by Delia Ephron
Years before, at a summer party on Block Island, the guests were gathered in the garden near the Jacuzzi when a toddler fell in, and no one saw or heard but her mother. Everyone had marveled—it had produced a giddy horror—how close they came to a child drowning in front of them, unnoticed amid cocktails and chatter. How easy this could be. Lolling with K in the stern, I could point to something in the water, a silver fish, suggest Giovanni might sculpt it in gold, and when she tilted to look, roll her off. Gently. I imagined the water. Sucking her down. Its surface bubbling, then peaceful again within seconds.
Although:
She could swim, not that I knew for sure, it had never come up, but most people can, and she could yell. No, I couldn’t get away with it, I thought, when fate conspired: Italian pop music wailed over a loudspeaker.
“It’s Jovanotti. Lorenzo Jovanotti. Isn’t he fun? Isn’t his voice hot, Snow?” K reached around me to poke her. “They played this song last night at Tinkitè. Dani told me about him. He’s like as famous as Kanye.”
Music. I could pitch her overboard and, if she shouted, no one would hear.
“If I were cleaning my apartment,” said K, “I would want to play this song because it makes me so happy. Is that a ukulele? It sounds like a ukulele. You can never be sad if you listen to a ukulele.” She swayed and bounced in time.
Snow focused on the sights. She pointed, lifting only an index finger, leaving me to hazard what might interest her, this relic or that. It was a game. A flirtation of sorts. She pointed, I invented. “A rest home for ancient parrots who can say only ‘Ciao.’” “A seawall that dolphins jump onto at night to spin on their tails and entertain us.” “Why is the sea slimy green here and nearly black there? Because a mermaid named Snow sleeps on a bed of seaweed and every morning she paints the water.”
“Are you there too?” said Snow.
“At noon, I dive in.”
“What are you two talking about, if you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Shapner?” K said, and when I ignored her, a rebuke, pressed her leg against mine.
We circled the tip of Siracusa past a stone fortress, Castello Maniace, a spectacularly large and impressive turreted ruin. The Serbs alerted each other as if one could miss it. “A princess lives here,” I told Snow. “She is ten years old, her hair spun of pure gold.”
“Is it a brothel?” she asked in her whispery way.
“A brothel? No. Not a brothel.”
She slipped her arm around me. I felt uneasy then, on edge, her arm around my waist, her hand pressing the flesh on my side. The odd provocative question. Brothels? What did she know about brothels?
“Look, Lo Scoglio,” said K with a happy clap. The boat was farther out to sea on this side of Ortigia; sunbathers on the rock appeared as small as matchsticks.
“Yo, Lo Scoglio,” K shouted. “That’s the bridge.” The short metal bridge that linked the coast to the boulder appeared no larger than a Lego. “I’ll take you, Snow. So fun.”
Would have to lose Snow, the child, to get rid of K, the half child. Too complicated. Impossible.
With that I abandoned the fantasy. Reluctantly.
Although:
I would have to ditch them both to get to Finn. Finn. I glimpsed him, then and not.
Under the awning near the bow, a rippled rusting metal partition separated out an area for a bar. The flimsy wall didn’t quite reach the railing, allowing sneak peeks around it. We’d been watched. The jealous dad had been spying.
“Snow, hang with Kath a second. Kath, would you stay with this lovely creature?” I stepped back, nudged them close, and circled around the partition to Finn.
A teenage boy picking at his nails sat in a metal folding chair near an open cooler where bottles of beer and soft drinks poked out of the ice. Finn, looking out to sea, glanced back.
“Do you want a beer?” I asked.
Finn swiveled and leaned back against the railing, resting on his elbows. “A guy shows up at my joint once a week.”
“Two Morettis, per favore.”
“Stan Bajek. He brings his wife, they order steaks medium well, and every time they come, his girlfriend shows up too. She sits at the bar and watches them. At first I thought, she’s stalking him. Then I figured it out. Foreplay.”
I spoke quietly. “I didn’t expect her.”
Finn spoke quietly too. “Get her the fuck out, back to Jersey, you sick fuck, or I’m telling Lizzie.”
“Lizzie’s in love with you.” I offered a beer. Finn ignored it. I set the bottle down near him as if Finn were a pit bull I was trying to befriend. “I want her to be happy.”
Finn took a minute with that. He leaned a bit farther back over the water and looked down the railing in the direction of K and Snow. “She’s nice,” he said finally.
“Nice? Lizzie’s a force.”
“I’m talking about—” He thumbed in the direction of K. “Throw her back, the way you would a fish too small to eat.”
How had he found out? Did Taylor know too? I was surprised. Blindsided.
It was like being pickpocketed. That had happened once. Discovered it at the end of a day when I’d been on subways, battled crowds on Broadway and Sixth Avenue—did I remember a jostle on the train, what about while waiting to be seated at the Monkey Bar, always a jam there at one? Where had I been violated? In this case I could ask, give my pestering brain relief, get a clearer sense of the humiliation. Had Finn seen K and me fucking in an alley or skulking out of Giovanni’s? But asking was weakness, a wound to the ego. The man who understood edge so well he could teach a master class in it was losing his edge. “If you want to soften the blow,” I said silkily, playing the serpent, “make love to her.”
“You’re pimping out Lizzie?”
“I’m asking you to give her someplace to go when she’s done with me. Somewhere she’d rather be. Where you’d rather be. Go back in time. Make it right this time.”
Finn appeared to consider it.
It’s what you want, the serpent hissed.
A scream.
Finn sprinted, knocking me out of the way.
The man astonished himself, made him wonder forever about his own humanity, ugliness he would never confess especially given what happened later, as if it might point the finger at him, but he paused. He took another swig of beer before following.
Arrived to see Snow throw herself at Daddy. Finn lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around him.
The Serbs jammed the railing. Had one thrown K overboard? No, there she was, bent so far over I thought she was puking.
Again the man held back a beat to suggest mere curiosity, as if he didn’t really know her, she was not his to comfort.
“What happened?”
“It’s gone, Mikey.”
“Shush.”
“Oops, I’m sorry, I mean Mr.—”
“Michael is fine.”
She turned her heartbroken face to mine. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had and it’s gone. I let her try it. It was loose on her finger.”
“You shouldn’t have come on the boat.”
“It fell off her finger.”
I looked back at Snow, too old and tall for Daddy’s lap, but there she sat, woeful and chastened, imitating some sculpture or other she’d seen on the trip, Finn wallowing in his moment of usefulness, petting her head.
“Bella,” the captain said of Snow, before coming over to shrug and apologize.
“I told her,” said K.
“What?”
“She said she was a good secret-keeper so I told her.”
“You told Snow about us?”
“She asked. She said, ‘Do you love Michael?’ It’s not your fault,” she called to Snow. “It’s okay, I’m not mad.” K started sobbing.
“Drink this. Not the beer.” I gave her the
flask.
She put her head back and drank it all.
“I’m very sorry.” We heard Snow’s soft voice behind us. “Please forgive me.”
K held out her arms and Snow fell into them.
There was a collective ahhh from the crowd. “I’ll take you for ice cream, a gelato, would you like that?” asked Kath.
Later:
When they left the boat, they walked together, K holding Snow’s hand. Finn, who had rediscovered fatherhood, having been of some use to his daughter for a short while, limped alongside, and I lagged. Every so often K threw a look back at me—I’ve tried to remember—was it longing, beseeching, needing reassurance? Luscious. She was always luscious, especially now, wilted, vulnerable, and only wanting not to cause pain to a ten-year-old girl.
Whenever K looked back, Snow looked back too.
Last I saw of them was when I stopped at a wine store to see if they sold anything stronger.
Finn
THE BOAT WAS A PIECE OF SHIT. Shredding deck, peeling sides, a cheesy orange aluminum awning, engine groaning, gears grinding. A stink too from the gasoline. Decomposing like the rest of Siracusa, which we viewed in its decrepit glory as we circled, light skating off the water, a gentle hump to the waves, views of seawalls twenty feet tall. We were four: Snow, me, Michael, and, turning up at the last minute, what a surprise, Kathy, his frisky, innocent-as-a-puppy lover. Kathy was her real name, she’d told me when we’d shared the elevator at the hotel. Was Kathy too ordinary a name for Michael? Most likely he’d shortened it. He had to turn her into something more, he turned everything into something more. On the boat she continued to play the Indiana card: midwestern rube, not calculating bitch starring in a famous author’s sex romp.
Was that scripted too? Was she in on it? Did Miss Kathy Bicks know it was making Michael’s cock hard to up the stakes? Maybe, to get hard, he needed to up them. Their affair might have grown dull. Rote. He needed more help than he used to. Bring her to Siracusa where we’re on top of each other, where keeping Lizzie in the dark will take a viper’s skill. Danger is more erotic than sex.
I’m guessing.
On that scenic tour, Snow was their beard. I spied on them from a lookout near the liquor where a kid too young to drink, who kept a soccer ball trapped between his feet, sold beer and Coke from a cooler. I was Lizzie’s protector. It would kill her to find out, especially here far from home where nothing was certain but our friendship and that this place that had survived multiple invasions from fuck-all could survive the toppling of one marriage, maybe two.
“I didn’t expect her,” Michael told me.
Asshole. Save those lies for Lizzie. “Do you ever tell the truth? I’m serious.”
“Lizzie’s in love with you.” He never answered a question he didn’t want to, only unleashed a smile that showcased every single one of his big white teeth and rumbled on in that low seductive voice. “Sleep with her. Give her somewhere to go. Soften the blow.”
I’ve been trying. I didn’t say that.
I stuck by the rail, looking toward the stern, watching Kathy make friends with Snow. When I was a kid, I traveled in a herd. Not Snow. Too bright, too beautiful, too fragile. This idiot Michael imported was kind to her. I had noticed that at breakfast. She could babysit, I thought, if she weren’t screwing Michael.
As his foolish lover confided in Snow, I ached for my daughter, for something so common in the life of a girl to be so rare in hers. Confidences, secrets. What did Kathy whisper after making Snow promise—cross your heart and hope to die?
The scream, high-pitched like a wounded animal, scared the shit out of me. Snow. Snow overboard.
Thank God not. It was Kathy’s yelp. Snow had dropped her ring while trying it on. Into the water. Gone.
Snow threw herself at me, poor Snowy sobbing with horror. For the first time in her life she’d done something careless she couldn’t take back.
I was pissed. I wanted to kill Kathy for letting Snow try it on, Michael for bringing Kathy here. Now there was another victim besides Lizzie. Snow.
A vulgar ring, Taylor told Snow later, much later, even made a joke about her doing Kathy a favor by dropping it into the deep, but Kathy thought it was beautiful. She loved it. She must have spent her life savings on it. Taylor shops, buys, wears, discards, buys more—meaningless gratification. This ring was something that made Miss Kathy Bicks think she’d landed.
Why did that birdbrain let Snow try it on? Snow would never have asked.
Then, classy kid, as soon as she had calmed down she apologized, took responsibility, and melted Kathy’s heart.
They went off for a gelato at Café Minerva. “It’s so cute there,” said Kathy. I didn’t give it a second thought. Let them go larking. Good for Snow, something normal. It wasn’t that I wanted a smoke. Okay, I lit up the second their fannies twitched off down the street, craving that first drag that fogs the lungs and clears the head, and for the sexy little stick between my fingers. Still, it was the right call. I stand by it. Fuck Tay and fuck Dorothy.
I went to sample some Sicilian wines.
Lizzie
IT WAS AN INNOCENT REMARK buried in an otherwise rambling and ultimately hostile conversation.
I wasn’t aware I’d noticed it.
On the way back to the hotel I’d obsessed about Taylor. What a bitch. Self-centered. Controlling. I relished the thought of her parading around in a sideways top. Thank God we were leaving the next morning, going our separate ways. All I was thinking, or all I thought I was thinking, was that meant them to Ravello, us home.
I was lightheaded from three sweet killer drinks on a hot day, but that didn’t stop my raging. There would be no dinner together that night, our last night. Taylor and I couldn’t stand each other’s company.
I couldn’t bear Snow another night either. I got all twisted up about that. Is detesting a child a failure of character? Of empathy or understanding? A failure of adulthood? I relished it. Found it daring, like breaking a taboo.
Consciously I had no idea what was driving me to move quickly, but I was too impatient for the elevator and took the stairs two at a clip. As soon as I entered our cramped, dim hotel room, I tugged Michael’s suitcase from under the bed. He’d dumped his dirty clothes in it. I felt around and found the book.
She’s brainy. She was reading The Red and the Black.
I flipped through to find what I knew was there—Michael’s scribbles in the margins. Not a book he’d found in a pile in the back of a bookstore. His copy from home.
How remarkable that you found that book.
That conversation plagues me still. When I’m buying a turkey sandwich at the twenty-four-hour market—that’s mostly where I buy my meals now, I’ve gone basic, given up worshipping food, it was so much a part of our life together—or getting cash at the ATM or dropping off dry cleaning, I replay my most foolish moment, my collaboration with his lies.
Not that you needed another copy, but good luck to find it here in Sicily. What are the odds?
I always collaborated with his lies, which is why, well, I had to do what I did. Ultimately.
I ripped off the cover. Shredded the pages.
Then I bolted. Out of the room, skittering down three flights, down the hall and out the doors of the hotel. I crossed the lot, the street, and, gulping breaths, thumped along the narrow sidewalk along the balustrade. The sea was churning, crashing against the rocks, sending up great sprays. As the path headed uphill, I was getting more and more winded, and then it zigzagged and went down again. I was raggedy now, almost tripping over my feet. Vespas buzzed by. I stepped off the sidewalk to pass a bike locked onto the railing and screamed when a horn tooted, missing me by a breath. The walk leveled off and I passed a stone plateau, actually the flat stone top of a fort with a low parapet. It jutted out, and in the sea just beyond loomed Lo Scoglio. Being late in the afternoon
it was shady on this side of Ortigia, all the swimmers and sunbathers leaving. I remember turning around, confused to find myself in a crowd, looking out at the stone island. People gingerly negotiated its uneven surface, crossed a short bridge to another outcropping of rocks, and, lugging towels and totes, filed along a slim metal bridge attached to the seawall, its floor a metal grate through which the trekker could see the water slosh and the bleached rocks turn black and hairy with seaweed. Michael would have hated that bridge, heights freaked him, I thought, for a second forgetting that I no longer lived in the world where his quirks mattered or were endearing. Once off the metal bridge, people bunched up and spilled around me and into the street. They were mellow, sun-stoned, toasted, some shiny with oil. A boy offered to sell me water and it frightened me, his grin, the plastic bottle in my face.
I used my hands to carve a way forward. The wind ruffled my hair. I remember because it was like a rap on the shoulder. Stop. And I did. Ahead of me, separated only by two women, one bending to fasten her sandal, Snow and Kath crossed my path. They were holding hands. I heard Kath’s loud American enthusiastic, “Scusi, scusi,” as they made their way to Lo Scoglio through the stream of bathers clearing off.
It might be interesting to be married to a woman who wears baggy clothes because then you’re the only one who knows the body underneath.
I burst out of the crowd and crossed the road, heading away from the sea. Before hurrying into the maze of spidery streets, I looked back. Snow was ahead now, pulling Kath along the metal bridge. Kath’s long striped shirt billowed behind her.
Michael has the same shirt, I’d told her.
That was the last I saw of them.
Taylor
I WAS VERY HAPPY to be packing after spending the day shopping with Lizzie. I had gotten tipsy and my negative feelings about Siracusa had shown through. Given my maternal distress, I forgave myself for my outburst. Lizzie was cruel to shout that my top was on wrong. I comforted myself that at least I hadn’t been strolling around Portland. What did it matter who had seen me? We were leaving tomorrow. I never again intended to step a foot in this petrified place.
