Mermaids in Paradise: A Novel (17 page)

“Shit on a stick,” said the old salt, and pushed himself out of his chair.

“It’s so important to us that our guests feel supported!” said the woman.

“Can you just tell us what happened to Nancy?” said Chip, becoming impatient. “That’s what we want to know. What the hell happened to Nancy?”

“We understand she had asthma,” said the woman. “There was, maybe, a breathing issue while she was in the bath, with the asthma, and then the bathwater, that situation in the bath, and so eventually, what we’re surmising, is what happened was, unfortunately, that.”

“What?” asked Steve, under his breath.

“What?”
asked Janeane, loudly.

“Bathtub asthma drowning?” said Chip. “Is that even a
thing
?”

“In that scenario,” I said directly to the Mormonish woman, summoning my resentment, “she had an asthma attack while she was in the bath, is that what you’re saying? But then, instead of reaching for her inhaler, which she always kept close, she just, as an alternative solution, did a face plunge? Just stuck her face right under the bathwater to cleverly fix her major breathing problem?”

“Unorthodox,” conceded Steve.

“We don’t have the official forensic report at this time, yet,” said the woman.

“Bathtub asthma drowning?” repeated Chip.

“So then according to you,” said Janeane, her voice rising unsteadily, wobble-screeching, “no one came
in
? Snuck in with shadows disguising him and crept up behind while she relaxed in the soft bubbles, maybe with earphones in? Some peaceful music playing, like Zamfir flute? And then this guy never grabbed her and forced her under by the head? Burst in, strong and hulking, and murdered this poor, naked woman, meanwhile his dick raping?”

“Oh. My.”

“Rape-
rape
! Rape-
rape
! Rape-
rape
!”

Janeane’s brow was furrowed as she said that, her face red; one of her hands was clenched into a fist, her arm moving in a curious rigid, pumping motion.

“Oh dear,” said the Mormon woman.

“You know what, let’s head back to our cabana, why don’t we,” said Steve soothingly, his hand on her upper arm, rubbing, trying to slow the arm down. It was a raping arm. That much was clear. People were really embarrassed. “We’re maybe ruffling a few feathers here. And we’re all so tired, aren’t we? So exhausted. What a stressful day it’s been. Let me help you, honey.”

Chip felt bad for both of them, plain to see, and I felt restless, so in solidarity we followed them, filing toward the door. I figured the Mormonish woman wasn’t going to say much anyway. There was no point to her. At least from our POV, the woman had no reason for being. Sheerly from an outside perspective. I’ve noticed that can happen pretty easily: you look at a person from just about every side there is—except for from the inside, obviously—and there just doesn’t seem to be a good reason for them.

It’s frowned upon to say so, but if we’re being honest, come on—please. There are currently billions of humans. Even allowing for some repetition, are there billions of reasons for being?

“Before you go, though, would you sign in? Please? We really need to get
everyone’s
full contact info, emails, cell phone—”

She was cut off as we retreated.

OUTSIDE THE DOME,
the golf cart wasn’t there. Those massive red flowers bulged under the building’s outdoor lights; our fairy-tale coach had turned into a butternut squash.

“Jesus!” shrilled Janeane, and stood still. “Now we’re supposed to
walk
? Across the whole grounds in the
dark
?”

Steve talked her down, holding her wrists gently.

“We’re perfectly secure,” he said. “Take a deep breath. In, out. That’s it. Good. In, out. In, out.
You, are, safe, here
. Now breathe again. Pranayama.”

“We can go back and ask the name-tag chick,” said Chip. “Or, hey, I’ll just run up and get a cart. You guys wait here, I’ll go get it. I need the exercise. It’s no problem.”

“No! No! We can’t split up!” cried Janeane, interrupting her breathing. “Disemboweling!”

“Sorry, she means that’s what’ll happen next,” explained Steve over her shoulder, still holding and patting her. “Like in the slasher movies.”

“OK, listen, I’ll call up to the front desk, then,” said Chip. “They’ll send a driver down, I’m sure. It’s no big deal.”

Chip’s a master of smartphone usage; he’d set up a Listserv for the dive group, which he used to communicate with everyone. He’d been messaging the Bay Areans, the foot fetishist, the divers and spearfishers all day.

Once he’d made the call, while we were waiting for the golf cart, the two of us left Steve to work his Freudian/yoga magic. We stepped back from the others, under the overhang of a big old tree with feathery leaves.

“Maybe she watched too
many
of those slasher movies,” said Chip quietly. “Maybe she saw it happen one too many times—where everyone gets picked off one by one.”

Hatcheted, I thought, and then de-limbed. Their arms and legs tossed here and there like rice after a wedding.

“I was thinking this was a single-murder scenario,” I said to him. “Hoping, at least. And then they solve it. But—you really think it might be more of a slasher deal?”

Chip cocked his head, considering.

“Wait! Think before you answer, Chip. It just occurred to me: if it turns out this
is
a slasher movie, and we act all dismissive—if for example you look too smug right now and shrug your shoulders, disdainful and smirking—then for certain we’ll be the next to turn up all murdered.”

“OK. So, for the record, I’m considering carefully. No one’s dismissing the slasher possibility out of hand,” said Chip. He looked around respectfully, reassuring the hidden camera. “But, having considered, I think it’s fairly unlikely, on balance. It’s not really a slasher
format
. Because Nancy, Nancy was great, I mean—”

He looked a little choked up for a second so I drew near and laid my cheek against his chest.

“—
Nancy
, man. I still can’t—believe . . .”

We stood there in silence till Chip felt able to speak again. A few feet away Steve and Janeane were not dissimilarly clenched. Among the squash-sized flowers the four of us made up two couple-units, each standing close.

“What I was saying,” he said after a minute. “So. The slashers usually start with a beautiful, slutty woman getting the ax. Or cleaver. Butcher’s knife. Sword. Stiletto. Anyway, blade.
There has to be a slice, a gouge, or a full-on carving. Often the sacrificial non-virgin is wearing white, right? She’s really young, too, maybe a teenager even. That isn’t anything
like
Nancy.”

I thought of the eyebrows and I agreed; if this was a slasher movie, it was the weakest possible knockoff. Like a Mickey Mouse doll fashioned of dirty straw in someplace like Guangdong.

The box office would be a bust.

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

We heard the whir of a golf cart and shuffled out of the shadows to greet it.

THE NEXT TIME
we saw Riley was at breakfast.

Only he wasn’t Riley, or not exactly the Riley with whom we’d briefly had an acquaintance. He was the “after” photo in a before-and-after pair. He carried himself with more of a swagger; his hair seemed blonder. That he was actually blonder seemed pretty unlikely—a dye job performed so quickly and out of the blue—yet it was true:
he seemed blonder
. Even Chip noticed it.

More to the point, he’d turned against us. That’s the best way I can put it.

When Chip saw him and dashed over to his table we’d been loading up at the buffet, so Chip was hefting a huge plate of waffles, strawberries and whipped cream, scrambled-egg mounds, bacon, and green and orange melon balls that threatened to fall
off and roll willy-nilly. Chip, with his happy, golden-retriever attitude, waxed joyful that Riley was in one piece, holding his heaping plate awkwardly all the while as he stood at Riley’s solo table with the videographer looking up at him impatiently.

But instead of thanking Chip for his concern, Riley brushed off Chip’s worry like it was girlish. He came off superior and breezy, with a grin from shampoo commercials.

I was standing a few feet away, holding a table open for Chip and me in the busy all-you-can-eat buffet scenario, so I didn’t hear all that Riley said. I just saw what I saw.

“Huh,” said Chip, coming over to me and sitting down.

His golden-retriever light was dimmed.

“That guy’s kind of douchey,” I said. “Isn’t he.”

“He said that Nancy drowned and I should just get over it,” said Chip, staring down at his cooling plate of buffet bounty.

I waited a second until I was sure: Chip had a tear in his eye—one at least, possibly two. I took his hand. “You know what, Chip?” I asked gently. “Someone just bought him off. That’s what it is.”

Chip met my eyes, touched his teary one with the back of a hand, then said gruffly, “Bought him—?”

“I’m in the business world, remember? I hear when money talks. Yesterday he was average or below, finance-wise—in terms of people who can afford to take Caribbean vacations in the first place, that is. But today he’s coasting. Today he feels rich. I can tell by looking at him.”

“His hair does seem yellower,” Chip mused, slowly returning to his baseline mood.

“And how come he’s
here
? He’s not a hotel guest.”

“He said he’s taking a meeting.”

Riley got up and strolled out then, leaving only a coffee cup behind. Wherever he was taking a meeting, it wasn’t in the buffet zone.

WE WENT DOWN
to the shore later to forget our troubles, swim and snorkel off some buffet calories; Steve came with us, dressed in a cruel Speedo. We saw it when he shucked his oversize Pink Freud T-shirt. Janeane was recuperating in their cabana: she was much better, he said, he’d dosed her with sedatives the night before and at sunrise they’d done yoga and meditation.

It was while we were stretched out on some cotton-padded lounge chairs between snorkels—Chip scrolling and tapping, Steve touching his toes and grunting, me reading a dog-eared paperback from the resort’s library of exuberantly stupid books—that I noticed the crowds. Down the beach at the marina, out on the docks, there was a flurry of activity. There were more boats than usual; there was more movement.

“Huh,” said Chip, frowning down at his phone. “People are unsubscribing from my list! The fishermen, the guy with the foot fetish, a bunch of them . . . they’re leaving the Listserv, sending me messages saying they want to be taken off. It was down to eleven when we got up. And now it’s down to
six
!”

I studied Chip’s bemused face; I swiveled and studied the scene at the marina, its far-off hustle and bustle.

“Let’s take a walk,” I said. “I need to stretch my legs. Shut off your phone for fifteen minutes, Chip, won’t you? Try to relax. Think of this as our honeymoon.”

We ambled along the sand toward the marina, me acting casual and leisurely on purpose, Chip trying to pretend he wasn’t hurt by the defection of his Listserv and speculating, to distract himself from those feelings, about Nancy’s family and what they had or had not been told. Steve, a relentless exerciser whose physique completely, utterly failed to reflect this apparent fitness obsession, was executing, as we walked, some arm-and-chest movements that resembled a slow chicken dance.