"Don"t sound so surprised."
"What"s to talk about?" Margie said, "He"s your husband. If you love him, that"s fine. If you don"t, that"s fine too. Just don"t depend on him for anything. Get your own life. That way he hasn"t got any power over you. Oh, look, that"s a pretty sight." The waiter, who"d appeared with the next round of martinis, thought she meant him, and smiled dazzlingly. "I meant the drinks, honey,"
Margie said. The smile decayed somewhat. "But you"re sweet. What"s your name?"
"Stefano."
"Stefano. What do you recommend? Rachel"s very hungry, and I"m on a diet."
"The chef"s specialty is the sea ba.s.s. It"s lightly sauteed in pure olive oil with a little cilantro-"
"I think that sounds fine for me. Rachel?"
"I"m in the mood for meat."
"Oh," Margie said, with a c.o.c.ked eyebrow. "Stefano. The lady wants meat. Any suggestions?"
The waiter momentarily lost his cool. "Um... well we have...""Maybe just a steak?" Margie suggested to Rachel.
Stefano looked fl.u.s.tered. "We don"t actually serve a straightforward steak. We don"t have it on the menu."
"Good Lord," Margie said, thoroughly relishing the young man"s discomfort. "This is New York and you don"t serve a simple steak?"
"I don"t really want steak," Rachel said.
"Well that"s not the point," Margie said, perversely. "It"s the principle of the thing. Well... do you have anything that can be served rare?"
"We have lamb cutlets which the chef offers with almonds and ginger."
"That"s fine," Rachel told him. Grateful to have the problem resolved, Stefano beat a hasty retreat.
"You"re mean," Rachel said to Margie once he"d gone.
"Oh, he enjoyed it. Men secretly love to be humiliated. As long as it isn"t too public."
"Have you ever thought of writing all this down?"
"All what?"
"Your pithy observations."
"They don"t stand up to close scrutiny, honey," she said. "Like me, really. I"m very impressive as long as you don"t look too closely." She guffawed at this. "So now, drink up. Number thirteen"s really rather good."
Rachel declined. "My head"s already spinning," she said. "Will you stop teasing me and tell me what all this is about?"
"Well... it"s very simple, really. You need to take a vacation, honey."
"I just came back from-"
"I don"t mean a trip home, for G.o.d"s sake. That"s not a vacation, it"s a sentence. You need to go somewhere you can be yourself, and you can"t be yourself with family."
"Why do I think you"ve already got something planned?"
"Have you ever been to Hawaii?"
"I stopped over in Honolulu with Mitch, on our way to Australia.""Horrible," Margie said.
"Australia or Honolulu?"
"Well, actually both. But I"m not talking about Honolulu. I"m talking about Kaua"i. The Garden Island."
"I"ve never heard of it."
"Oh honey, it"s simply the most beautiful place on earth. It"s paradise. I swear. Paradise." She sipped her martini. "And it so happens that I know a little house in a little bay on the North Sh.o.r.e which is fifty yards from the water, if that. It"s so perfect. Oh you can"t imagine. Truly, you can"t imagine. I mean I could tell you about it and it"d sound idyllic, but... it"s more than that."
"How so?"
Margie"s voice had become sultry as- she talked about the house; now it was so quiet Rachel had to lean in to catch what she was saying. "I know this is going to sound silly, but it"s a place where there"s still just a chance that something... oh s.h.i.t, I don"t know... something magical might happen."
"It sounds wonderful," Rachel said. She"d never seen Margie this way before, and found it strangely moving. Margie the cynic, Margie the lush, talking like a little gkl who"d thought she"d seen wonderland. It almost made Rachel believe she had.
"Who does the house belong to?"
"Ah," she said, raising her index finger over the rim of her gla.s.s, and giving Rachel a narrow- eyed smile. "That"s the thing. It belongs to us."
"Us."
"The Geary women."
"Really?"
"The men are forbidden to go anywhere near the place. It"s an ancient Geary tradition."
"Who started it?"
"Cadmus"s mother I believe. She was quite the feminist, in her time. Or it may have been a generation earlier, I don"t know. The point is, the house isn"t used very much any longer. There"s a couple of local people who go every other month and mow the lawn and trim the palm trees, dust a little, but basically the place is left empty."
"Loretta doesn"t go?""She went just after she and Cadmus first got married. So she said. But now she just stays right here with him, night and day. I think she"s afraid he"s going to start changing the will behind her back. Oh... speaking of legal matters..." She nodded across the restaurant. Cecil and the blonde were rising from the table. "He"s going to have a busy afternoon. She looks like the acrobatic type."
"Maybe she"ll just lay back and let him get it over with," Rachel said.
"I know how that feels," Margie replied.
"I hope he doesn"t look in our direction," Rachel said as Cecil headed for the door.
"I rather hope he does," Margie said, and as luck would have it at that very instant Cecil glanced back across the restaurant and laid eyes on them. Rachel froze, still hoping Cecil wouldn"t recognize them. But Margie, murmuring oh good under her breath, raised her arm, replete with empty martini gla.s.s, above her head.
"Now look what you"ve done," Rachel said. "He"s coming over to talk to us."
"Just don"t mention Kaua"i," Margie said. "That"s our little secret."
"Ladies," Cecil was saying. He"d left the blonde at the door. "I almost missed you, tucked away in the corner."
"Oh you know us," Margie said. "We"re the shy, retiring types. Unlike..." she glanced back toward Cecil"s girlfriend "... what"s her name?"
"Ambrosina."
"Well that"s a bit of a mouthful for such a precious little thing," Margie said.
Cecil glanced back at his conquest. "She is precious," he said, with surprising sincerity.
"And extremely blonde," Margie replied, without any apparent irony. "Actress, is she?"
"Model."
"Of course she is. You"re helping her get started. How sweet you are."
Cecil"s smile had faded. "I must get back to her," he said. He looked over at Rachel. "I heard from Mitch.e.l.l this morning..." he said. "I"m sorry things aren"t going well." He reached up and oh-so- lightly wrapped his hand around Rachel"s wrist. "But we"ll sort it all out, eh?" Rachel glanced down at his encircling fingers. He removed his hand, his manner effortlessly shifting into the paternal mode. "If there"s anything you^ieed, Rachel. Anything at all, to make things easier."
"I"ll be fine.""Oh I know," he said, as though he were a doctor rea.s.suring a dying patient. "You"ll be just dandy. But if you need anything..."
"I think she gets the message, Cecil," Margie remarked.
"Yes... well, it"s lovely to see you, Rachel... and Margie, always wonderful..."
"Really?"
"Really," Cecil replied, and headed back to his girlfriend, who was looking decidedly pouty.
"I think the drinking"s finally catching up with me," Margie said, staring after the lawyer as he put his arm around the blonde and escorted her out.
"Why?"
"I was just looking at Cecil"s face, and I thought: I wonder what he"s going to look like when he"s dead?"
"Oh, that"s not very nice."
"Then I thought: well I just hope I"m there to find out." vn i Rachel called Mitch that evening and told him she"d seen Cecil, pointing out that he"d broken the terms of their agreement by talking to a lawyer. Mitch protested that he hadn"t been seeking legal advice. He thought of Cecil as a surrogate father, he said. They"d talked about love, not about the law; to which Rachel couldn"t help but observe that she doubted Cecil knew a d.a.m.n thing about love.
"Don"t be mad at me," Mitch.e.l.l begged. "It was a genuine mistake. I"m sorry. I know it must look like I was going behind your back, but I wasn"t. I swear I wasn"t."
His whining apology only irritated her further. She wanted to tell him he could take his apology and his lawyer and his whole d.a.m.n family and go to h.e.l.l. Instead, she found herself saying something she hadn"t planned to say.
"I"m going away for a while," she told him.
The statement surprised her almost as much as it surprised Mitch.e.l.l; she"d not been aware of making a decision either way about going to Kaua"i.
Mitch.e.l.l asked her if she was going back home. She said no. Where then? he asked her. Just away, she said. Away from me, you mean, he said. No, she replied, I"m not running away from you.
"Well where the h.e.l.l are you running?" he demanded.There was an answer, right there on her tongue, ready to be spoken, but this time she governed herself and said nothing. It was only when the exchange with Mitch.e.l.l was over, and she was sitting on the balcony, looking over the park and thinking about nothing in particular that the unspoken reply came onto her lips.
"I"m not running away," she murmured to herself, "I"m running toward something..."
She shared this thought with no one, not even Margie. It was silly, on the face of it. She was going off to an island she"d never heard of before, on the suggestion of a woman whose blood was seventy percent alcohol. There was no reason for her to be going, much less to sense any purpose in the journey. And yet she felt it, indisputably, and the feeling made her happy. So what did it matter if the source of the feeling was a mystery? She was grateful to have some measure of lightness back in her heart, and content to take the pleasure in it while it lasted. She knew from experience it could be gone without warning, like love.
Margie made all the arrangements for the trip. All Rachel had to do was be ready to leave the following Thursday, with all her business in New York done and dusted. Once she got to the island, Margie predicted, she wouldn"t want to be talking on the telephone. She wouldn"t even want to think about the city, or even her friends. There was a different rhythm there; a different perspective.
"I almost feel as though I have to say goodbye to the old Rachel," Margie said, "because believe me, she"s not coming back."
"Now you"re exaggerating," Rachel said.
"I am not," Margie said. "You"ll see. The first couple of days, you"ll be restless, and thinking there"s nothing to do, there"s n.o.body to gossip about. And then it"ll slowly dawn on you that you don"t need any of that. You"ll be sitting watching the clouds on the mountains, or a whale out at sea, or just listening to the rain on the roof-oh my Lord, Rachel, it"s so beautiful when it rains-and you"ll think: I don"t need anything I haven"t got right now."
It seemed to Rachel each time Margie talked about the place she spoke more lovingly of it.
"How many times have you been there?" she asked.
"Just twice," Margie replied. "But I should never have gone back the second time. That was a mistake. I went for the wrong reasons the second time."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, it"s a long story," Margie said. "And it"s not important. You"ve got the first time ahead of you, and that"s all that matters.""So I get to be a virgin again," Rachel said.
"You know, honey, that"s exactly right. You"re going to be a virgin again."
ii If Rachel had entertained any last doubts about taking the trip, they evaporated once she got on the plane, settled back in her seat in the first cla.s.s cabin and took a sip of champagne. Even if the island wasn"t all that Margie had advertised it as being-and in truth nothing short of Eden would match up to the promises-it was still good to be going away where she wasn"t known; where she could quietly and quirkily be herself.
The first leg of the journey, to Los Angeles, was unremarkable. A couple of gla.s.ses of alcohol and she began to feel pleasantly sleepy, and dozed through most of the flight. There was a two- hour stopover in Los Angeles, and she got off the plane to stretch her legs and get herself a cup of coffee. The airport was frenetic, and she watched the parade of people-rushing, sweating, tearful, frustrated-like a visitor from another world, interested but unmoved. When she got back on the plane there was a delay. A minor mechanical problem, the captain explained; nothing that would keep them on the ground for long. For once, the prediction from the flight deck was correct. After twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes, the captain duly announced that the flight was now ready for departure. Rachel stayed awake for the second flight. A little tick of antic.i.p.ation had begun in her. She found herself turning over in her head things that Margie had said about the island and the house. What was it she"d said at the lunch table? Something about it being a place where magic still happened, miracles still happened?
If only, Rachel thought; if only she could get back to the beginning again; back to the Rachel she"d been before the hurt, before the disappointment. But when had that been, exactly? The careless Rachel, who"d had some faith in the essential goodness of things; where was she? It was years since she"d seen that brazen, happy creature in the mirror. Life in Dansky-especially after the death of her father-had knocked that girl to the ground and kept her from getting up again.
She"d lost hope by and by; hope that she"d ever be unburdened again, ever be blithe, ever be wild.
Even when Mitch.e.l.l had come into her life, and turned her into a princess, she"d not been able to shake her doubts. In fact for the first two or three months, even after he"d confessed his love for her, she"d been expecting him to tell her she needed to brighten her outlook a little. But he seemed not to notice what a quietly despairing partner he had. Or perhaps he had noticed, he"d just a.s.sumed he could rescue her from her doubts with a touch of Geary largesse.
Thinking about him, she became sad. Poor Mitch.e.l.l; poor optimistic Mitch.e.l.l. In parting from him, she had done both of them a kindness.
Honolulu Airport was much as she remembered it. Stores selling hula-hula girls crudely carved from coconuts, and bars advertising tropical c.o.c.ktails, parties of lei-draped travelers being led about by escorts carrying notices on sticks. And everywhere that preeminent symbol of the cra.s.s American tourist: the Hawaiian print shirt. Was it possible that the paradise Margie had described lay just a twenty-minute flight from this? It was hard to believe.But her doubts started to fall away once she stepped outside to catch the charmingly dubbed Wikki-Wikki Shuttle that ferried her to the terminal from which her flight would depart. The air was balmy and fragrant. Though it came off the sea, it came with the scent of blossom.
The plane was small, but it was still less than half full. A good sign, she thought. She was leaving the Hawaiian-shirted vacationers behind. The plane rose more suddenly and more steeply than its bulkier brethren, and in what seemed seconds she was looking down on the turquoise ocean, and the high-rises of Honolulu were gone from sight.
VIII.
The flight that carries the traveler from the high-rises of Honolulu to the Garden Island is short; less than twenty-five minutes. But while Rachel"s in the air let me describe to you a scene that occurred almost two weeks before.
The place is a small, raffish town called Puerto Bueno, a community which probably takes the prize as the most unfrequented in this book. It is located on one of the outlying islands of the province of Magallanes, which lies in Chile, at the tip of South America. Not a place people go to take relaxing vacations; the islands are wind-scoured and charmless, many of them so desolate they are completely uninhabited. In such a region, a town"like Puerto Bueno, which boasts seven hundred citizens, represents a sizable community, but n.o.body on the neighboring islands talks about the place much. It is a town where the rule of law is only loosely observed, which fact has over the years attracted a motley collection of men and women who have lived their lives at, or sometimes beyond, the limits of permissible behavior. People who have escaped justice or revenge in their own countries, who have gone from one place to another looking for a place of refuge. A few have even enjoyed a certain notoriety in the outside world. There was a man who"d laundered fortunes for the Vatican; and a woman who"d murdered her husband in Adelaide, and who still kept a snapshot of the body in her purse. But most of the citizens are unimportant felons-abusers of substances and forgers of banknotes-whose capture is not of great significance to their pursuers.
Strange to say, given its populace, Puerto Bueno is a curiously civilized little place. There is no crime, nor is the subject of crime ever raised in conversation. The townspeople have turned their backs on their pasts, and want only to live out their remaining years in peace. Puerto Bueno isn"t the most comfortable of places to retire (it has only two stores, and the electricity supply is tetchy) but it is preferable to a prison cell or the grave. And on certain days it is possible to sit on the crumbling harbor wall and-viewing a sky unmarked by the trails of aircraft-think that even this charmless spot is proof of G.o.d"s charity.