“Just in case.”
Once we’re finished, she’s ready to go.
“Now remember, you’re Beth,” she whispers in my ear.
“Yes, I get it.” She thinks I’m retarded.
“And remember what I said.” She looks at me now, gripping onto my forearm and fixes me with a fierce stare. “Tell Ambrogio you’re going to sit in the garden and read a book. My novel’s on my bedside table. I’m about halfway through. . . . Try not to have sex with him.”
“What? He’s your husband. I wouldn’t. . . .”
“And, darling, I really, really appreciate it.” She squeezes my hand, then pulls me into a hug. I pull away.
“OK, fine. You’d do the same for me so just go.”
“I’ll get Ernie ready,” she says, and then pauses. “I love you, Alvie.”
I stop in my tracks. The last time I heard that was when Ambrogio said it, eight years ago now: “I fucking love you.” I scrunch up my eyes so the tears don’t come. Draw a deep breath in through my nose and slowly, slowly out through my mouth. Whatever. God, she is so manipulative. Just keeping me sweet so I don’t jump on her husband or blow her cover. Or blow her husband. I can read you like a book, Elizabeth Caruso. Not the vomit-inducing toilet book you wrote, a good one with an actual plot that’s easy to read; hence the simile.
“I really love you,” she says.
I think I hear a falter in her voice. She smiles, but she’s fighting back tears, real tears. I can see them. For a second, I panic—a sick feeling in my stomach—is she leaving me alone with a wife-beating thug? Am I going to end up in Emergency? Or even worse, dead? Where the hell is she going to anyway? But she’s promised she’ll come home. She hasn’t even left yet and I want her to come back.
“The shoes?” I say.
Beth sighs. She hands me her glittering golden stilettos. I give her the Louis Vuitton lover’s heels. I sit on the bed and try them on, feed their delicate straps through the tiny gold buckles, wiggle my toes among the jewels. They fit perfectly. Look heavenly. I admire my feet, sparkling, dazzling. I have the feet of a Victoria’s Secret model. Beth turns and walks out of the room.
“It’s not going to work,” I call down the corridor, one last time just to make sure she knows.
I’m not very good at acting. The last time I did it I was the back end of a donkey in a nativity play, and that was unconvincing to say the least. Not that anyone was watching me, Beth really stole the show as the Virgin Mary. Years and years later, when we were eleven or twelve or thirteen, we found the videotape of the play. “Let’s watch it!” Beth said, wiping off dust and sticking it into the machine. One hour and fifteen minutes of close-ups of Beth; the donkey was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Thirteen
I wait in my room and look out the window, chewing my nails. Ambrogio’s been for a swim in the pool and I can see him sunbathing on the patio: black Speedo, a deep tan, and an action-man six-pack. He might be a wife beater, but he’s still fucking hot.
I see Beth, I mean Alvie, I mean Beth, walking out onto the patio with Ernie in his pram. She looks up to the window right at me. I can hear what she’s thinking, loud and clear: Alvie, get your ass down here. Move! I guess it’s time to go. Ambrogio sits up and runs his fingers through wet hair. This is crazy. I don’t think I can do it. He’s going to notice . . . maybe not right now, but at some point today. There’s no way he’ll think that I’m his wife. I’ll just have to tell him it was all Beth’s idea. She can be very persuasive at times. I want to jump in the shower and scrub off the makeup; I feel like a drag queen. But then I think of Beth, of I love you, Alvie. Of the shoes. Fucking hell. I head downstairs. She’s going to have to pay me back . . . perhaps a handbag to go with the shoes? And I want that diamond necklace.
The air is still and dry. The sun beams down as though that fiery ball were but a few meters away. It smells of fucking frangipani.
“Hello,” I say, way too loudly.
They look up and stare. I freeze, an unnatural grin plastered across my caked-up face. Ambrogio smiles back and then turns to my sister.
“Alvie, that’s quite a tan you’ve got just from yesterday.” Ambrogio laughs. He’s looking at Beth. This is going to get confusing.
“I’m kind of cheating.” Beth giggles. “It’s St. Tropez. I couldn’t stand looking so pale next to her.” She nods at me. I am Beth.
“Well, you both look great,” Ambrogio says, beaming at us both. His eyes rest on my souped-up chest; so this is what it feels like to be Eva Herzigová. I feel like waving Hello, boys with a wink and an air kiss, but that might not be appropriate given the context. Damn, I want to take a selfie though. I may never look this good again.
I have no idea what to do or what to say. What would Beth say? I just stand here and grin like an extra in a stupid movie, Dumb and Dumber or something.
Beth turns toward me. Wow, she does actually look like me: the lipstick, the dress, the green nail polish. Me on a good day, still a little bit shit.
“Beth,” she says (that’s me . . . right?), “I was just telling Ambrogio that I think I’m going to head out to Taormina, do some sightseeing. I probably won’t be back until tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” I nod.
Please don’t leave me. Please don’t go. Ambrogio’s going to bust me as soon as you turn your back.
“I want to check out D. H. Lawrence’s villa and that famous old church on the square. It will be nice to explore . . . get lost . . . you know?”
Beth’s looking at me.
Ambrogio’s looking at me.
“Sure, that sounds . . . that sounds like fun,” I say. Nice and breezy. Was that Beth’s voice?
“Is it still OK if I take Ernie out with me? Have some bonding time? I’d love to play mummy for the afternoon,” she says. Ernesto sticks an arm out of his pram and grasps one of her fingers in a chubby fist.
“Of course,” I say.
I’m starting to sweat. It must be getting hotter; according to Beth’s Ladymatic, it’s just gone midday.
“So it’s just you and me?” Ambrogio says, leaping up from the sun bed. He stands behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. I look down at Ambrogio’s strong forearms—bronzed, defined—clasped tightly around me, his large hands trap me in an iron grip. “Finally! You can spend some quality time with your handsome husband,” he says.
He kisses my skin where I’ve sprayed the perfume. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My body stiffens. I can’t see his face, but I imagine Ambrogio winking at Beth. I stare at my twin, my eyes wide with disbelief. She smiles, but it looks a little forced. Is she jealous? Jealous of me? That would be a first.
“Yes, I should let you two love birds spend some time together. Have a great day.”
What is she saying? “No!” I mouth. He’s going to get amorous. I know he is. Babies are cyanide for your sex life; Beth is taking Ernie out and this is his window of opportunity. This man is going to jump on me. Before I know it, Beth has turned on her heels and is walking through the gate. What exactly does she think is going to happen here? What can possibly be so important that she’d risk all this? Ambrogio’s hand slides over my hips toward my ass, and I start to freak out.
“I’ll come with you and help you with Ernie,” I say, freeing my self and running toward her. Well, I say running, it’s more of a trot. Six-inch heels are not made for sprinting. Sitting in, maybe. Sitting and sipping Sex on the Beach. I don’t get very far before I give up.
“No, don’t worry,” Beth calls over her shoulder. “We’ll be all right, won’t we, Ernie?”
“Don’t you want a lift into town, Alvina?” Ambrogio calls after her.
“No thanks,” comes her voice. “It’s not that far.” We watch her back disappear around the corner.
“Do you even know where you’re going? You’ll get lost.” H
e laughs.
“That’s what Google Maps are for!”
He turns to me and whispers under his breath. “Are you sure Ernie’s going to be OK? Your sister is hardly Mary Poppins.”
It’s all I can do to stop myself screaming, “No!”
“He’ll be fine,” I say.
And with that, she’s gone. I stare at the space on the patio where Beth used to be. Now I’m really sweating. I imagine fake tan dribbling down my legs in blatant rivulets. I check, but it’s not. I cringe and make my way back toward the villa.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Bathroom,” I say without stopping.
“OK, well, come back when you’re done,” he calls. “I have an idea.”
◆
Seriously, I cannot read this fucking shit. I slam the book down on the table and slouch back in my chair. The novel Beth told me to read is awful. Now what am I going to do? I’m avoiding Ambrogio, obviously. The man’s a walking ad for Viagra. A serious liability. Ordinarily, I would jump at the chance to jump into bed, but not like this. Not while I’m Beth. It’s just not the same.
I look around Beth’s library: walls of shelves piled high with books. Half of them are in Italian; they must be Ambrogio’s: Machiavelli, Dante, Tomasi di Lampedusa. The other half are in English, but that’s not necessarily good news. I discount everything with pink swirly writing down the spine as saccharine chick lit. Romance stories make me queasy; I doubt I’m their target reader. If I’m going to read a novel, I want it twistier than a boa constrictor and with twice the bite. It has to stop my heart and swallow me whole. That ain’t chick lit, I’m afraid. Or whatever that girlie crap Beth wrote is: Cocksucker and Tampons or Hurricane of Love.
There’s a small section of books on a shelf that looks promising, but when I pull one down, it turns out to be erotica. Harlequin bodice-rippers. Mills and Boon. Heartless, Risky Business, The Outrageous Lady Felsham. How is this erotic? There aren’t even any pictures. I don’t really get it. What’s the matter with her? Beth has the single worst taste in literature of anyone I know. And she calls herself a writer? Puh-lease. When we were young, we used to read to each other: Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Beatrix Potter. That feels like a million years ago now. That feels like a distant dream. I used to want to read Gothic horror. She liked talking animals and midnight feasts.
I’d kill for a copy of any of the classics: Lolita, Psycho, or The Silence of the Lambs. I brush dust off the spines of some old brown books, forgotten in a corner. I love the smell of ancient paper. It would be so easy to burn this place down. These haven’t been read in a long, long time. Shakespeare. All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Winter’s Tale, Macbeth. I pull out the Scottish play and flip it open at a random page. Lady Macbeth:
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers.
Awesome. I like her style. I don’t know what she’s going on about “remorse” for though. Lady Macbeth is a brilliant character. She has balls; she’s not afraid to go after what she wants, like Hillary Clinton. That’s rare these days. I can’t help but admire her.
I close the book and put it back on the shelf. Othello’s right next to it: my favorite play. I open the book toward the end:
I have done the state some service, and they know ’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme.
Oh God, shut up, Othello. Such an idiot. “Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.” Blah, blah, blah: bullshit. He was just a wife beater, end of story. A moody, jealous thug. He deserved to die. . . . Iago’s by far the best character in this play. He was the clever one. He was the prankster. Such charisma! He should have had the title role. Why wasn’t the play called Iago? Shakespeare really missed a trick there.
I toss the book back down on the table. I’m stressed enough already; I don’t need a tragedy. I’ll order some poetry on Amazon in the morning, something uplifting like Siegfried Sassoon.
“Beth! Beth?”
I hear Ambrogio’s voice down the hall.
“Beth?”
Shit. He’s getting closer.
“Beth?”
And closer.
I pull out the chair—the legs scrape loudly across the tiles—and hide under the table. I can hear his footsteps just outside. I pull the chair back in toward me, slowly, quietly; it blocks the view. I hold my breath. Ambrogio opens the door.
“Shakespeare?” he says to himself. He must have spotted Othello up there. Whoops. I’m going to have to remember to dumb it down if I’m going to pass as Beth. . . .
I can see his feet and the bottom of his ankles. The Italian shoes. I can hear him breathing. Can he see me? At last, he turns and leaves the room. I hear his feet pad down the corridor. This is ridiculous. How much longer am I going to have to stay down here? I’ve already got a cramp in my neck. My sister really fucking owes me. Where the hell has she gone?
I crawl out from underneath the table, rubbing my neck. I flop down in the chair. That was close. He almost caught me. And what if he had? We’d be fucking right now over this eighteenth-century walnut table. Oh my God, I just want to shag him. Even his ankles had looked sexy. But I can’t get Beth’s comment out of my head, That night in Oxford, he thought you were me. What if that’s true? What if it really was an accident? I don’t want to sleep with Ambrogio as Beth. I want to seduce him and fuck him as me. I’ll win him back. That’s the ultimate victory. Perhaps tomorrow, when I’m myself again.
Chapter Fourteen
Where the fuck is she? It’s past ten o’clock. Swallows swoop down from the sky and across the garden. They dip into the pool, skim its surface, and then fly off again like silent specters. I wish I had a BB gun or a bazooka. Perhaps a Kalashnikov? I’m sitting on a sun bed on the crazy paving, watching night fall and shivering with rage. I swig the bottle of Absolut I have hidden under the sun bed and pick at the bits of skin at the sides of my thumbnails until they bleed. I’m seething, simmering. Tense as a cobra. Sticky with sweat. It’s been ten hours, I could fucking kill her. And doesn’t that child need to go to bed? It’s irresponsible, that’s what it is. It’s fucking deranged.
A full moon rises. I’m feeling a bit like a lunatic tonight. I wonder if it’s true what they say about the moon. “She comes more near the Earth than she was wont. And makes men mad.” The stars come out slowly, one by one. There are trillions and trillions of them. It’s as though they’ll never end. I’m sick of waiting. I’ve managed to avoid Ambrogio so far, but I can’t hold him off forever. Now the French doors creak open and footsteps pat the patio. I’ve been staring at the gate, so I know it’s not Beth. It’s either going to be Emilia or him.
“Beth?” comes a man’s voice. “There you are, I was wondering where you’d got to. What are you doing sitting out here in the dark on your own?”
“Oh, hi,” I reply, trying to sound breezy. I am Elizabeth. I am Beth. He sits down on a deck chair and scrapes it toward me: the scent of pheromones and Armani Code Black. It’s definitely Ambrogio.
“Has your headache gone? Did the aspirin help?” He runs a warm hand along my
thigh and lets it rest upon my knee. Oh God, he’s even sexy in the dark when I can’t see him. I close my eyes and swallow hard.
“Yes, thanks. Much better,” I say. My voice sounds small and far away, as though I were being strangled somewhere off in the distance. Where is she? Goddammit. He’s going to find out.
“Your sister will be back soon with baby Ernie and I’ve missed my beautiful wife,” he says, leaning in closer and resting his cheek, rough with stubble, against my cheek. Ambrogio, Ambrogio, Ambrogio, Ambrogio: even his name sounds like manna. I breathe in his aftershave. I already want him. Whatever happens, I’m not going to kiss him. Beth could be back any second.
“Yes,” I say, quiet and breathless.
I feel his lips press against my lips and he’s kissing me. He pulls my head toward his face and kisses me deeper, his tongue in my mouth and I—I can’t help it—I’m kissing him back. He tastes of espresso and sweet tobacco. I run my hand through thick warm hair at the back of his head and I moan—I want him. Fuck, I want him so bad. He’s all I’ve ever wanted. Ever since that last time, my first time, our only time. (Those three hundred one-night stands meant nothing.) I feel him hard through the fly of his jeans. My skin prickles, my thighs melt apart. His hand slides up my inner thigh, his fingers brushing my knickers; fuck! It’s electric. My pussy is pulsing and wet. He has no idea who I am; I could have him right here, right now. It would be fucking orgasmic. All I want is to tear off his clothes, but then I remember. Not like this, not while I’m Beth. I pull away.
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” I say, standing up. “Alvie will be back any minute. I don’t want her to catch us.” Perfect, that’s just the kind of thing Beth would say. She’s such a boring prude.
He’s sits on the sun bed, his head cocked to one side. Even in the dark I can tell he’s pissed off.
“Where is your sister anyway?” he says. “It’s late. Shouldn’t Ernie be in bed?”
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon. I’ll give her a call,” I say. Keep it cool. Keep it casual. I am Mount Etna, ready to erupt.
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