Page 173 of Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies

Or maybe it’s only a plot device.

Probably the second.

Read on to find out.

I wander through the rooms until I find it—the winding black metal staircase that will take me up to the roof. I don’t know how many stairs it is; I only know that my calves are protesting after one flight, and I pass two couples coming down, both red in the face and looking like regret.

I’m full of regret, too, but still I climb.

Finally, when my breath is heavy and thick in my throat, I get to the top.

It’s worth it.

I walk onto the square top of the turret. The 360-degree view of Ravello is as advertised. The vibrant green mountain behind it; the trees and colorful houses nestled into the cliffside; the winking blue Med. What wasn’t mentioned, though, is the hard plexiglass walls that surround the top of the stonework.

Did someone try to end their life up here? Did they succeed? Or is it preventative?

Whatever it is, it’s airless and hot, and the opposite of what I was expecting to feel when I got up here.

Because I don’t feel free; I feel claustrophobic.

I take a couple of long, slow breaths. I cannot have a panic attack up here. Not that I’ve ever had a panic attack, but this is what it feels like, right?

Like you can’t breathe?

Like your heart might explode?

Or is that a heart attack?

Don’t be an idiot, El. You’re not having a heart attack because you walked up a couple of stairs.

I move toward one of the walls. There are slits between the plastic, and some air comes through. I gulp at it, trying not to think about how ridiculous I look, like a fish out of a fishbowl, lapping at the drops of water so I can survive.

But it works. My heart calms, my pulse slows, my breathing returns to normal. And I can take in the beauty below. The gardens with their red, yellow, and purple flowers. The sea beyond it. The forest green trees.

No wonder Wagner was inspired.

I’d write a symphony about this place, too, if I could.213

I scan the garden to the left. Allison and Isabella are in the courtyard, alone, talking.

Wait, no. They’re having an argument, but in hushed, angry tones. Isabella is checking the surroundings, like she’s worried about being overheard.

But maybe it’s because I’m above them and sound travels upward like heat, that I do hear some of what they’re saying.

“I saw you,” Allison says.

Isabella shakes her head, but Allison is insistent.

She saw her where? What is she saying?

Where could Allison have seen Isabella that it would matter?

My mind tumbles over like the mechanism of a lock.

Click, click, click.

There’s only one place where it would matter if Allison saw Isabella.