On a Saturday afternoon ten days later I came up the companionway from belowdecks, where I'd been doing some work on the generator, and Annalise was there waiting for me.
I didn't believe it at first. Eyes playing tricks. Mistaken identity. Hallucination. I stopped stone still, staring. No mistake. Annalise. She stood on the stringpiece astern, bathed in sunlight in a way that made her seem to glow, both hands clutching a straw bag, a tentative, nervous smile on her unpainted mouth that came and went like a blinking sign.
"Hello, Richard," she said.
It took me a few seconds to recover from the shock. "Jesus," I said.
"I guess you never thought you'd see me again."
I had no answer for that. I stood flatfooted, the oily rag I'd been using dangling from one hand. She wore white shorts, a white halter top, and a pale-blue-and-white beach shirt. The exposed parts of her were no longer tanned; the pale skin was sun-reddened in places. Her hair was long again, shoulder-length, worn in one of those frizzy-permanent styles. She'd put on a little weight in the past two years; it showed in a puffiness around her cheeks and mouth, a slight bulge at the waist of the shorts. Signs of dissipation in her face, too, veins showing here and there, faint crow's-feet around the eyes, a muscle twitching along her jaw. Her hands kept kneading the straw bag.
She said, "I see you've changed the name of your boat."
"Does that surprise you?"
"I'd be surprised if you hadn't. Windrunner. I like that."
I didn't say anything.
"I like the beard, too. And your hair long that way. They give you a sort of sea captain's look."
I didn't say anything.
"Is it all right if I come aboard?"
"Why?"
"To talk."
"We don't have anything to say to each other."
"Yes we do. I have so much to say to you. Is it all right?"
"No," I said.
She chewed her lower Up, head cocked a little to one side, eyes lowered. Her pleading-little-girl look. "It took a lot for me to come here like this, Richard. Please don't turn me away without listening to what I have to say."
"How long have you been on the island?"
"Two days. I've been staying with JoEllen Hall. You remember JoEllen?"
"All too damn well."
"She told me you were living on the boat now."
"Sure she did. Among other things. Good old JoEllen."
"She let me use her car to drive over from Red Hook," Annalise said.
"Why the hell did you come back?"
"To see you."
"What do you want? More money? More of my blood?"
"No. God, no."
"You must want something. You always did."
Struck a nerve. "I deserve that," she said.
"Well? I'm waiting."
"It's hot standing here in the sun. If you don't want to talk on board, can we go to one of the cafes? I'd really like to have a drink."
"I'll bet you would."
"Please, Richard. Just for a few minutes. Listen to what I have to say, then if you want me to I'll go away and never bother you again."
The urge to tell her to fuck off then and there was strong. But I couldn't do it. I had to hear her out, find out what she wanted. For my own protection.
We went to Harry's Dockside Cafe. Neither of us said anything on the walk over, or when we first sat down at an outside table under one of the brightly colored umbrellas. She couldn't hold eye contact; the few times she tried, the smile would flicker on and then flicker off again after a few seconds and she would look somewhere else.
It felt unreal to be with her again this way, all of a sudden, so close I could reach out and touch her. As if she weren't really there and what I was facing was a holographic projection of her, the image of an intimate stranger. I kept waiting for the anger and the hate to rise up in a choking wave, but it didn't happen. Undercurrents, yes, but that was all. The surface of feeling was curiously flat and empty, like shoal water under a gray-black sky.
No more rum punches for Annalise. She ordered Scotch, a double, no ice. I wanted an Arundel; I settled for beer to keep my head clear. Before the drinks came, she rummaged in her bag, came up with a little amber-colored plastic bottle. The prescription kind, except that it had no label. She shook out a white tablet, swallowed it dry.
I said, "What's that you just took?"
"Valium. For my nerves. Somebody I know got it for me. Not JoEllen—where I was living before."
Scraping bottom, all right. She'd never used drugs of any kind when we were together. "Where was that?"
"New York."
"You always did want to live in the Big Apple. How was it? Exciting?"
"I don't know," she said bitterly. "I never lived there. You were right, I couldn't afford Manhattan."
"Where did you live, then?"
"Long Island. God, what's keeping those drinks?"
They came and she gulped half of hers. The combination of Valium and Scotch worked fast to calm her, restore her poise. Color came back into her cheeks. The smile flicked on again and stayed Ut.
"Whoo, that's better," she said. "I'd almost forgotten how twitchy and woozy tropical heat can make you until you get used to it."
I sipped beer and said nothing.
"So," she said. "How have you been, Richard?"
"Fine, until a little while ago. Never better."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Well, I've been miserable," she said.
"Is that right? Things didn't work out with the clothing manufacturer, I take it. What was his name? Jackson? Johnson?"
She took another slug of Scotch. "Johnson. Paul Johnson."
"You don't seem surprised I know about him."
"I'm not. I . . . wasn't very discreet."
"I know about Verriker, too," I said. "Good old Royce."
"Oh, God. How did you—?"
"Does it matter?"
"I guess not. Did you . . . I mean . . ."
"Confront him? No. I'm not confrontational, you know that."
"I don't know why I went to bed with him. I honestly don't."
"Sure you do. He's handsome and glib and charismatic. A stud, too, I hear. I'll bet he was terrific in the sack."
She winced. "Please, Richard."
"How about Paul Johnson? Another stud, another good lay?"
"I don't want to talk about any of that."
"Why not? Sex was always one of your favorite topics."
"You have every right to hate me," she said.
"Don't I, though."
"Do you? Hate me?"
"What do you think?"
"I think I'm a terrible bitch. It was unforgivable, what I did to you. First Royce, then Paul Johnson, then taking everything I could get my hands on and running off like a thief in the night."
And then Fred Cotler, I thought. But I had no more intention of bringing him up than she did. I wasn't supposed to know about her and Cotler, or that she'd told him all about me, or that she'd been a willing partner in the attempted blackmail. It would be a mistake to let her know that I knew.
"What about the twenty-six thousand?" I said. "All gone now?"
"Yes. The jewelry, too. I don't have anything left."
"How long did it take you to blow it all?"
"I didn't blow it, not the way you mean. I spent it on essentials—food, rent, utilities."
"Johnson didn't keep you long, is that it?"
"He didn't keep me at all." She said it bitterly.
"How about giving you design work with his company? Or an intro into the fashion industry? That is why you ran off with him?"
"Yes, but he didn't keep any of his promises. He used me and then he dumped me."
"What did you do then? Find another sugar daddy?"
"I'm a bitch but not a whore, Richard. Though I don't blame you for thinking I'm both. I tried to find design work on my own. When I couldn't I gave up, finally admitted to myself t
hat my designs really weren't very good and I was never going to make it in the industry."
"Big admission for you. Big letdown."
"Yes, it was."
"What did you do then?"
"Took a job selling lingerie in a department store. The money was running out and I had to pay the rent."
I said, "Sounds like a shitty job," and managed to keep the malice out of my voice.
"It was. But it's the only kind of work I had any experience with. I stuck it out for more than a year."
"What happened then?"
"They laid me off. Three weeks ago. No warning, they just decided to downsize the department. Two weeks' severance pay and out the door."
"You're being very candid about all this, Annalise—the mess you've made of your life the past two years. Why? What're you leading up to?"
"Jobs aren't that easy to come by up there," she said. "The kind that pay you a decent living wage. I just couldn't stay there any longer, I'd had enough. The airline ticket down here used up most of my severance pay."
"Answer my question. Why did you come back to St. Thomas? What do you want from me?"
"Another chance," she said.
I stared at her.
"That's all. Just another chance."
"Jesus Christ," I said, "you expect me to take you back? As if nothing ever happened?"
"No, not as if nothing ever happened. A chance to make amends, to prove how sorry I am and that I'll never do anything like that again. To be there for you the way I was before."
What gall the woman had! And how desperate she had to be to come crawling like this!
"It can be like it was for us in the beginning," she said. "Even better. A new beginning, a new commitment of trust I swear to God I'll never break."
I didn't say anything.
"If you ever feel I'm not living up to that promise, you can tell me to leave and I'll go, I won't argue, I won't even ask why."
I didn't say anything.
"You probably won't believe this," she said, "but I still care for you. I did what I did because I'm selfish, not because I stopped loving you."
"Bullshit, Annalise."
"It's true, I swear it. My feelings got lost in what I thought I wanted more than to be with you. I'm not that person anymore. What was important to me before isn't important to me now."
Sure it was. A free ride, that was what was important to her. Johnson hadn't given it to her and Cotler hadn't given it to her and however many there were after the mailman hadn't given it to her. The fashion industry and the Big Apple were shattered dreams. She'd reverted to what she was that night in Perry's: a half-alive bitch who felt as if she were running around and around like a hamster in a wheel. The difference was that then she'd had other options, and now the only one she had left was me. Her last reach for the brass ring. Her last chance to live on the edge, to feel alive again.
"You still have feelings for me, don't you?" she said. "Deep down? They can't all be gone?"
"Can't they?"
"I don't want to think so. Richard, it can be like it was for us in the beginning. It can, it will"
Earnest throb in her voice. Pleading eyes. Oh, she had all the words and all the emotional manelivers down pat.
"You don't have to give me an answer right away," she said. "We can take it slowly. Get to know each other again. I can stay with JoEllen for a while—she said she wouldn't mind. Just think about it, that's all I ask. Will you do that?"
"Suppose I say no right now? Then what?"
" . . . I don't understand."
"What will you do? Try to use threats to force me into taking you back?"
"God, no! I wouldn't do something like that."
"Wouldn't you? You've got the perfect hold."
"Not without hurting myself, I don't. I'd never hurt either of us that way."
"Never tell anyone about Jordan Wise?"
"Of course not."
"You never let anything slip to anyone while you were in New York?"
"Never." Looking me straight in the eye. "I swear it."
I finished my beer. Put some money on the table and got to my feet.
"Richard?"
"I need to get back to my boat."
I turned and walked out. I knew she'd hurry up and join me; I hadn't given her a satisfactory answer and she wouldn't go away without getting one. When we reached Windrunner, I knew she would ask again to come aboard—beg for it this time if she had to—and what she had in mind. I knew her so well. In Perry's that night, she'd said she knew me and I didn't know her at all, and now the reverse was true. In some ways I knew her better than she knew herself.
So I let her come on board. She walked around topside, exclaiming over this and that. Then, as I knew she would, she asked if she could see the cabin. I said all right to that, too. There was something I needed to find out about myself and only one way to do it.
In the main cabin she did a slow pirouette and said, "Why, it's bigger than I remember. Cozy."
"You'd hate living here."
"No, I wouldn't. The studio apartment I had on Long Island wasn't much larger. I don't need a lot of space anymore."
I didn't say anything.
"The bed . . . or is it a bunk?"
"Bunk. Or berth."
"It's almost the same size as the one in our villa, isn't it?"
I didn't say anything.
"But I wouldn't have to sleep here if you didn't want me to. I could sleep in the smaller one up in the front."
"Bow," I said.
She nodded. Then she said, glancing around, "Oh, you still have the pirate's chest we bought on Tortola."
"That I bought. One of the few things you left me when you ran off."
"I'm so sorry, Richard. You'll never know how sorry I am."
I didn't say anything.
"Well, I'm glad you kept it," she said. "The chest, I mean. I like it there on that wall shelf."
"Bulkhead shelf."
"I don't know all those nautical terms, but I'll learn. I want to learn all about your boat, about sailing—"
"Yawl," I said.
"Yawl. I want to be a part of your life again." She moved closer, gazed up into my eyes. Hers glistened with yearning and sorrow, but those emotions had nothing to do with me. "If you'll just give me the chance."
I didn't say anything.
She put her palms flat against my chest, standing so that her breasts almost touched me. "Will you think about it, Richard? Please?"
"I'll think about it," I said.
She said, "Thank you," and kissed me. Quick and hard, as if with impulsive relief. I knew she would. I knew her so goddamn well.
She looked into my eyes. Wet her lips. Kissed me again. Lingeringly this time, fitting herself against me, her arms sliding up and around my neck, her fingers combing through my hair.
I just stood there.
Tongue sliding into my mouth, breath coming faster, loins making slow, sensuous motions against mine—all just as expected. But I'm not made of wood. No man can completely resist the sexual advances of a woman like Annalise, not for long and no matter how much he might want to. I let myself return the kiss. She gave a little cry. It was supposed to be a moan of pleasure, but it came out sounding exactly like what it was—the voice of triumph.
One hand began to tug at the buttons on my shirt, the other dipped inside the waistband of my trousers. She was breathing heavily now. The wet mouth was feverish on mine a few seconds longer, then she broke the kiss and drew back. The shirt and halter and shorts came off in quick, practiced movements. Like a stripper's. Like a prepaid whore's. I knew she wouldn't be wearing anything under the shorts, and she wasn't.
Long, motionless pose, showing off her nakedness. Her body was the same and not the same. Incipient fat roll at her middle, little pouches of fat forming on her hips, cellulite starting to show in her thighs. Too much liquor, too much bad food, too many wrong men. In ten or fifteen years, she would be fat. Once she stopped cari
ng about her appearance, and I knew she would, she'd let herself go rapidly and utterly.
The Crimes of Jordan Wise Page 18
