Siracusa (18 page)

“You shouldn’t have come on the boat.”

“It fell off her finger.”

I looked back at Snow, too old and tall for Daddy’s lap, but there she sat, woeful and chastened, imitating some sculpture or other she’d seen on the trip, Finn wallowing in his moment of usefulness, petting her head.

“Bella,”
the captain said of Snow, before coming over to shrug and apologize.

“I told her,” said K.

“What?”

“She said she was a good secret-keeper so I told her.”

“You told Snow about us?”

“She asked. She said, ‘Do you love Michael?’ It’s not your fault,” she called to Snow. “It’s okay, I’m not mad.” K started sobbing.

“Drink this. Not the beer.” I gave her the flask.

She put her head back and drank it all.

“I’m very sorry.” We heard Snow’s soft voice behind us. “Please forgive me.”

K held out her arms and Snow fell into them.

There was a collective
ahhh
from the crowd. “I’ll take you for ice cream, a gelato, would you like that?” asked Kath.

Later:

When they left the boat, they walked together, K holding
Snow’s hand. Finn, who had rediscovered fatherhood, having been of some use to his daughter for a short while, limped alongside, and I lagged. Every so often K threw a look back at me—I’ve tried to remember—was it longing, beseeching, needing reassurance? Luscious. She was always luscious, especially now, wilted, vulnerable, and only wanting not to cause pain to a ten-year-old girl.

Whenever K looked back, Snow looked back too.

Last I saw of them was when I stopped at a wine store to see if they sold anything stronger.

T
HE BOAT WAS A PIE
CE
OF
SHIT
. Shredding deck, peeling sides, a cheesy orange aluminum awning, engine groaning, gears grinding. A stink too from the gasoline. Decomposing like the rest of Siracusa, which we viewed in its decrepit glory as we circled, light skating off the water, a gentle hump to the waves, views of seawalls twenty feet tall. We were four: Snow, me, Michael, and, turning up at the last minute, what a surprise, Kathy, his frisky, innocent-as-a-puppy lover. Kathy was her real name, she’d told me when we’d shared the elevator at the hotel. Was Kathy too ordinary a name for Michael? Most likely he’d shortened it. He had to turn her into something more, he turned everything into something more. On the boat she continued to play the Indiana card: midwestern rube, not calculating bitch starring in a famous author’s sex romp.

Was that scripted too? Was she in on it? Did Miss Kathy Bicks know it was making Michael’s cock hard to up the stakes? Maybe, to get hard, he needed to up them. Their affair might
have grown dull. Rote. He needed more help than he used to. Bring her to Siracusa where we’re on top of each other, where keeping Lizzie in the dark will take a viper’s skill. Danger is more erotic than sex.

I’m guessing.

On that scenic tour, Snow was their beard. I spied on them from a lookout near the liquor where a kid too young to drink, who kept a soccer ball trapped between his feet, sold beer and Coke from a cooler. I was Lizzie’s protector. It would kill her to find out, especially here far from home where nothing was certain but our friendship and that this place that had survived multiple invasions from fuck-all could survive the toppling of one marriage, maybe two.

“I didn’t expect her,” Michael told me.

Asshole. Save those lies for Lizzie. “Do you ever tell the truth? I’m serious.”

“Lizzie’s in love with you.” He never answered a question he didn’t want to, only unleashed a smile that showcased every single one of his big white teeth and rumbled on in that low seductive voice. “Sleep with her. Give her somewhere to go. Soften the blow.”

I’ve been trying.
I didn’t say that.

I stuck by the rail, looking toward the stern, watching Kathy make friends with Snow. When I was a kid, I traveled in a herd. Not Snow. Too bright, too beautiful, too fragile. This idiot Michael imported was kind to her. I had noticed that at breakfast. She could babysit, I thought, if she weren’t screwing Michael.

As his foolish lover confided in Snow, I ached for my daughter, for something so common in the life of a girl to be so rare in hers. Confidences, secrets. What did Kathy whisper after making Snow promise—
cross your heart and hope to die
?

The scream, high-pitched like a wounded animal, scared the shit out of me. Snow. Snow overboard.

Thank God not. It was Kathy’s yelp. Snow had dropped her ring while trying it on. Into the water. Gone.

Snow threw herself at me, poor Snowy sobbing with horror. For the first time in her life she’d done something careless she couldn’t take back.

I was pissed. I wanted to kill Kathy for letting Snow try it on, Michael for bringing Kathy here. Now there was another victim besides Lizzie. Snow.

A vulgar ring, Taylor told Snow later, much later, even made a joke about her doing Kathy a favor by dropping it into the deep, but Kathy thought it was beautiful. She loved it. She must have spent her life savings on it. Taylor shops, buys, wears, discards, buys more—meaningless gratification. This ring was something that made Miss Kathy Bicks think she’d landed.

Why did that birdbrain let Snow try it on? Snow would never have asked.

Then, classy kid, as soon as she had calmed down she apologized, took responsibility, and melted Kathy’s heart.

They went off for a gelato at Café Minerva. “It’s so cute there,” said Kathy. I didn’t give it a second thought. Let them go larking. Good for Snow, something normal. It wasn’t that I wanted a smoke. Okay, I lit up the second their fannies twitched
off down the street, craving that first drag that fogs the lungs and clears the head, and for the sexy little stick between my fingers. Still, it was the right call. I stand by it. Fuck Tay and fuck Dorothy.

I went to sample some Sicilian wines.

I
T WAS AN INNOCENT REMARK
buried in an otherwise rambling and ultimately hostile conversation.

I wasn’t aware I’d noticed it.

On the way back to the hotel I’d obsessed about Taylor. What a bitch. Self-centered. Controlling. I relished the thought of her parading around in a sideways top. Thank God we were leaving the next morning, going our separate ways. All I was thinking, or all I thought I was thinking, was that meant them to Ravello, us home.

I was lightheaded from three sweet killer drinks on a hot day, but that didn’t stop my raging. There would be no dinner together that night, our last night. Taylor and I couldn’t stand each other’s company.

I couldn’t bear Snow another night either. I got all twisted up about that. Is detesting a child a failure of character? Of empathy or understanding? A failure of adulthood? I relished it. Found it daring, like breaking a taboo.

Consciously I had no idea what was driving me to move
quickly, but I was too impatient for the elevator and took the stairs two at a clip. As soon as I entered our cramped, dim hotel room, I tugged Michael’s suitcase from under the bed. He’d dumped his dirty clothes in it. I felt around and found the book.

She’s brainy.
She was reading
The Red and the Black.

I flipped through to find what I knew was there—Michael’s scribbles in the margins. Not a book he’d found in a pile in the back of a bookstore. His copy from home.

How remarkable that you found that book.

That conversation plagues me still. When I’m buying a turkey sandwich at the twenty-four-hour market—that’s mostly where I buy my meals now, I’ve gone basic, given up worshipping food, it was so much a part of our life together—or getting cash at the ATM or dropping off dry cleaning, I replay my most foolish moment, my collaboration with his lies.

Not that you needed another copy, but good luck to find it here in Sicily. What are the odds?

I always collaborated with his lies, which is why, well, I had to do what I did. Ultimately.

I ripped off the cover. Shredded the pages.

Then I bolted. Out of the room, skittering down three flights, down the hall and out the doors of the hotel. I crossed the lot, the street, and, gulping breaths, thumped along the narrow sidewalk along the balustrade. The sea was churning, crashing against the rocks, sending up great sprays. As the path headed uphill, I was getting more and more winded, and then it zigzagged and went down again. I was raggedy now, almost tripping over my feet. Vespas buzzed by. I stepped off the sidewalk
to pass a bike locked onto the railing and screamed when a horn tooted, missing me by a breath. The walk leveled off and I passed a stone plateau, actually the flat stone top of a fort with a low parapet. It jutted out, and in the sea just beyond loomed Lo Scoglio. Being late in the afternoon it was shady on this side of Ortigia, all the swimmers and sunbathers leaving. I remember turning around, confused to find myself in a crowd, looking out at the stone island. People gingerly negotiated its uneven surface, crossed a short bridge to another outcropping of rocks, and, lugging towels and totes, filed along a slim metal bridge attached to the seawall, its floor a metal grate through which the trekker could see the water slosh and the bleached rocks turn black and hairy with seaweed. Michael would have hated that bridge, heights freaked him, I thought, for a second forgetting that I no longer lived in the world where his quirks mattered or were endearing. Once off the metal bridge, people bunched up and spilled around me and into the street. They were mellow, sun-stoned, toasted, some shiny with oil. A boy offered to sell me water and it frightened me, his grin, the plastic bottle in my face.

I used my hands to carve a way forward. The wind ruffled my hair. I remember because it was like a rap on the shoulder. Stop. And I did. Ahead of me, separated only by two women, one bending to fasten her sandal, Snow and Kath crossed my path. They were holding hands. I heard Kath’s loud American enthusiastic,
“Scusi, scusi,”
as they made their way to Lo Scoglio through the stream of bathers clearing off.

It might be interesting to be married to a woman who wears baggy clothes because then you’re the only one who knows the body underneath.

I burst out of the crowd and crossed the road, heading away from the sea. Before hurrying into the maze of spidery streets, I looked back. Snow was ahead now, pulling Kath along the metal bridge. Kath’s long striped shirt billowed behind her.

Michael has the same shirt, I’d told her.

That was the last I saw of them.

I
WAS VERY HAPPY
to be packing after spending the day shopping with Lizzie. I had gotten tipsy and my negative feelings about Siracusa had shown through. Given my maternal distress, I forgave myself for my outburst. Lizzie was cruel to shout that my top was on wrong. I comforted myself that at least I hadn’t been strolling around Portland. What did it matter who had seen me? We were leaving tomorrow. I never again intended to step a foot in this petrified place.

Finn could go to dinner without me. He could take Snow. He could amuse himself with Lizzie on this last night since obviously that’s what this whole entire trip was about, not Lizzie’s father. Does she think I’m stupid? Her New York superiority makes me nauseous. I grew up there. I’m as sophisticated as she is. I was sorry not to be seeing Michael again, and I liked to think, him, me. But as long as Snow had a final dinner with Michael, that was all that mattered. It was important for her to spend as much time as she could with such an impressive man.

After going to the room long enough to use the bathroom
and fix my top, I went back downstairs to the hotel’s lone computer, located in an alcove off the lobby, and after wiping the mouse and keys with Purell, I confided all in a long e-mail to April and felt much better. The computer had a European keyboard and it kept making capitals. I could not figure out how to stop it. “April,” I wrote, “this keyboard has a mind of its own.” Then I Googled Maine’s requirements for homeschooling and they didn’t seem daunting, filing forms, of course, and yearly tests Snow would have to take. There were even curriculums available. I had just gotten up from the desk when Lizzie ran by. Ran. How inappropriate to streak through a hotel, even one as puny as this. Thank God, I didn’t get up from the computer a moment sooner or I would have bumped into her.

I recoiled at the thought. It was then I realized how much I had grown to dislike her.

Back I went to the room. It amazes me to recall how peaceful I was just then, which proves you never know what’s coming. Now that we were leaving, knowing we would be out of Siracusa in less than twenty-four hours, I had to concede the room had a nice view, early for a sunset, maybe four in the afternoon, but the sky was dark and glamorously threatening. A wind was up, I could see because the ocean was all afroth and atumble, smashing against the rocks.

Even the room had its charms: the wall, a blue-gray halfway up, then a little strip of stenciling, and cream above. The window was tall with a satisfactory drape of striped cotton. As you can tell, I was in a forgiving mood.

I started packing, a serious activity, since we had dirty clothes
now, and I had packed in anticipation of visiting four cities. I needed to rotate things to the top of the suitcase and relegate the dirty clothes to the bottom. I designate certain compartments for each.

I was rolling Finn’s cranberry crewneck—sweaters are best rolled, not folded—when I realized my hands were a bit gritty. I examined my palms. Specks of dirt. How funny, there is no dirt in Siracusa. I went into the bathroom. I was about to rinse my hands when I thought,
That’s right, there is no dirt in Siracusa. It’s wall-to-wall stone
. What I mean is, if you found yourself with dirt on your hands in a cell block, you’d have to assume someone was digging a tunnel. You’d figure,
Hey, something fishy is going on
. Those brown bits looked familiar. I smelled them. Tobacco.

I rifled the pockets of Finn’s cargo shorts. Then his Dockers. I pulled the pockets inside out and did the same with his sports jacket. Flecks were everywhere.

He’d promised. He’d sworn, I think he’d sworn. He did. With Snow in my arms, he’d sworn on the grave of his father that he would never smoke again. His dad had died from it or would have if he hadn’t had a heart attack. Doesn’t smoking cause heart attacks? I believe so. He did die from it.

I expected to be crying but I wasn’t. I felt hard and angry and so unlike myself. Should I confront Finn the minute he gets here, in front of Snow? That would upset Snow. I try never to argue in front of her. Finn and I sometimes go days without speaking, but raise our voices? That’s a no-no. The smell in the
taxi to Siracusa must have been him. Perhaps not. Perhaps the driver. As you can tell, I was questioning everything. One time I told Finn never to let his brother in the car because he had stunk it up with his Camels. I bet it wasn’t his brother, but Finn.

Now I understood his friendship with Jessa. They were smoking buddies. That woman smoked while she breast-fed, and I don’t mean during the time she was breast-feeding, I mean at the very moment I’m guessing but I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s the only lobsterman, excuse me, lobsterperson who reeks of cigarettes. That is not easy to accomplish—to spend all day in the brine and smell of tobacco.

Did Lizzie know Finn smoked? Did all of Portland know? Had it been going on for years?

Most important, he didn’t care enough about his daughter to stop.

Where were they? Why weren’t they back yet?

I went down to the balustrade overlooking the sea to phone my mother and wait for Snow and Finn. Since it was windy and Siracusa is in a perpetual state of disintegration, specks of plaster and dust swirled in the air. Waves crashed with a roar. I had my phone out, about to press call, when I thought,
Don’t. With the wind and those waves, you won’t be able to hear a thing. Besides, Finn’s smoking will make Mother happy. Proof I shouldn’t have married him.
April always points out that Penelope makes me feel worse. “Has your mother ever made you feel better? Ever? In your entire life?” she asked.

Just then, as I was about to cross back to the hotel, Michael
came around the corner. I started to wave, but he took a quick look in both directions, furtive looks, it seemed. I might have imagined it. Waving felt wrong, an intrusion, but then he saw me and strolled over.

“Just trying my mother,” I said, turning off my phone. You’d think I’d have been comfortable with him after these days together, but if anything, I was shyer. “How was the boat ride?”

“Oh, fine,” he said.

“Have you seen Finn and Snow?”

“Not since.”

“He’s smoking.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t know what to do.” It surprised me I told him.

“Cigarettes?”

“Yes.”

“Do you smoke?” he asked.

“At Vassar, I used to do it now and then, but it didn’t take. I must not be an addictive type even though my roommate, MaryPat, she was southern from the same town Harper Lee was from, and . . .” I realized I’d started a story I didn’t know the end of. “Finn’s so—”

“What?”

“Immature.”

“Yeah, he is a little.” His eyes were twinkling and he had a flirty grin. I think he was attracted to me. At that moment, I felt a definite charge. “Don’t tell Finn you know.”

“Why not?”

“Ammunition,” he said.

“Ammunition?”

“You’ve got something on him, something he thinks you don’t know but you do. It gives you power. Like having an ace up your sleeve or a gun in your boot. The only kind of power worth having is secret power. When you lose it, you’re screwed.”

I was so self-conscious that I was thinking,
He’s talking to me
, while he was talking to me, you know, aware that I was having this intimate fun conversation with Michael and wishing my mother could see. I was standing awkwardly, my hand up to keep debris out of my eyes. Certainly I wasn’t my most graceful. Still, secret power? I didn’t know what he was talking about.

It stumped April too. How can you have power if no one knows about it?

“Smoking’s a vile habit,” I said. “It can kill you. It smells. He’s a father. He has responsibilities.”

“Why I’m not one. I’m going up to the room.” He looked grim now. “Last night here, thank God.”

“Do you hate Siracusa too?”

Michael burst out laughing. I joined in although I didn’t know why. He gave me a kiss on the cheek. “See you at dinner.”

“I’m not coming,” I started to say, but, as he walked away, I realized the hotel was in shadow. This was the east side of Siracusa, I should explain, which meant that the sun in the west had sunk out of sight below the height of the buildings. Where were Finn and Snow? What in the world could they be doing? Snow had no patience for her dad. He would have driven her crazy by now. She would want to be with me. I checked for a text. When I looked up, Michael was gone.

I followed him to the lobby, at least I assumed that was where he went. “Any messages?” I asked Dani.

“No.”

“Did my husband and daughter come in while I was outside?”

She shook her head.

For all I knew they had hopped a bus to Mount Etna. Finn might jump on whatever passed by. I went back outside to wait for them but instead of crossing to the water, turned left and peered around the nearest corner. Most tourist destinations—restaurants, Piazza Duomo, the churches—were this way.

I ventured down the street hoping to encounter them but kept looking back in case they pulled up in a taxi. There was a cat sitting in front of a door. An elegant cat. Way too elegant for Siracusa.
This cat wants to move to Rome
, I thought, which amused me. Slender, with a snow-white face and chest and a slate-gray back, it looked unexpectedly chic against a cocoa-colored door that, while peeling and in need of repair, still provided a lovely contrast. This cat was female, it simply had to be, with its delicate face and pointed ears, sitting with its head tilted just so as if a photographer might have positioned it. Her large gray eyes—nearly colorless—were rimmed in a thin line of black as if precisely drawn. I do my own eyes like that but prefer a smudgy look. Seeing that cat was like encountering someone from my family. I mean the Seddley side: elegant, opaque, and standoffish. I slipped my hand under its belly and lifted it to my chest. In a sudden motion, its paw shot out.

I screamed and dropped it. The cat ran off.

Very gingerly, I patted my cheek. The tips of my fingers came away dotted with blood.

I pulled out my phone for the mirror. There were three long scratches across my cheek, and here and there, as if stitched with a needle, pinpoints of blood. My face. My poor beautiful face.

I rushed back to the hotel, colliding with Finn coming in. “What the hell happened to you?” he said.

“Where’s Snow?”

“She went for a gelato with Kathy. What happened, babe?”

I started crying. “A cat scratched me.”

He patted my shoulder in an awkward way. “You should put something on that. Witch hazel.”

“Witch hazel! The only person who uses that is your mother. What are you thinking? Who’s Kathy?”

“That woman Lizzie knows. The one at breakfast.”

“But they’re not back yet. When did they go?”

“Around three. When we got off the boat.”

“But they’re not back, is she back?” I asked Dani. “You know, the young blond American woman. Always going swimming.”

“Signorina Bicks?” said Dani. “No, I haven’t seen her. I will get you some ice.”

“It’s six thirty. Snow isn’t here.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Finn. He followed me into the restroom.

“Oh my God, my face.” I dabbed at it with a towel and water. “I picked up a cat. It clawed me. This is awful. Where were you?”

“I went to Montavi Brothers.”

“What’s that?”

“Gina knows the owner. Mario Montavi, a face like a growl, sets out a glass and a bottle, a plate of tasties, crosses his arms, plants them on the table, and leans over like he’s giving them shade.”

“But I fired Gina.”

“She set me up with a wine tasting.” He stuck out his tongue, cherry red. “Fichera, a red liqueur. How to make ice cream lethal.”

“You left Snow with a stranger?”

“Michael and Lizzie know this woman.”

“They don’t know her. She works at a restaurant they go to.”

We stopped back at the desk to pick up the ice. Dani spread out a cloth napkin, plopped on some ice cubes, folded up the corners, and tied them together.

“Êtes-vous une infirmière?
”
said Finn.

Dani smiled.

I gave him a look.

“What, Penelope?”

We got in the elevator, where the mirror was huge and unavoidable. Along my right cheek, the scratches were blossoming into bright pink welts. I started to cry again.

“Use the ice.”

“I can’t feel anything through the napkin. It’s too thick. ‘Are you a nurse?’ Is that what you said? How ridiculous. And stop acting as if Penelope is the worst thing you can call me. Why are
you friendly to a hotel employee when something awful is happening?”

“You got scratched, babe. It’ll heal.”

“Snow is missing.”

“She’s having fun. She’s not missing.”

An hour later, he had to admit I might be right.