It took her a moment to realize what she was listening to, how it was possible that she was hearing her voice. Her mind rewound rapidly, her life playing in reverse until she recalled with cinematic clarity the phone call she made from the pay phone on that street in Miami. She remembered Hannah’s face in the window of the diner, she remembered the morning sun’s heat against her skin, and she remembered the Dackard’s answering machine clicking on before Ron answered.
It was Tim’s voice she heard next. “Remember that, Mary? Gail plays it for Ron sometimes. When he’s acting like a dick. She wouldn’t let me have it at first.” He waited for a moment for Mary to speak, but her voice had left her. “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”
“I can get you money, Tim.”
Tim snickered. “I don’t need money, Mary.”
“Your parents kicked you out.”
“Ron doesn’t call the shots anymore. I’m back in Miami. Gail says hi.”
Mary was silent. She could picture Tim’s face, his thin-lipped sneer.
“Anyway, I’m going to give Patrick a call tomorrow. He gave me his number, remember? So my dad could call him about his company.” Tim was smart to go directly to Patrick. He knew that Stefan could be manipulated by Mary. But not his father.
“Tim—”
“And you thought all I had was pictures.” His voice was venom when he spoke again. “You thought you were so fucking smart, Mary. You thought you had everyone fooled. I knew the whole time what you were doing. I knew the whole fucking time. I was watching you, Mary. I was watching you.” And whether he was there or not, Mary pictured Tim crouched outside Ron Dackard’s office that night, peering through the slit in the doorway. “Everyone’s gonna know what you are,” he said.
Then the phone went dead.
She stood outside for several minutes staring at the empty illuminated decks of her neighbors against the indigo sky, their duplicative sameness like a hall of mirrors. She felt her heartbeat start to quicken, her breath turn shallow as she looked at them. There was no variation in their presentation, no exit. No egress. The Kellys would know what she had done. Tim had won. By the time she went back inside, that certitude had burrowed inside her like ice into rock—a trickle finding its way into a fissure then expanding.
In the living room, Stefan was still on the couch. “Who was that?” he asked, a book on his chest, the room illuminated only by the lamp beside him.
She looked at him for a moment, at the solidity of his form, then she crawled on top of him, rising up the length of his body on the couch. “That was nobody,” she answered. “Just someone selling something.” He dropped the book to the floor and moved his hand to her lower back.
Mary angled her head to look at his face. “Stef,” she said. “Can we go to the boat tomorrow?”
Stefan’s hand slid up Mary’s back into the tangle of her hair. “Sure. We can do that.”
“Let’s go all day. Let’s go early then spend the night.”
“We can do that,” he said, not understanding what he was saying. Not knowing what would come next.
Twenty
1983
The sun hadn’t yet reached center sky when the Blazer beat over the crushed gravel of the long road that led to the marina. The truck crested a hill and the ocean burst into view, its waters dotted with white boats, its shoreline anchored with tastefully grand homes.
“Look at how pretty it is here,” said Mary, as her eyes lingered over the sapphire blue bay, her elbow resting on the open window. She felt the sun on her skin, felt it warming her hair. “It’s like a fairy tale.”
Mary slid the Blazer into the spot next to Stefan’s and looked out through the windshield. Stefan was on the boat already, his feet moving nimbly over the vessel as he prepared for a day at sea. He lifted his hand and waved at the girls, and Mary gave him a radiant flash of a smile, raising her slender arm in the air to return the gesture. Then she turned to Hannah. “Come on,” she said. “It’s going to be such a pretty day.”
She walked around to the back of the Blazer and opened the tailgate, pulling out a small tote bag that sat next to large overstuffed black duffel bag whose presence was like a vacuum, something with the power to devour. She wondered when Tim would call Patrick. The onslaught of the truths would be like relentless waves, knocking and knocking and knocking her down the moment she found her feet to stand back up.
“Hannah Banana!” she heard Stefan call from the boat. “I need some help over here!”
Mary slammed the tailgate, letting her fingers linger on the metal. “Go help him, Bunny,” she urged.
If there was a day made for sailing, it was this one. The wind blew steady and sure from a cloudless sky. Mary closed her eyes and turned her face toward the sun, feeling the spray from the shimmering sea as the boat charged through it. And she realized how much she relished this distance from land. How much she loved the boundlessness of water.
“If I died today, I would die happy,” said Mary, her eyes still closed, the skin of her bare back sticking against the cushion of the seat.
In front of her, Stefan stood at the wheel. “Don’t say that, Mare.”
“I’m just saying that I love this.” She opened her eyes and reached for him, the flash of his figure against the sea and sun.
Stefan looked back at her, then his eyes moved to Hannah. “You think you can be the captain for a second, Banana?”
Hannah stood and cautiously made her way up to Stefan. “Here you go,” he said, holding the wheel steady as she put her hands on it. “Just like that. Nothing to it.”
Stefan sat down next to Mary, keeping his eyes on Hannah as the thrill of being at the helm of a boat turned her face to sunlight as she glanced back to Mary and Stefan to make sure they were watching her.
They stayed at sea until the sun started to sink below the sky, throwing its arms up into pools of color. The boat slid into its slip just as the last bit of light was wrung from the day. That night, the three of them sat with their legs splayed open on the bow of the boat, eating bread and cheese and tomatoes and green beans, snapping off the tops and throwing them into the water. Stefan opened up the lid of his red cooler, tossing Hannah a Coke and Mary a beer. “Can I have a soda instead?” asked Mary, as she passed it back.
And when the sky was an inky blue, Mary and Hannah lay with their heads on Stefan’s stomach as they looked up at the pavé stars.
“You can see why humans used to believe in deities,” said Stefan.
“Used to?” said Mary. She remembered driving through those small southern towns, watching women in pastel dresses and men in light gray suits funnel into morning services, fanning themselves with the photocopied program while greeting one another. “Lots of people still do,” said Mary.
“What’s a deity?” asked Hannah.