Sunny Side Up

by Daniel Stallings

  Li retreated from the blast, knocking over the serape display and sending a kaleidoscope of them sailing into the crowd. The merchant shrieked Spanish horrors at the boy until he caught a glimpse of the violent workings of Rosemary’s face. He backed away, grumbling under his breath.

  The interlude seemed enough to congeal her fury. Li’s brain screamed for diversions. “Do you still have that letter from Dustin?”

  Again, Li caught her off guard. Rosemary’s eyes clouded with suspicion. “What makes you think that I kept it?”

  Li bit his lip and said a quick, selfish prayer for his safety. “Well, I noticed the way you were clutching your purse earlier. You practically strangled it. And, no offense, you seem like the kind of person who would keep certain mementos of her painful past as…well…as ‘reminders.’” He cringed, expecting a second explosion.

  There seemed to be a boxing match under Rosemary’s skin as her feelings fought wars on her face. One moment cold fear, the next implacable fury. She settled into a neutral expression that Li feared more than her rage. She opened her purse, withdrew a sheet of paper, and handed it to Li.

  Rosie,

  I know you love me, and I also know you won’t understand this, but I can’t think of another way to get rid of this knife in my chest. I keep thinking of the accident that killed Mom and Dad. When Lena left, it was like she died too. I love Lena. I’ll always love her. Or at least, I’ll love her for a little while longer. Please don’t try to stop me. It will only make things harder to accept. I’m not as strong as you are. Never forget me, Rosie. Take care of our family. It’s all we have left.

  Dustin

  “Family,” Rosemary croaked. Her eyelids sagged with fresh tears. “You can imagine how this killed me for years. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to rebuild my family. Charlegne was like a cancer. She poisoned any dream we might have had. She killed my baby brother. Martin and I found out that I was infertile. And my big brother’s wife has a form of uterine cancer that makes it very unlikely that she’ll have kids. So you see? Poison. I would be ecstatic that she’s dead if she hadn’t done so much damage already.”

  “What about adoption?”

  Rosemary studied Li again, this time with a searching glare that pierced him. She unloaded a sigh and fingered the colorful fringe of the nearest blanket. “I thought about it. But somehow it didn’t seem fair to the child. Don’t get me wrong! I would adore a baby, no matter what. But, it doesn’t seem right to bring a child into a house of suffering.”

  Li kept his thoughts to himself.

  “I suppose you’d want to see this, too,” Rosemary said. She dug around in her purse and handed him a crumpled ball of paper. “I found this in the trash can in Dustin’s apartment. It…It’s the letter she wrote to him. I kept it with me, because…I’m not really sure why. Maybe as a reminder, like you said.”

  Li’s eyes dropped to the letter.

  Dustin honey,

  This is going to hurt so much, I know it. I’m sorry. I need to go away. It shouldn’t have happened. I can’t stay here. I need to put my life back on track. I’ve found someone who can help me do that I have to do this. I feel horrible even as I sit here and write this letter. I’m so sorry. I wish love was enough to fix this. But it’s not.

  I’ll always love you,

  Lena

  “It almost seems like she’s the one committing suicide,” Li replied, returning the letter.

  Rosemary crumpled it up and shoved it into her purse. “I don’t give a damn about how she felt. She should have been honest with Dustin. She’s a tramp for leading him on like that. Nothing will change my mind that she was the one who was morally responsible for my brother’s death.” She flashed him a withering glance. “And you saw what she became. Selfish. Self-entitled. Cruel. Nothing less than a hag and a bully.”

  A thought flared in Li’s head. A bully?

  “But she’s dead,” he mumbled. “Your husband told you that, didn’t he?”

  “Why? Do you find that interesting? Yes, Marty told me that Charlegne died. From sunstroke, I hear. Well, that’s poetic justice. After all the years I had to put on a happy face when we were in public…after forcing myself to adopt a stupid sunny disposition when I felt like ripping her face open with my fingernails, Charlegne’s the one who got burned. In fact, you could say she’s…” She chuckled, but it was cold, sadistic. “…sunny side up.”

  Li shivered. The July sunshine felt as cold as December.

  Rosemary stood and perched the sunglasses on her face, closing further discussion. “I’m only glad I wasn’t alone with the bitch. If that ever happened…” Her smile was as friendly as Aaron Brent’s. “…I might have greeted her like I did at Fashion Week last year.”

  Li walked toward the geyser, dragging his feet and rousing a thick cloud of dust at his ankles. His head felt stuffed with cotton. His plan had been to die with his guilt and grief, to never buckle, to never let the ugliness around him shatter his illusion of self-control. And, in one afternoon, his disguise had been stripped away. He had vomited his suffering to a complete stranger. The hunger to go home and beg forgiveness at his father’s ashes plagued him like the aftershocks of a nightmare.

  I feel physically ill, he thought. My stomach won’t stop writhing. Why do I feel like I betrayed Dad? He knows how this guilt is killing me. Getting it out of my system should have helped. But I keep remembering what I did during those last two years. Why didn’t I see him more often? Why couldn’t I be a better example of what he taught? Oh, my stomach…

  Li wrapped his arms around his midsection and prayed away the sickness.

  Then the earth roared.

  Li stumbled over his own feet, his eyes desperate to locate the source of the explosion. Blinded by the naked glare of the sunlight, he could make out certain sounds. A cluster of shouts. A rumble of brittle thunder. Something wet sprinkled on his face, and his stomach rebelled.

  Then his eyes scaled the hundred plus feet of a roaring tower of water.

  “You’re late.”

  A man with purple-dyed hair and matching eyebrows thrust a jumble of shoes into Li’s unprepared arms.

  “Don’t you dare drop these Manolos,” Purple said, his Continental accent thick in his throat, “or Ratface will be on your ass like Lycra hot pants. Now get these on Kennelly’s feet before I hear that stupid little whinny of hers one more time.”

  “But I don’t—”

  Purple cut off the protest by stomping towards an elaborate photographer’s set-up down on the terrace. The model’s petulant whine rose over the tumult and moaned about the heat, the tourists, and the bellowing geyser, a violent contrast with her dark, brooding, Katharine Hepburn looks. Li, cradling the shoe cluster like an abandoned child, jerked his head in every direction.

  “Whoopsie.”

  The new voice was cool, amused, and pressed a cold spot into the nape of his neck.

  Priscilla materialized at Li’s side and squeezed his arm with her gloved hands. Her hat served as an umbrella against the sunlight, drowning her in shadow. Her smile was more at home with nannies placating fussy babies. With a lilt in her voice, she called out to the crowd at the photo shoot in unctuous French. Purple strode to them, treated Li like a misplaced coatrack, and ferried the shoes down himself.

  “My apologies,” Priscilla said, maintaining her grip on Li’s arm. “Sebastian must have thought you were one of the styling assistants. Silly mistake. But I was hoping I’d have a chance to talk to you.”

  Li cocked an eyebrow. Does everyone want to have a heart-to-heart with me now? “You were?”

  Her smile reminded Li of a loaded pistol. “Yes. Why don’t we walk for a bit? The sea air is too refreshing to miss. Come along.”

  “What about your photo shoot?”

  Priscilla shrugged by tilting her chin to one raised shoulder. “It’s only a little cover shoot for Harper’s Bazaar. Jean Claude is an artist, and Sebastian can handle Kennelly Richards better than her p
arents could. I won’t be missed.”

  She hauled Li toward the edge of the terrace, her fingers like a vise on his upper arm. Li realized she had no intention of letting him go.

  “I just want to say how brave it was for you to find poor Charlegne, yesterday,” Priscilla said. “That’s not easy for children to experience.”

  “I’m twenty.”

  “Yes, yes, but still a child to many. Like your poor parents. It must be torture for them to know their baby boy is out here alone, working like a servant and feeling terribly homesick.”

  “My mother handles it just fine, Ms. Reilly.”

  Priscilla’s cardinal-red lips pursed into a prim smile. “And your father?”

  She stuck her pin right into Li’s heart. “My…My dad died when I was in high school.”

  “Oh, you poor boy…” She drew a gloved finger along his jawline. “So brave. So young.” She pulled down on his bottom lip as if inspecting his gums. “And not a bad face either.”

  He could see the way her amber eyes traced his features, calculating the geometry of his face with expert precision. Li felt panic flood his body as her smile widened with each passing second.

  “Such a handsome, lonely boy,” she cooed.

  “W-What do you want from me?”

  “So many people loved Charlegne. It’s a horrific tragedy when someone like her…well…exits the stage so soon.” Priscilla changed her tone from panther on the hunt to sympathetic event planner. “We’re going to host a special memorial for her. Just a few old pictures and dresses and things like that. But the important things are the stories.” Those amber eyes glowed as she pulled in her prey. “Imagine it…Standing before the fans, the loved ones, the people ready to mourn the beauty lost to us all…the lonely boy with eyes like a lake in the rain remembering his poor, sweet father’s untimely demise. A catch in his throat…the slight puddle of tears against his lashes…he recalls discovering the body of a woman he had admired for many years, a beauty so senselessly destroyed by a jealous Mother Nature. The boy sobs…it is painful to remember violence against beautiful souls…those of his father and the woman he admired. He is the face of grief, and tears leak from the lakes of his eyes, an image for history, the icon of loss and love.” She gave him a very arch grin. “It would be selfish not to share your story with others.”

  Her hands staunched the circulation to his fingers by now. Spellbound, Li could barely croak out an answer. “You want me to be the face of your ‘We miss Charlegne’ campaign?”

  The tiniest frown line puckered between her eyebrows. “Don’t you think that’s an irreverent thing to say?”

  “I do. It fits with this whole idea of yours.”

  Priscilla sighed lavishly and looked out at the sea. La Bufadora roared to life again. She didn’t turn to look at him when she spoke, but her voice had a businesswoman’s grit.

  “Material or moral objections?”

  Li stopped trying to wrench his arm out of her grip. “Excuse me?”

  “If it’s money, La Charlegne can provide a VERY generous donation to you and your family AFTER services rendered. If it’s more than money…” She flicked a hand at the photo shoot. “…there will be dozens of girls like Kennelly who will want to meet the charming face of the boy so broken by his dad’s death. And with my help, we could put this face to more profitable use.” She glared at Li, her pale honey eyes burning. Ratface, Li thought. “I can make something out of you. You’re not the tallest or in the best shape, but we can work with that. A few weeks at the gym, a good diet, a new haircut, and GQ will be kissing your ass to get you on the cover. Eyes like yours don’t come around that often. Don’t waste them.”

  All this because of my eyes? No…All this because she wants to use me as a marketing tool.

  “I don’t think you can give me what I want.”

  “Try me.”

  He could feel her fingernails through the glove now.

  “Bring my dad back to life.”

  Priscilla’s eyes withered into slits. She watched him closely. Then her face smoothed into a sneer, and a chuckle wormed its way from the cave of her throat.

  “I should have known. Moral objections. The impossible price. You ask for something I can never give you. Listen, kid…” She tugged him under the shade of her wide-brimmed hat. “I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about whatever goody-two-shoes morals your Daddy spoon-fed you when you were a little brat. They don’t work outside of La-La Land.” She permitted a light snarl to touch her top lip. “Sometimes, you have to do things you aren’t proud of to get somewhere in life. Morals are for children’s stories. There will be times when you must do something a shade off-color to get what you want.” She turned her glare to the unbothered horizon. “I didn’t become the head of La Charlegne by being a saint.”

  Li knew both of his parents would yell at him for being so rude, but he couldn’t block the insulted, rebellious words boiling in his mouth. “And all it took was Charlegne’s death, right?”

  Priscilla snapped her head back at Li, her eyes animated with fury, a panther scenting danger. They soon cooled into an expression of bland interest.

  “A tragic accident.” She stressed the word. “Totally unforeseen. Of course, it was a shock, but Charlegne planned for any eventuality. She decided years ago that if she were unable to continue heading the line, I would be the most logical choice as her successor. Naturally, her death has been heartbreaking…” And here, she looked as heartbroken as a hungry crocodile. “…but her wishes were set long before this cruise. She would have wanted me to shepherd this label with confidence and skill. I am only a servant to her wishes.”

  If Li hadn’t already been on such a raw, emotional tightrope, he might have staved off his tattered temper. But some hotheaded and injured imp inside him wanted to claw the evil satisfaction out of those amber eyes.

  “You still haven’t found that bottle of sunscreen, have you?” His tone was cold, sharp, intended to wound.

  Priscilla didn’t conceal her boredom. “A trifle. A zealous admirer pocketed it as a souvenir from the lady he adored from afar. It happens.”

  “But Charlegne wouldn’t forget to use sunscreen, would she? She wouldn’t refuse protection from the sun, right? Because there was no sunscreen on her skin when we found her.”

  He wanted to see fear. Or guilt. Even just a flicker would do.

  What he got was a glint of surprise.

  “I am not in charge of what my employer chooses to—”

  The silvery-blue of Li’s eyes gleamed like the blade of Excalibur. “But she DID use it. Someone SAW her use it. So where did all that sunscreen go?”

  Her grip hardened on his arm, and his fingers tingled with oncoming numbness. She had every desire to hurt him. Li fought to keep from wincing. It was astounding how her iron muscles could be so efficiently cloaked by designer fashions. But a steel beam gilded with gold leaf remained steel.

  “I don’t have a clue what you mean,” she hissed, “but I am totally blameless. I never saw her that day.”

  Li’s memory blazed into life. “Not even when you ordered her breakfast?”

  Priscilla’s dainty nostrils flared. “No. I ordered it from my cabin. I always knew what she wanted. I didn’t need to bother her and…” Her eyes glittered. “…whatever she may have been doing.”

  She knows something, he thought, but before he could ask, she continued on the outline of her innocence. “I spent the afternoon on Catalina Island in the company of two women, Daphne Cole and Sally Brent. They’ll corroborate everything. We went to a little dress shop, a drug store, and the Casino. I had only been on the ship for a little over an hour before I got the news about Charlegne.”

  She thrust her chin toward him and closed the inquiry.

  Li wasn’t easily dissuaded, now that the volatile imp in his heart found the perfect pin to burst her bubble. “That’s strange, Ms. Reilly. I thought Charlegne would want you at her side all the time. Wouldn’t she?”
<
br />   “That’s none of your business!”

  “But if you had been there, you might have been able to save Charlegne’s life. But you weren’t there!”

  The ghost of his father rose in his mind, shaking his head and frowning. That’s a low blow, son, he said. A spasm of guilt broke the boy’s glare. He dropped his eyes to his feet and begged his father for forgiveness.

  Priscilla unclamped her hand from Li’s arm. There were tiny slits in the fingertips of her gloves from where her nails poked through the fabric. Anger frayed her voice. “It wasn’t my choice. Charlegne wanted to be left alone. She told me so the night before.” She sat, ankles crossed, on the edge of the concrete terrace, glowering at the rocky crags clustered among the waves. “I went to her stateroom before dinner to settle the itinerary, choose her dress for dinner, and so on. She told me to handle the business with Harper’s Bazaar on my own and gave me the afternoon off. I went to Catalina Island, and she stayed on the ship.” She shifted her scowl back to Li. “This wasn’t a bizarre request for her. She often asked Steven and me to leave her alone for the day. After all, this was her vacation.”

  She rose from her seat like a queen preparing to give a proclamation. Her face was set with aristocratic finality. Her eyes, narrowed but burning, remarked that all discussions were closed. She turned back to the photo shoot.

  Li’s inner imp had the last word. “A vacation that ended in murder. I think you realized that, Ms. Reilly. Someone murdered Charlegne.”

  Priscilla wheeled around and punched him in the face, making sure to use the hand with the most rings. Li flinched as her fist came toward him, and got clocked right between his nose and his cheek. Another centimeter and she would have crushed his nose. He stumbled backward.

  Priscilla’s golden eyes glittered while she watched blood spout from the boy’s face. “I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to suggest, kid, but you’re an idiot. Your father didn’t teach you much. I’d like to see you try to squeeze an admission of my guilt out of Sally Brent’s innocent eyes. Any further discussion will go through my business manager, Steven Danforth. Don’t you dare speak to me alone.”