The Immortal (7 page)

"But I'm all better now," I said quickly. I didn't know what Helen was getting at.

"Time is strange when you're sick, Josie. Particularly when you're burning with fever. A minute can seem like days. The reverse is also true. Years can go by in a flash."

Now I was watching her. "You just described what happened to me when I was in the hospital. How did you know I felt that way?"

She shrugged. "It's common when you have a fever."

"I suppose." I sat up and let her hand fall away from mine. "How did you know you should come here?

How did you know it would be good for you? You were never interested in Greek culture until then."

Helen stared down at the ancient city, at the other tourists moving in and around the bleached ruins like so many ants scurrying around scattered piles of sugar. The people were so small, viewed from this Olympian height, small and powerless. But it was the

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place, I reminded myself, that held the special magic, not us. I wondered if Helen realized that.

"I just knew," Helen said.

"That's no answer."

She wouldn't meet my eyes. "Things change when you almost die. You know that."

She had caught me off guard because of what she said. It was true, of course. My life had undergone a dramatic shift since I almost passed on. Yet she hadn't answered my question, at least I didn't think she had.

In the distance we heard our boat blow its horn. It was time to head back. I got to my feet, wiping at my shorts. What happened next—I don't know what brought it on. It may have been that I got up too quickly, and the blood fell from my brain to my toes. In any case, I saw a sudden flash of light and then for an instant, almost no light. It was as if for a moment I was standing above Delos, viewing the buildings in the silver glow of the full moon, rather than under the scorching glare of the midday sun. That wasn't all, though. The buildings had also changed.

They were new again. All of them.

I blinked. The sun returned.

It had been a hallucination.

The ruins—they were as they had been for centuries.

I staggered against Helen. She caught me before I could fall.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

I wiped at my eyes. "Nothing."

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"Are you sure? Are you strong enough to walk back down?"

I remembered her remark of a moment before.
I felt strong. I felt alive.
"I feel strong," I said. We started down the hill.

71

Everyone was eager to rest when we returned to our hotel after our visit to Delos, except me. I was confused about my strange experiences on the sacred island, but one thing I knew for sure. I was pumped with energy to spare. Snorkeling gear flung over my back, I got on my motorbike, gave it a macho kick, heard the engine roar to life, and was on my way to explore new parts of Mykonos.

Of course, I first headed straight to Paradise Beach to see if Tom was working. I was fortunate on two accounts. He was at the bar and he was on his break. He didn't seem surprised to see me, although his greeting was warm. I noticed he had on new sandals.

"How's your head today?" I asked, sitting on the stool beside him. I had on my naughtiest bathing suit under my shorts and blouse, a blue bikini that could

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have been stuffed into a contact lens case. Tom nodded toward the glass of milk he was drinking.

"It gets better as the day goes on. As long as I don't think about it. How are you?"

"Splendid. Wild time last night," I offered.

He smiled, always the gentleman. "I had fun."

"Want to do it again tonight?"

He hesitated. "Does Helen?"

"Does Pascal?"

He laughed. "Are you trying to put the two of them together?"

I was bold. "It's better than tearing you and Helen apart."

He shrugged. "She's just a friend. Nothing happened between us last summer."

"Does she know that?" I shook myself. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't put you on the spot. But you see, the situation's awkward for me. I want to see you tonight, if I can, but I don't want to upset my friend, or you."

He came to my aid, poor bleeding soul that I was. "I would like to see you tonight as well, Josie. I understand the problems here. But if it is of any help, I think Pascal likes Helen. He wanted her to go with him in his truck last night."

"I don't think Helen cares much for that
le camion. "

"How about Pascal?" he asked.

"I'm afraid she's got her heart set on an English mate." I paused, thinking—or, rather, plotting. All right, so I was acting horribly bitchy. What was I

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supposed to do? I liked Tom and he liked me. Why should I deprive myself just because it might hurt Helen? I asked myself.

There were good answers to both those questions.

Do nothing—because Helen was my friend and deserved my loyalty.

It was hard to make such commitments with Tom sitting only a foot away. He looked so delicious. I felt like Judas.

"Why don't the two of you run into us at the same restaurant at the same time as last night," I suggested.

"We can act like we never met this afternoon. Then we'll just take it from there."

"Why don't you just tell Helen you want to see me and leave it at that? You'll hurt her more with deception."

"Why don't you tell her?" I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. "If we 'just take it from there,' where will we go? We'll have a repeat of last night."

"Helen won't vomit on you again, I promise."

He grinned. "All right, but Helen isn't stupid. At some point in the night we'll have to go our separate ways, and she'll be upset."

"Tell Pascal to sweep her off her feet. Have him drag her away."

"I'll see what can be done." Tom checked his watch and stood up. "I have to get back to work. Don't swim out so far this time. I don't have the strength to rescue you today."

I touched his arm before he left. "I
was
in trouble
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yesterday, and you may have saved my life. I didn't properly thank you for that."

He was humble. "I'm sure, had the situation been reversed, you would have done the same for me."

I held his eye a moment. I didn't know why, but his words chilled me to the bone. "That's true, Tom," I said softly.

I went snorkeling, but following his advice, I stayed close to shore. The water felt good on my skin after the baking on Delos. I was thinking about going back to the sacred island the next day. It had a hold on me already—some kind of magnetic pull.

After a good long swim, I lay on the beach and took off my top and waited for all the men to faint. But mine were just another couple of perky breasts, and Paradise was filled with them. I wondered, as I lay there, if Tom could see me. Back home my figure had been the envy of many. But here I was just part of the scenery.

I didn't see Tom when I left the beach. I didn't know where he was.

At the hotel I found my father sitting by the pool, his laptop nearby, but closed. He said that Silk and Helen were still resting. It was after six already. Unlike yesterday, the wind was dying as the twilight deepened. I had talked to my father about Delos on the boat on the way back, leaving out my peculiar experiences. He had enjoyed the island immensely and said he wanted to go back soon. Silk had thought the place was run down.

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"I was snorkeling on the other side of the island," I said, setting down my gear on the deck at my father's feet. I plopped down beside it. The pool was filled with ocean water, salty—Mr. Politopulos said it was hard to keep a freshwater pool from growing algae on Mykonos.

"You took your motor scooter?" Dad asked.

"Yeah. It's a blast. You're going to have to buy me a Harley-Davidson when we get back to ll.A."

"I used to have a motorcycle when I was young. I used to love going out late on warm summer evenings and cruising Pacific Coast Highway." He shook his head. "I loved that bike."

"Why did you give it up?"

"I hit an oill spot flying through Topanga Canyon. I was doing eighty. The bike went over the side of the cliff. I was lucky I didn't. Scared the hell out of me. I never bought another bike." He paused. "Your mother made me swear I wouldn't."

"You knew her then?"

"We had just met."

"The good old days," I said. It was not often he talked about Mom. She left when I was ten. Now when I thought of her, she was like someone else's mother. She didn't even come to visit me in the hospital when I was sick. But then, maybe she didn't know. My father never talked to her.

"Yeah," my dad said. "Who would have thought then we would have ended the way we did? Our lawyers screaming at each other in a trashy divorce court, us sitting so quietly, so properly on opposite
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ends of the room. We couldn't even bear to look at each other."

"Did you write today?" I asked.

"I rewrote some of the dialogue at the beginning of the script. But I wrote nothing new because I know nothing new."

"The wife of your hero was not going to leave him."

"What?" he asked.

"Jessica never intended to divorce David Herrick. There was no other man. The military people put her up to the lie. They wanted David to accept the dangerous mission."

A glimmer of light shone in my father's eyes. "That's true. You know her."

I nodded. "I know Jessica. So does the alien female —Vani. She's the one who will explain this to David just before they land on the alien home world."

"How can Vani understand Jessica so well from such a distance? Plus they're not even of the same race."

"I'm not sure, but David talks to Vani about Jessica frequently—you said so yourself. Maybe you can push the theme that a woman is a woman—no matter the genetic makeup."

My father was excited. "I love this, Josie. It fits. The intelligence agency of the System—they're the ones who tortured Vani's husband to death. They would stoop to such an act." He stopped and scratched his head. "Now what do David and Vani do when they land on the alien home world?"

"They can't just blow it up?" I asked.

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"And perish with the world? No."

"I was joking, I know that." I stopped. "A big piece is still missing—the key to the whole thing."

"Still, this is a valuable insight." My father leaned over and gave me a hug. "You are the genius in the family. If I sell this script, you must get a Guild credit."

"We can talk about that if I come up with the ending." I collected my gear and got up. "What are your plans for tonight?"

"To eat less and drink nothing. I heard you girls met a couple of guys?"

"Helen told you?"

"Yes. A French guy likes you?"

"Well, we'll see." I turned. "I'd better talk to Helen."

I found her in our bedroom. She was awake, reading one of my courtroom thrillers. Her face was sunburned—bad enough to peel.

"I wish you'd waked me up," she said. "Now I'm going to be up all night."

"I only just got back." I set down my snorkeling equipment.

"Where did you go?"

"I visited a few beaches I hadn't seen before."

"Which ones?" Helen asked, with a note of suspicion.

"I don't remember their names." I chuckled. "It was all Greek to me."

"Did you see Tom?"

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"No. How could I see Tom?"

"I was just wondering. So you didn't go to Paradise?"

"I told you, no."

"No, you just told me that you didn't see Tom. I didn't know if you went to Paradise or not." Helen paused. "How's your chest?"

"My chest is fine. My breasts are getting a tan."

"You took off your top?"

"I almost took off my bottom. I think I will tomorrow."

"Are you hungry?" Helen asked. "I'd like to get something to eat."

It was a long time before we were supposed to meet Tom and Pascal at the restaurant. "No."

"You don't want to go into town?"

"Later."

"What are you going to do now?"

I sat down on my bed. "Rest for a while. Read."

"For how long?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"I was thinking of calling Tom, getting together with him later." She let the remark hang, waiting for me to respond. When I didn't, she asked, "Would you like him to see if Pascal's available?"

"I don't know. I think he was more interested in you than me."

"Is that another way of saying you're more interested in Tom than Pascal?" she asked.

Right then I almost told her that Tom and I had

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already made plans. I would have if I could have started fresh, without all my lies behind me. I stretched out on the bed.

I yawned. "You have the imagination."

"You're the one with the imagination. I don't think your father can write a word without you."

I closed my eyes. "He wrote wonderfully well for many years when I was a little girl."

"You were there to help him," Helen said, her tone distant and disturbing. I refused to open my eyes. The more we talked, the more she'd see through me. Tom was right—Helen was not stupid. Her words followed me into my nap.
You were there to help him.
They made no sense to me, yet they rang with truth.

Once more I dreamed of paradise—not the beach, but the realm of the gods. Wearing my same white robe, I rode paths of sunlight that led to pleasure gardens unimaginable on the Earth below me. They could be found between the worlds, and they took on form as I passed through them on my way to my destination. Mount Olympus was vast, made up of many dimensions. Yet all these realities were connected. For all flowed from the sun, and had as their benefactor Apollo. Legend now said that he was born directly of the light from the eternal flame, and not from the loins of Zeus. But who could say with any certainty? Apollo wouldn't, he seldom spoke at all; and Zeus was long gone—to where no one knew.

But I did not ascend the staircase of the sun to seek pleasure but, rather, to worship at the secret altar of
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Apollo that I had built for myself out of the material of mortal dreams. It existed on the dark side of the moon, and I had to pass into the shadow of that great orb to enter it. Ah, that was my great secret—that I worshiped the god of light in darkness. No one knew, except perhaps Apollo himself. But of that I wasn't certain. I only knew that when I paid him obeisance, my power to create grew very great.

I found my altar empty. The flowers I had left on my previous visit were dust that stirred on the cold wind that blew for all time from the empty blackness of space. I had brought fresh flowers with me, from the gardens of Leto, and these I placed on my altar as I bent my head low and prayed humbly for fresh dreams to give to my human devotees, visions to replace the ones I had taken from them. Visions of love and laughter, of song and dance, of adventures bold and beautiful—enough to stir life in the depth of even the most oppressed soul. The gods needed them as much as the mortals, if not more. ...

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Chapter
5

My vision was still with me hours later as I sat with Helen at the corner table in the restaurant. It was only a dream to me, and I was feeling far from godlike. The time for Tom and Pascal to arrive was near.

Helen was having chicken again. Me, too. In my heart I realized it was not going to work. Helen was going to find out about Tom and me, be heartbroken, hate me, hate herself, then maybe jump off a cliff.

Still, I felt the situation was out of my control. I could not deny myself even a taste of love. It was against my nature— the rationale of a godlike ego, I knew, but a fact nevertheless.

The young men appeared. Tom had on his sandals from the day before. He must have washed them.

Pascal was in work clothes. I suspected he might have been dragged directly here from his job. Yet Helen

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appeared happy to see them, and if she suspected Tom's and my plan she didn't show it. Tom said, as we rehearsed, that they just happened to be passing. They sat beside us and ordered food, Tom on Helen's side, Pascal on mine. Tom had chicken, but Pascal was a red meat lover. A bottle of wine appeared and we toasted our good health and happiness.

The conversation flowed differently from the previous night. Helen was not letting Tom go without a fight.