, not even after you publish them. In any case, no, it doesn’t have an ending yet. I don’t know how to finish it . . . Maybe you can help me.”
Then the door opened and Mark appeared. He caught both of us by surprise. And by his face, he must not have expected us either.
“Hi,” he said. “I just got back from New York.”
“Yeah, I see that,” Julia said drily.
“I’m grabbing a coffee.”
“Well, you’re in the right place.”
Mark went to the counter and asked Mindy for a large caramel iced coffee. For the four minutes he was in the café—Mindy took a lot of care with each coffee she served—no one said a single word. I made a gesture to Julia to indicate that if she wanted, I would leave them alone, but she shook her head softly. Mindy gave Mark his coffee. He paid, left the change as a tip, took off the lid, poured in two packets of brown sugar, stirred it calmly, replaced the lid, and walked out, taking a sip.
“Bye,” he said.
“Bye,” Julia said.
“Bye,” I said.
It made me sad to see him. When he appeared, I avoided eye contact. Which made me realize I had missed him. That’s why I hadn’t answered any of his messages. I didn’t want the issue to end. Our issue. I liked having him there. I had forced myself to choose between Julia and Mark, and now it turned out I loved both of them. Which couldn’t be. Or could it?
APRIL 30–MAY 8
“GIRL, THAT’S ONE hell of a disappearing act you’ve pulled,” Karen rebuked me on the way to her brother Keith’s birthday party on Napoleon Island.
John piloted the motorboat in silence, beer in hand, lost in his thoughts. How I wanted to put a Trojan in his head to hack his brain and trace Chris.
“Fifty years. But he’s like a good wine, he gets better with age. Very important people from the cultural and political world are coming. So you should really grab hold of this opportunity; if not I’ll find him a better potential mate.”
Karen kept stressing that we’d make a great couple. Yeah, right, great. Why was Karen going crazy trying to pair her brother up with someone?
Miriam, who was still sad due to Sandy’s disappearance, especially because she’d now lost any hope of getting her back, had also chewed me out for my absence. We have a talk about our friendship, we cry together, we hug, we reinforce our tie, but then you always go off and do your own thing. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have sold you the house. You iceberg. It was true that with all the cameras I had installed in the houses, I had been taking refuge more often in the attic. I didn’t need to socialize much to get information. I had to promise Miriam dinner twice a month in exchange for her accompanying me to Keith’s birthday. Much as I needed to go, I didn’t want to do it alone. We had left Ruby and Chloe at Tina’s daycare and Olivia with Barbara at Horse Rush Farm. They’d started the season and opened the doors to the public.
Without a doubt, Napoleon Island was spectacular. It was presided over by a medieval style castle built in 1901. It belonged to the family of Napoleon LeCaptain, a famous architect of the time, who designed numerous churches in Philadelphia and New York, as well as a number of fire stations and several of the first skyscrapers.
Keith’s place was enchanting, and he was the perfect host. As soon as he saw me, he took my arm, rescuing me from his sister, and gave me a tour while he told me the history of the island. I thought that living there alone, in that enormous castle, could end up becoming a sentence. A constant reminder that you didn’t have a family of your own to fill the rooms. Though, apparently, in his philanthropic guise, he housed all sorts of artists looking for inspiration there without charging them anything.
“Anyway, I don’t live alone,” he said. He had eight employees who lived at the castle permanently and others who came from spring to fall. “And that’s without mentioning Napoleon’s ghost. He’s my best friend and faithful companion.”
That was when I saw Mark. He had a glass of champagne in his hand, standing a short distance from the rest of the visitors, his back turned, on the edge of a small cliff overlooking the sea. As if he had sensed my presence, he turned around slightly to look at me, raised his glass in a toast and drank while he turned his eyes back to the sea without waiting for a response. He looked very handsome. It was clear he’d been going out on the boat because his skin was brown and weathered, and his hair lighter and wavier. He seemed much more relaxed than he had in a long time. And there’s nothing I like better than a calm man.
* * *
Everyone seemed to be enjoying the delicious food, the music and the pleasant weather.
After the cake—Keith refused to blow out the candles, saying it was corny—Miriam decided to take a nap in the hammock by the pool because she was woozy after all the wine. I decided to take a walk around the tiny island, fleeing the crowd for a bit.
