by Merry Jones
Probably it was really a maid.
“Elle? What’s going on?” Susan’s cell phone rang and she grabbed it.
I closed the hallway door, felt her watching me.
“Yup, she’s here.”
Damn. Alain was calling.
“No, she’s fine. Want to talk to her?”
I shook my head, no. Violently. But she held out the phone, scowling, and mouthed, “What’s wrong with you?”
I put my hands up and backed away, refusing the phone, whispered, “Tell him I’m asleep.”
She let out an exasperated breath. Mouthed, “Why?”
I kept shaking my head.
Susan glared at me. “Alain? I just peeked into her room and she’s asleep. Want me to wake her?” Susan paused. “Okay. Sure. That’ll be fine.”
I stood motionless, listening. Feeling my face get hot.
When the call ended, Susan turned to me, hands on her hips. “Want to tell me what the hell’s going on?”
We sat in the living room. Susan brought the pineapple slices and munched as I talked. I spoke in a hushed tone, didn’t want to involve Jen if I could avoid it. Alain was her surgeon, after all. I told Susan about the maid’s uniform and the wig. Reminded her about the maid in Greta’s room.
“That’s it?” She crossed her arms.
No. “Listen, Alain had had affairs with both Claudia and Greta. And his wife might have found out.”
“But you said she’s an invalid.”
“Yes, and Alain blames himself for that. The accident was his fault, so he blames himself for her condition.”
“Sorry.” Susan shook her head. “I’m lost. What does that accident have to do with a maid’s uniform?”
I explained my theory. That Alain himself might be punishing the women who attracted him, might be acting out his disabled wife’s jealousy and anger. I told her about finding shawls and scarves, and reminded her of the intruder who’d ripped off Jen’s bandages.
Susan blinked at me. “So you’re saying Alain dressed up in shawls, broke in here, and attacked his own patient. Because—why? Are you saying he’s attracted to Jen?”
“Maybe. Susan, I don’t know. But I swear. Something was off at his house. There wasn’t a single photo of his wife. She had no personal items like tweezers or nail files. And, come to think of it, there was no wheelchair. No hospital bed or bedpans. Nothing installed in the shower for someone—”
“Elle, what in God’s name are you saying?”
Good question. For a moment, I couldn’t articulate it. But I realized that the house gave no indication that a handicapped person actually lived there, even part time.
“What do we know about Alain’s wife?” I asked. “Do we know anything about the accident? What happened to her?”
“All I know is what you’ve told me.”
“Alain said she’s been staying at the clinic. But what if it’s not because she’s disabled? What if it’s worse? Like she’s in a coma? A vegetable?”
Susan frowned, looking doubtful. “Elle, are you hearing yourself? When’s the last time you met with your shrink?”
“What?”
“I think you might need some help. You’ve been through a lot, and with your disorder—”
“Susan. This has nothing to do with my disorder.”
She leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Fine.” She let out a sigh. “Then consider this. You don’t know that anything you’ve just told me is based in fact. But if Alain’s wife is indeed in a coma, which we have no reason to suspect, her condition might explain why there’s no need for equipment for her at home. And it still wouldn’t imply that Alain has been dressing up in women’s clothing and committing murder.”
She went on, but I didn’t hear her. Charlie was standing in the kitchenette, munching discarded pineapple pieces, listening to us talk. I closed my eyes, but when I opened them, he hadn’t gone away. What was he doing there? He didn’t say anything, just stood there, watching me with a twinkle in his eyes. Except that, obviously, he wasn’t watching me. Wasn’t there at all. I was conjuring him up again. Why was I doing that? What was my mind trying to tell me? I stared at him, missing him, wishing that he weren’t dead.
But he was.
Oh, wait. Was that it? Had Charlie shown up to indicate that Alain’s wife was like him? Also dead? I remembered seeing Charlie on the beach with a woman. Had that woman been Mrs. Du Bois? Had she been killed in the accident? Had it even been an accident?
Oh God. Had Alain deliberately killed her? Had his guilt about killing her driven him to incorporate her identity and kill women he cared about, depriving himself of love, punishing himself. And, in a way, avenging her death. Like our intruder had said: “Quiero la venganza.”
Had that intruder been Alain?
Susan was still talking. Telling me that I’d had a traumatic week and it had affected my thinking. Advising me to see the therapist when I got home. Assuring me that not everything was as bizarrely awful as I seemed to think. That not everyone was a maniac like Melanie had been. That Alain was a decent, reputable guy who’d taken an interest in me, though God alone knew why.
I tried to listen. Susan stopped when Jen came in from the balcony. “What’s going on?” she plopped onto the sofa beside me, smelling like coconuts. “You guys look deep.”
Susan’s eyes remained on me. “Alain called,” she said.
I tensed, opened my mouth to stop her, but she went on. “He won’t be by until this evening. Something came up at the clinic, and he’s been delayed.”
“Why’d he call your cell and not mine?” Jen pouted. “Does he think you’re our fucking mother?”
Susan was still watching me. “Well, he wouldn’t be far off. Someone needs to take care of you kids.”
Jen picked up a pineapple slice. I leaned back against the cushions. Susan thought I was going crazy. Charlie winked from the kitchenette. Maybe I was.
Becky’s eyes were red and swollen, her nose stuffed. She came into the bedroom while I was folding clothes to put in my suitcase.
“Want to talk?” I asked.
She shook her head, no. “I’ll just cry more.” Her chin wobbled.
I hobbled over to her, put my arms around her. Gently, she pushed me away.
“Don’t be nice to me. It’ll make me cry. I’ve got to stop. It’s so stupid. All I do is cry.” She turned away, opened a bureau drawer. Pulled out a souvenir t-shirt. Stared at it. “I can’t do this.” Tears spilled down her face. “I can’t.”
Oh Lord. Becky usually went through men like a shark through water. No, that was too harsh. More like a dolphin. Men were drawn to her and she liked them, at least until they got serious, and then she discarded them lightly. This time, though, she seemed smitten. Chichi, just as Madam Therese had predicted, had captured her heart.
I took her hand. “Can I do anything?”
She bit her lip. Shook her head. Looked at me and opened her mouth. “Elle, you look terrible.”
I nodded. “You do, too.”
We looked at each other, both disheveled, miserable messes. And even as tears dripped off her face, we burst out laughing. Neither of us could stop.
“What a vacation,” she could hardly get words out. “I fell in love with—” She had to stop and catch her breath. “With the pool guy.” She sat on the bed, convulsing as if she’d just said the funniest thing ever. “And you—”
“And I nearly—” This time I paused for breath. “—I nearly got killed.”
“Twice.” She held up her fingers because she was laughing too hard to talk.
Twice, yes. How hysterical. Uproarious. My ribs raged, but Becky and I rocked, howled, stopped only to inhale. We looked at each other and started laughing again. When the fits finally subsided, we lay side by side on Becky’s bed, spent.
“What the hell was that?” Becky wiped her eyes. “A case of the opposites? I’m so unhappy that I laughed?”
“Catharsis.” I stared at the ceiling.
“A release of pent-up emotions.”
“So we should feel better now?”
I didn’t answer. My body throbbed and my head was empty.
“Because you know what? I kind of do.”
She did?
“I do. Yes. It’s not like I’m over Chichi or anything. It’s just that I feel emptied out. Like I can’t cry anymore, at least not right now.” She looked at me. “How about you?”
Me?
“Do you feel better?”
I thought about it. Did I? Looked over at my half-filled suitcase. In one day, we were leaving. Going back to cold weather. Christmas. In a few weeks, my semester off would be over. I’d be back at work, teaching second graders. My leg would be healed, my scabs gone. This place and everything that happened here—love, adultery, obsession, murder, and attempted murder—would be just memories, shared among friends.
“I do,” I told her. And I did.
We got up and packed. Aromas drifted in from the next room where Susan was cooking steak fajitas. The four of us would have dinner together. Life was beginning to feel normal again.
All we had to do was get through one more night.
We ate on the balcony, looking at the ocean. Jen was upset that she was still sore, and her swelling and bruises hadn’t completely disappeared.
“You’re healing fine,” Becky said. “You’ll look perfect in a couple weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?” Jen pouted. “I want to be perfect tomorrow. When Norm sees me, I want him to be frickin’ blown away.”
“Oh, trust me. He will be,” Susan said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means he’ll be blown away. He’ll think you were hit by a truck.”
Jen sipped sangria. “Damn. I bet you’re right. Especially if he sees Elle and me together.”
Everyone made comments about what Norm might think if he saw us together: We’d been in a pileup on the alligator slide. We’d slammed into each other water skiing in opposite directions or been mistaken for piñatas. Bottom line: we both looked like escapees from a trauma ward. I looked a lot worse than Jen. As the day went on, the scabs on my cheeks and arms became darker and crustier. But at least my injuries had been free.
Becky chattered about Chichi, about saying good-bye. Jen and Susan gave her useless advice. She left us to be with him one last night.
The sun was setting, the air chilling. Alain was expected shortly. I told myself not to be nervous about it. Even if he’d murdered his wife—which he probably hadn’t—it wasn’t my problem. His wife, dead or alive, had nothing to do with me. And neither did he, really. I was leaving. Our relationship—if I could even call it that—was over. Susan had been right; I’d been traumatized, overly suspicious. I’d invented sinister motivations and exaggerated the significance of details when, in fact, I should simply have been flattered that Alain had been interested in me. Hell, because of Alain, my vacation hadn’t been a complete wreck. He’d stitched my wounds after Melanie. And he’d been the first man I’d slept with after Charlie.
Charlie. I thought of him as I watched the ocean, the rosy glow of sunset. Recalled how he’d come to me when I was drowning, declaring his love. I drank sangria. Drifted. Saw Luis strolling near the pool, his arm around a matronly woman. He nuzzled her neck. A pelican flew overhead. At some point, someone knocked. Not Alain. A nurse, explaining that Alain had sent her. She went with Jen into the bedroom.
And then, while Susan made coffee, Alain finally arrived. He didn’t ask for Jen. Didn’t talk to Susan. He came directly to the balcony, carrying a couple of Coronas, looking for me.
“Are you all right?” He looked haggard.
“Of course.” I leaned against the railing. “Don’t you need to see Jen?”
“I will. She just needs a discharge signature.” He opened a beer, handed it to me. “What happened, Elle? I got worried when Ana said you’d gone.”
I didn’t answer. Looked at the ocean. Swallowed some Corona.
“As it turns out, it was just as well you didn’t wait for me. I had to be at the clinic all day.” He moved closer, took my hand. Kissed me.
For a minisecond, I grimaced. Alain didn’t seem to notice because I caught myself and covered my reaction, overdoing it, returning the kiss a little too enthusiastically. It didn’t matter, though. It was just a kiss. I’d already kissed him dozens of times. One more wouldn’t matter.
We stood at the railing, silent for a moment. He pulled on his beer.
“Elle—” he began just as I said, “Alain—”
We smiled, exchanging “you go first,” and “no, it’s okay, go ahead” until, finally, he began.
“Has Sergeant Perez been in touch?”
I grabbed the railing. “No. Why?”
He took a breath. “There was an incident at the clinic today. He thought there was a connection to what happened.”
An incident? “Was someone killed?”
He waited a beat. “Someone was hurt. Actually, two people.”
Two of his post-op patients had been attacked much the way Jen had. While they were sedated, their bandages had been ripped off, dressings messed with. He’d spent the day fixing the damage, calming patients, talking to Perez.
“Did the staff see who did it?”
“No one saw anyone who didn’t belong there.”
Of course they hadn’t. Because they wouldn’t be surprised to see Alain. Doctors would be expected to check in on sedated patients.
“It must have happened early this morning, after the night nurse made rounds.”
Alain had gone in early. Stop it, I told myself. The man wouldn’t attack his own patients. Even if he had, would he simply scrub up and fix them again? Would he be able to change so quickly from his wife’s persona back to his own? Wouldn’t he remember what he’d done? Wouldn’t it frighten him? I eyed him, looking for signs of remorse or fear. Saw only exhaustion. A tired man drinking a beer.
“I found the maid’s uniform.” I hadn’t planned to say that, it just came out.
“Sorry?”
“In your wife’s room. There’s a maid’s outfit. From the hotel.”
He seemed impatient. “Elle? I don’t see what that—”
“Why would there be a maid’s uniform in there?”
“I don’t know.” He paused. “Maybe it’s Ana’s.”
Of course. Ana’s.
“Tell me about her.” I persisted, pushing to see if he’d snap.
“My wife? You want to know about Inez?” He cleared his throat. Stalling? Planning what to say? “Honestly, I’ve had quite a day. Can we just relax?”
“Her name is Inez?” I’d never heard it before.
Alain’s eyes shifted, became flat and stony. “I—honestly, I don’t like to talk about her. Okay, fine. What do you want to know?”
I faced him. “What’s she like?”
He smiled, staring into air. “Beautiful. Inez was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
Was? As in, she isn’t anymore? Because she died in the crash?
Alain chugged his beer, finished it. Looked out at the water. “Elle, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never said to anyone.” He paused. Reconsidering? About to confess? “The women I work on—the hundreds of noses, chins, cheeks, breasts, eyelids, lips—whatever. All of them are modeled after Inez. That’s how beautiful she was. I take average women and turn them into copies of her.”
What? “I don’t understand.” Didn’t want to.
“I try to reproduce the perfect ratios and symmetry of her features. Or course, none of them end up comparable to her. They never get the whole package—not her bone structure or alignment. Most get only one or two of her elements.”
I couldn’t speak.
Alain’s eyes were on me but he wasn’t seeing me anymore. He smiled sadly, shook his head. “It’s a terrible joke, isn’t it? All the women I’ve treated. I’ve gotten rid of scars, erased wrinkles, improved figures, created exq
uisite faces. But when it came to the woman I cared about most, I could do nothing. I couldn’t repair her.”
He clutched his empty beer bottle, his jaw rippling. I took a step back. Had I been right? Had Alain been so devastated about his wife that he’d taken on her persona? Become frustrated with the women he’d molded to look like her?
“Where is Inez now?”
“Now?” It was almost dark, but I could see his blank eyes. “I told you. She stays at the clinic. In a private suite. She’s not well.”
“Is she conscious?”
The question seemed to surprise him. “Conscious? Why would you ask?”
Why? How should I explain? Because there were no tampons in your house? Because I didn’t see a bedpan? Because I suspect that you might have killed her?
“I just wondered.”
Alain looked at the horizon. “She has moments of clarity. In between, it’s as if she’s gone. Her skin was like flawless porcelain. Her features were in perfect proportion, the epitome of the feminine aesthetic. But in a single instant—a mere moment of carelessness, it was gone.”
Gone? So she was dead or comatose? I’d been right? I didn’t know what to say, felt cruel for having opened the Pandora’s box that was Alain’s conscience.
“It’s surprising,” he talked to the distance, “how fragile we humans are. We can shatter so easily.”
Was he talking about his wife or himself?
“Alain, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked—”
“No, no. I’m glad you did.” He took a breath and his eyes came alive again. He set the beer bottle down and took my hand. “You have a right to know, given what’s passed between us.”
I stood still, not wanting to arouse the jealousy of his other self. Took a swig of beer.
“Here’s the situation, Elle. My wife won’t recover. I won’t divorce her because, as I’ve said, her condition is my fault. I can’t abandon her.” He lifted my free hand to his mouth, kissed it.
I stiffened.
“I have no right to ask this. I can’t offer you marriage or a future. But you’re not like other women, Elle. You are a complete person, comfortable in your skin. You don’t need me to fix or change you. You don’t expect me to be God. You let me be who I am, flaws and all.”
