Page 50
Story: Saltwater
Lorna
Epilogue
It was an accident, that day in Brera. I should have noticed the swing of her blond bob. The baby, fat and burbling. Ciro.
But in the two years since Capri, I had grown casual. Too casual.
Still, I hurried us from the table. Threw down the euro notes before my companion could reach for his wallet. And then I slipped us into the crowd and we walked, slowly, like we belonged.
It might have happened eventually, I knew that. I had decided to stay in Europe. Ten million euros was easiest to deposit in Switzerland, it turned out. The stiffly dressed banker didn’t blink when I pushed the duffel across the table. It took him only fifteen minutes to feed the bills through the counter. He was happy, next, to help me transfer the five hundred thousand from Marcus into a shell account before moving it back to me. The money, he assured me, would be untraceable.
It didn’t matter. No one was looking for me anyway.
I was dead.
Death wasn’t always the plan. I would have been content to split the money with Helen, to cash Marcus’s check, to walk away. But as soon as the door to the villa closed behind us, I knew money wouldn’t help me escape. People like the Lingates, people like Stan, don’t let go.
We are their ballast. Without us, they capsize.
And despite what she thought, I knew Helen wouldn’t be able to make a clean break. They were family. Even with the money, they would have been in the wings, a chorus in her ear. No. She didn’t know how to get out; she didn’t have the stomach for it. But I did.
I considered disappearing. Simply taking the money and never coming back. Part of them, I know, suspected I might. It was why Marcus came to find me in the marina. To talk to me one last time, to be sure. I reassured him.
He was always the kindest of them all. Even if none of them gave him credit for it.
The boat that was supposed to take me to Naples still hadn’t arrived when Marcus left me in the marina. They’re running almost an hour late, he said. Italians. Then he nudged my shoulder, like it was a joke.
I wondered if he would ask for a refund this time, too.
He walked away. And in that moment, I watched him walk right by her—Martina. I don’t think he even noticed. Her arms wrapped around her slender frame, her halting, angular walk. She was sober, I knew. I had seen how, on the boat, she didn’t drink. How, at the club, she passed on the drugs the other girls were taking. And when she got close enough to me, I said:
“You had enough, too?”
She seemed surprised, at first, to see me. Then relieved.
“Yes. Stan said I could take the boat back. I’ve been so tired recently.”
I knew what she meant.
She scanned the marina for Stan’s tender. It was tied up, unmanned, along the outer jetty. I had seen the captain, before I left the club, tucked in a back booth with one of the stewardesses. A liberty Stan either didn’t mind or wasn’t aware of. The keys, I knew from experience, would be in the glove box.
“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” I said.
She leaned against the wall next to me.
I had planned to leave a crime scene for them to find. Some blood, a torn piece of my clothing, a wad of euro notes. Enough evidence that anyone would be able to infer the outcome. Naples, I knew, would be a more believable site for the “crime” than Capri.
But Martina was here and my ride was not. And I remembered how the articles I had saved on my computer detailed the gruesome realities of Sarah’s death. The way it only took hours for the crabs and crayfish to disfigure her nose, her fingers. How the fatty protuberances always went first.
“I can drive you out there,” I said.
Martina looked like she might say no. A small part of me hoped she would.
“Only if you’re sure he won’t mind,” she said.
“No,” I said. “I’ve driven it many times.”
That much was true. I had ferried girls for Stan. I had fucked the captain we used in the Caribbean, too.
“Sure,” she said, even though she sounded anything but. Then she warmed to the idea. “Okay. All right. I just want to get to bed before he does.”
“I understand,” I said.
The keys were where I expected, and the tender’s engine hummed as soon as I turned it over. I had an hour, that’s what Marcus had said. I piloted us off the dock and turned toward the inlet where I had nearly drowned Helen earlier that day. Did I know then that it was a dress rehearsal?
Martina sat at the back of the boat, her body folded into a corner seat, her face turned toward the sea. When we hit chop, the salt spray dusted her cheeks. She didn’t seem to mind. As we motored past Stan’s yacht, she called to me.
“That’s it,” she said.
Like I wouldn’t recognize it, like I wouldn’t know it from the others.
She yelled something else, but I pushed the throttle down to drown her out.
It only took five minutes for us to reach the rocky inlet. That side of the island was dark, without villas or boats, without the thump of music from the open bars and lido decks. I killed the engine and let the boat coast to a stop.
“We missed it,” Martina said, standing at the stern. “It was the gray one. Back there.”
She turned, pointing in the direction of the anchorage, her back to me. And when she did, I pushed her shoulders, and then I bent low to lift at the knees. She was so light. A slip of a girl. She was overboard in an instant.
“Wait!” she called to me from the water. “I can’t swim.”
I started the engine.
“Stan can pay you,” she said. There was a tendril of fear. The water already filling her mouth, crowding out her voice.
I had said almost the same words twelve hours before.
“It’s not about the money, Martina,” I yelled to her. Then, softer, to myself, I added: “That’s what everyone gets wrong. It’s never really about the money.”
I pushed the throttle down against her screams. If my friendship with Helen had taught me anything, it was that I would always, no matter the price, save myself first.
When I returned the boat to the jetty, the marina was still empty. No sign of the captain or my transport to Naples. I threw the duffel over my shoulder and followed the road back to where the group of men had leapt over the wall and into the tall grass. I slept outside that night, waiting for a late-afternoon ferry for Naples the next day. And then, with the day-trippers and tourists, I slipped on board.
It shouldn’t have worked, of course. Someone should have been there to say, That’s not Lorna! That’s Martina! I know her! But no one knows girls like Martina, girls like me. We are an afterimage, a shadow, a disposable body. Girls like us, we are all the same. We are substitutes.
No one, I knew, would miss Martina. No one, even, would missme.
I went north. The banker who opened the accounts helped me secure new papers and found me someone to invest my money. The investment adviser reminded me of Marcus, but younger. He was prematurely gray, and kind. After a year of going over my returns, he asked me to dinner. Six months later, he asked me to come to Milan. I agreed.
Should I have known Helen would be there, waiting?
Like her family, she had receded from the public eye after Capri. I didn’t even know if she was still in Europe. When she spotted us in Brera, I wanted to leave the city. But the investment adviser wouldn’t hear of it. He still needed to take me to the Palazzo Dugnani. A private visit, he said. Romantic was what he meant.
But in the gardens and on the streets of Milan, I could feel her watching me. Like a weight on your back or an itch at your neck. When the sensation became unbearable, I finally stopped. Turned. Looked for her.
“Are you okay?” the investment adviser asked.
I swallowed. Nodded. Took his hand.
Helen was haunting me.
When we exited the Palazzo Dugnani, a carabiniere stopped us. He explained that a woman had asked about someone matching my description. He wanted to know if we knew her.
“No,” I said. “Who is she?”
“She shops in the neighborhood,” he said with a shrug. “She buys paints, every Wednesday, at a shop near the main gate. An artist, I think.”
“Do you know where she buys them?” I asked.
He rattled off the name.
That night, while the investment banker was asleep, I slipped out of our hotel and walked the streets until I found her. We’re easy to spot once you know what to look for. She was tall, brunette. Not as smooth as me, but she would do. I pressed a thousand euros into her hand and told her to spend Wednesday waiting for a woman matching Helen’s description, and then I told her what to say, how to playit.
“When you’re done,” I said, “call this number and I’ll pay you another thousand euros.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
I nodded.
She called the next night: “You owe me the rest of the money.”
It was over.
But I couldn’t leave the city. Not yet. I sent the investment adviser back to Zurich; I had to see her one last time. I started lingering in front of La Scala, scanning the crowds. For days, I didn’t see her, just a sea of visitors and Milanese walking to and from the Duomo. On the sixth day, though, I spotted a flash of light. A bobbing blond head amid the throng.
I think she felt the weight of my eyes, because she found me so quickly. We locked onto each other like a puzzle piece fitting into place.
Click.
I could feel the sound of the approaching tram in my chest. A thick, gravelly rumble. Within seconds, the car had separated us. And before it could clear, before she could see me for a second time, I slipped back into the passing crowd.
I am dead now. And it’s never felt so good to be alive.
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