Unwritten

by Charles Martin

  I said the only thing I could think of. “That won’t stop the pain.”

  The sound of my voice was not what she expected. Nor was any sound. She screamed at the top of her lungs and fell backward into the boat—which was better than falling forward. She landed with a thud on the padded seats and began frantically crab-crawling backward into the cabin. Tethered to the bucket, she looked like a dog pulling against its own chain. Covered in darkness and her screaming, I pulled myself out of the water looking like the creature from the black lagoon.

  I touched a button on the dash, turning on the interior lights, so she could see me through eyes that were now the size of Oreo cookies. She’d pulled her knees into her chest and sat saying nothing. I pulled out my pocket knife, opened the blade, and was about to cut the rope that led to the bucket, but then thought better of it so I left it alone.

  Neither of us said a word for several minutes. Finally, I waved my hand across the bucket and asked the question that was bugging me. “Why this way? Why hanging and drowning? I mean, pick one or the other but not both.”

  She didn’t respond.

  I shook my head. “This is a horrible way to go. Nobody should go this way.” I shrugged. “And why are you doing this?”

  Silence. Another moment passed. Finally, she whispered, “I deserve it.”

  “Which part? The death part or the painful death part?”

  “Both.”

  “Well”—I nudged the rope and eyed the bucket—“you’re signed up to get both.” I sat down. “Look, I don’t know you, don’t pretend to know what you’re going through or anything about your life, but I do know this—I’m finished chasing you around and I’m getting off this boat. If you want to die, then die. Take a swan dive. Peter Pan yourself off the side of this boat and let the fish nibble on your body.”

  “You won’t stop me?”

  “No. I won’t. I’m not signing up to be your protector. You want to go meet God, then go meet Him.” I turned toward the bucket. “There’s your ticket.”

  I stood but her voice followed me. “And if I don’t?”

  “Take that rope off your neck, put your clothes on, and stop taking yourself so seriously. It would do you some good to realize that you are not the center of everyone’s universe.”

  She was quiet. Frozen.

  I pointed at the Pathfinder. “Let me spell it out for you. Through door number one is life. That means you come back with me. Steady is pretty good at helping people douse the fires they start themselves.” I touched the bucket with my toe. “Door number two is a cold, lonely, painful death that won’t fix anything.” I folded my arms. “Either way, it’s a choice.” The boat rocked gently in a slow moving wave. I leaned against the seat, deliberating my next question. Finally, I got around to it. “Can I ask you something?”

  She stared at me.

  “Do you really want to die or do you just not want to be you anymore?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Well, you can do one without the other.”

  “How?”

  I scratched my head. “That’s door number three.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You really want to know?”

  A nod.

  “Door number three is one-way and you can only walk through it once. There’s no reentry. No do-over. Ever. And you get to take nothing with you. You lose everything you’ve ever known. Name. Identity. Homes. Cars. Money—unless you have a bunch of cash stashed someplace. Every single tie you ever had goes up in smoke.”

  “What do you get out of this?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And let me guess, you don’t want anything, either.”

  “Nope.”

  She turned away. “Right. And I believe that.”

  “You can believe what you want, but that’s the risk you take.”

  “What guarantees me that you won’t sell my little secret someday down the road or blackmail me with it?”

  “You’re assuming I’d do that.”

  “I know men. I’ve believed in and married three of them. Steady is the only man I’ve ever trusted who hasn’t used me, taken from me, and left me with less than I started. Why should you be any different?”

  “Miss Quinn, your distrust of me has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. Think about it—I’ve saved your life twice and I don’t even know you.”

  She shook her head. “That doesn’t mean anything. I’ve been ‘rescued’ before. But in the end, every knight I’ve ever known has stormed the castle so he can name and claim his reward. So what will yours be?”

  “Think what you want but know this: I don’t want your money, don’t want to know your secrets, and don’t want to profit by whatever pain has got you in this boat and tied to that bucket. Miss Quinn, to be gut-level honest, I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  She leaned her head back and stared up. Moonlight lit her tear-streaked face. “That’d make you different.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never met anybody like me, either.”

  She wiped her nose with her forearm, stood up, and dressed. She lifted the rope from around her neck and sat twirling it around her fingers. Moments passed. “I know one thing for certain—” She rested her foot on the rim of the bucket. “A pedestal is the loneliest place in the world.” She shoved with her foot, toppling the bucket and sending it to the ocean floor without her. “And, I don’t want to be me anymore.”

  I shrugged. “Then don’t. Be somebody else.”

  “You really think it’s that simple?”

  “Never said it was simple. I said it was possible.”

  She crossed her arms, stared out across the water. She spoke, but I don’t think she was talking to me. It was like she was finishing a conversation she’d started with herself sometime in the past. “I’ve been acting since I was five. I’ve played more roles than I can count. Somewhere along the way, the girl in the dressing room became the girl on stage. No difference. And now, I don’t even know who I’m not being.” She shook her head. “I’m tired of pretending.”

  I didn’t respond. She turned to me. “How would you do it? I mean, door number three.”

  I glanced around us and chose my words carefully. “Well, I’d do it in such a way that left no doubt. That got everybody’s attention and settled it once and for all.”

  “What would that be?”

  “I’d set this thing on fire.” A long minute passed as her eyes walked up and down the lines of the boat. The pieces fell in place in her mind. She crossed her arms, and was about to say something when I interrupted her. “Remember—it’s a one-way ticket. No return trip.”

  She was quiet awhile. Finally, she turned. Arms crossed. Holding herself. “I’d like to go back now. To your boat. Please.”

  She followed me. The return trip took a while longer since I was traveling half as fast. Steady was waiting on us. We tied off, and stood on the back deck. I told her, “Your boat draws some attention. Sticks out. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to hide it in some mangroves.”

  She nodded.

  I made sure she understood. “It won’t be easily accessible. And you’ll need me to get to it, but I’ll take you anytime you—”

  “I understand.”

  Steady spoke up. “Katie—” He pulled an iPhone from inside his robe and turned it on. “You left this in your kitchen the other night. Figured you might want it at some point.” He handed it to her. “If you’re going to make an informed decision, then you should know that there are people in this world who desperately don’t want you to leave it.” She nodded as the flood of emails and texts began downloading. For the next thirty seconds it dinged, and clanged and beeped—her own private orchestra of communication. She clutched the phone to her chest, disappeared into my cabin, and shut the door behind her.

  I waited on high tide and hid her boat. I pulled it up a small creek where I had to pull back the branches to make room. There was a deep alligator h
ole in the middle that would float her boat even in low tide. That meant the creek wouldn’t be navigable but the boat would be okay. Given the bright colors, it could be seen from the sky but there was little I could do about that.

  Two long days passed in which I watched her, or for her, out of my peripheral vision. Trying to look without looking.

  She was thoughtful, deliberate. Whatever decision she made, it would not be rash. Most of the time she looked lost in conversation with herself. I paddled her to Pavilion Key and she spent the day walking across the few short beaches, arms crossed, barefooted, kicking at the sand. She stayed away from the gulf side and out of view of the occasional fishing boat. Her phone was never out of her hand. Her tether to the outside world. Every few seconds it would beep, she’d read whatever message had just come through, and then press it back against her chest having made no response.

  Back on the island, Steady took her a blanket, and talked to her by the fire. I fixed some fish tacos but she just pushed them around her plate. Steady took her a cup of mint tea around midnight, which he returned empty an hour later. They spent a lot of time talking. Mostly in hushed tones. Evidence that cutting free is painful.

  The next morning, I woke before everyone, left a note, and took Jody up Chatham River to a hole where I thought the reds might be bottled up. They were, but they were all too small. No keepers. Still too early in the season. I returned around noon and found her asleep in my cabin—or at least in there with the door shut—and Steady napping in my hammock.

  Late in the afternoon, I did something I never do. I turned on the radio. I’d been thinking about that note she left in her condo and whether her staff had found it.

  They had.

  It was all over the news. And, from what I could tell, most of the civilized world was in an uproar in a last-ditch effort to “find Katie.” I told Steady about it and he nodded. He already knew. We kept it to ourselves. She had her phone. Chances were good she already knew if she’d spent any time browsing the web. If she wanted to talk, we would, but we thought it’d be best that she make up her own mind based on what she thought, not what she thought others were thinking.

  I left again in the Pathfinder but didn’t go too far. Duck Key. Well within radio distance. In the event that Steady needed me. I dropped the power pole, stepped out of the boat and waded, throwing a plastic up under the trees. I found myself thinking about the woman. Katie Quinn. My brief encounter with the radio had been an education. Around the red carpet, they called her “The Queen.” Behind her back, “The Ice Queen.” If I’d ever seen one of her movies, I don’t remember but that’s not unusual in that I haven’t seen a movie in more than a decade. Between Steady’s story, and what I’d heard on the radio, it was obvious that she was in a league all her own. A former costar on the radio had said, “She doesn’t ‘play’ her character. She becomes her character. Makes you believe.”

  Most people would be impressed by all that and I guess on one level I was, but success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and she was right when she talked about a pedestal being a lonely place. It is. But you can’t really know that until you’ve stood on one.

  When I cranked the boat, and dialed in the radio frequency, the anchor started his broadcast by saying, “Good evening. Tonight’s one-hour special… Katie Quinn. ‘All Hail the Queen.’ ” I turned it off.

  The boat was dark. I skipped dinner and lay swinging in my hammock a long time.

  She woke me at two. I rubbed my eyes. She handed me a cup of coffee and whispered, “Can I talk with you?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She’d been crying. Arms folded. She didn’t waste time. “I was wondering if you’d walk me through door number three.” She had chosen her words carefully and the choice of “walk me through” did not escape me. Far different than “I’m walking through.” The latter is an individual pursuit. The former is a shared experience. I didn’t take it as a crutch. I had the feeling she could do most anything she set her mind to. It almost had the ring, or tone, of an apology.

  “You sure?”

  She nodded but didn’t look at me.

  We towed my boat out across the grass flats. A slow drive. Steady waited on the Gone Fiction.

  Fifteen miles out, I found some shallow water, set it in neutral, and anchored the Pathfinder. A clear night. The explosion would be seen in Flamingo, Everglades City, maybe even Naples. Once lit, there’d be no going back. The shallow water meant that it’d be easier for search and rescue to find what was left of the boat.

  I was readying to scuttle the boat when she tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you mind if we do one thing first?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  “This thing cost me almost half a million dollars. I’d like to see how fast it will go before we blow it up.”

  “Okay.”

  We lit out across a sheet of black, moonlit glass. I throttled up, pushing the lever farther forward. Pressed against my seat, we ate up the ocean. I’d never been so fast in my life. We passed a hundred miles an hour in a matter of seconds and climbed from there. The boat was heavy, around twelve thousand pounds, but when I got her to a hundred and fifty, I doubted anything but the propeller was in the water. I inched it forward, feeling the knots in my stomach. We passed 160, 170, 180. With throttle yet to go, I got scared at 193 miles per hour. My palms were sweating and my heart was racing. But not Katie. Eyes closed, she was calm. Breathing normally. Hands folded in her lap. Another millimeter on the throttle and we hit 203.

  I spoke, looking straight ahead. “Any faster and we’ll need wings.”

  She nodded and then cut her hand through the air as if to say, “Enough.”

  I circled the ten miles back and the boat came to a rolling stop next to Jody. I ran my hand across the dash. “Seems a shame to sink something so—”

  She opened her eyes. Pursed her lips. “It’s a shell. That’s all.”

  I got her settled in the Pathfinder, made some adjustments to the gas line on her boat, and was about to crank the engine when I said, “You want to say anything? If Steady were here, he would.”

  She stared out across the water, beyond where the blackness ended. She slid her iPhone out of her pocket and threw it into her boat. It landed on the floor beneath the driver’s seat. A whisper followed it. “Set it on fire.”

  We were about two miles away when almost three hundred gallons of gas ignited at once, sending her half-million-dollar boat in a million different directions. We saw the flash and heard the boom a second or two later. Flame spread across the water and burned orange and then blue while the gulf swallowed the back end of the boat. The hull came to rest on the shallow bottom while the bow pointed upward, nosing out of the water. Wouldn’t be tough to spot. Word would spread quickly.

  She spoke without looking. “How do you know so much about door number three?”

  The flames rose, shining on the water. “Steady.” The enormity of that struck me—how a name can say so much. The flames flickered. Soon, only the smoke would remain. And in an hour or so, it, too, would be gone. Like nothing ever happened. A watery grave.

  We returned from the edge of the gulf, through the gates of the grass flats, and started weaving among the mangroves. The white hull of the Gone Fiction reflected in the distance. I smelled coffee. She looked at me, tilting her head. “How long have you been out here?”

  I counted backward. “A decade—give or take.”

  “How do you do it? How do you stay out here all alone?”

  “My books.”

  “Why here? Why not some farm in the woods? A mountain cabin. Someplace on dry land. Any place but here.”

  About then, it hit me. Life as I’d known it the last decade was over. I glanced back in the direction of the smoke cloud rising above the mangroves and realized that more than just her life was going down with it. Without really thinking it through, I’d just signed up to help her figure out how to disappear. How to drop off the face of planet Earth. And when you’
re her, you can’t just do that overnight. It takes time. And it takes help. And unless I was cruel, hard-hearted, and downright mean, I was that help.

  My very private, very self-centered, very just-the-way-I-like-it life was about to get adjusted. Truth was, I knew what she needed. And, while Steady did, too, he needed me to pull it off.

  I pulled the stick into neutral, turned, and watched our wake settle behind us. The churn and bubbles spread in a V through the outstretched arms of the mangroves. The water settled. Rolling glass. A mirrored picture of the heavens. I waved my hand across our path and shook my head. “Miss Quinn… no matter how wide or deep you cut it… it has no memory. No… scar.” I pointed toward the bow. “Out here, it’s all future, no past.”

  She nodded and turned. Placing her back between her and what lay behind us.

  “I’d like it if you called me ‘Katie.’ ”

  “Katie is back there in the water.”

  She looked up at me. “So is Miss Quinn.”

  We heard a helicopter off to the southwest, flying fast. “I suppose you could change your mind and make up some story but… starting about now, the world is beginning to believe that Katie Quinn just died.”

  She reached slowly for my hand. She uncurled my fingers, spreading my palm. She traced the edges, her fingers confirming what her eyes told her. “I’m sorry about your hands… I’m very sorry.”

  We rode the last half mile in silence. I set the stick in neutral, gliding. Then cut the engine. She stood, her face two feet from mine. I felt like she needed comfort, or maybe I felt like I wanted to comfort her. I’m not sure. Whatever it was, one half of me wanted to offer it while the other doubted I was the one to give it or that she would find it comforting. I whispered, “You made one assumption tonight that may or may not be correct.”

  “Which is?”

  Steady stood above us on the upper deck, looking down. His face calm. Rosary beads draped between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. Robes flowing. Pipe glowing. Smoke trailing from the corner of his mouth. White hair flittering in the breeze. Her face was close. Sweat on her temples. Emerald green eyes. Big and round and telling. I swallowed. “That your secret is more valuable to me… than mine.”