Alices island, p.34
Alice's Island, page 34
* * *
It had been two weeks since I’d heard from Miriam. Nothing since I’d given her the pen drive with the recording of Mike. Then one day, her fishbowl lit up. Miriam had gone to the trouble of putting the clock in her kitchen back together with the spy camera back in its place, charging the battery, and turning it on. She looked straight at the camera. Serious, as if she were making sure everything was in its place or preparing evidence to turn me in to the police. The overwhelming fear came back, this time even heavier. Until she smiled. And spoke. I didn’t hear because the microphone had given out, but I could read her lips perfectly because she only uttered a single message: Take care of me. Then she left the clock in its original place.
Minutes later, I saw Sandy the dog running happily around the kitchen. She’d gotten her back. Had she used the video? Yes, or at least part of it, because that same night I discovered that someone had slashed all the tires on the Cherokee, the golf cart and the bikes. In addition to breaking off my sideview mirrors and literally taking a shit on my front porch. I didn’t care, because at that point, I was still in a state of shock and had no capacity to react. Nor did I want to file a report. Better to leave things as they were. I wanted to stop the chain of reprisals. Not turning him in was a way of accepting the punishment, showing we were at peace, and if I stopped bothering him, he would do the same. And so it was. I called a mechanic from off the island, to keep from causing rumors or raising suspicions, and had him change the tires and replace the mirrors. Almost $2,000 for my antics.
* * *
I had stopped going to my daily date with Julia at Le Café. So one day she decided to pay me a surprise visit.
When the doorbell rang, my heart started racing. I thought it might be Frank, or even worse, Barbara. When I saw it was Julia, I thought that, given my recent series of misfortunes, she had come to tell me she had found out I’d hacked her computer or that I was spying on her or that she knew about me and Mark. It wasn’t that, but almost.
I invited her to have an iced tea in the garden.
“No progress on the novel?”
I had stopped peeking into her computer to look at her novel. Another result of photo 4,209.
Julia shook her head softly.
“I’ve lost the story. It’s slipping out of my hands. And I feel like I can’t do anything to avoid it.”
“But why? I don’t understand; Julia, the novel is magnificent. Write an ending and be done with it.”
“Remember when I asked you for help with the ending?”
“Yeah, of course, I remember, and I’d really like to, but I can’t do that.”
“You’re right. I made a mistake. I don’t want you to help me finish. I want you to help me keep going.”
What was she talking about, her novel or her relationship?
“Mark’s leaving. He’s going to take his boat and sail down the East Coast, to the Gulf of Mexico, cross the Panama Canal, and who knows what else. But that’s the deal: he’s going to be gone for two months . . . before he’s gone forever.”
“What do you mean, forever?”
“We’re splitting up. When the summer’s over, he’s moving to New York.”
Julia started crying. And I almost did too.
“Don’t ask me whose decision it was, because I wouldn’t know how to answer. Well, yeah, I do know. It’s both of ours. We made it years ago, when we tried to be Samantha and Paul. But obviously that ended up being a burden, for me and for him. I hide behind my fiction to complete my reality. He has done the same. The fantasy of finding his Samantha is so great, so unreal, that it can’t be a single woman, a single relationship.”
She frightened me when she looked up through her tears at me.
“I don’t want him to go, Alice. Not because I want us to get back together. I’m not looking for that. I stopped looking for that a long time ago. But . . .” After a pause, she said, vulnerable and small as I had never seen her before, “I’m pregnant.”
My head didn’t have the resources to process all that information.
“Have you told him?”
Julia shook her head.
“Well, tell him. If you do, I’m sure he’ll stay.”
“Yeah, I know. And I know he would without blinking. But he wouldn’t be happy. Because these concessions, even though you convince yourself when you make them, always come with a price. I know; I know him. And it’s not a question of him staying. It’s a question of the island not burning him alive. Because right now, that’s what the island is doing to him.”
That concept sounded familiar to me.
“Why don’t you talk to him?” she proposed.
“With Mark? Me?”
“Even though you never talk to me about him, I know . . . that you get along. That you did get along.” When she corrected the tense of the verb, I knew she was aware of our fling. Or should I say affair, as she did? “When you got to the island, it was really good for him. It was good for us . . .”
For the first time in my life, I wanted to faint. I wanted my phobia to take charge of the situation and get me out of there.
“I don’t understand very well what it is you want me to do.”
“I told you, help me continue,” she answered, composed now, so it wouldn’t look like a desperate or impulsive request. Quite the contrary, it was very well considered.
Was she insinuating she knew I was the woman from the messages, the frustrated escapade in New York, his lover? And not only that, but more importantly, that she was fine with it, that she was giving me the green light, that she was getting out of the way. Did she really think the healthiest and best thing for her was for her husband to stay on the island with another woman while she was pregnant?
And me? What was it I wanted? I must not have known very well, because I could barely hold back my almost feverish desire to see Mark. To take refuge on his boat, in his arms and in his love. But I knew that if I did that, it would break me. I would crumble in front of him. And I knew he would have loved that: picking up my pieces and putting them back together, saving me one more time, as he already had before. And I would let myself be saved. But where would that get me? Where would that take us? What does all that matter, Alice? That doesn’t change anything. That doesn’t erase photo 4,209 of Barbara. That doesn’t solve any of your issues.
Until one night I couldn’t take it anymore, and I went to the port with the intention of seeing Mark on his boat. It wasn’t there anymore. He had gone. I cried all the way back home.
I slept in the bed still wrapped in a towel after emerging from the shower, exhausted, and not exactly from the physical effort. I woke up hours later, soaked in sweat, disoriented. It took me a moment to figure out where I was. My stomach was upset, my chest was burning, and I was itching. I’d gotten a rash. While I looked at my chest in the mirror and tried to decide whether to make myself vomit to alleviate my unease, all the different lines of thinking about Barbara suddenly opened up. They started working at full output, like when someone opens the floodgates of a dam that’s about to overflow. Phrases of Barbara’s that shot through me:
I’m sure the owner won’t show up here today.
No problem, she can go on riding Panda. Hardly anyone comes around here until spring.
You just let her ride and then we’ll see. It’s no problem if she gets attached to the animal. It’s not going anywhere . . .
Panda the pony. She was Chris’s, I was convinced. In part because just as I had this conviction, the clock on my cell phone struck 12:01 AM.
JUNE 9
I SAW BARBARA in one of the stables.
And she saw me.
And by my look, she knew why I was there.
And by hers, I knew that she knew.
“I’ve been wondering what I would say to you when this moment came, because I knew it would come,” Barbara said to me with so much delicacy that it frightened me even more. “I think you should know everything. Because if not, you’ll leave here thinking you’re stuck halfway. And I think we need to walk through it together, up to the end.”
After laying bait all over the island, suddenly I felt as if I was the one who had been caught. Barbara had laid a trap for me that had led me straight to Horse Rush Farm, and now I was afraid she’d devour me. Though I had been preparing myself for this moment for more than a year, I didn’t feel up to it. Everything was unreal. In fact I didn’t even know how I’d gotten there. How I’d been capable of waking Olivia up, making her breakfast, taking her to the hydroplane, breastfeeding Ruby and leaving her with Jennifer, who was delighted to see her.
I wanted to turn around and go.
I can’t. I don’t want to.
But Barbara didn’t let me turn back. She sensed how hard it must have been for me to take that step, and she didn’t want it to be in vain.
“How do you want us to do this? You want to ask me questions?”
My head shook for me.
“Just one,” I said. “Then I want you to talk. I want you to tell me everything. As if I wasn’t here.”
“All right. What’s the question?”
Before I started crying, I managed to get out, in a faint voice, “What was Chris doing on the island?”
PART FOUR
* * *
THE INVISIBLE MAN
I’m an Invisible Man.
I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them . . .
This invisibility, in fact, is only good in two cases: It’s useful in getting away, it’s useful in approaching.
—H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man (1897)
Barbara
MARCH 7, 2013–MAY 12 2015
THE FIRST TIME I saw Chris, I didn’t see him. He had his back turned, standing next to the mill. I was scared until he turned around, smiled at me and waved like we’d known each other all our lives. I was out for a ride on my horse Nessy, our daily walk. Sorry, but this is private property. That was how I answered his greeting. He apologized immediately and started to go. I felt so bad that I said no, no problem, he could stay. You’re not from around here, are you? I asked him, still a little distrustful. He shook his head and told me he had been dragged to the island by a chance encounter with an old school friend from the University of Virginia, a John something or other, someone I didn’t even know. They’d been there together a couple of years, when John was defensive coordinator of the football team. Apparently, this John loved tennis and went to watch him pretty often. Later John had followed his career and was convinced he’d go far in the ATP, until John read he’d hurt his Achilles tendon. John had lost track of him years before. And when John found him that very morning at the New Seabury Country Club in Mashpee, playing with a potential client who happened to be John’s brother-in-law—Keith, obviously, though he couldn’t remember the name when we were talking—John went crazy, he was so excited, and he proposed a doubles game so they could talk and catch up. But that wasn’t enough, because then John invited him for a few beers, and when he was half-drunk, John told him, This guy here, my brother-in-law, has an island all to himself, and he’s redecorating or whatever you want to call it. He wants to put in a new tennis court because his old one is grass, a piece of shit, to put it frankly. So anyway, you gotta strike while the iron’s hot, right? John’s brother-in-law asked Chris for his card to get in touch with him and see him another day when he had more time. Then John invited him to take a tour of Robin Island. You’ve never heard of Robin Island? Better, perfect. Know why? Because it’s the best-kept secret in the country. And before he could react, they were on the ferry headed to the island. Chris accepted because his business was expanding and he was trying to put down roots in the states surrounding Rhode Island.
He came over, put out his hand, and introduced himself:
“Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Chris Williams.”
“Barbara,” I said to him, shaking his hand, not getting off my horse. I felt safer up there. “So how did you end up here in front of my mill?”
On the way to the port, since he had a good bit of time, he decided to take a walk around and got hooked on the island, enchanted by its landscape and how peaceful it was. He traveled a lot and knew a lot of places, but the island captivated him in an unforeseen way. It was familiar and exotic at the same time, different but recognizable, cozy. “A little like my wife,” he blurted out, as if he wanted to avoid having me get the wrong impression, which I thought was charming and actually did relax me. Before he knew it, he no longer had time to catch the last ferry. John’s wife had insisted he stay and spend the night in the inn. A star like you gets the suite with the Jacuzzi, she had said.
“So instead of going back there and wrestling with all the excess hospitality from John and Karen, I’ve snuck onto your farm without permission.”
Then I got a message from my father saying that our pony Snow White had just given birth.
“I’ve got to take off, we have a little one coming,” I said by way of goodbye. “Oh, and by the way, wander around as much as you want. Make yourself at home. The sunset is spectacular from here.”
I liked him, and he liked me. A pleasant first meeting, friendly, innocent.
* * *
I didn’t know how long it was that I went without hearing anything from him. He reminded me of our first meeting, even his name, which I had forgotten, despite the fleeting attraction I had felt. “It’s been a month and a half. My name’s Chris. And yours is Barbara.” He also remembered Snow White and wanted to know how the foaling had gone. I told him very well and that if he was interested, I’d show him the result. It was then that he met Panda. “He looks like a panda,” he said.
“That’s why his name’s Panda,” I answered. “The mother’s white, hence Snow White, and his father, Batman, is black. He got the best of both worlds.”
Chris told me the reason for his visit. Keith had called him a month after the first meeting, finally having decided to redo the tennis court. Chris had just been there, and Keith had proposed he do it in secret, to surprise John, because John loved tennis and would probably end up being the one who used it most. Chris thought it was a great idea because it saved him from having to deal with John. Poor guy, don’t get me wrong, I like him, he’s a good guy, but . . . you know, he’s a little possessive, he said as an excuse. While he was on Napoleon Island, Chris had taken an interest in its origins and the life of Napoleon LeCaptain. Keith had told him the strange history of the architect and his dream of making the island a retreat for his family and the coming generations. Chris was particularly fascinated by the pains LeCaptain took to keep it a surprise and how he worked things out so that neither his wife nor anyone in his family would find out about anything. He did it with the help of his friend John J. Bresnam and his boys from the fire department in New York’s eighth precinct, whose station Napoleon had designed and built.
Chris told me that the day we met and he first set foot on the island had been complicated, tedious. But that the walk he had taken around the horse ranch had struck him as a well-deserved reward. He had discovered a marvelous place to bring you to one day, you and your daughter, and he’d decided not to tell you about it, because he wanted to surprise you and because your daughter had a weakness for horses in general and particularly for ponies.
“My problem is I have trouble faking. I don’t like to lie, in part because you can always tell. Especially Alice. She always catches me. Alice is the all-seeing eye: nothing escapes her attention, and our daughter Olivia has inherited that. They’re very similar, too much so. So to lie to her, I’m going to have to lie to myself first, believe my own lie, because if I don’t, it’ll be obvious.”
Then he mentioned Napoleon LeCaptain again and how he’d been a source of inspiration for him. That and my farm, my wild horses, my ponies and seeing the sunset from the old mill that was damaged after Hurricane Sandy passed through. He told me he’d had an idea, a dream, and he just needed to know if it was possible; if not, he’d understand completely, and he’d banish it from his mind. That’s why he told me everything all at once, because he didn’t think he could keep it all secret much longer without you finding out. I was really intrigued by what he had planned. I encouraged him to keep talking, to tell me what he had in mind.
Chris told me that WTT, his business, was his great professional project, but that for months he’d felt something was missing. He’d been playing competitive tennis since he was six. That had turned him into an adrenaline junkie, craving competition, status, risk-taking, cutting loose, effort, victory, defeat. All that, for him, was summed up in one word: passion. He needed to get it back, and he didn’t know how until he found himself on the path at the farm, walking among the dunes until he reached the mill, right when the sun was going down. And once he told me that, Chris stopped beating around the bush.
“I don’t know if that pony Panda is for sale. I’d love to give her to my daughter.”
“She’s still really young. She hasn’t been weaned yet.”
“I figured. I’m not in a rush. The pony’s just a part, a fairly small part, of the surprise I have in mind. Because what I really want is to buy the mill from you. Rehab it by hand, without anyone’s help, as a personal challenge and because the fewer people get mixed up in it, the better. Do it little by little, in the gaps between my business trips, behind my wife and my daughter’s backs. Make it a home. Our castle, our second home, our retreat, like Napoleon LeCaptain did. A place where we can spend happy times and my daughter can ride her pony. Thinking about that, about making that moment happen, inspired me. So if all this really seems viable to you, I’ll tell you how I’d like to go about it. I’ll need a battalion chief, just like LeCaptain had John J. Bresnam.” He paused, then he added: “And that’s where you come in. Barb, would you help me to be invisible?”
