If We Were Villains

by M. L. Rio

  I flung Filippa’s foot upward and Meredith shoved her hard. She tilted immediately backward, pulling Alexander with her, and after one brief suspended moment, arms windmilling at their sides, they both crashed down in the water. Meredith and I careened to the right and I clamped my free hand on her thigh again. The spectators clapped and hollered, but I could barely hear them because Meredith was hugging my head with her legs, one hand clutched in my hair. I turned dizzily on the spot and tried to smile.

  Filippa and Alexander came up from under the water, choking and sputtering.

  “Right,” Alexander said. “Some’n gimme a drink, I’m done.”

  “I think we’re all done,” Filippa said.

  “Oh no,” Meredith said, to my dismay. “Wren said she’d play winner.”

  Colin smacked the side of the canoe. “Hear hear!”

  “I’m up for it if James is,” Wren said.

  I wiped the water from my eyes and looked at him. He sat fidgeting in the sand with a sheepish half smile. Suddenly I wanted him to play. “C’mon, James,” I said. “Let us make a fool of you and we can all go home.”

  “Go on, get some revenge for us,” Filippa said, standing on the beach, wringing the water out of her skirt.

  “Well,” he said, “if I must.”

  Wren climbed to her feet and offered James her hands to help him up. She tied her skirt in a more modest knot than Meredith’s and started into the water. Some of the spectators had wandered off, but there were about ten of them left and they called out reassurances. Meredith had begun to feel heavy on my shoulders, so I jostled her a little farther forward. She combed my hair back out of my eyes with her fingertips and said, “You okay down there?”

  “I’m too drunk for this.”

  “You’re my hero.”

  “Just what I’ve always wanted.”

  Wren waded out to where we were and said, “God, it’s cold!”

  “’Tis a naughty night to swim in.” James winced as he trudged in after her. “Let me help you up.” He crouched down as I had done, taking one of her hands as she put her leg over his shoulder.

  But before she could finish climbing on, a voice we’d barely heard all night said, “Actually, I think there’s been enough of this.”

  I turned, slowly and carefully. Richard stood on the beach, scowling.

  “You didn’t want to play,” Meredith said. “Why do you get an opinion?”

  “It’s just a bit of fun,” Wren said. She had only made it halfway up and was perched, parrot-like, on James’s shoulder. His eyes were fixed on Richard.

  “It’s fucking stupid and somebody’s going to get hurt. Get down.”

  “Come on, Rick,” Alexander said from where he was sprawled in the sand with another drink. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “You’re drunk.”

  “And you’re not?” Filippa said. “Mellow out, it’s just a game.”

  “Fuck off, Filippa, this has nothing to do with you.”

  “Richard!” Wren said. Filippa glared up at him, mouth slightly open in surprise.

  “Okay, I think the show’s over,” Colin said, sliding off the canoe. “C’mon guys, clear out.” The few onlookers left grumbled their disappointment and began to trickle away. Colin hesitated, looking from Richard to the rest of us like he wasn’t sure whether we still needed a referee.

  “Would you both stop screwing around?” Richard said, his voice carrying across the water as if it had once again been magically magnified.

  “Oh, I see,” Meredith said. “You can’t stand us having a good time because you’re busy pouting? Because you didn’t get the last bow for once?” His face went white—livid—and I squeezed her knees hard, trying to warn her not to say too much. She didn’t feel it, didn’t understand, or didn’t care. “Fuck that,” she said. “It’s not always about you.”

  “That’s rich coming from a world-class attention whore.”

  “Richard, what the hell?” A flash of anger made my head feel suddenly hot. My grip on Meredith’s legs tightened reflexively. The instinct to defend her was unexpected, unwarranted, but I didn’t have time to be confused about it. She was dangerously quiet.

  Richard started to say something else, but James interrupted. “That’s enough,” he said, and there was a bite in his voice I had never heard before. “Why don’t you take five, and come back when you’ve cooled off?”

  Richard’s eyes burned black. “Take your hands off my cousin and I’ll—”

  “And you’ll what?” Wren splashed down but stayed close to James. “What is the matter with you? It’s just a game.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Richard said, striding into the water. “Let’s play a game. Wren, move, it’s my turn.”

  “Richard, don’t be an idiot.” Meredith swung one leg off my shoulder and I grabbed her around the waist to help her down. Without her extra weight I felt like I was filled with helium. I blinked hard, trying to clear my head.

  “No, I want to play,” Richard said again. How much had he drunk? He was speaking clearly, but his movement was loose and reckless. “Wren, get out of the way.”

  “Come on, Richard, he hasn’t done anything,” I said.

  He rounded on me. “Oh, don’t worry—I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  I leaned back. I didn’t like my odds if he was determined to start a fight with someone.

  “Leave him alone,” James said, sharply. “He only played because you didn’t want to and he was trying to be nice.”

  “Yes, we all know how nice Oliver is.”

  “Richard,” Meredith said. “Don’t be an asshole.”

  “I’m not, I want to play now. Come on, I thought you wanted one last game.” He reached around Wren and shoved James backward. There was a soft splash as the water caught him.

  “Richard, stop!” Wren said.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “One more game!” He pushed James again and James knocked his arm away.

  “Richard, I’m warning you—”

  “What? I want to play.”

  “I’m not playing,” James told him, every muscle in his body taut and rigid. “Don’t fucking do that again.”

  “So you’ll play with the girls and Alexander and Oliver but not with me?” Richard demanded. “COME ON!”

  “Richard, stop!” We yelled it all together, but we’d waited too long. He shoved James again, and there was nothing playful about it. James hit the water hard, arms smacking the surface as he tried to catch himself. As soon he was back on his feet, he lunged at Richard, hit him with all his weight, plowed him backward. But Richard was laughing as the water seethed around them—he was so much bigger, it was impossible for the fight to be fair. I was moving toward them, my legs dragging, when Richard’s laugh turned into a snarl and he plunged James face-first into the water.

  “RICHARD!” I shouted.

  Maybe he didn’t hear me over James’s thrashing, or maybe he just pretended not to. He kept him under, one arm locked around his neck. James beat one fist on his side, but I couldn’t tell if he was fighting back or just fighting to get loose. The girls and Colin and Alexander crashed toward them, but I got there first. Richard shook me off and the cold water slapped me across the face, jumped into my mouth and nose. I threw myself at him again, latched on like a parasite.

  “STOP! YOU’RE CHOKING HIM—” His shoulder hit my chin and I bit my tongue hard. Colin appeared out of nowhere, hauled on the arm keeping James under as I yelled, “YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING DROWN HIM, STOP!”

  Meredith grabbed Richard around the neck, then Filippa seized his elbow, and by the time he finally let go of James we were all tangled together, the water surging around us, icy and vicious.

  James burst through the surface with a gasp, and I caught him before he could sink again. “James,” I said. “James, are you okay?” He hung on my neck with one arm, choking, water and bile coming up together and splashing down his front.

  Meredith was
pounding on Richard’s chest with her fists, screaming at him, forcing him out of the water and onto the beach. “Are you out of your mind? You could have killed him!”

  “What is wrong with you?” Wren yelled, her voice cracking, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “James?” I propped him up as best I could, my arms in an awkward loop around his ribs. “Can you breathe?”

  He nodded feebly and coughed again, eyes squeezed shut. The back of my throat felt tight, stretched like a bowstring.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Colin said, quietly. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Filippa said, from where she stood between us, gaunt and shivering. “Let’s get him out of the water.”

  Colin and I helped James to the beach, where he collapsed in the sand on his side. His hair hung limp and wet in his eyes, his whole body trembling as he breathed. I crouched beside him and Filippa hovered over us. Alexander looked dumbstruck. Colin, absolutely terrified. Wren cried silently, little hiccups making her shoulders jerk and twitch. I’d never seen Meredith so angry, cheeks burning crimson even in the weak moonlight. And Richard just stood there, bemused.

  “Richard,” Alexander said, carefully. “That was fucked up.”

  “He’s all right, isn’t he? James?”

  James stared up at him from the ground, eyes bright and hard like steel. Silence settled, and I was struck by the senseless idea that we and everything around us were made of glass. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid something might break.

  “We were just playing,” Richard said, with a thin smile. “Just a game.”

  Meredith took one step to put herself between Richard and the rest of us. “Walk away,” she said. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “Go back to the Castle and go to bed before you do something dumb enough to get yourself expelled.” She looked like a fury, eyes blazing, hair hanging in wet tangled ropes around her shoulders. “Go. Now.”

  Richard glared at her, looked around at the rest of us, then turned and trudged back up the beach. Relief rushed through me and made me light-headed, like blood flooding back to an unfeeling limb.

  As soon as he was out of sight, fading into the shadows of the trees, Meredith deflated. “Jesus.” She bent halfway over, pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, mouth twisted up like she was trying not to cry. “James. I’m so sorry.”

  He pushed himself up so he was sitting cross-legged in the sand. “It’s okay,” he said.

  “It’s not okay.” She still had her hands over her face.

  “It’s not your fault, Mer,” I said. The idea of Meredith crying was so bizarre, so unsettling, I didn’t think I could watch it.

  “You’re not responsible for him,” Filippa said. She glanced at Wren, whose eyes were fixed on the ground, tears running down her face, clinging to her chin before they dripped down into the sand. “None of us are.”

  “The night has been unruly,” Alexander said, significantly more sober than he’d been half an hour before. “God, what a shitshow.”

  Meredith finally lowered her hands. Her eyes were dry, but her lips were cracked and colorless, like she was about to throw up. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to get cleaned up and go to bed and pretend this didn’t happen for like at least eight hours.”

  “I think some sleep would be good for everyone,” Filippa said, and there was a murmur of agreement.

  “You guys go,” James said. “I just—I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “You sure?” Colin asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine, I just want a minute.”

  “All right.”

  Slowly, we straggled up the beach. Meredith went first, after one last apologetic look at James—and one, for some reason, at me. Filippa followed, one arm around Wren’s shoulders. Colin and Alexander wandered up the trail together. I lingered, under the pretense of getting the rest of my costume out of the shed. When I came out, James was sitting right where we’d left him, looking out at the lake.

  “You want me to stay?” I asked. I didn’t want to leave him.

  “Please,” he said, in a small voice. “I just couldn’t deal with the rest of them, for a while.”

  I dropped my stuff in the sand and sat beside him. Sometime during the party, the storm had passed over. The sky was clear and quiet, stars peering curiously down at us from a wide dome of indigo. The water, too, was still, and I thought, what liars they are, the sky and the water. Still and calm and clear, like everything was fine. It wasn’t fine, and really, it never would be again.

  A few stubborn drops of water clung to James’s cheeks. He didn’t quite look like himself, somehow. He seemed so fragile I was afraid to touch him. He started to say something—maybe my name—but only the ghost of a sound slipped out before he stopped, pressed the back of his hand against his mouth. My chest ached, but the ache went deeper than muscle and bone, like some sharp thing had ripped a little hole right through me. I risked reaching toward him. He let out a small shuddering sigh, then breathed more easily. For a long time we sat side by side without speaking, my hand on his shoulder.

  The lake, the broad black water, lurked in the background of every scene we played after that—like a set from a play we did once, shuffled to the back of the scene shop where it would have been quickly forgotten if we didn’t have to walk past it every day. Something changed irrevocably, in those few dark minutes James was submerged, as if the lack of oxygen had caused all our molecules to rearrange.

  ACT II

  PROLOGUE

  The first time I leave the facility in ten years, the sun is a blinding white orb in a gray dishwater sky. I have forgotten how enormous the outside world is. At first I’m paralyzed by the vastness of it, like someone’s pet goldfish dropped unexpectedly into the ocean. Then I see Filippa, leaning on the side of her car, the light glinting off her aviators. I barely resist the urge to run at her.

  We embrace roughly, like brothers, but I hold her longer than that. She’s solid and familiar and it’s the first affectionate human contact I’ve had in far too long. I bury my face in her hair. It smells like almonds, and I inhale as deeply as I can, press my hands flat against her back so I can feel her heartbeat.

  “Oliver.” She sighs and squeezes the back of my neck. For one wild moment I think I’m going to burst into tears, but when I let go of her she’s smiling. She doesn’t look any different. Of course, she’s been back to see me every two weeks since they put me away. Besides Colborne, she’s the only one who has.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “For being here. Today.”

  “My poor prisoner,” she says, laying one hand on my cheek, “I am as innocent as you.” Her smile fades and she withdraws her hand. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  For a second or two, I really do think about it. But that’s all I’ve done since Colborne’s last visit, and I’ve made up my mind. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  “All right.” She pulls the driver’s door open. “Get in.”

  I climb into the passenger seat, where a pair of men’s jeans and a T-shirt are neatly folded. I move them into my lap as she starts the car. “These Milo’s?”

  “He won’t mind. I didn’t think you’d want to show up wearing the same clothes you left in.”

  “These aren’t the same clothes.”

  “You know what I mean,” she says. “They don’t fit. You look like you’ve gained about twenty pounds. Don’t most people lose weight in prison?”

  “Not if they want to get out in one piece,” I tell her. “Besides, there’s not much to do.”

  “So you exercise incessantly? You sound like Meredith.”

  Afraid I’m going red, I pull my shirt off, hoping she won’t notice. Her eyes seem to be on the road, but her glasses are mirrored, so I can’t really tell. “How is she?” I ask, as I look for the tag in the other shirt.

  “Certainly not struggling. We don’t talk much. None of
us do anymore.”

  “What about Alexander?”

  “Still in New York,” she says, which isn’t the answer to the question I’m asking. “Took up with some company that does really intense immersive stuff. Right now he’s playing Cleopatra in a warehouse filled with sand and live snakes. Very Artaud. They’re doing The Tempest next, but it might be his last show.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, they want to do Caesar and he refuses to be in that ever again. He thinks that’s the play that fucked us all up. I keep telling him he’s wrong.”

  “You think it was Macbeth that fucked us up?”

  “No.” She stops at a red light and glances at me. “I think we were all fucked up from the start.” The car rumbles to life again, slides into first gear, then second.

  “I don’t know if that’s true,” I say, but neither of us pursues the subject.

  We drive in silence for a while, and then Filippa turns the stereo on. She’s listening to an audiobook—Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea. I read it in my cell a few years ago. Apart from exercising and hoping to go unnoticed, that’s what a fledgling Shakespeare scholar does in prison. By the midpoint of my ten-year tenure I’d been rewarded for my good (i.e., unobtrusive) behavior with a job shelving books instead of peeling potatoes.

  Because I know the story, I barely listen to the words. I ask Filippa if I can roll the window down, and I hang my head out like a dog. She laughs at me, but says nothing. The fresh Illinois air skips across my face, weightless and flighty. I look out at the world through my eyelashes, alarmed by how bright it is even on this overcast day.

  My mind wanders down the road to Dellecher, and I wonder, will I recognize it? Maybe they’ve torn the Castle down, razed the trees to make room for real dormitories, and put up a fence to keep kids out of the lake. Maybe now it looks like a children’s summer camp, sterile and safe. Or maybe it, like Filippa, has hardly changed at all. I can still see it, lush and green and wild, in some tiny way enchanted, like Oberon’s wood, or Prospero’s island. There are things they don’t tell you about such magical places—that they’re as dangerous as they are beautiful. Why should Dellecher be any different?