The Elizas_A Novel

by Sara Shepard

  “Nothing,” Dorothy said haughtily. “Oh, well, maybe a little. I was teaching them not to be so ageist. Sometimes women in their early fifties like to party, too.”

  Dot stared at the pocket where Dorothy had slipped the pills. “It’s not like you’re going to take those, are you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” She drained the last of her stinger. “Don’t worry, dear, it’ll be someday when you’re not around. A random afternoon when I’m feeling lonely.”

  “Then I’ll have to stick by you every day,” Dot said. “Make sure you don’t ever take it. It might kill you.”

  Dorothy’s face brightened. “Darling. That would be absolutely lovely if you stuck by my side every single day.”

  Back at home, Dot told Marlon the story. She told it in a joking way—my crazy aunt! Isn’t she a card? She told him after they’d had sex, when he was in a good mood. But Marlon paled.

  “Shit,” he said in a far-off voice. “I’d never even thought of that.”

  “What?” Dot asked, sitting up. “What are you talking about?”

  “Roofies. Maybe she’s drugging you.”

  Dot barked out an angry laugh. “I can’t believe you’d say such a thing!”

  “I keep working it out in my head, Dot. That night when we went out with her? You really hadn’t had much. There had to be something else in the mix. Something that made you pass out like that.”

  “My aunt loves me!” Dot cried. “She wouldn’t roofie me! Take it back!”

  He threw up his hands. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I looked up some facts about that Otufu story. Where your aunt visited is fairly stable. There are no warlords.”

  “So what? She got her story mixed up.”

  “Or maybe she was making all of it up. I talked to my grandparents, too. They said she was a real nut. Used to walk around the Magnolia grounds naked. Don’t ever swim in her bungalow’s pool. She used to have orgies in there.” He made a face.

  Dot got up from the bed and pulled on her sweatshirt. “You were asking around about her? What gives you the right?”

  “I was just asking some questions. I want to protect you.”

  Dot glared at him. “Even if all of this is true, does that make her a bad person? A person who’d roofie someone?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this.” She stepped into her underwear and jeans, grabbed her backpack, and headed toward the door. “Call me when you grow up.”

  “Come on. Don’t be like that. Don’t kill the messenger.”

  Dot stared into the grungy dorm hallway. “I think we should break up.”

  “Dot! I love you. I’m not saying this to hurt you.”

  Dot shut her eyes. She knew he did. But why couldn’t he love Dorothy? Why was he trying to undermine her?

  “Please don’t go out with her anymore,” Marlon said. “Just for a little while. Just until we can figure out what’s true and what’s not.”

  Dot stared at the door that led to the hall. There was a thin beam of fluorescent light poking through the peephole. “I can’t do that.”

  Behind her, he sighed. His hands moved away from her; she could feel his heat recede. She flung open the door and ran, a ball lodged in her throat. She ran down the hall and entered the little nook that held the dorm’s vending machines, wedged herself between the Pepsi machine and the ice maker, and rested her head between her knees for a long, long time.

  ELIZA

  MONDAY MORNING, I start awake, disoriented. Where am I? A hazy scene around me: green-and-white-striped curtains, a luxurious California King bed. But then the furniture turns to mist. I open my eyes, and I am in my canopy bed in my bedroom. Where else would I be?

  Someone pounds at the door. Judging by the lack of noises to right the situation, I am guessing Kiki and Steadman aren’t home. I sit up slowly, a sticky, rotting taste in my mouth. There is one message on my phone from Laura: Uh, I got this weird voice mail from this woman who said she’s your mother? She wants us not to publish your book? Nothing from my mother, though—I don’t know why I’m even checking. Nothing from Bill, apologizing for her. Nothing from Lance the forensic psychologist. Nothing from Richie the bartender.

  More pounds. I glance in the mirror at myself and try to tamp down my wild, witchlike hair. Mascara is caked around my eyes, and I must have reapplied lipstick in between drinks number seven and eight, because it makes a wobbly circle around my general mouth region, hitting a good bit of my teeth, too. The knot on my head where I fell on Friday has morphed over the weekend from a garish blackish-purple to an even uglier greenish-yellow. It still hurts when I touch it.

  I dart into the bathroom and scrub my face raw. With the makeup gone, my eyes are tiny, my lips puffy, my cheeks the color of raw cauliflower. I smooth my hair down my forehead and arrange it so it’s kind of covering up the bruise. I down twenty varieties of vitamins in hopes that their wonder-powers will counteract all the alcohol. Then I take a deep breath and listen, hoping the knocking has ceased. If anything, whoever it is has begun to pound harder.

  What if it’s Leonidas down there? What if he knows I’m alone and has come to hurt me for looking through his phone?

  I part the curtain at the top of the stairs and peer out the window. The Batmobile is in the driveway. I’m so astonished that I laugh. I would have thought that after Friday Desmond would want to be rid of me.

  I hurry down the stairs and open the door. I find him in a disarmingly normal black T-shirt, old black jeans, and lace-up boots that are suede and pointed and perhaps like something a minstrel might wear. He cocks his head at me. “Were you slumbering?”

  “No, but I was sleeping,” I mutter. “I tossed and turned all night.”

  “Up solving your mystery? You should have called me.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “I thought you were out of the detective game.”

  “Oh, now, I never said I was out for good.”

  I remember my hope that he was coming to spin me around to kiss me. I think I’d dreamed about it last night; I have vague flashes of his pointy little face above mine, that thick, glossy hair brushing against my cheek, those little hands deft.

  I place my hands in my pockets, and the shock of hair covering my bruise falls out of position and reveals the greenish skin. Desmond notices it and gasps. “What happened?”

  “Just a fall.”

  “Onto what, someone’s fist?”

  He reaches out to touch the gash, but I squirm to the left. Begrudgingly, I tell him about what happened in the parking lot on Friday and that the picture I’d taken was now missing. He looks aghast. “I should have stayed with you! Made sure you got safely into the Uber!”

  “Nothing happened to me, exactly,” I say. “Except that I had a panic attack and lost consciousness. And then the police came, and they drove me home.” You know. Totally normal day.

  “How intriguing that the assailant deleted the file,” Desmond muses. “It has to be someone who knows something, right? Someone who doesn’t want you to figure out who Leonidas was speaking with.”

  I nod—this is what I’ve deduced, too.

  Desmond places his hands on his hips. “You know, you can subpoena phone records. We should explain this to the police.”

  I make a face. “On what grounds? It’s not like I have much proof besides eavesdropping on Leonidas’s conversation.”

  “Hmm.” Desmond looks chagrined. “We should try and get proof.”

  I nod, though I have no idea how we could do this. “I’m pretty sure a number I know was on that call list. I’ve tried all weekend to remember, but I can’t.” I sigh. “Even better, I wish I could just remember who I was talking to that night in Palm Springs. And maybe even who pushed me into the pool.”

  Desmond paces the room, then suddenly snaps his fingers. “I have an idea.”

  I suck in my stomach. There’s something propositional about his voice. “What?”

>   “I’ve been reading up on how to unlock memories. Sometimes, the key is to go back to the scene of where you lost them. They can return just by smelling the same smells or hearing the same sounds. We should go back to the Tranquility.”

  “What, today?”

  “I have the day off.” His gaze goes to my bruise again. “Unless you’re feeling too infirm.”

  I run my tongue over my teeth, and all at once they feel smooth and clean. It’s not like I have anything else to do today besides panic. The Tranquility looms in my mind like a book I don’t want to open because I’m not sure I want to know how it ends, but maybe Desmond is right. Maybe everything will slot into place if we go.

  “Okay,” I say. At the very least, it would be an opportunity to retrieve my car from the resort’s garage. I’d thought my family was going to chariot it back for me, but as far as I know, it’s still there.

  Once again in the Batmobile, Desmond plays a favorite song from a CD complication in his disc player: something heavy with mandolins. I play one next: Sleater-Kinney. I watch his expression, suddenly curious of what he thinks. “Interesting,” he says, and finds another song on his CD. A lute, some mewling. I keep my expression neutral, but I notice him watching me in the same way I was watching him. I burst out laughing.

  NPR, sports radio, Spanish for a few minutes, even though neither of us really knows the language. We follow an old VW Beetle, a pink stretch limo with Happy Chicks painted on the side, a bright blue bus of old people. Desmond waves to the old people, and many of them wave back. Toward the back of the bus, a younger, shadowed face appears, and I flinch. I’m looking at an image of myself.

  “Are you all right?” Desmond asks, because I must have made some sort of noise.

  The bus lags a little behind us. The angle of the sunlight changes, and the face in the window is gone. There is sweat spilling down my neck into my underwear. I chew viciously on a fingernail. “I just thought I saw something. Someone.”

  “Who?”

  I press my hand hard against my knee. Me, I want to say, but I know that’s impossible. Out loud: “I don’t know. But it was someone who looked like they knew me, maybe.”

  By the time we pull up to the Tranquility’s sweeping front drive, I am feeling sweaty and starving and maybe like this isn’t a very good idea. I still don’t really know Desmond. Who’s to say he isn’t dangerous? Should I have alerted Bill and my mother? They’d seemed so offended that I’d disappeared to Palm Springs the last time without telling them.

  We stop the car, and a valet immediately appears to relieve us.

  “Good afternoon,” Desmond says dramatically, using a fake, Dracula accent. He tosses the valet his keys, and I notice he has a wimpy throw. I bet he was picked last for teams in junior high gym.

  “Sweet ride,” the valet says, handing us a ticket. “You two staying with us?”

  Desmond glances at me with one eyebrow raised. “Shall we? Perhaps a suite par deux?”

  My smile wobbles, but I’m still feeling so out of it, so I snap, “Of course not. And I think your French is wrong.”

  He walks inside, and I reluctantly follow. Desmond tries to take my arm and I let him for a few seconds before dropping it. Halfway across the floor, the smell of tequila wafts into my nose, and I swoon. All at once, pieces of memories that I don’t know what to do with rush my brain. I see myself, younger, sitting on a barstool, laughing at someone. Me and a person, lounging on a couch together. Leonidas?

  Desmond touches my arm. “Is it happening?” he asks, excitedly. “Are you remembering?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmur, taking a deep breath to try to steady my legs.

  We walk past an indoor desert garden of waterfalls, cacti, and terra-cotta sculptures. The atrium is fragrant with floral succulents. A potpourri of people in southwestern garb probably purchased in the gift shop lounge on big chairs in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks a desert vista.

  “This is truly an oasis,” Desmond says, tenting his fingers. “I used to come here as a child with my father. It’s why I bring my team down here—I always feel so centered in this place. You, too?”

  I blink hard, the memories swirling around my head suddenly gone. “Maybe.”

  “Did you come here as a child as well?”

  “I . . . think so.”

  “You think?”

  It feels like something I was sure of only days ago, maybe even minutes ago—how I know of this place, my history within it, and why I’d chosen to come here on the day of my almost-drowning. It’s not like it’s a Ritz-Carlton. It’s not like it’s featured regularly in Travel + Leisure. It’s one of those places you have to know about to find. We must have come here when I was younger: my mom, Gabby, Bill, and me. I distinctly remember hiking up that trail out back, yelling my name between the two canyons to hear the echo. It’s just that what happened in between is missing.

  But this isn’t what I need to focus on right now. I need to think about my most recent visit. If I can just retrace my steps, I can remember who hurt me. I picture myself in the lobby. Walking over to the front desk to check in. I recall the smooth key card in my hand. I remember a woman in a crisp white shirt sliding my American Express card back across the counter with a tight smile. I remember taking a mint from a dish and popping it into my mouth. “Would you like to book any spa services, miss?” the woman had asked me, but I’d shaken my head. No massages for me. No facials or manicures. So what had I come here to do?

  Drink. And drink heavily. But why? Was it because I knew, subconsciously, the tumor was back? I wish it were that simple. Could something have set me off, then? What had happened that day before I went? I try to think. I probably woke up like I always did and choked down vitamins and a smoothie. I’d probably talked to Kiki. I had received the boxes containing copies of my book that day. Could that be something?

  “Come on,” I say, tugging Desmond’s arm. “Let’s go to the bar I was at before the pool.”

  We look at a map on the wall; the Shipstead is through a hallway, past a couple of gift shops and the spa, down an elevator, and past the fanciest restaurant. Outside, the pool beckons, the cheerful orange cabana cloths flapping in the light wind. A few people are lying on the chaises, reading books. The blue water glistens. I’m surprised it’s open, actually. It sounds ridiculous, but I was hoping they would have closed it off after I’d been fished out. A man glides in the water with a baby buoyed by a large round float. The baby’s smile is all gums. She splashes her father giddily. Neither of them have any idea I’d been lying at the bottom nine days ago.

  I wonder what the father would do if I told him.

  It’s three p.m., a dead time especially on a Monday, and the Shipstead’s bartender, who’s wearing a sailor suit, grimaces as he wipes the counter by the bottles. The wallpaper features diagrams of how to tie different sailing knots. The room smells like Old Spice.

  Desmond surveys the room, then looks at me. “Do you remember where you were sitting?”

  I pick a stool at the bar, though I have absolutely no recollection. The bartender places coasters imprinted with jaunty navy-blue anchors in front of us, and asks if we’d like a menu. Desmond asks what sort of absinthe they’ve got. The bartender names a brand, to which Desmond makes a face.

  “Amateurs,” he whispers, but he orders it anyway.

  I consider ordering nothing—I already feel naturally tipsy—but then I blurt out, “A stinger.” It feels like the right answer. I’d had one that night.

  The bartender nods. When he reaches for the martini glass, he has to stand on his tiptoes. A heady scent of deodorant wafts from his underarms.

  “You aren’t Richie, by any chance, are you?” I call to him.

  He turns around and blinks at me. “No. Sam.”

  “Is Richie . . . here?”

  “Nope.” He adds various liquids to a stainless shaker. “Not today.”

  At least Richie actually exists. “Do you know when he’
s around next?”

  The bartender frowns. He’s handsome, but he’s short, and the bell-bottomed one-piece just makes him look even smaller, almost like a child. He has tattoos of numbers in a random pattern on every finger. A phone number? Birth and death dates? “Are you a friend of his?”

  “No, I was at this bar two Saturdays ago, and Richie was my bartender. I’m trying to figure out who I was sitting next to,” I say in the most pleasant, sane voice I can muster. “I spoke to the person for a while that night, but I didn’t catch her name. I was hoping Richie could help me.”

  There’s half a smile on the bartender’s face. As he sets down our drinks, he looks sympathetic. “That’s happened to me a few times, too. I hit it off with someone, it seems like something, and he leaves before I get his phone number. You could place an ad on Craigslist, you know. Missed Connections. Ever read those? Cashier at the 76 on Main Street, I’m the tall thin guy who comes in in the mornings for hot chocolate and Red Bull. You waved at me, maybe you’ll see this. You could do something like that.”

  My mouth, I’m sure, is hanging open. “Oh, I’m not trying to get a date out of this.”

  The bartender blinks at me. “Oh,” he says, woodenly. He abruptly walks away to serve an older couple who has just come in.

  Desmond pours the green liquid over his absinthe. “I used to post on Missed Connections. I never got a response. I don’t know anyone who ever got a response. Kind of makes you wonder why it still exists.”

  I point at him playfully. “I thought social media made you sad.”

  “Snapchat makes me sad. Selfies make me sad. Thinking that a text message serves as a love letter makes me sad. Posting on Missed Connections, that was poetry.”

  “You’re so weird.” I down my cocktail and gag. The stinger tastes bitter, unlike things I usually drink, but the flavor doesn’t conjure any new memories. Desmond drinks slowly, tapping his toe at the smooth, sax-heavy jazz number on the stereo. The old couple sips wine and talks quietly. The bartender ignores us, making a big deal out of cleaning the barware. In the distance, a maid feverishly vacuums the rug, her head bopping to music over her headphones.