Page 9

Lorna

Hours before Lorna’s disappearance: 29

The ma?tre d’ leads us to a table overlooking the Marina Grande, the restaurant full of laughing guests and tinkling silverware. Richard pulls out my chair and sits next to me. Helen is on my other side, Naomi directly across. I crack the menu, but before I can begin to read, the waiter arrives with a tray of red and orange aperitifs.

Naomi cradles a drink and points at a bottle of wine on the menu. The waiter nods. She drinks, I’ve noticed, a lot. Maybe I’ve seen her drink in the past, but it’s pronounced here. Drinks on the plane, on the boat, at the house, a handful of empties already by her bed. There’s the smallest, reptilian slur on her s ’s. It’s a sound I never want to hear again.

It’s a vacation, I remind myself.

Freddy slaps his menu closed and sets it on the table. “Chitarra alla Paolino,” he says.

After our moment in the hallway, everything about Freddy is back to being easy, casual. Like it never happened. But the lights overhead cast shadows on his face, and for an instant, I can see it, hovering above mine only weeks ago. His eyes dark, his breath sour. I look away. Try to peel the memory off. The others follow him quickly. They’ve eaten here dozens of times. There’s no mystery to this menu. Paccheri or tubettoni, it doesn’t matter. Maybe in time, I’ll slap my menu closed too, pronounce chitarra with confidence.

“Marcus tells me this is your first trip to Italy,” Naomi says in such a way that implies a yes would be unbelievable.

“That’s true,” I say, unsure if I should also thank her for the largesse. That’s the worst part about rich people: they want to give you things, but only so you can acknowledge their generosity. Every kindness a reminder that you exist in their world out of pity or usefulness. There was a period of time when I thought working for Marcus would be different from the other kind of work I’d done for people like him. But it’s all the same.

They’re all the same.

“I told Lorna that we should go to Rome when we’re done here,” Helen says.

We’ve talked about it in hypotheticals. What if we… But we’ve held off on making a decision. We’re both waiting, hedging. Holding out until we see how this goes. It’s okay, I understand. I’m not sure I want to go to Rome with her, either, if this all falls apart.

“During the summer?” Naomi says.

“Why not?” Helen says.

“Too crowded.” Naomi seems like she’s already lost interest, her eyes wandering over our heads toward the view. “Rome is a spring city.”

The sleeve of her Pucci dress pools in the dish of olive oil—several thousand dollars ruined in the service of the bread she’s reaching for.

I want to tell her that Capri seems crowded too, and yet she’s still here. Instead, I move the dish of olive oil out of the way. She doesn’t notice. They never do.

“Isn’t that where he lives?” Naomi asks, looking at Helen. “Renata’s son?”

“No,” Marcus intervenes. “He lives in Naples.”

“You two used to be very close,” she says to Helen, a smile leaching across her face. It’s as if she doesn’t notice the rest of us, as if it’s just her and Helen. I wonder what else she took with the drinks earlier. “Do you think the necklace is from him?” Naomi says. “He was like that, wasn’t he? The kind to remember a detail?”

“I don’t think Renata’s son was involved,” Marcus says, setting a hand on his wife’s arm. He dabs at the oil stain on the sleeve of her dress and tops off her glass. She is not aware of any of it. But I am. He’s tender with her.

“They were very close,” she repeats.

“Should I be jealous?” Freddy asks to lighten the mood. And it almost works.

“No,” Helen says. “Just a youthful indiscretion.” She smiles, but it’s tight. I know the smile. The world knows this smile—the one she gives when interviewers push too far, when the paparazzi get bored and camp outside the gates of their Bel Air house.

“You remember those, right?” I say to Freddy. To take the pressure off Helen, but also because he deserves it. And because it makes it seem like we’re old friends giving each other a hard time, which, I realize, we might be under different circumstances.

A shadow blinks across his face; I’m too close to the nerve. Before he can answer, Naomi says, her voice wobbly, “Marcus knows all about indiscretions.”

Her eyes are dark in the dim light. It takes me a beat, but I see it: her pupils are so blown they nearly eclipse her irises.

“About what?” Marcus says.

I can’t tell if he really didn’t hear her or if it’s a practiced attempt to defuse the situation. Naomi likes to call the office multiple times a day. She likes to know where he is. His schedule. Who he’s golfing with.

Marcus knows all about indiscretions.

“We all make mistakes, right?” Freddy looks at Marcus, like he might find reassurance there, and then at me. I don’t offer him anything, but Richard does.

“Of course we do,” he says.

Freddy smiles, his relief immediate.

“But,” Richard says, “we are also the product of our mistakes. Regretting them is a waste of time. They are part of us.”

Richard holds his hand over his solar plexus and closes his eyes. He makes a circular motion. The diners at the surrounding tables are watching. Since Sarah’s death, Richard has very publicly found enlightenment, self-actualization, forgiveness. He plays the aging-guru part expertly, with long, graying hair pulled into a tight bun, a distinctive face, lined and a little hollow below the cheekbones. Blue eyes. Flowing linen clothes. He loves, I think, that it sets him apart from, lifts him above, his brother. His bon vivant, expansive brother. A materialist to Richard’s spiritualist. He likes, too, that it makes him different from the Richard Lingate of 1992. The one who didn’t murder his wife, but might have.

Richard’s eyes open; Marcus rolls his. He hates this enlightenment bullshit. Particularly because behind closed doors, Richard Lingate is the same. Even this performance is about controlling the public image.

“Oh god, Richard,” Naomi says, “not this again.”

“Transcendental meditation,” Richard says. “It will change your reality—”

“Has it changed yours?”

The response from Marcus is sharp. I’ve heard him, in private, blame his brother for what happened thirty years ago: He’s an idiot. Always was. But he’s family.

I expect Helen to say something, but she flips her knife over and over and over. She won’t look at him. This is how it’s been all these years. She just takes it. The pronouncements. The evangelizing. All of it. Fighting only makes him worse. If only her father had really found enlightenment, things might have turned out differently.

A suffocating silence settles on the table.

“When I was in college,” I say, the lie easy, “my mistake was that I used to steal alcohol from the corner gas station. One of us would flirt with the cashier while the rest of us shoved bottles of wine into our jackets and pants. It would have been so much more efficient if we could’ve gotten to the hard alcohol, but that was always behind the counter.”

No one responds, and maybe I’ve overplayed my hand. But isn’t this why they brought me along? To break up the dynamic? To offer one truth and a lie? Because I’ve stolen so much more than alcohol. Even if it was harmless enough— a mistake —and only from people who wouldn’t notice. Mostly from people who wouldn’t notice.

I want them to laugh. To change the subject. But they’re all watching me. Even Helen.

Then the waiter is there to take our order. I still haven’t chosen what I want. But it doesn’t matter. They don’t let me order. Marcus does it for all of us, listing a litany of dishes.

It’s small but it’s irritating. Like an insult said so quickly you spend hours trying to remember it. Helen has had a lifetime of this. I wonder if they were like this when Sarah was alive. If they did the same thing to her. If that’s why she killed herself. If that’s what she did.

“Sarah used to steal,” Naomi says after the waiter has left.

It startles me. Did she know I was thinking about Sarah?

“Let’s not talk about Sarah,” Marcus says. He moves the bottle of wine out of Naomi’s reach. I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a subtle or pointed gesture, but I notice it. I also notice his watch, a vintage Rolex Padellone with a moon phase dial, his father’s. A watch worth more than my mother’s house. My mouth is dry.

“She didn’t steal,” Helen says.

“What do you think she did for work?” Naomi says with a little laugh, a little hiccup slipping out. “All those plays? Don’t you think she stole for those?”

“Naomi,” Marcus says, his voice hard.

Shut up, Naomi.

At least it isn’t me they’re mad at.

I could break it all now—the family tension—and tell them that two years before I met them, Freddy and I used to go on benders together, that we used to have sex, stay up for days until our vision literally failed us. That I used to take all the cash from his wallet while he was asleep and then tell him he had spent it at the bar or lost it.

Those are the mistakes none of them know about. Not even Helen. Not yet. But when we’re done, I’ll tell her. I want to tell her. She deserves to know.

It’s not big, as far as secrets go. At least not in a family like this. Drugs, alcohol, a few really bad nights. And we cleaned ourselves up in the end. At least I did. But like all secrets, it gets bigger the longer you keep it. Every opportunity you have to come clean—the quiet conversations, the heart-to-hearts, the embarrassing divulgences—that you don’t reveal it, it grows.

I’ve told myself it was for her own good. But it was always for me.

Instead, I say, “You know what I’ve always wanted to know?” I wait until they’re all looking at me. “I’ve always wanted to know why people like you love to steal. You know, rich people.”

It’s the sort of thing a child would say with genuine wonder. You know what I want to know… But it does what I want it to do. It makes Helen laugh, and then Marcus and the rest of the table. Everyone except Naomi, who is watching me closely, as if what I’ve really done is stolen the moment from her.

“I used to steal candy as a child,” Helen says.

“I don’t always pay for all my groceries at the Gelson’s self-checkout,” Freddy admits.

At this, I laugh. Because, of course, neither do I. But then, I can’t afford to. That’s the thing about rich people and stealing—it’s cute, it’s a lark. At worst, it’s a compulsion. But it’s not a crime. It’s only a crime when I do it. Rich people need to steal millions of dollars—billions—for it to be considered a crime. And even then, there are the shrugs: How else could he afford the Hamptons house? Giving up five acres on Three Mile, now that would be a crime! As if that explains it away.

Our starters arrive. I do my best to eat my insalata caprese, only now understanding that this salad ordered the world over is actually from this island, Capri. Caprese. Another bottle of wine comes next. Marcus pours some for Naomi. It looks like an apology.

I’m nearly through my tomatoes—sweet, with a punch of acid at the end, the kind of tomatoes I didn’t even know existed, had never qualified as tomatoes —when I feel my phone vibrating in my purse. I silence it and glance at the name: Stan. My knife slips, clatters against the plate. Then it’s gone.

When the main course arrives, my phone vibrates again. I fumble trying to turn it off, worried that Richard might notice, but he’s left behind the guru facade and is talking to his brother. They’re good at finding common ground in public.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I say, palming my phone. “I’m just going to find the restroom.”

I read the text as I walk toward the interior of the restaurant.

Do you have it with you? I have the money, but I can’t give it to you if you won’t return my calls. You’re the one who wanted this, Lorna. Remember that.

Several waiters point me to a back hallway, where I do, in fact, find the restroom. I’m about to enter when a waiter pushes through a neighboring door, out into what doubles as a trash alley. I’ve yet to see a trash alley in Capri. Nevertheless, the familiar scent of cigarette smoke follows him, and I know it’s the best place for me to handle this. Handle Stan.

It turns out to be a narrow space off the kitchen, but the clanging of stainless steel and plates is soothing. Easier, somehow, than the banter at the table. There’s a waiter running dirty plates, and another, on a chair, is bent over his phone, smoking. He looks up at me, and I gesture: Can I bum one?

He holds out his pack and offers me a light. It’s got to be almost midnight, but it’s still hot. Hot, and smells like trash and fish. Even the stone wall I lean against is sticky. I tell myself that I’ll just take a few drags and then I’ll call Stan. I’ve earned that.

The waiter for our table flashes by, plates piled up his arms. He pauses, turns. I hold up the cigarette in his direction. See, I’m one of you. Cheers. I see my dinner resting at his elbow.

“Are you with them?” He looks at me like he’s trying to decide what’s appropriate. As if he can read me from the way I look. That’s the thing about places like Capri—looks are deceiving. There are plenty of people in that dining room trying to blend in, trying to look like they belong.

I nod.

“They’re killers,” he says, spitting to the side, and I’m sure some of it has landed in the food. “The whole island knows it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, shrugging. “They’re just on vacation.”

But then, I already know he’s right.