The Vesuvius Isotope

by Kristen Elise Ph. D.

  The absolutely essential items—money, driver’s license, credit cards, and passport—were all rinsed in the sink and laid out on towels to dry. The non-essential items that could not be salvaged followed my clothes into the wastebasket.

  I flipped through my passport; the pages were intact. I realized that the stamps might not be legible, and I briefly wondered if I would have a problem returning to the United States. I was also all too aware that I might never have the opportunity to find out.

  I had no idea what to do with the two waterlogged iPhones that were now my only connection to the world outside of Naples. My cell phone was frozen on the home screen, with no response from any of the icons. I tried to power it off, to no avail. Jeff’s phone was also frozen but indicated a new text message, which, of course, I could not retrieve.

  I set both phones on the bathroom counter and looked into the mirror. For a long, long moment, I simply stared into my own eyes, asking myself what to do next.

  My stomach growled and brought me back to the present. I walked into the bedroom to order room service. Then I drew back the curtains, opened the French doors, and stepped out onto the balcony.

  It was another brilliant, sunny day in Naples. Dozens of small boats whirred around the bay like children at a playground. But above them, Mount Vesuvius was like a lurking predator.

  I approached the balcony railing and rested my forearms upon its cool metal.

  Jeff and I are now engaged to be married.

  I am at my desk in my office at San Diego State University, where I lead a large research laboratory. A text message pops up on my phone: White?

  I frown at the message and then glance up at the clock on my desk. I have lost track of time, again. I rub my weary eyes and look back at my phone.

  I text back: What are you talking about?

  Jeff’s response: Maybe pink

  Then, in a second bubble: With flowers

  My phone rings.

  “Did you mix the wrong chemicals and kill some brain cells?” I ask.

  “Yep!” Jeff says. “But that was years ago, in college. And don’t tell my mom.”

  I laugh, and the tension from my day begins to dissolve.

  “Hey, Kat, are you still working? Can you get away?”

  I glance down at the document in front of me. “Sure. What do you have in mind?”

  Thirty minutes later, Jeff’s car zips into an upscale neighborhood along the coast, just as the sky is fading to shades of red. He turns toward a private cul-de-sac and keys in the access code to open the gate.

  “Oh, look,” I observe. “The house next door must have found a buyer.”

  Jeff glances casually at the real estate sign in the front yard, now tagged “PENDING.” “Oh, yeah,” he says casually. “I met them. Nice people.” He is smiling.

  Jeff pulls into our driveway. This is the home we have just closed escrow on, and I still cannot believe I get to live here.

  Jeff opens the elegant front door, and we slide past the various construction items strewn before us, heading straight for the staircase. When we reach the master bedroom, Jeff quickly loops an arm around my waist to stop me. “Careful,” he says and points down at my feet. I step around a messy pile of painting supplies on a canvas sheet near the doorway. We walk through the room and out onto the terrace.

  “Wow,” I say, and the breeze from the ocean breathes away the last traces of stress from my work day.

  I run my hand along the terrace railing. “This turned out beautifully!”

  “Yeah. They did a great job. I love the design you picked out.” Jeff reaches forward with both hands and grabs a section of the brand new ornate iron railing. He gives it a vigorous shake. The metal does not budge.

  “Hold on a minute,” he says and disappears into the bedroom while I lean against the railing and stare, amazed, out at the view that is now mine to enjoy every day. I lazily trace a finger down the black metal design, still warm from the day’s sun.

  I leaned upon the metal railing of my hotel room balcony, watching the boats drifting randomly through the Bay of Naples. And I sighed.

  The key piece of data I needed at that moment, the one seemingly trivial thing I was most desperate for, I had lost. I needed my daughter’s phone number. I needed it more than anything. But I did not know it from memory. I only knew where it was located in my “favorites” on my iPhone. And now, that was useless.

  But I did have one number—one single number—that I might be able to use.

  I stepped back into the bathroom and shuffled through the damp papers on the bathroom countertop. I found a ticket stub.

  Dante Giordano’s cell phone number was severely smeared, and I could not distinguish whether one of the numbers was a one or a seven. Another number might have been a four or a nine.

  I reached into the bathroom wastebasket and withdrew my blue jeans, now stiffening from the seawater. In one of the pockets, I found the other ticket stub. On it I could see that the numbers in question were a seven and a four.

  Together, the two papers in my hand provided the only phone number I had left for anyone in the world.

  There was a knock on the door, and a man’s voice announced that room service had arrived.

  The concierge directed me to Galleria Umberto I, explaining with admirable tact that it was the city’s largest shopping mall. It was also less than a mile from the Hotel Santa Lucia and contained Naples’ largest Apple store. I thanked the woman sheepishly and dropped the street map she had provided into my damp, and somewhat smelly, purse.

  The Galleria was the most beautiful shopping mall I had ever seen. I stepped inside to find an expansive open space topped with an ornately painted dome—architecture I would have found more appropriate in a cathedral than a commercial building. Extending back from the entrance was a long corridor flanked with marble façades that appeared to be at least three stories high. The ceiling was an arched crystalline network of clear glass, exposing the blue Mediterranean sky.

  I collected the replacement items I needed, including a new leather purse, and happily tossed the ruined purse into a garbage can.

  The man behind the counter at the Apple store laughed heartily when he saw the two iPhones I laid on the counter, but he did not speak a word of English. After a frustrating few moments, a passerby stopped and offered to translate. The message I finally got through my interpreter was that Apple could not guarantee salvation of the phones, but if I bought two new ones a technician could transfer the data in an hour. Apparently the SIM cards would survive anything.

  I wondered if this was merely a ploy to sell me two new phones, but I really did not care. I was happy to pay the money to regain my contact information, so I handed over my phones.

  An hour later, the Apple technician handed me two brand new iPhones. I stood before him as I clicked into one of them. I recognized the screen saver and breathed a sigh of relief. The image was of me, heavily bundled, at the top of a ski slope. Jeff had taken it on a recent trip to Aspen. This was Jeff’s new phone. His data had been retrieved.

  I clicked into the other phone. Its screen was blank, exhibiting standard iPhone features. I showed it to the technician and looked at him questioningly. He launched into a rapid and seemingly defensive rant in Italian.

  I began asking around the Apple store for anyone who spoke English, but, instead of helping me, patrons began to conveniently disperse. I was reminded of my previous day’s experience on the bus. After a few frustrated moments, I knew what I needed to do. I withdrew the two damp ticket stubs from my new purse and dialed Dante Giordano’s number.

  Fifteen minutes later, he walked into the Apple store. I took in the tattooed flesh, the muscular body, the ever-present backward baseball cap. And the friendly, almost naïve smile. He was carrying a battered backpack, the type of backpack typically carried by a student. I briefly wondered what was inside it.

  The young technician in a polo shirt had a brief exchange with Dante before being repla
ced by a middle-aged man in a suit. I assumed this was the manager. He smiled at me with what I feared might be a look of apology. Then he began speaking to Dante.

  Dante listened for a moment and then interjected an increasingly agitated tirade, one that left the manager red-faced instead of smiling, and cowering instead of friendly.

  “What? What’s going on?” I kept saying, but Dante ignored me until he had finished with the manager.

  Then Dante turned to me and spoke more calmly. “They lost the information from one of your phones.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. I leaned onto the counter, afraid I might faint.

  “How—,” I began, but Dante cut me off.

  “I don’t know, and this donkey won’t tell me. He said there was a problem moving the information from the wet phone into a new one. It sounded like bullshit to me.”

  “Is there anything they can do to retrieve it?” I asked weakly.

  “No,” he said and placed a soothing hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, Katrina.”

  I felt sick. I slowly stepped away from the counter and from Dante, walking aimlessly. “It’s not your fault,” I said softly, unsure if he had heard me. I took a few deep breaths. I could hear him yelling at the man behind the counter again.

  I wandered out of the store, and Dante caught up to me. “They said they will pay for both phones.”

  “You have no idea how much the data on those phones is worth,” I said quietly.

  I gazed at the two new phones in my hand. I clicked into the one with the blank screen. It contained only standard features. I consulted its contacts section as if my daughter’s phone number would miraculously be there. The section was empty. But I knew her number would be in Jeff’s phone; she had texted him just the day before. I clicked past the image of me on an Aspen ski slope and into the contacts screen.

  Alexis was nowhere in Jeff’s contacts. I clicked into his record of recent calls. There was no evidence of recent communications with my daughter, despite the fact that, in addition to her text to Jeff, I myself had called her the previous day from Jeff’s phone.

  I returned to the home screen. It once again indicated a new text message. I remembered having seen it earlier that morning on the frozen face of the phone I had carried into the sea. I clicked into the new message, sent from an international number I did not recognize. When I read it, my stomach lurched.

  The stranger who had chased me into Castel dell’Ovo was telling the truth. My dead husband had sent me a message.

  Antony was so captivated by [Cleopatra], that, while Fulvia his wife maintained his quarrels in Rome against Caesar by actual force of arms… he could yet suffer himself to be carried away by her to Alexandria, there to keep holiday, like a boy, in play and diversion, squandering and fooling away in enjoyments that most costly… of all valuables, time.

  -Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

  Plutarch (ca. 46–120 CE)

  Chapter Eleven

  On the screen of Jeff’s brand new iPhone was a text message less than a day old. It could only have been composed by Jeff himself, and it could only have been intended for me.

  “I need a restroom,” I said under my breath.

  “Down this hall, on the left,” Dante quickly directed me, his face a mixture of horror and concern.

  I briskly walked and then ran toward the destination he had pointed at, dropping both new phones into my purse with trembling hands while I did.

  I bolted into a stall and surrendered up my breakfast. As I fell to my knees before the toilet, I instinctively brought my hand up to pull my long hair back from my forehead. The effort was a split second too late, and the hand sliced through an already emerging stream of vomit, which I then plastered into my hair.

  In the stall beside me, a small child screamed and then began to sob. “Ssshh,” her mother whispered. “Andiamo!” The restroom door was flung open, and the wailing gradually receded as the mother dragged her terrified child away.

  As I clutched the sides of the toilet while what felt like my whole life spewed angrily forth, I wondered for the first time, What’s wrong with me?

  When there was nothing left, I sat back and took a breath. I was sick on the plane, I remembered. I had thought that it was motion sickness, something I have always been prone to in cars and boats, but not typically on airplanes. But I also felt sick in the museum, I remembered. I had attributed it to claustrophobia at the time, and that was something I have never been prone to.

  I stood up and staggered to the sink. I plopped my shopping bags onto the counter and retrieved a new travel toothbrush and a hairbrush from one of them. I brushed my teeth and then washed my hair in the sink with copious amounts of liquid soap from the dispenser. I rinsed out as much of the soap as I could before brushing out my hair. After a few minutes, I was satisfied with my hygiene, but my hair was still wet, and my face was blotchy and red. I reapplied my makeup using the new supplies, which I then dropped into my purse.

  My nerves were slowly calming, but I still felt sick, even with nothing left in my body to cause it.

  Unless…

  I stared again at the text message.

  “Hold on a minute,” Jeff says. He steps away from the brand new iron railing and into the construction-rubble-littered bedroom of our future home. I am left alone momentarily, watching the remaining rays of sun dance upon the Pacific Ocean.

  Jeff returns with two empty five-gallon plastic buckets and inverts them for us to sit on. He then disappears again and comes back with a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and two wine glasses.

  I laugh out loud. “What a nice surprise!” I say, and he beams with pride. After I sit down, he grabs the bucket I am sitting on and slides me closer to him.

  Jeff uncorks the wine and pours a glass for each of us. “To sunsets,” he says simply, and we toast.

  We sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, sipping our wine and watching the changing colors in the sky.

  “Have you seen your mother this week?” Jeff asks casually, and I frown, my pleasant mood suddenly darkening.

  “No,” I say and take a larger-than-usual gulp of wine. “I’ll see her this weekend if it kills me—even though I still really don’t have the time. I feel terrible, and every day this week I have tried, but I just haven’t been able to drive all the way out to the home—at least, not during visiting hours. I’m so frustrated. My schedule doesn’t work with their visiting hours.

  “My mom barely remembers me anymore,” I elaborate. “And talking on the phone is utterly useless. But she is still happy to see me, even if she isn’t sure who I am half the time. It’s frustrating that I’m not able to see her more often.”

  Jeff rubs my shoulder. “Hang in there,” he says. “Your house is sold, my house is sold, and the work on this place will be done before you know it. Once we move in, we can bring her to a closer place. Everything will be easier.”

  “You’re right. Having her closer will make the situation so much better.” I give him a soft kiss, and we sink back into a comfortable silence, breaking it only once, to refill our glasses.

  As the sun is just dropping below the horizon, Jeff speaks again. “So… which is it? White? Or pink with flowers?”

  I have completely forgotten about his bizarre text messages from earlier in the afternoon. I turn and stare at him. “What is wrong with you? What are you talking about?”

  “For the bedding,” he says. His eyes are dancing. “It was the nurse’s idea—sort of a fresh start.”

  I continue to look at him like he is crazy, and then I open my mouth to ask again what he means.

  “Shh,” he whispers, placing a finger gently over my mouth. “Just enjoy the sunset.”

  I turn in silence back to the ocean view but find myself distracted. White or pink? My mother’s favorite colors. And, like me, she loves flowers. What nurse?

  The sun drops below the horizon, and Jeff takes the empty wine glass from my hand. He sets it down on the ter
race with his own. “Come with me,” he says and leads me back into the bedroom.

  On the wall to our right is a large bay window, presently covered with an ugly beige contractor’s sheet. I had not noticed the opaque fabric earlier, but now I realize that it obstructs the view to the house next door, the one with the “PENDING” sign in the front yard.

  My mind begins to race, and I feel a chill run down my spine. White or pink. For the bedding. The nurse’s idea. Once we move in, we can bring her to a closer place. PENDING. I glance at Jeff and he chuckles. I glance back toward the covered window.

  “You didn’t!” I say, racing to the window. I tear down the contractor’s sheet and stare blankly in disbelief. Jeff casually steps up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist, gently locking his fingers around my stomach.

  Across a lovely strip of our backyard garden, I can see over our fence into the side yard beyond it. A middle-aged woman in hospital scrubs is relaxing in a cozy sitting area that graces the yard. She is reading a magazine.

  Sitting next to the woman is my elderly mother.

  The woman looks up at us and then takes my mom’s hand and points up to our window, waving my mother’s hand for her as someone would do with a small child. My mom smiles with recognition and says something to her companion, and Jeff waves back. He then mimics the motion of my mother’s new nurse by taking my hand and moving it to wave.

  “Hi, Mom,” he says quietly into my ear.

  “I don’t believe it,” I say, still stunned. “You bought the house next door. And you put my mom up in it with a private nurse.”

  “I know they were big decisions for me to make by myself, but I wanted it all to be a surprise. The nurse came highly recommended by John and several of his colleagues. I hope you don’t mind.”