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“She did. Did you know she started the school? Not how it is now. She wanted to reach out and help girls like her. Give them a place where no one doubted them or thought they were crazy. It used to be a very different school.” He sounds almost wistful. I have never heard this from him. And I know he is not lying. “It was her whole life. She helped a lot of girls. Then my father got involved and shifted and twisted everything in that special way he does.”
“Is that why she killed herself?”
“Yes.”
“Then why? Why are you working for your father? All this information I’m stealing for him. What is it for?”
He tenses. “Have you talked with him or anyone about what we’re doing?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t.”
“But, James. He destroyed your mother’s school. He destroyed your mother. He destroyed me.” Because this is my question, has always been my question, will always be my question. If James works for his father, how can I not want to destroy James, too?
“Don’t do that,” he says, taking my hand in his to stop the tap tap tap. “Please just be patient and trust me. I will always take care of you. I promise.”
The wrong buzzes and fades and I want it to fade and I close my eyes and let him hold me. I let myself believe him. Because I don’t want to take care of anyone anymore. Not even me.
The wind whips my hair around as James takes the corners too fast in the tiny convertible. The roads are narrow and winding, leading back from the Greek shipping baron’s sprawling estate.
I wish I were driving. He taught me to drive and I am an excellent driver; I never want to be in the passenger seat again. But other than that, this moment is perfect. I laugh. “That was fun.”
“It was. You were amazing, as usual.”
“Expect nothing less. People are phenomenally stupid when it comes to smart phones.”
“Well, seeing as how you accomplished in ten minutes what I’d allotted two hours for, the rest of the day is officially yours. What would you like to do?”
“I want to take a nap. On the beach. And then I want to go dancing.”
“Done and done.”
The sand is blinding white and the water is an impossible turquoise. It makes me feel bad that I haven’t looked more on all these trips, that I haven’t absorbed it to describe to Annie.
Nope. No thoughts of Annie. I stretch out on my chair, let the sun soak me. It’s been so much easier, turning it all off. And it works better, too. It’s like back when they’d force me to fight. As soon as I’d give up and disengage my feelings, myself, I could go on pure instinct and everything made sense, everything was action-reaction with no thought necessary.
Being with James now is like that. I don’t have to think. I don’t have to feel. I put myself on the path he wants and just go. I’m not happy, but I’m not unhappy. I am perfectly nothing, and it is easy. James takes care of me.
“Should I call Eden to meet us?” he asks, pulling off his shirt (I love I love I love it when he does this). He’s on a lounge chair right next to mine. They are touching. We are not touching, but we could be. He never touches me without a reason.
He is very, very careful. I wish he wouldn’t be.
“Why on earth would we want Eden to meet us?” I ask.
“She might feel bad.”
“Ah, but that’s the glory of not being Eden. She can feel bad all she wants and we never have to feel it!”
“You, beautiful girl, are mean.”
I smile and pull my sunglasses down. “You love me.”
He laughs (I wish he hadn’t laughed, why did he laugh?) and leans back into his own chair. The beach isn’t crowded, but there are enough people to populate the rush of the bay with noise and laughter and it is all a happy, busy hum in the background.
I tap, tap, tap without urgency, because I am nothing and nothing matters.
“James? Is that you? I don’t believe it!” A man’s voice, with a trace of an accent I can’t place. I don’t sit up but turn my head to see an olive-skinned, dark-curly-haired guy around James’s age laugh and raise his arms as though he expects James to get up and hug him.
