by Liz Newman
“Nice to know I made such a good first impression.”
“To me, you were always a woman of class.” Marcellus raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
Sal’s footsteps fell loudly on the steep steps descending from the captain’s cabin and stopped short as he observed Marcellus’ lips on Skye’s hand. Marcellus jumped to his feet, looking at Sal.
“Allow me to explain further—” Marcellus continued.
“Scusi,” Sal mumbled, and walked back up the stairs. Skye pulled away from Marcellus. She stopped at the bar, hurriedly poured two glasses of lemonade, and followed Sal.
Skye joined Sal in the galley of the ship. The light of the noonday sun burned brightly into the glass windshields of the yacht.
“Your favorite,” she said as she handed him a glass of lemonade.
He thanked her and set it down without taking a sip.
“You look hot,” she said.
It didn’t quite come out the way she intended. The silence grew thick and awkward with each passing moment. He flicked on a switch and fans in the console turned on full blast. Skye ran her hands over her arm vigorously to soften the goose bumps on her skin.
“I’ve never driven a yacht before,” she said.
“Knock yourself out, as they say in America.” He stepped aside, placed the captain’s hat on Skye’s head, and leaned against a side console.
The wind that snaked its way over and around the windshields whipped through Skye’s hair as she studied the Italian coastline. Muted shades of brown, pink, and blue houses dotted the valleys and sloping hills, blended with greenery and an occasional stark white hotel or mansion gleaming with sunrays on marble.
Come closer, she silently willed Sal. What would Denny Moss do? Oh, what skills could that slattern possibly have? The walls of the galley threatened to loom in and crush her. Despite her internal chastisement, her back arched slightly and her chest protruded a bit in a posture of seduction. The nearness of him tortured her. “Sal,” she asked, her voice slightly squeaking. “The steering wheel seems a bit taut. Is that normal?”
“Yes,” he said, refusing to budge from his vantage point. “The…rudder…has difficulty moving against the choppy waters of the Adriatic Sea.”
“Could you help me? I’m having trouble holding on.”
“You are doing fine.”
So much for what Denny Moss would do. “Perhaps you should take the wheel,” she said. Skye held her grip on the wheel as he stood behind her. A rush of sensuality overtook her as she caught his scent and the feeling of his soft breath on her neck. She reached behind her and placed his hands on the wheel and leaned back into him.
“I’ve heard this happens often in the crowded places in Rome,” Sal said.
“What?” she asked with her eyes closed, indulging the feel of his body against her back.
“People getting caught too close to strangers.”
“Frotteurism,” she said with her eyes still closed. “I wrote a segment on that years ago.” She switched back into journalist mode. “It happens most often on subways and buses. It’s a paraphilia; the only way to achieve sexual satisfaction for some people.”
She felt his heartbeat on her upper back. He cleared his throat and pulled away, maintaining as much distance from her as possible as he held the wheel.
“I suppose that ruined the moment.”
“Just by a millimeter.”
They both laughed softly. She turned toward him, watching him as he gazed down at her. Basking in the soft warmth of his eyes, afire with specks of violet and green, she felt his hand on her back. He leaned toward her and she closed her eyes, her lips ready for a kiss.
“Home!” Tabitha yelled from the entrance to the galley. “We have to go back.”
She stumbled in toward them, cockeyed and crazy in the throes of vertigo. She reached out with desperate hands to grip anything to stay upright.
“I’m going to be…”
Her head bowed, and she threw up at Skye and Sal’s feet.
***
As the yacht approached the dock, Tabitha leaped from its bow and ran into a drugstore on the pier of San Marino at breakneck speed. Rather than risk taking a plunge, Skye waited for Sal to tie the boat to its moors. Skye ran into the shop with Sal trailing behind her.
“I! Need! Valium!” Tabitha hollered at a tiny bespectacled pharmacist. “Valium. Vicodin. Diazepam. Downers. Anything.” The little man behind the counter raised his hands helplessly. “Jesus Christ! Am I speaking English or what?”
“Si,” said the little man. His brow wrinkled, appalled at the beautiful American woman who shouted at him in a foreign language. Sal spoke softly to the pharmacist as the man shook his head. “Non fuori prescipzione.”
“Please,” Tabitha said, placing her hands together like a little girl saying her nighttime prayers. “To sleep. Need to sleep.” Her beseeching eyes were filled with tears.
The pharmacist sighed and peered at the shelves. He pointed to a row of boxes that read Sonnori. Tabitha filled her arms with as many boxes as she could carry and plunked them down on the counter, shoving Sal aside as she fumbled through her purse for her wallet.
“All of these,” she said.
Marcellus sauntered in, casually licking a scoop of caramel gelato melting over a sugared homemade pastry shaped into a cone.
The homely pharmacist pointed the scanner at a box of medicine. The symbol refused to read. “Per amor del Dio,” he mumbled. He pointed the scanner again. The register beeped indignantly. The pharmacist slowly adjusted his spectacles on his nose and examined the code, for a length of seconds, an eternity for Tabitha. He held the box up to the sunlight streaming in through the glass door and turned it over, scratching the barcode gently with his fingernail. He pointed the scanner again and the register beeped in error. He shook the scanner and tried again. She tapped her long, red nails on the counter as he entered each number of the code in manually.
Tabitha threw a handful of Euro dollars at him and gathered up the boxes, running out into the Piazza della Santa Maria. She ripped open a package and stuffed a handful of pills into her mouth, scooping up water from a fountain filled with pigeons. The birds left the sanctity of the decorative structure that served them as a birdbath, taking flight. Two nuns stared at Tabitha and kissed their rosaries as she downed handfuls of water from the filthy fountain. Skye caught up to Tabitha once again and sat beside her on the edge of the fountain, taking Tabitha into her arms. Tabitha’s shoulders slumped.
“You paid about three hundred American dollars for these.” Skye gently tried to take away the boxes of sleeping pills from Tabitha’s grip.
“I need them. For now,” Tabitha insisted. “Let me decide when, okay?” Skye relinquished her grip and gently rubbed Tabitha’s shoulders.
The sun set as they departed for Villa Pastiere in the Aston Martin. Sal and Marcellus sat in the front in silence. Tabitha slept fitfully while Skye tried to quell thoughts of the past and admire the magnificent olive trees and the natural beauty of the Italian countryside. As Tabitha slept in her arms, Skye thought about the last few days of their younger lives, when everything became different between them.
***
Skye remembered watching the streetlights flood into the dimly lit subway car as it rumbled past grimy apartment buildings. Each flash of light in the window trailed along the floor and the rear wall of the train car, eventually disappearing as new flashes entered. She’d worked eighteen-hour days at Teleworld for over a year and she was so very, very tired. The ghastly faces of graveyard workers stared off into space across from her, their minds perhaps on nothing at all but the ache of their overused bodies. She knew how they must feel, as the ache resounded in her mind, body, and soul.
She exited the subway car at her stop on Fourth Avenue and walked a block to her apartment building, her hand curled tightly around a tiny container of red pepper spray. Sighing in relief as she opened the steel door to her apartment building, she grasped the stair rail,
pulling herself up three flights of stairs to the apartment she and Tabitha shared. She opened the door.
Smoking cigarette butts lay propped up in the ashtray, inches away from a crumpled copy of The New York Times. Newspapers and wrappers littered the floor, and glasses reeked with the sickly sweet smell of cheap wine; a sour odor rose from the tabletops. Skye picked up garbage with the little energy remaining to her. The garbage can under the sink overflowed with wine bottles.
Skye lifted the heavy garbage bag out of the receptacle and headed back downstairs to the dumpster. On the second landing, the bag broke and bottles clattered down the steps. The elderly Mr. Revels poked his head out of his apartment. She waved at him, apologizing for the noise, and painstakingly picked up each piece of broken glass.
The ticking clock on the wall, shaped like Figaro the cartoon cat, read the hour of two in the morning as she fell into bed. Her alarm clock rang almost as soon as she closed her eyes, and she wearily plucked herself out of bed and into the shower. The water ran down her head and the heat combined with her weariness made her feel like either laughing insanely or crying. She sobbed; the tears coupled with hot wetness on her face continuing long after she moved her head from the shower nozzle. Unsure whether the heat exuded from tears or the water running down her wet hair, she guessed tears.
The door of the bathroom opened. She heard someone lift the toilet seat and the sound of liquid being poured from high up into the toilet. “Tabitha?” No answer. Skye moved the shower curtain aside and beheld a strange man’s hairy buttocks. She quickly pulled the shower curtain closed, her eyes widening in panic.
A rustling sound replaced the sound of the stream, and the sound of footsteps grew fainter as he exited the bathroom. Skye turned the shower off, peeking from behind the curtain. The door to the empty bathroom gaped wide open, the toilet un-flushed. Skye wrapped the shower curtain around her and shut the door, wrapping her fingers in tissue before pushing down the lever to flush. She pulled a towel off the bar and finished her morning toiletry, all the while sneaking around the apartment in fear of the hairy intruder.
She dressed in a polyester suit and walked into the kitchen. The strange man ate at the table, his flaking scalp bent over a bowl of sugar puffs and milk. With each spoonful, milk dribbled down his chin. He looked at Skye, flicking his head upward like a chimpanzee.
“Hey,” he said.
He turned back to the television and its empty black screen. Skye poured herself a cup of coffee.
Tabitha breezed into the kitchen, wearing boxers and a tank top. “Joe. This is Skye.”
“M’name’s Jake,” he mumbled, still staring at the blank television screen.
“Sorry, Jake,” Tabitha laughed. “Skye works for TBC.”
Jake grunted.
Skye took Tabitha aside and whispered, “The rent’s late again.”
“Just spot me. You know I’m good for it.”
“I’m still waiting on last month’s.”
“I didn’t pay you for that?”
“Only half.”
“I’ll call my dad. No problem.”
Skye gathered her briefcase, wallet and keys. She headed toward the front door, and then turned back. Tabitha and Jake sat in silence, not a word spoken between them. Tabitha switched on the television to a cartoon program. Skye beckoned Tabitha to stand by her in the hall.
“One of the administrators is renting out a room. I’d like to take it,” Skye whispered. “Let’s put in our thirty days.”
“What?” Tabitha shrieked. Jake looked up from the television dumbly. He reached forward and turned up the volume.
“I’m sorry. It’s only eight blocks away from Teleworld.”
“Is it because of him? I promise you’ll never see him again.”
“I believe that. Just like I never saw Russel, or John, or Bruce, or Gabe again. To be completely honest, Tabitha, this parade of strange men is creepy. All day long, I research rapes, murders, robberies, and I come home, and I can’t feel safe in my own place.”
“You’re so rarely ever here. What does it matter?”
Skye grasped both sides of her head, reflexively squeezing. She relaxed her hands so as not to muss her hair.
“I am trying to do what I set out to do. At the expense of everything else I enjoy. This is not easy for me. I can’t party all night, every night. I want more for myself. Don’t you?”
“Well, yeah. Eventually,” Tabitha said.
“This will be a good change for you, too.” Thirty days later, almost to the minute, Skye looked around the empty apartment, picked up her last box, and made her way down the stairs.
She didn’t hear from Tabitha for months. Tabitha stiffed her on the last month’s rent. Skye recouped some of the money from the security deposit and felt safe and free when she returned to her tiny rented room.
Another year went by. Skye diligently edited a news brief at her desk. A mail room attendant made his daily rounds and stopped at Skye’s desk. His longing eyes rested only a second on her and mainly on the ivory envelope in his hand.
He handed the envelope to Skye. She took it and thanked him, tracing her fingers over the gold gilded lettering that spelled her name. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.
Her eyes scanned the letter. Dear Ms. Evans, the letter read. Teleworld Broadcasting Corporation is pleased to offer you the position of Field Reporter. Effective immediately, your starting salary will be—Skye stopped reading and clutched the letter to her chest, sobbing. She fanned herself with the envelope, dabbing tears from her eyes with a tissue, and after placing a call to her mother, she picked up the phone and called Tabitha. Tabitha’s voice sounded pleasant as she congratulated Skye and invited her to meet up at a neighborhood tavern that evening for celebratory cocktails.
Football fans crowded the small sports bar. Tabitha laughed at a table, surrounded by friends, and waved frantically at Skye as she entered. Skye walked over, placing her briefcase next to her chair. Tabitha made introductions, and enveloped Skye in an enormous hug.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Skye said. “Now that I’m on salary they’re keeping me on as late as possible. I waited until Eileen Willis finished her coffee, which took an hour. She made me wait that long to tell me what my call time would be tomorrow. I have to be in The Meadowlands at four in the morning.”
“You’re always late. Work, work, work.” Tabitha downed her drink and flagged down a cocktail waitress. “I’m ready for number four. What’re you having, Skye?”
“I’ll have a sparkling water.”
“Of course, you will,” Tabitha said. Her friends, dressed in rugby shirts, tank tops, and jeans, ignored the exchange. “I am so happy for you!” Their drinks arrived. “To TBC’s newest reporter!”
A group of men joined them. The women engaged them in conversation, and one particularly handsome man named Peter Jameson became engrossed in talking to Skye, fascinated by the tasks of a former network intern.
As Tabitha drank more, her eyes grew dark and beady. Her lips sagged as she gave long, sideways looks at Skye. “Did you know,” Tabitha announced to her friends, “that this is Carolyn Chase’s daughter?”
“The Carolyn Chase?” A Jersey girl with yellow hair crowed. “The anchor. The Nobel Prize nominee for her coverage of the Vietnam war?” Tabitha’s friends were impressed. “I love your mother’s work.”
“Thank you,” Skye smiled.
“Yes,” Tabitha continued. “Carolyn worked for TBC as well. Must be nice to have a free foot in the door. Wasn’t it, Skye?”
“There was no free foot in the door, Tabs.” Skye tried to sound light. “I took all the lumps any other intern would, I assure you.”
“But not just any intern can get into TBC. Carolyn Chase’s daughter could. You’re so very, very lucky,” Tabitha said. “Lots of help from Mommy, and you’re on your way.”
Tabitha’s friends shifted around uncomfortably, their eyes turning to the television screens. The New York Jets scored,
and the crowd erupted into a cacophony of cheers.
Tabitha waited for the crowd to die down before she went on. “I’ll bet you were a closet trust fund baby, weren’t you? With all your so-called hard work, you rose quickly. I’d really like to know, Skye, why did you choose to become a journalist? Lucky coincidence for you to be the offspring of the famous Carolyn Chase! Congratulations!”
“Nice to meet you all. Good night.” Skye picked up her jacket and briefcase and headed for the door.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tabitha called after her. “I was joking. You must be working too hard. You used to be fun!”
***
A loud honk sounded as a car in another lane sped and weaved through the line of cars on the Via Aurelia Antica. Sal muttered something to Marcellus. Marcellus laughed heartily. Skye looked at Tabitha’s sleeping figure and tried to squelch the vicious thoughts welling up in her mind.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning, the Eurorail rumbled along the train tracks as Skye and Tabitha sipped espressos on white tablecloths in the dining car, leaving the city of Rome behind. Murky buildings and graffiti-strewn fences gave way to quaint little houses and open fields as the train made its way north to the city of Florence. Tabitha’s hands shook slightly every time she placed her demitasse spoon down on the table.
“I’m feeling much better now,” Tabitha said.
“I’m glad,” Skye said.
Tabitha stared out the window at the fields, studded with flowers in glorious bloom. “Maybe I should buy a house here. Leave it all behind. Marry a handsome Italian divorce attorney. What do you think?”
“One who opens doors for you. Treats you like you’re the only woman in the world. When he’s not with his girlfriend. What romance,” Skye said.
“I guess that’d never work. Not unless I can learn the Italian word for Demerol.”
Skye laughed half-heartedly. “You’re going to get through this, Tabs. I might be someone watching from a distance, but when you and Jonas look at each other I feel like there must be something there. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s something. Love, or the closest thing to it. If he’s not the one for you, there’s no harm in using him as a crutch while you work out your own problems.”