Eternity Skye

by Liz Newman

  On the top of the hill, as Skye pressed in the access code and the gate opened wide, she revved the engine. This is going to be the best part of the trip. And then I’m leaving, Skye thought. I’ll book my flight back tomorrow. Arrivederci Roma! She gunned the engine once more and sped down the slope, her mouth pulling into a grin as she flew downward past the trees which became green blurs at her side. Their leaves beckoned her to go even faster. Down, down, down she sped. She felt the pull of her hair and clothes as the passing wind gripped them. The parked sedan appeared in her range of sight. It looked empty. She pressed her foot down harder on the gas.

  Sal stooped low inside the sedan parked on the driveway, searching the floorboards in vain for the lost car key. A loud Tarantella song played from a portable radio set down on the passenger side floorboard.

  He flipped the carpet to lie flat and opened the front passenger’s door of the car. Skye slammed on the brakes far too late. The Vespa crashed into the open door and she flew over it, her shoes rocketing away from her body and landing in the freshly manicured hedges. She somersaulted into the air and landed squarely on her feet. The balls of her feet exploded with pain as she crashed down onto her knees, shielding the impact of her helmeted head onto the cement with her balled-up fists.

  Sal rushed out of the vehicle to her side. Her body rested on her forearms and knees as he turned her over, onto her back. Although her expression froze into a grimace of shock, she instantly felt happy at the sight of him, then remembered their night together and all the woes she unloaded on him. She’d believed she would never see him again, and the mere sight of him brought feelings of indignation and embarrassment. He had seen her at her most vulnerable and weak, emotionally. And here she was again, at her most vulnerable and weak, physically. Pain zipped through her brain and body, as well as a primal reaction to his dashing countenance. This reaction was instantly overwhelmed by feelings of anger and humiliation which rose strongly in her chest. Unsure of what to say, and in pain, she growled. “Wipeout.”

  “Signorina Skye? Are you hurt? I am so sorry, so very sorry. I had no idea you were coming,” Sal apologized. The short sleeved shirt he wore clung to his arms and chest, and his jeans, although stylish, were stained with potting soil.

  Skye let out a long, low breath. “You invited me, didn’t you? Although you said you wouldn’t be here. So I assumed.”

  “My plans were delayed. I assure you, you shall soon have the entire place to yourself.” His eyes darkened.

  “So much for spending time alone.” She rose to a sitting position, removing her helmet. She brushed her black, road-burned hands off on her tattered pants. He helped her up, wrapping one arm around her waist and placing the other under her shoulders. She tried to force herself to breathe evenly at the feeling of his touch.

  “I never got this straight, exactly what you do here?” she asked.

  He looked down and laughed softly. “I am…a gardener’s assistant. In a week or two I will move on to my next job. This has all just taken longer than expected.” He waved at the grounds around him for emphasis.

  “Had you shared that with me while you were in New York, I would’ve scheduled my trip later,” she griped, knowing that such flexibility remained impossible, but feeling the urge to stab him a bit with words. She gripped her lower back, feeling a stab of pain shoot through her spine.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Signorina?”

  “No, I’m not all right. I’m most certainly not all right! Are you deaf, or just so stupid you could not hear one of the noisiest pieces of driving machinery ever made coming down that hill?”

  Sal calmly opened the door to the sedan. Music from the portable radio blasted out. Skye reached into the car, lifted the radio out by its handle, and threw it into the bushes.

  “Signorina, you need not act that way.”

  “Skye, goddamn it! Since you know me so well, just call me Skye! You spent the night at my house, remember? Held me while I blubbered like a baby.”

  Sal took a rag from his back pocket and wiped off his hands. “All right. Skye. Anything else I can do for you, Skye?” Each word sounded bitten more than spoken.

  “Yeah!” she shouted. “For starters, I’d like an apology for your reckless behavior!” She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. Sal’s laughter burned her ears bright red.

  “I apologize for interrupting the stunt race,” he bowed to her mockingly. “If any injuries other than your wounded pride do arise, call on Annabelle. I shall do my best to avoid you, as you are a danger to yourself and to the stereo. Enjoy your stay.”

  Skye glared at him as she walked the wobbly moped up the rest of the driveway to the house. She propped the rickety vehicle against the courtyard fountain and called Kleinstiver again. His voicemail picked up. She hung up and called him again, and again, and again, as she scaled the stairs, moaning at each turn of the winding staircase No answer. She threw her phone on the guest bed and removed clothes from the armoire, filling up her suitcase. She bent down to pick up a pair of shoes and a shot of pain radiated through her spine.

  Groaning, she lay down on the bed, helplessly watching television as a woman in fishnets and a bodysuit gyrated on the screen over the caption of a phone number. Her stomach growled. She raised up her arms over her head, and for a moment, wished for a swift, painless death. She lightly slapped herself across the face. “Stupid, stupid, stupid puss,” she muttered. She turned over and gripped the coverlet, bringing it to her face.

  A knock sounded at the door. “What,” she answered.

  “Signorina?” Sal’s voice called from the other side. “I have something for your injuries.”

  “If it won’t make me unconscious, forget about it,” she responded.

  “It’s medicine. Made from herbs in the garden. Annabelle swears by it,” he called through the closed door. “May I come in?”

  “Sure.” Skye sat up on the bed and attempted to straighten up her beaten appearance.

  “Thank you, Signorina,” Sal said cheerily as he walked through the door. He looked pointedly at the tattered holes in the knees of her pants. “Annabelle asked me to bring this to you. I hope my presence during your vacation ceases to make you uncomfortable. I shall do my best to remain…nascosto. Disappear, yes? Only one condition.”

  “What is that?” she grumbled.

  He smiled at her, and Skye melted at the sight of his dark wavy hair that fell forward down the sides of his face, and his deep brown eyes that spoke of one who loved and lost many things. Her own reflection told the same sad story, and she hated to see it in her reflection. Looking at him, she felt instant pangs of longing to discover the uncharted territory of his deepest thoughts. His manner divulged purity and wisdom—a soul built of the gathered strength of struggle, the moist, soft openness of an unhardened heart and the passionate fires that rendered value to the earthiest affectations. Most New Yorkers targeted this sensitivity as an easy mark. In this docile, lazy world of the villa, Skye found the look in his eyes very touching. She recovered from her thoughts as his smile faded.

  He became serious again. “That you stay. And that you cease your attempts to live dangerously on these grounds. May I?” His hands moved toward her legs.

  “I’ll get it.” Skye pulled up both her pant legs. Bloody lacerations, thick as puddles of strawberry jam, desecrated her limbs. Sal winced as he dabbed her knees with a wet cloth. “How do you know Signora Luciana?”

  Sal shifted uncomfortably, pausing before he dabbed a piece of gauze into the poultice and applied it to her knees. He looked up at the oil portrait of the tanned platinum blonde that hung over the bed. “The Signora is a friend of my family’s. She and I became good friends as well. When I became in need of a job, she hired me.”

  “How long have you worked as a gardener here?”

  “Ah, eh, a long time.” He sighed. “Roma. The city, the earth, it has become a part of me. It seems I can never leave, although soon I will. You can see
the world, but the place you grow, you become. I have yet to see if I can grow differently, but there is no turning back now.”

  “There’s always turning back.”

  “No reason.” Sal inspected her left knee and swabbed away a bit of embedded grime. “Enough said about me. This vacation…it is for you.”

  Skye closed her eyes and tried to go to a happy place that didn’t exist for her. She touched his hand and pulled it away, still holding his fingers in hers. “I think I’ll just soak in the bath.”

  “A good idea.” Sal smiled good-naturedly. “I shall draw one for you.”

  Caressing her fingers, he ducked into the bathroom. The fixtures creaked as he turned them. He left the water running as he walked back into the bedroom.

  “I shall return in a moment.” He glanced over at the television. Three women wearing thong underwear cartwheeled on a grassy field. “That’s a very popular show. Annabelle shopped for groceries this morning. I apologize that we neglected to tell you that this villa has two kitchens, one in the servants’ quarters, and the main kitchen. She is very old, and forgetful, so I reminded her to stock the groceries in the main kitchen. It made more sense to her to place them in her quarters, since she prepares the meals there when the Signora Cecilia is away.”

  Skye laughed softly as he left the room. He returned a few minutes later, carrying a small burlap and a plate of figs and cheese. He placed the plate on Skye’s nightstand, and disappeared into the bathroom. She munched on a fig and switched off the television.

  “And now,” he said as he exited the bathroom. “I disappear.” He closed the door behind him.

  “Sal?” she called a moment later. The sound of his footsteps retreating down the hall answered her. She slid her clothes off, wincing, and walked into the bathroom. Fresh gardenias bobbed in the warm water of the soaking tub.

  After drying off, she dialed Kleinstiver’s cell phone again. “I’m mad as hell that you are not calling me back. After all I have done for you, you cannot even give me the courtesy of a phone call. You are the director of my show. I need a call back. Now.” She hung up and checked her watch, which she had refused to adjust to reflect the time change. The face read five past four in the morning, Eastern Standard Time.

  She called Kleinstiver again. “Eh, disregard that last message. I…can wait a few days to talk with you. No hurry. Have a nice night. I mean morning. Whatever.” She hung up the phone.

  She closed her eyes and fell asleep in the tub, waking in cold water with an aching neck. She wandered the villa in the middle of the night, haunting the halls again. Foraging through the refrigerator, she chose a raw celery stalk but tossed it aside. She typed notes for the show, falling asleep with her cheek on the keyboard as the sun rose.

  The heat of the late-morning sun shone on her face as she stirred. Her phone rang again and again. She glanced at the area code. 212. New York City.

  “Kleinstiver,” she said into the phone.

  “Skye, it’s Tabitha. I really messed up.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What do you mean? How?” Skye asked through a croaky morning mouth. Her tattered, dirty clothes lay strewn on the floor.

  Tabitha sniffed, and muffled noises sounded over the line. She might have been rubbing her eyes or perhaps rummaging through something. “I need to see you. Right away. Where are you?”

  “I’m in Rome. At Villa Pastiere. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “He’s cheating on me,” she sobbed. “I know it. He takes phone calls and talks in the other room with the door shut. He’s never done that before. It’s Tazim. Tazim Belle, the actress. I think they were having an affair, even before our wedding.”

  “If they were sleeping together, why would he marry you?”

  “How the hell would I know!” Tabitha shrieked. “What, you want me to just come out and ask him?”

  “Yes,” sighed Skye.

  “Helpful. My life is falling apart and that’s all the advice you must give. Thanks, Skye.”

  Skye chewed a hangnail off her pinky, pinched it between her fingers and placed it into a waste can in the bathroom. “Have you asked him?”

  “I already know! What good will it do to ask? He flew back from L.A. and took me out to dinner for my birthday, and he bought me an emerald necklace which I had appraised. Seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “That bastard,” Skye joked.

  “No, wait! I looked into his accounts and he made a withdrawal of one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars shortly before my birthday. He hasn’t given me anything since. He’s always taking calls in his office and he used to take them right in front of me. The other day, he listened to his voicemail in the car and I heard a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice! I knocked on the window and he took it off speaker. When he came out of the car and I asked who it was, he said his publicist Samuel Sidner called. He lied to me. He blatantly lied! I know it’s her. I know it! The last time I saw her she gave me this smile, like she’s hiding something.”

  “She’s an actress. She would put on that strictly-platonic-friendship pantomime for you”

  “She wants me to know. Don’t you get it? She thinks she’s better than me.”

  “Look, Tabs, my suggestion is to talk about it. That’s all the advice I have to give.”

  “Now I know why you never married.”

  “Tabitha, I’m going to hang up now.”

  “No, wait. Wait! I need a doctor. Someone liberal-minded. Not a psychiatrist. I hate going to shrinks. They prescribe me all these pills I don’t need. I just need something to help me relax.”

  “Try Dr. Kemper at Mt. Sinai.”

  “Already tried him.”

  “How about Dr. Renfroe at Cypress in Greenwich?”

  “He’s off the list, too.”

  “Someone in the Yellow Pages? Or call your insurance company and get a list of doctors.”

  “I need someone more…underground,” Tabitha said, her voice draining to a whisper.

  “What exactly are you looking for?”

  Tabitha moaned in exasperation. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you later. How long are you going to be in Rome?”

  “I might be stuck here another week and a half. I hurt myself pretty badly yesterday. I rented a moped and—”

  “Tell me all about it when you get back. Over lunch, my treat. I’ll use my alimony.” Tabitha cackled and hung up.

  ***

  Tabitha shifted the gear of her 740i BMW into park. She emerged out onto the blacktop pavement of a city street in Queens. The orange and pink tones streaked the sky as the sun dipped low on the horizon. The smell of motor oil and the sick, sweet odor of rotting garbage permeated the air. She checked a crumpled slip of paper in her hand. Turlock, the note read. 660 St. John Blvd. Apt 2A. Months ago, in a chasm of a downtown club on a hazy winter night, a wily looking fellow who looked as if he’d skipped puberty and jumped right into a drug-addled manhood passed her this note. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she crossed the street and faced a directory of names. The name on the label next to the button for Apartment 2A was blocked out with thick, black ink. She rang the bell. No one answered.

  A large woman pushed past her with a heavy shoulder bag slung under a meat hock of an arm and pressed the buzzer. A man answered. “Open the door, fool!” she ordered. The door buzzed open and the woman entered, not caring if Tabitha slipped in behind her. The elevator creaked and groaned as it descended toward the first floor, slamming heavily onto the concrete. The woman entered the elevator. Tabitha opted for the stairs, hearing the wire gate of the elevator slam shut.

  She gingerly stepped over a bum sleeping on the second landing. The entrance downstairs opened, and a gust of wind blew in. The bum’s long, gray beard snaked out at her as if to grab her ankle. The heel of her embellished satin shoe buckled under her as she stumbled away from the smelly vagrant. Tabitha walked up and down the halls, stopping in front of Apartment 2A. She rapped on the steel door. An old-fashione
d peephole slid up and a suspicious, gray-green pupil swimming in a bloodshot orb peered at her from an opening. She folded her arms tightly as the door swung open.

  Minutes later, she emerged with three bottles of prescription pills in her hand. She took three pills from each one, letting their effects wash over her. Her chest constricted, alarming her. “Breathe,” Tabitha whispered to herself. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.” She glanced at the label of one of the bottles. Short spurts of oxygen struggled to work their way into her body, worming and corrupting a vessel given a mind of its own and seeking the peaceful submersion of substance induced confusion. As darkness settled, she made her way slowly down to Westchester.

  A white Le Blanc Mirabeau occupied a space on the corner of Ardsley Park. Tabitha slammed on the brakes and stared at the vehicle. It was sleek, its lines flowing and graceful. Even on a street with new model BMWs and other luxury cars parked at the curb or being gracefully enveloped by long, curving driveways, this car looked out of place. A glamorous car, Tabitha thought. A movie star’s car.

  A limousine behind Tabitha honked loudly. Tabitha accelerated, steering her BMW toward the entrance to her underground garage. The light burning in the front living room suddenly switched off. Tabitha parked and exited the car, watching the window and slowly making her way toward the wide palatial steps outside her front door. She sat down on the middle step and stared at the sky. The stars burst from the darkness from within white firecrackers. Tabitha rummaged through the bag again, taking four pills from one of the bottles. She didn’t care which one it was. She swallowed the pills down dry and turned as she heard the front door open. Jonas stood there, his hands in his pockets.

  He walked down the stairs and sat behind her, putting his arms around her. “Come in, love,” he whispered.

  “Is your whore gone now?” Tabitha said.

  Jonas pulled away from her. “What?”