Uncharted (35 page)

She bent to investigate another promising heap, but at that moment color ran out of her surroundings, and the constant roar of the surf faded. She brought her hand to her forehead as a fierce buzzing filled her ears.

She’d been pushing too hard, burning too much energy. That little dance had cost her more than she’d realized, but she would be okay after a few minutes of rest.

Careful not to brush her still-irritated palm against her slacks, she lowered her head and crept toward the shelter of the skull. The air was cooler in the shade of the rocks, the sand beneath her feet more densely packed. She stepped over a scattering of stones and gripped one of the rocks to steady her footing, then moved through the front cavern to the cave where they had rested. She expected to find Lisa there, but the chamber was empty.

Karyn leaned against the wall and considered the tunnel that led to the island’s interior. Lisa could have gone exploring—after all, Mark had asked them to look for things that could be used for the raft. Lisa needed to add a pot to her shopping list.

“Lisa?” Karyn moved into the passageway and followed the trail. The sand was covered with footprints, so the others had walked here. Her steps slowed as a stream of light poured from a crevice in the rocks ahead. Sound echoed along the passage—voices and laughter . . .

What in the world?

Her heart bounded upward as she hurried toward the light. A woman behind the rocks was speaking in a gravelly voice that sounded remarkably like Crystal Harrod, the moderately talented actress who had snatched the leading female role two summers ago when they’d both auditioned for
The Taming of the Shrew
.

Karyn reached the crevice and peered inside, then stared in a paralysis of astonishment. Crystal was standing on a stage in a room beyond the narrow opening, and with her was Jack McCloud, the actor playing the male lead. Crystal was playing Kate while Jack played Petruchio, but they were wearing street clothes, so this had to be a rehearsal.

Karyn felt a smile twist her mouth. Impossible. Crystal and Jack could not be here. She had to be dreaming—either that, or her dizzy spell had resulted in a hallucination.

She took a quick, sharp breath as she saw herself in the shadow of a side curtain, watching from the wings. The director, Janis McCloud, stood in the wings, too, only a few feet from Karyn’s position. Janis had been a dream director, but the woman had a handsome husband five years her junior and a jealous streak as wide as the Mississippi. So it was only natural that anyone with a brain and an ounce of ambition would do what Karyn did—
was doing
. . .

She brought her hand to her throat as her alter ego stepped up and whispered in Janis’s ear. She didn’t need to hear to know what was said. Her words weren’t
quite
an accusation, really, more like a warning that anyone who cared for Janis might have shared.

Now, watching from stage right, Karyn could see what she couldn’t see that summer. Janis kept her face turned toward her actors, her eyes focused on her script, but a tear slipped from her lower lashes as her face went pale.

“Of course, I don’t mean to imply that Crystal and Jack are up to anything,” the other Karyn whispered from stage left, one finger carefully wiping a smear of lipstick from her lower lip, “but do they often have breakfast together? I thought perhaps you’d sent Jack to run lines with her or something—”

“No.” Janis didn’t turn, but her smile dissolved into a bewildered expression of hurt. “I didn’t.”

“Then I’m sure it was perfectly innocent,” the other Karyn said, smiling at the back of her director’s head. “You know how close we all get in these productions. We’re together every day, we rehearse hours upon hours—why, it’s a wonder we don’t live at each other’s houses. We’ll all be one big family before this production closes.”

Karyn watched, horrified, as the implication of her comments settled over Janis’s face. Meanwhile, behind the director, her other self adjusted her skirt and practiced her opening line: “Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself—”

She closed her eyes and turned away, not wanting to see any more. She already knew how the drama ended. That night, after nearly two hours of anxious speculation, Janis had confronted her husband and demanded to know why he and his leading lady were having an affair. He’d denied it, of course, but Janis could not believe that his onstage declarations of ardent love weren’t genuine—he wasn’t, she’d insisted, that good an actor.

Before the curtain rose on the first performance of
Shrew
, Crystal had been recast as the hostess, Karyn had been moved into the role of Kate, and Jack had been thoroughly chastised.

Karyn lifted her head as the tumult of the rehearsal faded to a silence finally broken by the metallic squeak of a chair. Turning, she saw that the milieu had changed—no longer did the space beyond house a theater, but one of the small classrooms at her Brooklyn church. She saw herself sitting in a circle of folding chairs, her Bible in her lap and a look of concern on her face. She was wearing a plain wool sweater and black slacks, one of the simplest outfits she owned.

The teacher, her face rapt with interest, nodded at Karyn.

“I hate to mention this,” the coy Karyn said, her voice dripping with concern, “but I have an urgent prayer request. Some of you know I’m involved in the Manhattan Theater Club’s production of
The Taming of the Shrew
this summer—”

“Really?”

“Good for you!”

“You’re
such
a good actress.”

“Well”—she paused for a beat and looked at her hands—“we’ve had a bit of a problem in rehearsals. I really shouldn’t divulge details, but there have been a few major cast changes, and . . . well, I’d really appreciate your prayers. The role of Kate was handed to me at the last minute, and it’s quite demanding.”

Karyn shrank against the rocky wall as the other women leaned forward, eager to share their condolences and scrabble for a bit of gossip.

She only attended church during the summer, when Sarah lived at Kevin’s and she had free time. Now, watching from this detached perspective, she could see the truth—she hadn’t attended that class in search of spiritual truth. She went to be adored.

A queasy feeling of guilt settled in her stomach as she lifted her gaze to the scene beyond the rocks. How could anyone sit through that performance and not see through her? How could anyone listen to her prayer request and not hear her overweening pride? How could anyone not recognize the smirk behind her smile?

Kevin had seen these things—that’s why he’d stopped going to her community theater performances back in Atlanta. He knew that her blushing fingers-pressed-to-the-chest humility was only an act.

After all, she was fond of reminding him that she had sacrificed her dream of going to Hollywood to settle in Atlanta. He’d told her that Atlanta was the film capital of the South. But whoever had come up with that sobriquet was a businessman, not an artist. Movies were still conceived in Hollywood; screenplays were developed in California. Deals were brokered over lunch in LA restaurants and actors discovered in Orange County nightclubs.

For a while, she’d thought she could be happy loving Kevin and mothering Sarah. But the roles in community theater intensified her desires instead of satisfying them. The lovely house in the suburbs couldn’t compare to a star on Hollywood Boulevard, and the fulfillment of a marriage couldn’t compete with the prospect of being adored by millions.

So when Kevin refused to quit his job and move to New York, she told him the marriage was over. She blamed their troubles on his workaholic tendencies, but she had already given her heart to another love.

After ten years of trying to be happy, she gathered her things and made a dignified announcement: because she was too old for the movies, she was going to New York, where real actors were always in demand. There she’d become the woman she’d always known she could be.

And she was taking Sarah with her.

A bright flash told her the scene in the cavern had shifted again. When she looked through the crevice and saw Kevin and Sarah standing beside her blue Mercedes, she knew exactly what day it was—April 18, 1995. The day she and five-year-old Sarah packed up and drove to Manhattan.

Sarah was screaming for her daddy, her cheeks streaked with tears, her nose running like a faucet. Kevin had not shaved for three days; he kept passing his hand over his rasping jaw while an aura of melancholy radiated from his features. He had already told Sarah good-bye; already exchanged the last hug. Karyn’s arm was wrapped tightly around her daughter’s waist, but the girl’s arms and legs kept reaching for Kevin as if he were a magnet and she made of tin.

In the stillness of the cavern, Karyn heard Sarah’s heart break. It was a sharp, clean sound, like the snapping of a pencil.

The chamber behind the crevice faded to black as the bittersweet trip down memory lane finished. But the guilt remained, its curving trail snaking through Karyn’s memories of those years.

Her friends thought she was a wonderful mother; she took pride in the title. But what kind of mother ripped a daughter from a loving father, walked out on a decent marriage, and left a potentially fulfilling life for an existence founded on footlights and fantasy?

“I never should have had a daughter.” She dredged the admission from a place beyond pride and self-promotion. “I’m not a good mother.”

Still . . . perhaps she could make things right. When they were rescued, she would reevaluate her priorities. She would have a new job, and she could make more time for Sarah . . . and Kevin, if he wanted to see her.

And her haunting secrets would remain in this godforsaken place.

Lisa stumbled along the beach, her feet stinging with every step. The wet booties did little to protect her tender skin. Like everything else in this place, the dress-shirt shoes offered unrealistic hope.

Bored beyond words with the others’ whining, she had walked away in the hope of finding some measure of peace and quiet. She had thought they’d spend this trip exchanging laughs and enjoying each other’s memories; now she could scarcely stand to be around her friends for more than a few minutes at a time. What had happened to the closeness they once shared?

She spied a length of seaweed and picked it up, crinkling her nose as she slung it over the other smelly strands on her shoulder. Susan and Karyn ought to be gathering this stuff, but those two didn’t know the definition of hard work. They’d never had to squeeze ninety minutes of labor into a single hour. They’d never had to be responsible for half a dozen children and two aging parents; never had to change diapers and wipe noses and prepare meals for people at opposite ends of the human spectrum.

Her mind drifted back to a warm autumn afternoon at the Tallahassee Best Western. John had called them in for his monthly pep talk, so Karyn and Susan took seats on the carpeted floor while David, Kevin, and Mark lounged on the sofa. Because she had a psy- chology test the next day, Lisa sat in a chair where she could spread her textbook on her lap and peek at the material while John spoke.

The other girls never crammed during the monthly meetings. They were free to be charming and flirtatious; they could give John their undivided attention. Karyn had wrapped an arm around Kevin’s blue-jeaned legs, one hand absently stroking his bare ankle . . .

Lisa felt the truth all at once, an emotional tingle in her gut:
she
hated Karyn, and Susan too
. Maybe she’d always hated them and never realized it. She never would have chosen either of them for friends, yet circumstance and need had linked them forever.

Why did some women get all the breaks? Susan had been born beautiful, which explained how she was able to marry rich. Karyn was attractive, though not a raving beauty, so how’d she snag the best of the men? She wasn’t particularly clever or wise or witty. On those sweltering Florida nights, Kevin often studied with Lisa, but when he wanted a date to the football game, he called Karyn. Later, he’d asked Karyn to marry him, and Karyn had borne his child . . .

Why? What did Karyn have that Lisa lacked?

Her mind returned to the beach, where Kevin had met her declaration of love with a lukewarm “
I think you’re great. I always have.”
Only a fool would take his offer of “getting together” as something positive.

He still loved Karyn. He might deny it, but even now he cared far more about Karyn’s feelings than Lisa’s.