“Now. He wants me to fly out tomorrow.”
She turns to me then, raising her mask again. “You told him no, right? What is going home going to do, Cecilia? It’s done. The damage is already done. If you go to Paris, it will be a mess. Police stops. Road closures. And for what? You are not going to catch the bad guys.”
“He wants me in LA. With the kids.”
She stares at me, attempting to decipher.
“I just… I don’t feel…” I continue. “It just doesn’t feel right being here, at a resort, when they’re all suffering.”
“There is nothing we can do. You know that?”
“I don’t think that’s the point. I think we need to go home.”
“Putain,” she says again, lowering her mask. “You do what you have to do.”
In the end, we compromise. We leave Sri Lanka at our scheduled departure date, but our London leg is altered to no more than a brief layover. By the time we arrive in Los Angeles, we are both drained and depleted. Paradise feels far, far behind us.
XXIX.TENDER IS THE NIGHT.
CABO SAN LUCAS. 1996.
FRIDAY. NIGHT.
Cecilia arrived at dinner after everyone else.
When she finally got off the phone with Lorry, she’d called Marc and told him and the others to go on ahead. She’d managed to pull herself together and dress, before having the hotel receptionist call her a cab. And the entire ride over, she’d vacillated between being heartbroken over her best friend, and angry that his timing was costing her upward of forty dollars. Forty dollars she couldn’t afford.
Bas had whistled when she’d arrived at the restaurant, and it took Cecilia a moment to realize the catcall was for her.
“Ceciliaaaa. I almost didn’t recognize you without your overalls.” He smiled, ribbing her as she seated herself across from him, wedged in between Marc and a chair with a green shawl strewn across it.
“Thought I’d make an effort for your sake, Bas.” She was wearing a Banana Republic camisole slip dress over a baby-doll tee, strappy sandals from Nine West. Her hair was down.
“You clean up quite nice.”
“As do you.”
Was Bas toying with her? Or was this just his way? Earlier in the day, she’d seen him flirting with Paola when Beatriz sent her over mid-shot to unbutton his collar. He’d feigned biting her finger. Thrice. And each time, she giggled like a schoolgirl. Currently, she was seatedto his left in a gossamer dress nearly as revealing as her wet tank top the previous night at the beach.
Marc, who could read Cecilia better than anyone else in the bunch, turned to her once she was settled, his expression solemn. “What happened?”
“Emergency. I’m sorry.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yes, just…” She exhaled. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. And now I’m forty dollars out of pocket.”
“Just have Cathy expense it,” he said, referring to the studio’s bookkeeper.
“Cathy is never going to sign off on it. She’ll come back with, ‘We provided a van. Do you think you’re more special than everyone else?’” Cecilia made a half-hearted attempt at a Jersey accent.
“Cathy is a cunt.”
“Marc!”
“Sorry, it’s true. You know it. I know it. Everyone who’s worked with her knows it. Don’t worry, I’ll tack it on to our general costs, and she’ll never know. You’ll get your fifty dollars.”
“It was only forty.”
