“Yes, I do. And this is the easy job—all I need to do is screw up one little piece of his plan and everything falls apart for him.”
“Are you talking about my father or Emilio?”
“Both.”
He turns at the door like he wants to say more.
It’s my only chance. I’m not sure that I’m going to take it until I’m reaching for him, rolling up on my tiptoes, pulling him down by his arms so my lips can reach his lips. I close my eyes. We’re somewhere else.
It’s a second or two before his surprise melts and he’s kissing me back. The injuries slide away—lies, insults, grief, guilt—those things never happened. He’s kissing me earnestly enough that for one desperate second, I forget who I am.
When he breaks away, a chill rolls through me.
“Promise me you’ll get out before midnight,” he whispers, holding my chin in his hand.
“I promise.”
“No matter what. Even if you don’t hear from me.” He steps away from me.
The chill is stronger now. I want to grab him and make him stay. “No matter what.”
He’s nods. And he goes to leave, but he hesitates, and in the pause I imagine he’s changing his mind. As he’s stepping toward me, I think he’s decided sabotage isn’t worth the risk, and while he’s kissing me again, harder and more desperately, I’m almost certain he won’t go tonight. He’ll wait here for me, and we’ll leave Miami together.
But then he lets go of me and he’s gone. The door slams so loudly my breastbone rings.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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THIRTY-THREE
Six minutes.
I sit. My feet aren’t throbbing so much as aching now, and when I prop them up on a pillow, they stop hurting altogether. Or I stop noticing.
I’m waiting again, staring at the clock, but this clock is sleek and silver with black numbers. I don’t doubt that it keeps accurate time. I thought I left waiting in Montreal, but this is different because it isn’t futile.
I should be thinking about what I’ll say to Papi, but it’s hard to believe I’m going to be seeing him soon. I’ve been refusing to think about the conversation in case thoughts lead to feelings and feelings lead to cowardice. I don’t want to back out. I can’t back out now.
Five minutes.
Vizcaya is a labyrinth, with its dozens of back stairways and corners and closets to hide in. I’ll have my pick of them, but I may not need to get lost in the twists and turns, since the balcony rooms that overlook the great hall are hardly ever used during parties. When I was younger, I would spy on the guests from up there. Lola pretended she was old enough to be part of the party and Ana clung to her, but I had a better time watching from above.
Or I could hide safely outdoors. The official Vizcaya Gardens on one side of the mansion stretch for acres, but there’s a smaller, torch-lit lawn on the other side between the house and the water. I could wait there, and I’d be sure to see him when he came out to smoke.
Four minutes.
I picture Papi with his lips curled around a Cuban, fat fingers holding it in place, and feel a pang of nostalgia.
But Yolanda Rojas. The image slams me before I can finish the thought. The dainty white earrings and daffodil dress, soaking, dragging, smearing blood. And her toes. The undersides of them were coated, like the soles of a baby’s feet dipped in paint to capture a footprint.
I wiggle my toes. It’s just my subconscious, but the connection is made, from her to me and me to her. We’re not so different. How could Papi do it?
My mind has done something to the image. It’s not a photograph anymore. It’s a painting, a morbid interpretation. My brain has turned it even more garish, and now this exaggerated version of her death—screaming scarlet, pulsing fuchsia blooms, shrill blue sky—burns behind my eyes. I blink. Still there. My forever nightmare.
Three minutes.
I should let Emilio arrest Papi. I should call Marcel and insist he leave the yacht alone.
Instead I stand, walk over to the table, and stretch the wig over my head. Once I’ve finger-combed the bangs and tucked all my hair into it, I stare at the girl in the mirror. She’s not me. I like her, though. She’s guiltless—no sins, no conscience—and she’s vengeful. It’s amazing how little it takes to become someone else. That I can lose myself behind a little synthetic fringe is miraculous. I’m not the daughter of a monster, or the pawn of a spy, or the model of an egomaniacal artist. I’ve turned myself into the woman in the mirror. I have.
I run my hands over the dress. Is it because Marcel picked it out for me that I feel so beautiful? Our kiss rubs at my thoughts as I pick through the cosmetics. Did it even happen? Will it happen again?
Two minutes.
Then again, they’ve all lied. I’m not sure why Marcel would be any different.
I shove that thought away and start applying makeup, mentally congratulating the Sephora salesgirl as I go. Marcel bought everything on my list, plus more than a few extra items she must’ve talked him into. I paint it on thick, thicker than I’ve worn since the last time I sat for Lucien. When I’m done, my face is as unfamiliar as my hair.
No need to try on both pairs of shoes. This is not a ballet flats dress. I slide my feet into the stilettos, ignoring the burn at the balls of my feet when I stand. Mind over body.
One minute.
It’s time. I take a careful look around the hotel room, trying to ignore the strange, sentimental tug pulling at me. I’ll be back later tonight. Marcel will be here with me. With that deliberate vow as my last thought, I grab the sequined clutch and leave.
The night is warm and breezy, but the taxi is utterly swampish. “AC’s broken,” the driver explains before I even ask.
“Vizcaya, please.”
He screeches away from the Setai without so much as a nod.
I don’t buckle up. I don’t want to touch anything in this dark, soggy space, with its sour-breath smell. It feels like I’m inside the mouth of an animal, perched on a moist, panting tongue. Sweat pools under my arms, between my thighs, beneath my breasts as we lurch through traffic. I silently pray it doesn’t stain the dress. I don’t look out the window. Instead I focus on the ragged gashes in the back of the driver’s seat, where it looks like something tried to claw its way out.
Thankfully the ride isn’t long. “You can just let me out here,” I insist, as we swerve off Bayshore Drive into the entrance. I peer out the window at the brass gates of Vizcaya. The letters of the estate’s name gleam with opulence and promise.
“You sure?” the driver asks, gesturing beyond the gate to the skinny driveway. Towering walls of tropical scrub encroach on either side, and only a few lampposts with weak yellow bulbs dot the way. “I can drive you up. It’s not so close. And snakes, you know?”
I hand him a few bills from the wad of cash Marcel left me. “I’m sure.”
He pulls away and I begin walking. One step at a time, my heels bite pavement, each click telling me I’m on the road and not sinking into the sandy shoulder or something worse. Something alive. It feels like I’m climbing uphill, but I know the driveway actually descends, that I’m not so far from the ocean.
The sultry sway of Cuban music hits me first, even before I can see the glow of the mansion itself. Next it’s the smell of salt, the breeze lifting the ocean up into the air and throwing it at me. And by the time I emerge from the shelter of the driveway and see Vizcaya’s immensity glowering down at me, my heart is flying.
I don’t pause. I don’t stop to consider which entrance will be easiest to slide into unnoticed. This redhead doesn’t hesitate, but powers up the stone steps coolly like her nerves aren’t on fire.
I glance up. At the front entrance, a man is taking an invitation from a couple and scouring a list for their names, while the woman readjusts herself, tucking excess flesh into strapless
satin. It takes a moment, but I place the man. He bought a silk-screen Warhol print from Papi last year. I look down at my feet, and when I get to the top of the stairs I veer left to where two tuxedoed men are laughing and smoking, one tall and youngish, the other with a wry mouth framed by a right-angled goatee. To my relief, I don’t recognize them. I give them my biggest smile, though, and join them as if I’d been looking for them, lacing my hand through the younger one’s arm.
“You have one of those for me?” I ask, pointing to the cigar in his mouth. No doubt Papi is dispensing them like candy by now.
He’s startled for only a moment before looking me up and down. He grins, canines gleaming. “Don’t tell me a pretty little thing like you smokes cigars.”
“’Course not.” I look up at him through my eyelashes like Lola does when she’s on the prowl, then reach out and take the half-smoked cigar from his hand. His mouth drops open in surprise. I smirk, take a slow pull, and hand it back, pretending my head isn’t about to explode with memories and fumes.
I’m not a smoker. When I was eleven, Lola swiped three of Papi’s cigars for us girls to try, and we smoked them on the stretch of white beach behind our house. Or Lola and I did. Ana refused, but hung around to watch and whine about oral cancer. Ignoring her, we savagely bit off the ends like we’d seen Papi do a million times, lit them, and sucked in like we meant it. We did mean it until the smoke hit our throats, and then we were too busy sputtering and gagging to remember what we meant. Ana watched on with a smile. Lola flung hers into the ocean after two pulls, but I kept smoking, braving it out until mine was no longer than my finger. Bitter mouth and burning eyes, I showed them their baby sister wasn’t such a baby. Then I threw up.
My sisters. They’re probably inside right now.
Both men are watching me, so I will my throat not to seize up. No coughing, no gasping, I tilt my chin skyward and blow smoke.
“Where do I know you from?” the young one asks with a confused tilt of his head.
I hand him back his cigar and shrug. “Here? Now?”
“Right.” He raises his eyebrows at his friend, who is still looking at me but not at my eyes. I resist the urge to snap my fingers in front of his face.
“Are you gentlemen here to buy art?” I ask innocently.
More smiles. “Maybe,” the young one says. “Are you?”
I eye the near-empty glass in Goatee’s hand. “I’m here to have fun.”
Goatee takes the last sip, and I narrow my eyes at him.
“There’s more where this came from,” he says, tipping the empty glass in the direction of the entrance.
I slip off the arm of the young one and thread my hand through Goatee’s arm. I press my body into his side. “Show me,” I say.
He doesn’t have to be asked twice, and the young one follows close enough behind after I flash him another of Lola’s smiles over my shoulder.
As we approach the entrance, the man with the clipboard frowns at me. I pretend not to notice, nuzzling into Goatee’s neck like I have a secret to tell him.
“Excuse me,” Clipboard says.
My heart lurches. Goatee seems too distracted to respond, but then he pulls a folded wad of bills from his pocket and hands them to Clipboard without even counting it.
Clipboard stares at the money. I can’t breathe. He tucks it into his breast pocket. I feel Goatee’s hand between my shoulder blades, sliding down the curve of my spine as we glide through the door into the gold light of Vizcaya, into the dizzying swirl of people I’m afraid to look at. I keep my eyes low as we weave around clusters, his hand slinking farther down my back.
I smile through clenched teeth. “I’ve got to use the ladies’ room.”
He frowns.
And I twist away, slipping into the crowd before I can hear his response. Laughter and music devour me. And so many people. Ropes of bright colors bind me as I spin, shiny dresses and gemstones screaming and coiling around me. Breathe. I stumble on, turning behind the first set of arches, rushing past a couple having an argument and another couple kissing against the wall.
One glance into the ballroom and I spot him. Papi. He’s laughing, telling a story with both hands waving like he does, eyes shining, cheeks ruddy. The affection surges fast. It startles me, nearly pushes through my hard and shiny disguise before I can brace for tears. I blink before they spill. I pull myself back together, because this vengeful shell in a red wig doesn’t love him; the real Valentina shouldn’t love him either.
From this angle it’s easy to see that he’s the center of attention, as always, but now I finally understand that doesn’t mean love. That means fear.
Papi, this party, everything—I’ve been seeing it all my whole life, but I’ve never really seen it. I thought I grew up in some kind of garden of cultured beauty and art, but this is excess and rot.
Yolanda Rojas.
I see her face, and I’m on fire. I just have to think it, and he’s a monster again, and I’m a monster’s daughter. Rage drives me to the top of the stairs and down the balcony corridor, past the chuckling men and the slurring women leaning dangerously close to the railing and waving their jeweled hands and corset-squeezed breasts over the edge.
In the far corner, another hallway leads away from the party below. Those rooms were empty last year. I charge toward them, not caring if anyone sees me. These people are all too pleasure-drunk to notice anything but their own ecstasy.
I turn and start down the hallway. The first door is locked. I rush to the second, which is locked too. The farther I go, the darker the hallway, the shakier my hands are. Locked, locked, locked. I close my eyes, and there’s Papi again. If he goes free tonight, it’s on me. Did I really think that through? Is it my fault there’s not justice for Yolanda Rojas? If Marcel sets fire to the yacht and Papi’s business is decimated, does that mean Papi will never hurt anyone again?
The volume of each question inches higher and higher until my mind is screaming so loudly it hurts. When does the daughter of a monster become a monster herself?
I turn back the way I came, but this time I don’t look down at Papi. I push through the throng of balcony revelers again, to the far west side of the building. An identical hallway of locked rooms stretches along that side too, but this hall is not as dark as the other, or it starts that way, but lightens at the end. I walk the length of it, trying the locked doors just to be sure. When I get to the end, the hallway turns and ends at a door with a window, starlight streaming through. An emergency exit. Praying it doesn’t set off an alarm, I open it and step out onto a small balcony.
Fresh air.
I catch the door with my hip before it slams shut. Getting locked out here would not make this nightmare any better, but there’s nothing to prop it with. I take off my right sandal and wedge it between the door and the frame.
There.
Something like a sob shakes my chest, but I don’t make a sound. I only let it happen once. I wrap my arms around myself, gripping my ribs, letting the breeze fill my lungs. I didn’t know seeing him would be this hard.
I focus on the thin line of the horizon, where inky water meets charcoal sky. It’s all black, but it’s not all the same. My eyes float along the surface of the water, pulled southward by the palest glow. I can’t see around the king palms at the edge of the estate, though. The marina isn’t far—two miles maybe, but it’s too early. Marcel said he’d start the fire at eleven. I take my phone from my purse. It’s only 10:35, and I haven’t missed a call. He said he’d call.
But the glow is intensifying before my eyes. It’s either a fire or an apocalyptic sunrise, the way that violent orange is seeping over the night and singeing the sky. The faintest tang of smoke hits my nose. I walk to the rail, rise onto the ball of my single stilettoed foot, and lean forward. I can’t see from here. The coastline curves inward, hugging Coconut Grove with the marina in the middle. I take a deep breath, and this time the smoke is unmistakable.
The yacht is burning.
He did it. Could it be that simple? I only have to make sure my sisters leave, that Papi leaves, and then it’s all over? But maybe Papi shouldn’t leave.
I turn away from the ocean, slip my shoe back on, and make my way back to the party. Before I even round the corner, I sense the change. Something is sour. But the music is the same, and the women and men on the upper level are still cackling and chortling just as loudly. They’re only five minutes drunker. It’s the party below that has changed.
I reach the overlook and stare down into the ballroom. Papi is gone. Renaldo, Jose, Fernando, and the others clumped around him before—they’re all gone too, their places absorbed by the throng. It’s not so simple, though. I look closer and see that among the oblivious there are some worried faces, furtive movements, people being pulled close and ears being whispered into. People are trickling out.
I need to find my sisters.
Lola and Ana. Ana and Lola. I turn slowly, scanning bodies and faces, and the colors melt, one vibrant gown into the next, into the next, into the next until it’s a giant amalgam of satin-glitter-cleavage-curls.
I don’t see them.
Does it matter now, though? The skeleton of the party has clearly left, which must mean the raid is off. Pulling away from the nest of the party, I follow the arcade around the perimeter of the room, ducking out onto the balcony at the first set of doors. Burning oil hits my nostrils. The yacht. I wish I could see it. I can imagine orange flames enveloping it, licking it up and pushing it down, all my memories being strangled and drowned with it. It makes me sick. And it makes me happy.
I look down into the ocean, where the breakwater stands waiting to block the next storm. A stoic limestone barge carries the burden of stopping the waves, but it’s the ring of statues surrounding it that I’ve always loved. They rise out of the water with rippling musculature and stalwart faces. Those statues weather hurricane winds.
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