by Camilla Monk
It was Lily who eventually broke the silence after Alfredo had brought some fish on polenta with dots of tart red sauce all over the plate like in gourmet restaurants. “Em speaks much better Italian than I do, you know,” she told Dante and Lucius before digging into her polenta.
Dante’s eyebrows rose in curiosity, while his boss considered me with a sort of polite disdain.
I painted flowers with the sauce on my plate, avoiding their stare. “I understand it a little. But I don’t speak it.”
“I remember you sang songs to your Barbies when we were kids,” Lily insisted, ramming her point home with some singing of her own. “Primadonna, primaaadonna . . .”
I gritted my teeth. I knew she wasn’t doing it to mock me, but it kind of felt like it, and it made my skin prickle.
Dante’s eyes widened with recognition. “Ti piace Gianna Nannini?” You like Gianna Nannini?
I gave a shrug. “Kinda.”
He nodded, lips pursing in appreciation. “È stata un mostro sacro degli anni ottanta.” She was a huge star in the eighties.
“Ah?” I had no idea. All I remembered were the CDs playing in my dad’s car when we drove. Gianna Nannini, always, Giuni Russo, Umberto Tozzi, of course, Cocciante too . . . and so many others I had forgotten. The songs had stuck with me long after that final trip to Coney Island. I told Dante, “I just remembered the melodies; I didn’t really care who sang them.”
“I see,” he replied, his head bobbing as if I’d said something interesting.
“Do you share your sister’s interest in history, Emma?”
My chin jerked up, and the table went silent as Lucius’s words cracked in the air. I could totally see him run a birthday clown biz. Ho ho, kids, it’s Pennywise the dancing clown! My lips quirked at the thought. I stared him straight in the eye as I replied, “No. I guess I’m your average tourist.”
He did that thing again, resting his elbows on the pristine tablecloth to lace his fingers. He tapped his thumbs together. “I’m certain there’s more to you than this. Talent runs in the family, it seems.”
“Lily and I aren’t really family,” I heard myself snap back. Old habits die hard.
She stiffened as if the words had burned her. Dante cast me a sideways look I just ignored.
“Not related,” Lucius clarified.
“No.” I took a slow breath in a bid to cool the blood buzzing in my ears.
“Strange . . .” Lucius said silkily. “I could have sworn you two were.”
I snorted a laugh. Lily was this delicate porcelain doll, shorter than me. Her hair was as dark as mine was blonde—well, blue—and I knew my face looked rougher than hers, more angular too. “Thanks, I guess. That’s the weirdest compliment anyone ever gave me.”
The corners of Lucius’s lips curled while the upper half of his face remained frozen. His eyes didn’t blink for a good ten seconds. Yeah, maybe he didn’t mean it as a compliment. I sprawled back in my chair and crossed my arms like when I wanted to raise my shields against a pesky counselor back in high school. “So, you’re Dante’s boss? You dig up stuff too?” I asked, infusing each word with the same amount of contempt I could feel wafting to me from across the table.
“I’m executive director of the Katharos Foundation. I oversee the funding of Dante’s research on Chronos’s Table. My own expertise on the subject is, however, limited.”
A vision of the half-buried slab of granite flashed in my mind. I saw myself standing at the edge of the pit in a mild daze, drawn to the void just like that hobo had. I frowned the thought of his blind eyes and goofy grin away. Plenty of stray dogs like him out there—couldn’t afford to care about each and every one of them. “Chronos’s Table?” I probed, allowing curiosity to take over my annoyance.
Lily chimed in. “Chronos is a primitive deity present in both the Greek and Roman pantheon. He’s—”
“The god of time; I know that,” I replied with an eye roll.
“The Foundation regards the table as a significant discovery,” Lucius said pointedly.
“Because of the”—shit, what was it already?—“the writings on it.”
Lily gave an energetic nod while Alfredo returned with dessert. Thank fuck, we were almost done. “We think its alphabet could be the key to an undiscovered archaic language. The table is thirteen feet wide with twenty lines of text arranged in concentric circles, and an additional block of text in its center. That’s approximately 25,000 characters, which is . . . more than we could have ever hoped for.”
“Lucius is having it transferred to the lab tonight; it’ll be all ours tomorrow first thing in the morning,” Dante told her, sounding like it was her early Christmas gift.
“Cool,” I commented. Having displayed a sufficient amount of interest for Chronos’s giant table, I dug into my chocolate cake; a weird green sauce oozed out that tasted like . . . basil and lemon. Strange, but not bad.
Lucius graced Lily with a smile that was almost human as she ate her cake. “We expect a lot from your work. Lady Montecito will visit the laboratory tomorrow.”
My ears perked up as I scraped chocolate from my plate. Whoever the woman was, Lily looked impressed—nervous even. She nodded meekly. “I’ll try not to disappoint.”
“You won’t,” Lucius told her, and if we’d been in a mobster flick, I’d have taken it as a threat . . . But I figured the worst that could happen would be for him to kick Lily’s ass back to Harvard if she didn’t translate fast enough.
Dante smiled at her, perhaps to alleviate the effect of his boss’s disastrous social skills. He nudged her shoulder playfully, like a private joke. She tilted her head and bit her lower lip. It was pretty obvious they were back into their little bubble, and I can’t say it was that great being locked outside . . . with Lucius.
The latter eventually cleared his throat and rose from his chair. It worked. They let go of each other’s hands under the table, and the spell was broken. “Dante, Lily, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I jumped on the occasion and sprang from my chair half a second after he’d spoken. “It’s getting late, so I guess I’ll head back too. Thanks for the food and everything.”
Lily’s lips pressed together in obvious disappointment. I flashed her a lopsided smile—all I could give, really. It was nice of her to try so hard, but we were better off splitting roads. She’d call Mom to tell her I was doing fine, and everyone would have an awesome Christmas serving tuna steaks in an elf costume—okay, mostly me. I motioned to the set of finely sculpted wooden doors leading to the lobby. “I’ll go get my backpack.”
“It’s been moved to your suite already, Emma.”
My shoulders hitched. I gawked at Lucius, wondering if I’d heard him wrong. “Uh . . .”
“Dante suggested we offer you our hospitality during your stay in Rome,” was what Lucius said. But his eyes were weirdly intense, and all I heard was, We all float down here.
Yeah. No. “I got a room booked already—”
“I took care of that,” Dante said with. A. Fucking. Wink. “They should have refunded your card already.”
My throat went tight, and my cheeks felt hot from the sudden rush of blood to my head. It was almost eleven, and that flaming bag of dicks had canceled my booking behind my back. Probably because he thought a reject like me dreamed of living the good life with rich assholes like him, be it even for a week. My facial muscles felt numb, and I had no idea what kind of expression I wore right now, but if the sudden guilt brimming in Lily’s eyes was any indication, I looked pissed.
I took a sharp breath and said, “I don’t remember asking you to do that.”
Unlike mine, Dante’s composure didn’t waver. “I wanted to give you and Lily a chance to spend more time together.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Were you in on this?”
Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine. As good as a “yes.” Maybe she hadn’t made the call herself, but she’d known and done nothing to stop him.
I wrestled the
rage boiling in my chest into a sneer. “Okay . . . okay. I’m out of here.” I turned to Lucius, who’d watched the whole drama with a poker face. “I want my backpack, please.”
“Certainly, Emma.” He nodded to Alfredo—dude was a ninja; I hadn’t even noticed him standing near the fireplace. Talk about a public humiliation . . . After Alfredo was gone, Lucius gauged me and asked, “Would you like an umbrella too?”
My face pinched in confusion. I checked the windows just in time to see a flash of white paint on the street, almost instantly followed by the roar of thunder. Rain pattered hard on the stained-glass pattern of leaves and flowers, then clattered. What the ever-loving . . .? I ran a hand across my face. “This is a joke. It’s not seriously hailing. It was 65 this afternoon!”
“It’s not unheard-of,” Dante noted.
“Maybe you can stay just for tonight?” Lily ventured, before quickly adding, “And if you want to go tomorrow, I’ll understand.”
I didn’t want to go tomorrow; I wanted to get the hell away from them now. But the sound of the storm raging outside made my stomach churn. Every pellet hitting the windows brought back shitty memories of roaming up and down Madison for hours under the same weather, watching storefronts and people fighting over a cab while water seeped into my boots and soaked up my socks. It had been a while since I’d felt that familiar dread, the feeling that creeps up your spine when the sun sets, and you’ve got nowhere safe to sleep.
I fought back a stupid shiver. It had been almost a year, and things were different now. The bushes of Central Park and the fat pregnant bitch who’d stolen my phone at the Bethlehem Mission were far behind. It was all just a bunch of hazy scenes that’d sometimes flash behind my eyelids at night. Now I had a job. I wasn’t going back on the street, not even for a night.
I nodded to myself to steel my resolve. “Okay. One night, and I’m gone.”
The suite they’d given me looked a lot like Dante and Lily’s except there was no kitchen—although a well-stocked minibar more than made up for that. A young maid had ushered me in after I voiced my decision to stay for the night. I felt bad about the way she kept smoothing the fur throw as if she worried that the room wasn’t perfect enough. I tipped her, but it was only three euros, and she gave me a dumbfounded look as if she didn’t expect it.
After she closed the door behind herself at last, I breathed out. I took out my phone and earbuds, flung myself onto the king-size bed like on a trampoline. My arms stretched across the silky fur, I gazed up at the sculpted and gilded beams of the coffered ceiling. They’d painted guys in togas and half-naked women in each frame. I snatched a pic and scrolled through my playlist. If the taste police barged in and asked whether I was listening to Despacito, I’d toss the evidence through the window and deny. I glanced at the minibar hidden behind a small door in the cream paneling. The mini vodkas were calling my name, but I didn’t want to get completely wasted at Lily’s place . . .
I sat up and dropped my earbuds on the comforter. The evening’s mess was still fresh in my mind—just thinking about that piece of shit Dante made me want to punch something, or preferably someone. It was like nothing had changed in six years. Lily was as sweet as ever; she still wrecked everything she touched in my life without even trying. It still drove me insane, and in the end, I’d turn nasty, she’d cry, and I’d be left sitting in a field of ruins, feeling like a turd.
I freed my hair from its clip and massaged my scalp slowly. Maybe a shower would help.
Water dripped a pale blue down my shoulders, my breasts, and pooled at my feet on the white mosaic tiling. Couple weeks from now, all the color would be gone, and I’d have to re-dye my hair. I sighed in the shower’s misty cocoon, pressing my head to the glass panel as the hot water hit my shoulder blades. I should have called my dad. I should do it. Now? Okay, maybe not in the middle of the night. Tomorrow.
Always tomorrow . . . I reached to my left to turn the water off. Procrastination: yet another special skill of mine. I dried my hair with a fluffy, pristine-white towel that was soon spotted a shade of baby blue. No big deal, they’d probably bleach it anyway. I slipped on a ratty T-shirt and a pair of shorts, intent on falling asleep in front of something dumb on TV. I padded to the sink and flipped on the tap to brush my teeth. For the first time ever, there was no warning—no gut feeling—just the immediate rush of adrenaline in my veins when the stream of water remained suspended above the chrome plug without hitting it.
My hand swiped at the smooth transparent ribbon, like a reflex. I already knew, even before the lack of sensation registered in my brain, that my fingers would remain dry and the water undisturbed. Everything had stopped but me. I stumbled out of the bathroom—thank fuck the door had been open because there would have been no point in trying the handle or banging against it otherwise. Neither would make a sound or produce any kind of effect. No one would hear. No one would come.
I took a cautious step in my bedroom. On my bed, my phone displayed 11:17 pm. Outside, raindrops hung still in the night air, which wouldn’t hit the windows. I drew a slow breath, curling and uncurling my fingers over and over. It wouldn’t last. It was okay. It wasn’t real, and when it ended, the room would be the same, rain would fall, and time would flow. Until then, there was only me, left alone with my thoughts and the soft thrum of blood pumping in my ears.
A faint clatter somewhere in the room had me dart a look at the windows, expecting the reassuring patter of raindrops against the glass. Nothing, just frozen beads, and the silence closing in on me. Another clatter, like something lightly scraping the floor. My heart rammed against my ribs in response, and I spun around to face the bathroom door.
It was still open, and light poured in, almost blinding. Not the product of the vanity light above the mirror, but the pasty glare of a spring afternoon. I tried to suck in air that wouldn’t come, taking in the washed out, gum-studded floorboards, the benches, and the beach. Stripes of dull blue bleeding into each other: the sea and the sky. Beyond the door, where the bathroom had been seconds ago, the Riegelmann Boardwalk stretched along the ocean. Deserted and frozen in time.
My back was soaked with icy sweat, and every rational cell in my brain screamed for me to run away, to curl in the corner of the room, as far as possible from this . . . impossibility. But somewhere on the boardwalk, the clatter echoed again, and my legs jerked, drawn against my will to the light. I went through the door. The soles of my feet touched coarse wood that was neither warm nor cold. Seagulls floated above me in the cloudy sky, lifeless, like graceful origamis. There was no breeze. When I turned around, the bathroom door was no longer there; instead, I saw Nathan’s striped canopy and hot-dog sign, with its smiling red sausage wearing a little apron and chef’s hat. Behind were the colorful silhouettes of roller coasters, balloons, and flags.
The clatter guided me, sometimes coming from the left, sometimes from the right. A familiar sound I couldn’t place, something I had heard all my life and never noticed before, a rhythm, beating in tune with my heart. I was walking, then running breathless up the boardwalk, past the Wonder Wheel and fast-food stalls, desperately seeking its source.
But the sound stopped abruptly, leaving me stranded, lost. I staggered around, clutching my head, digging my nails into my scalp to feel something, enough pain to anchor me back to reality and find a way out of this nightmare. And I saw them. The only two people on the boardwalk with me, sitting on a bench. Him, with his sandy ponytail hanging limply down the back of his leather jacket. Her, so young the small legs popping from her pink coat didn’t touch the ground. Her half of the hot dog sat on her lap in a white paper plate.
He was staring at the sea, his gaze empty, exhausted. He wasn’t yet the grinning man on his Facebook profile pic. He was a loser. The little blonde girl looked up at him, studied his frozen profile. She wasn’t seeing me, but I watched her, my heart cracking and bursting and aching so bad I felt it thump in my throat, my stomach, everywhere at once. She didn’t know he’d go and
never return. She didn’t even understand why no one else felt the world stop like that. Her mom said it wasn’t real—like Santa—and she complained to the pediatrist that she had to deal with a toddler who’d vanish faster than a ninja in the middle of a crowded department store, and whom security would find minutes later three floors up in the toy department.
I raised a trembling hand, begging the girl to turn her head and see me. She wouldn’t, and the clatter thundered up my spine again, coming from behind me this time. Tap. Tap. A shadow, stretching along a wall before disappearing around the corner. I whirled around and went after it, followed the clatter down a deserted street, each echo booming inside my skull, my chest. Tap. Tap. I thought I caught a flash of something behind a truck . . . a silhouette. It was gone just as fast, and my mind reeled with panic and the desperate need to know if maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t alone. If someone was out here too, who felt the beat of time in their bones like I did, who ran lost in the silence when it all stopped.
I ran, raced after the ghost which kept eluding me, a mirage gliding across the sleek metallic side of a minivan, licking the walls. I followed the trailing echo of the clatter until I ended up in an empty street, under the looming steel structure of the Cyclone, the roller coaster’s steep hills and curls casting a tangle of shadows on the sidewalk. I went still.
A shadow stood in the middle of the road, too far for me to make out anything than the shape of some sort of long coat and maybe a . . . The honk of a truck tore through my eardrums as it dashed right in front of the ghost. The moment after, traffic resumed, and I couldn’t see its silhouette anymore. Time was flowing again on Coney Island, and everything was too bright, too loud, the squawking of seagulls, the light piercing through the clouds. I tried to shield my eyes with my arms. The street was getting blurry, and it looked tilted, or maybe I wasn’t standing straight—