B0092XNA2Q EBOK (17 page)

“What, cutting your hair?”

“No… touching me.”

She paused, turned away, walked into the bathroom, and said, “Come here.”

I walked in and she was kneeling next to the tub, water running. “Sit.” I did. “Lean your head back.” I leaned against a towel and hung my head in the tub. Slowly, she began rinsing my hair with the attached sprayer. While most of the water ran into the tub, some ran off my head, down my shoulders, trickled down my stomach and onto the floor. Until that moment, I’d never had anyone wash my hair. And until the next moment, I’d never had anyone scrub it with their fingernails, rinse it, and then massage it with conditioner.

She handed me a towel and I dabbed myself, following her to the chair. She wrapped me in another towel, pulled a comb from her back pocket, and studied my head. She raised her comb, paused, half smiled, and said, “Hold still.”

I tried.

She placed a hand on my shoulder. Control in her voice. “You’re trembling.”

“Sorry.”

She spoke softly, eyes finding mine. “It’s the stuff we bury that hurts the most.”

I nodded slowly. “Yes.”

She placed the comb in my hair and began pulling it down and outward. She moved her way around my head, combing out the tangles. She noticed my white-knuckled hands on the towel, tapped my fingers, and whispered, “Let go.” I did. Finally, she leaned down. “Close your eyes.”

I looked at her. She placed her palms across my eyes. “Close them.”

I did.

“Now let out that breath you’ve been holding since you walked in here.”

I did that, too.

For the next twenty minutes, she combed my hair, talking softly, telling me about her dressing rooms at trailers on locations around the world, lots in Hollywood, and locations on Broadway. About the designers who styled her hair, their names, the way they laughed, how they smelled of smoke and what happened when one of them started smoking too much crack. She told me about one of the first movies she’d made, filmed in Spain, her first big role and what it felt like the first time someone combed—or in her case, brushed—her hair. What it did for her. How it made her feel. How it relaxed her. She finished by saying, “I’ve been in several places where they charge you a lot of money to get your act together, but I’m convinced I could open a get-your-act-together center and have a line out the door with only one service.” She worked the comb through my hair, pulling gently. “Two chairs. One with someone standing behind it that washed and conditioned your hair. And a second where they combed your hair until…” Her voice trailed off. “… Your troubles disappeared.”

I looked out of the corner of my eyes. “And bald people?”

A nod. Half smile. “Scalp massages. Pedicures.” She waved the comb over the door. “Line would be down the street.”

I didn’t disagree.

She worked professionally. Arms extended. Like a dancer. Her shoulders were lean. Muscled. Arms toned. Working out had been part of her past. I stared down. At the floor. The pattern of the carpet around her feet. My hair clung to her skin.

She lifted my chin with the comb, eyeing my sideburns. Her face two feet from mine. I glanced. Sweat dotted her lip.

Forty-five minutes later, she stood in front of me, scissors snipping, a pile of hair at her feet. Head tilted to one side. Without explaining, she disappeared to the sink, made some noise, then came back with a cup spilling over with suds and bubbles. She lifted the mug. “You mind?”

“No.” I raised a finger. “Just as long as you don’t slit my throat.”

She laughed, turned the chair, moving me closer to the wall, and leaned my head back. She laid the towel across my chest and one shoulder and slowly worked the suds into my beard. Given that I had not shaved in about two months, this took a while. Once lathered, she slowly worked the razor down my face. Then my neck. Then, she lathered my face again, shaving closer. She did it a third and final time. When finished, she stepped back and I toweled off the soap. She said, “Well, let me look.”

I did.

She stared. Comparing me to my picture. Her head angled. Tilted like a dog. Finally, a nod. “Better. More Robert Redford. Less Larry the Cable Guy.”

I stood. “Thanks.”

She half bowed, said nothing, and began rinsing scissors, comb, and mug. I policed the floor, getting all the hair, then walked to the door. “See you tomorrow. Or today, rather.”

She nodded, handed me her key. “I’ve been known to oversleep. If I don’t answer by noon—”

I placed her key alongside mine in my pocket. “Okay.”

I returned to my bed, turned on the TV, and flipped channels until I found her on the screen. She was laughing and riding a motorcycle through Italy. I pulled out my journal and scribbled a few notes. Several pages and one or two channels later, I drifted off to the sound of her singing a duet and playing the piano.

I didn’t know she played the piano.

I
knocked but she didn’t answer. I knocked again. Nothing. I used her key, pushed open the door, and found her spread across the bed like a snow angel, a scarf over her eyes, some sort of plugs in her ears. I shook her toe.

She stirred, pulled the scarf off her face, and said, “What time is it?”

“Almost four.”

“P.m.?”

I nodded.

She wrestled herself out of the sheets, shading her eyes against the sunlight coming around the shades.

“Obviously, you’re not a morning person.”

She flopped back down on the sheets. “Not when I go to sleep with the sun coming up.”

I laughed. “See you at the café.”

“Let me get a shower.”

An hour later, a third person appeared—a perfect match to her passport photo with no similarity to Katie Quinn. This was Isabella Desouches. A redheaded professional. CoverGirl hair to her shoulders. Notepad in tow. Black, wire-rimmed glasses. Matching suit-waist jacket and slim, tailored pants. Tasteful but low-cut silk blouse with lace trim. Black high heels. Short fast steps. The whole getup said, “I’m in a hurry and when I want your opinion I’ll ask.”

Isabella sat down, eyed the waiter, and tapped her juice glass. I leaned forward. “How many different people are you?”

A single shake. Half a smile. “Only as many as I need.”

“Need? Isn’t one enough?”

“If I always used the same disguise, someone could figure it out. I can’t afford to risk that, especially now.” She eyed me. “You have a favorite?”

I laughed. “I’m not falling for that. Not a chance. Where’d you get the clothes?”

“First-floor boutique.”

“You shop quickly.”

“Knew what I wanted.” She caught me rubbing my chin and the sides of my face. “You missing something?”

I smiled.

After juice and two cups of coffee, we walked to the valet stand, where Steady was just pulling in with my truck. To complete her act, Katie stood off to one side. An executive, a businesswoman, sharing a vehicle and little more.

Something in me didn’t like it.

A young, half-dressed mother, smacking gum in the ear of the person on the other end of the phone, exited the hotel and pushed a stroller between us. The valet phoned a cab. Isabella, hidden behind designer shades, made no sign of noticing either the mother or the baby. Wanting attention, the baby plucked out her pacifier and threw it at Isabella. It hit and slid down her new pants, leaving a glistening trail of slobber, and came to rest on the toe of her
shoe. Oblivious, the mother grew more animated in her retelling of last night’s events. Fighting its straps, the baby reached across the space but fell a few feet short. Out of the corner of her eye, Isabella glanced at the mother, then the baby—then the pacifier. A long pause. Unnoticed, she stooped, slowly lifted the passy, and knelt next to the stroller, playfully tapping the kid’s nose and then inserting it into the kid’s snot-smeared mouth. The baby laughed, kicked its feet, and reached for her. Katie straightened her index finger and the kid wrapped four fingers around it. I watched without comment. A second later, she stood and her right hand came up beneath her glasses and patted the makeup below her right eye.

We climbed in my truck and Steady drove to the airport. He was chatty. We were not. I had one thought. Okay, two. Getting into France and past the customs people. And then getting back into the U.S. I didn’t fear handcuffs and criminal accusation. It was something worse. Loss of anonymity. I’d worked hard to disappear and didn’t want to sacrifice the life I’d come to live for the whimsical fancy of an actress trying to find something she’d lost.

And yet, I was sitting in my truck.

Steady kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He was smirking.

We parked at the private airport not far from Miami International and began walking to the plane. Katie kissed Steady on the cheek and went ahead. He tugged on my arm to stop me. I pulled my Costas down over my eyes. I said, “You sure you don’t want to go?”

“No. Last time I was there, angry people were shooting at me. I’ll pass.”

He paused, squeezed my arm, and pulled within inches of my ear. Spittle in the corner of his mouth. His breath smelled of pipe smoke. “I told you I’d cut out your gangrene.”

I nodded.

He glanced at the plane, then me. “The instruments needed can
take many forms. Saw, scalpel…” I turned to walk away. He didn’t let go. “The key…” He set my glasses up on my head. “Is sitting still while the medical professionals cut out the wound. And…” He shook his head. Sucked through his teeth. “You’ve got to let them get all of it. That means they’ve got to cut deep, into the stuff that’s still living.” He let go. Rested on his cane. “Peter”—it’d been a long time since he’d called me by my real name—“you’re one of the more gifted human beings I’ve ever met. Maybe, the most.” Another glance at the plane. “And I’ve met some very gifted people.” He watched her climb the steps. “There are three of her and I’m not talking about the disguises. I’m talking about her. There’s the one she gives the adoring public. The one she gives her friends. And the one she gives to no one.” He shook his head. “I’ve known her more than twenty years and only met the first two.” He looked up at me. “Find the third.”

He let me go and I walked to the plane. As I began climbing the first step, he hollered from behind me, laughter in his voice. “Don’t let her get you on a scooter in Paris. Don’t go to the top of the Eiffel Tower at night. Drink wine at every meal. Anything from Saint-Émilion is good. If you go to Candes-Saint-Martin, check out the underside of the fifth pew from the front. And no matter what you do, don’t by any means—” I climbed inside and the flight attendant shut the door behind me.

Katie buckled, leaned across the aisle, and waved at him out the window. She said, “You get the feeling he’s been planning this?”

“Yeah. And for a lot longer than you have.”

I glanced around at our camel-colored, plush leather surroundings and sniffed twice audibly through my nose. “You just never get used to that new-plane smell, do you?”

She laughed.

Using the funds at his disposal, and not having to answer to anyone, Steady had chartered a Gulfstream Jet that could cross the ocean.

Katie’s papers said she was a high-end antiques buyer from the
States. She made monthly, or bimonthly, visits to Europe to acquire inventory. A pretty good cover. It allowed her to deal in the world in which she was accustomed without being known. Clever.

Out the window, Miami grew distant. Smaller. As did the Ten Thousand Islands, the Glades, and the invisible world I’d carved inside. We sat in the quiet of thirty-nine thousand feet. Sliding through the air at a little over six hundred miles an hour. I thought about this fragile woman—the fingers of her left hand tapped the armrest, the others tapped her front teeth. I hardly knew her and yet I had agreed to fly to France with her. Why? Really? What was I really doing on this plane? I thought about what might await us and about Steady’s words. About the fifth pew at Candes-Saint-Martin—whatever and wherever that was. About the many faces of Katie Quinn and his challenge to “find the third.” Finally, I thought about his offer to me.

To cut out my gangrene.

I tried to shake it off, but the twitch in my side told me I might be too late. The discomfort grew. Below us, water ran to the edges of the earth. The only thing missing was a headstone.