Just Fall (3 page)

Her shoulders slump. And then the tears start to fall. But she has no time for tears. She swipes them impatiently off her cheeks. Distracted, coming around a curve a little too fast, she doesn’t see the rickety open truck in front of her, stuffed full with green bananas. A stand of bananas bounces off the truck, directly into her path! She swerves to avoid it, scraping the driver’s side of the convertible against the cliff side with a horrible ragged shriek of metal against rock. She hits the brakes. The car skids across the median. She wrenches it back to her side of the road before finally slamming to a stop.

Breathing heavily, she casts her eyes about wildly for a moment as she realizes the danger is past. The bananas missed, the truck gone, the road empty. She drops her head into her hands and slumps over the wheel. Irony. To have come this far and done this much. And she could have been killed. Just like that.

Air.
Yes,
she thought,
I need air.
And a moment away from the madness of the wedding, away from toasts and tears and air kisses and music, and her mother, especially her mother.

Where was Rob? Ellie scanned the dance floor. No sign of him. Clearly they needed to talk. Surely he had been kidding? A twisted but humorous way of saying “We’re married, now you’re stuck with me, good and bad”? A parade of memories, odd phone calls and missed appointments, all blamed on “work,” began their march through Ellie’s mind.

Determined to distract herself from this disturbing line of thought, she moved through well-wishers, accepting kisses and compliments, her eyes darting in search.
I bet he snuck out for a smoke,
she decided.
I knew he hadn’t quit. Bastard.
The thought floated through her head before she could stop it:
I wonder what else he’s lying about?
She frowned. She pushed the thought away. He was her Rob, the man she loved, her husband.

“Husband.” She said it aloud, smiling. She would trust and she would have faith, just as she had promised in her vows a few short hours before. It had been a joke. That must be it. Ellie pushed at the door opening into the hotel’s small garden. Gulped in some cool air.

The laughter and music of her wedding faded as the door swung closed behind her. It was lovely out here, the air scented with flowers, the softly bubbling fountain. The
thud,
when Ellie heard it, popped the fragile membrane of quiet. Another
thud,
followed by a groan. Something prickled the back of Ellie’s neck, her reptile brain warning her to fight or flee. She moved forward cautiously, lifting the voluminous skirts of her wedding gown, holding her breath as she edged toward the sounds. She peeked around a hydrangea, its bluish flowers a darkening purple in the night air. She stifled a gasp. Pulled herself out of sight. Peeked again.

There was Rob. On the ground, his nose bloody, his jacket torn. And the two men standing over him, yes, those were weapons in their hands. One held a gun, the other a knife, light glinting off its curving blade. Ellie froze. Stared immobilized for a second.

The taller, thinner man spoke to Rob: “I don’t know why you ever thought this would work out any differently.”

The other man, the shorter, stockier one, hauled Rob to his feet.

Then just as she was about to do something, anything, move, scream for help—Rob saw her, made eye contact. With the slightest of gestures he signaled that she must be quiet. Then mouthed a single word:
“Go.”

The stocky guy walloped Rob hard in his stomach.
Thud.
Rob ricocheted back, stumbling, and then willed himself into a twisted run toward the garden’s back wall. Ellie sensed he was trying to pull the men away from her, trying to protect her. She whirled and ran back toward the hotel. Her hands scrabbled at the door and missed, once, twice, before she finally hauled it open. Her breath was ragged, her heart beat wildly, the noise in her head was a dizzying roar, she felt like she was drowning…until she finally broke through to the surface and screamed, “Help me! Help us! Please God, someone, help!”

Ellie is dry-eyed. Determined. She pulls the scraped and dented convertible into the crowded parking lot of a Dollar General store. Parks and slips on her sunglasses, slides from the car, darts inside. She picks up a bright orange plastic basket and moves through the aisles at a leisurely pace, sandals slapping on the floor. A shiny red lipstick, a box of brown hair dye, a gauzy scarf, a set of crystal-encrusted fake nails (
bling!),
a cheap rayon sarong, a pair of oversized sunglasses, white zinc sunblock.

She moves over to the small hardware section. A memory douses her like a bucket of icy water. She and Rob, the first week they lived together, breathless with thrill but also threaded with anxiety about this next step. They had laughed a lot, fucked a lot, but also endured two awkward bathroom encounters, broken a prized antique perfume bottle of hers, and washed, instead of dry-cleaned, his favorite cashmere sweater.

It was a Sunday. Rob unveiled his tool chest: a sturdy green, with a well-organized and well-maintained selection of implements. Hammers and screwdrivers. Pliers and wrenches. Saws and sandpaper, nails and screws and bolts. They spent the afternoon hanging pictures, installing hooks, building a shoe rack. Rob in charge. Ellie his eager assistant. They worked well together and as they did, settled into each other. Stopped feeling like strangers. Anxiety faded. Thrill remained.

—

Now, in the Dollar General store, Ellie hesitates in front of a selection of screwdrivers. They seem handy, utile. And also a reminder of a time when she felt secure. She lifts a screwdriver from the rack and taps the flat tip lightly against her palm. She replaces it and selects a Phillips head with a clear red plastic handle. Presses the point into the soft flesh of her wrist. The pain is sweetly exquisite. She adds the Phillips head to her basket.

She pays in cash, carefully counting out the candy-colored East Caribbean dollars. She slips back into the car and out of the lot, her survival tools in shiny green plastic bags piled reassuringly on the seat next to her. She feels exposed in the convertible and closes the top. Cranks up the air-conditioning to create a protective bubble, the thrum of the car, the whoosh of the air.

A little while later, Ellie pulls up near the Soufrière post office. The gauzy scarf is wrapped in a turban around her head, completely hiding her blond hair. The oversized sunglasses, owl-like, obscure her face. Her lips are painted white with zinc sunblock. The bling-studded nails are affixed to her fingertips; the crystals send shivers of dancing light with every move she makes. She exits the car. Adjusts her breathing to the hot afternoon air, which is moist and startling after the icy air-conditioning of the convertible. She reaches in to extract the padded envelope. It’s addressed with nondescript block letters.

The town of Soufrière is a colorful jumble. Royal blue, tangerine, hot pink, lavender, the small buildings are as cheerful in their paint colors as they are decrepit in their repair. The post office is an exception. Gray and severe, but well maintained. As Ellie crosses the street to enter it, a pack of stray dogs blocks her path, tails and noses raised, sniffing, jaunty, tongues lolling in the heat, on the hunt for scraps of food. They seem good-natured, but still she pauses, there are just so many of them. She counts as they go by. Eleven. A ragtag canine family. They make her feel lonely.

The words she’s written run through her mind:
You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. But Rob has told me that in this situation you are our only friend.

Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi.
Ellie thinks it and nearly giggles. She reminds herself to keep it together. Hysteria is not her ally.

She enters the post office. It’s dark and cool. A ceiling fan spins lazily overhead. The sole clerk, inky dark skin, a thousand braids, some dyed a virulent orange, long curving nails painted in a zebra print, looks up, and does a quick second look, her eyes skidding past the obscured face and weird white lips, alighting on Ellie’s nails. Ellie’s long, gaudy fake fingernails adorned with crystals. Perfectly tacky. And a perfect distraction.

The kind of screaming detail that draws the eye, so that it is the only thing remembered by someone giving a description, a distraction easily added, then easily discarded when necessary. A lesson Rob had taught her in wholly different circumstances, in a place and time that now seem eons away. As Ellie’s eyes adapt to the dim light, she reflects on that day briefly, wondering if even then he was trying to prepare her in some way for this incredible, horrible unknown. She shivers. Shakes it off and gets to business.

The transaction is swift. First, Ellie pays cash in advance for a month’s rental of a post office box. She neatly writes the box number on the padded envelope as the return address. Then she opens the box, places another envelope inside, locks the box, and puts the mailbox key into the padded envelope. She seals the envelope. As her parcel is weighed, the postage for overnight delivery purchased, the talk is of nail care strategies. Instant bonding, the razor-focus commonality of strangers. The check, so to speak—or should we say it plain—the lip, is in the mail.

He aimed and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

Annoyed, he shook out his wrist. Adjusted his stance. Tried again.

Zap! A flash of red light.

One dozen Waterford crystal wineglasses, added to the registry. Rob was aiming a scanner. The locale: the bridal registry of an upscale department store.

“I told you it would be kind of fun. Like playing house.” Ellie smiled at him. His heart still caught every time she did.

“Since we’re getting married, doesn’t it mean we’re not playing house? Aren’t we doing it for real?” he teased.

“Well, this part anyway. Oooh, look, a candelabra. Is it mermaids? Perfect! I’ve always wanted a mermaid candelabra.”

She darted away, drawn like a magpie to shiny objects. As he watched her aim her own “gun” at the candelabra, a tall, thin man in a dark suit crossed Rob’s line of vision. Rob froze. It was something about the hitch in the thin man’s gait, the easy menace in the set of his shoulders…Rob turned, coughed as bile rose into his throat, hurried away. He stepped easily onto the down escalator, texting as he glided away:
Stewart calling. Back in 10.

Rob hadn’t seen Quinn since he had been in New York. While not wholly unexpected, given that Rob was pretty sure he had been followed the last few weeks, seeing Quinn still came as a shock. Rob’s first instinct was to lead Quinn away from Ellie, even as a panic-stricken counterpoint in his mind thundered the futility of the attempt. How much did Quinn know? What angles would Rob have to play in order to protect Ellie? Rob knew that if ever there was a time he needed to be strategic, this was it.

Later. Rob and Ellie lingered over the last of their lunch. His back to the far wall of the department store café, his eyes scanning back and forth across the room.

“Anyway, I’m glad the call went well, but now you’re just going to have to not only accept the cuckoo-clock-shaped napkin rings, but learn to love them. Not to mention the flowered teapot cozy, the Scandinavian cheese set, and the Soda Stream.”