Just Fall (14 page)

The fairy giantess doesn’t look up, remains slumped over her untidy desk.

Ellie knocks lightly on the doorjamb. Nothing. Ellie knocks again, harder, and the pile of mail slides off the ledge of the Dutch door, skidding in every direction.

The fairy giantess jolts back abruptly, a startled look on her face, her eyes careening around madly to find the source of the interruption. It is only then that Ellie realizes the woman has been asleep.

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you? I wanted to see if there was a room available.”

The fairy giantess exhales and surveys Ellie through narrowed lids.

“Not asleep.” But as she says it, she wipes a string of drool from the side of her mouth with one hand and some sleep sand from her eyes with the other. “How long do you want the room for?”

“Tonight. Maybe longer.”

“One twenty-five.”

Ellie digs into her beach bag and pulls out her wallet. Counts the money out in cash. The hulking woman’s eyes narrow again and then widen.

“Any other luggage?”

“No.” Ellie pastes a persuasive smile on her face but doesn’t elaborate. One thing she has learned in the last two days is that less is more when it comes to explanations. People often don’t press, surprisingly, and she has come to realize that there is a kind of power in withholding. Plus, everything she says these days is a lie. And if one tells fewer lies, one is less likely to trip oneself up. Maybe that is why Rob has always been so tight-lipped about his past.

The fairy giantess hands her a key attached to a plastic fish. “Room 6.”

Ellie takes the key and turns to go.

“Wait a minute!” the fat woman barks at her and Ellie nearly faints from terror. “You need to register.” She pushes a dog-eared ledger book over toward Ellie. “Name and home address. And I’ll need to see your passport.”

Ellie hesitates, can’t help the flush that spreads across her face and chest. Once again the fat woman’s eyes narrow and then widen.

“It’s okay, cupcake,” she says. “If it’s a man you’re hiding from, you’re good here.”

Ellie stays silent. This woman could work for Quinn for all she knows. She could be one of the pairs of eyes Gold Tooth threatened were everywhere. The fairy giantess gives Ellie another appraising look and continues.

“No luggage, paying in cash, that scared rabbit look. Listen, I’ve been there. Husband?”

Ellie nods, and to her horror, a hot tear creeps from the corner of her eye. The fairy giantess pulls the register back toward her and slams it shut. “Never you mind, then. My name’s Lou, if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Lou.”

Ellie turns away again. Lou calls after her, “Whatever your trouble, know it will pass. It always does.” Lou’s tone is genuine and unexpectedly compassionate. As Ellie makes her way down the hall to room 6, her eyes suddenly brim with tears. Her husband is missing, her entire life trashed, she has killed a man, for Christ’s sake, but it is the simple (and possibly feigned?) kindness of a hulking fairy giant of a woman that finally brings down her defenses.

She turns the key in the lock and enters the room, closing and locking the door behind her. The room is surprisingly clean even if its décor is graying and faded. A so-tacky-its-funny print of leaping fish hangs brightly over the bed. Ellie flips on the ceiling fan and its breeze eddies the pale green curtains at the window.

Ellie looks out the window and down at the street. Crazy B, the drug dealer, flits from one tourist to the next, a bee scavenging flowers for pollen. Dogs loll in the hot sun, tongues spilling from their open mouths. A toddler in a bright pink sundress stumbles and falls, erupting in indignant wails as soon as her butt hits the ground. The little girl’s mother scoops her up, offering soothing comfort. Ordinary life. Mocking her. Ellie draws the curtains tightly closed.

She lies down on top of the floral bedspread, and stares up at the rotating blades.
Whomp. Whomp. Whomp.
Each rotation beats a tattoo. Salty tears leak from the corners of her eyes and trickle down into the crease of her neck. She covers her burning eyes with her open palms, feeling the flutter of her eyelashes against her palms. Weariness suffuses her, a heavy, bone-deep, pervasive exhaustion. What she imagines the last conscious moments before drowning must be like. How easy it is to just give up. She surrenders herself to it. Sinks gratefully into a dreamless sleep.

In the room where Ellie had dressed before the wedding, Rob popped the cork on a bottle of champagne. Ellie held two flutes at the ready. Franco’s brushes and curlers still littered the dressing table. The simple white dress sprigged with yellow daisies that Ellie had worn to travel to the hotel was draped over a chair. They were remnants from before. Now it is after.

The wedding coordinator had told them they would welcome these few precious moments alone together, after the ceremony and before the reception. She was right. Ellie was grateful for the chance to commune privately and peacefully with Rob. They could hear the chatter and laughter of their guests in the ballroom trickle and swell. Rob poured them each a glass of bubbly. Ellie checked her watch. Eight more minutes to their grand entrance. She raised her glass to clink it against his.

“Let’s just go,” Rob said abruptly.

“It’s not time yet.”

“No. I mean leave. Just the two of us. Let’s walk out without saying goodbye. Let’s just disappear.”

Ellie laughed. “My mother finally got to you, huh?” She saw the stricken look on his face. “Rob, darling, there are a hundred and eighty-seven people out there waiting to celebrate with us. We can’t just walk away. Relax. The party will be fun. And then tomorrow—it’s just you and me and sea and sand.”

She straightened the single white rose pinned to his tuxedo lapel. Then, joking, hoping to lighten his suddenly somber mood, “I thought cold feet came before the marriage part, not the party part.”

She kissed him. He lost himself in the softness of her mouth, the tenderness of her embrace. Then he pulled away.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me—”

“I hope so.” Ellie laughed. “It would be a pretty dull next fifty years if I knew everything already.”

“I’m serious. I’ve done things.”

“Okay, Mr. Mystery. What’s the worst thing you’ve done? What are you hiding from me?”

No hesitation: “I’ve killed people.” He gripped her forearms tightly.

Ellie’s trill of amusement floated between them. “Okay, I am officially a-scared of you.”

Rob didn’t join in the laughter. Just caught up her hand and said softly, “So let’s just go.
Now.
” Ellie just blinked at him. Speechless. A question forming…

But then it was time. They heard the drumroll; the doors swung open.

“And now please let us welcome, for the very first time, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Beauman!”

Rob raised their clasped hands above their heads as they turned to face their guests. Ellie stared at his familiar profile. Suddenly he was a stranger.

Rob emerges into consciousness, the sticky-taffy pull of the drugs he’s been given slowing his reflexes, muddling his brain. Where is he? He would like to open his eyes, but it seems impossible just now. His lids are so heavy.

The air confounds him. It is hot and moist, although a soft breeze wafts, lightly scented: jasmine, roses, ocean. Ocean.

The realization of what he smells is a jolt. His eyes creak open and take in the room in which he lies. He struggles to make sense of what he’s seeing. The room he sees launches from solid ground into midair, an optical illusion constructed from the confluence of glass and perfect placement on the apex of a cliff. It’s spectacular. It’s wildly disorienting. As if you could walk through the room and straight off the edge of the world.

The room itself is meagerly outfitted. A couple of cheap folding lounge chairs. A camping lantern. Remnants of a few hastily eaten meals. A pile of still-bagged supplies. No one is staying here long.

He pushes himself up. Winces. His body aches, sore from the beating Quinn has inflicted. Also from however his body was transported here. Where is here? He climbs stiffly to his feet and looks out the window. The vivid tropical paradise hits him like a slap.

St. Lucia? He doesn’t remember traveling. The last thing he recalls is the suite at the St. Regis, watching Ellie walk away, uncertain if she would help him or leave him to his fate. Then bargaining with Quinn. Manipulating him, knowing that the surest way to get them down to the island was to tell Ellie to deviate from Quinn’s plan. Rob has done everything he could think of to protect her. Has it worked? Is she here?

With stiff legs and shallow breath, Rob explores the rest of the house. Glass, steel, wood, and tile, aggressively modern in design. Empty rooms, once grand in aspiration, now looted of anything of value, defaced with graffiti, littered with broken glass, dripping with water, stinking of mold. The cold, ashy remains of a fire next to a filthy mattress in one bedroom, a nest of mice in another. But he is alone. No Ellie.

Thinking about her absence is painful. So Rob focuses on the sweet. He dives into the memory of the first time he slept with her. Not in the colloquial sense—the first time he really
slept.
It had been soon after she moved in. Accustomed to sleeping alone, Rob had found it impossible to do more than doze for a few hours when he and Ellie began spending nights together. He was always on the surface of sleep, floating, buoyant, wary, never deeply under.

The day preceding this magical night of slumber had been completely ordinary. It was a Friday. Rob had gone to work, and sure he was tracking his target, but he was also putting his fine mind to work in his cover job, juggling investments, bantering with co-workers, answering calls, shooting off emails. He felt productive, valuable, as if he belonged. The fact that he even had a target was playing in the background only.

He came home to find Ellie cooking dinner, roast chicken with rosemary and garlic, baked potatoes, sautéed spinach. She’d left work a little early to surprise him, she said. They both had been working so hard, relying too much on take-out and restaurant meals. He uncorked a bottle of light red and they chatted while she put the last touches on the meal.

Together they set the table. He lit the candles while she turned on some music. The food was delicious and homey, comfort food in the best possible way. There was a second bottle of wine and vanilla ice cream doused with limoncello for dessert. They left the dishes for the morning.

They tumbled into bed early that night, tired from their work weeks, sated with good food and wine, comfortable with each other, easy. Ellie fell asleep, instantly and deeply as she usually did. Rob watched her sleep, then felt the drowsy tug on his eyes, felt himself resisting it.

When he awoke, sun was slanting through the window. He could hear the sound of water running, the chink of china and glass, Ellie singing softly to herself as she cleaned the kitchen. Rob glanced at the clock. Just after ten—he had slept almost twelve hours! He stretched his limbs, luxuriating in how marvelously refreshed and revived he felt. Repaired. Then he walked into the kitchen and led Ellie back to bed.

Now, as he finds himself in an isolated ruin at the top of the world, he thinks about the emotions that had shadowed her eyes while he told her his history—shock, compassion, revulsion, disbelief, pain, betrayal, concern, and please God, let there also have been love, he isn’t quite sure. He hopes she understands what she means to him, the change she has wrought in his miserable, corrupt soul. He hopes she has gone through with it, that she cared enough to try to save him, even as he dreads that she has, knowing what it means to cross that particular line of depravity.

He prays she will forgive him and love him, even as he prays she has walked out of the St. Regis and out of his life.

He prays she is still alive.