Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 02 - Elective Procedures Read online

  “No.” Melanie was adamant. “This is more. It’s no passing flirtation. He’s persistent. It’s really creepy.”

  I glanced at her. She was on Susan’s lounge chair, lying on her side, facing me. “Maybe you should go to the hotel manager. Complain that he’s making you uncomfortable.”

  She sat up. “Maybe I will. If he doesn’t stop.” She picked up her hat and looked at the ocean. “The waves look good. Up for a boogie board?”

  What? We were buddies now? Hanging out and riding waves? “I don’t think so. I’m waiting for my friend.”

  She stood, heading off. “Okay, later then. We should get a drink sometime.”

  As quickly as she’d arrived, Melanie Crane was gone. I propped myself on an elbow, looking for Luis. Or Susan. Seeing neither, I plopped back down and baked.

  Susan didn’t show up. After an hour or so, I checked on her, found her sputtering at her laptop at a desk in the lobby. When I asked how long she’d be, she glared at me so fiercely that I backed away and left her growling about judges and clients and prosecutors and partners.

  I spent the rest of the morning alone on the beach, losing track of time. Whenever I opened my eyes, vendors would lug their wares to me across the hot sand—sundresses, coconut shell masks, animal woodcarvings, silver jewelry, sunglasses, hats. They carried heavy loads of goods all day, hoping for a tourist like me to buy. But I kept replaying Claudia’s death; my mind wasn’t on shopping.

  At some point, I got up and wandered over to the pool. Becky was there, playing water volleyball. Chichi refereed, offering tequila shots for each point scored, and Luis cheered and announced the plays over a loudspeaker. I studied Luis as he followed the game. He was engrossed in the moment, his voice rich and enthusiastic. He seemed happy, fun loving. Was it just a guise? Were stalkers happy and fun loving?

  “Elle!” Becky spotted me. “Come play. We need you.”

  I waved and smiled, shook my head, no. Not me. And noticed Melanie, preparing to serve for the opposing team. Luis watched her from the announcer’s platform.

  “All right,” he stretched the long vowel sound into three syllables. “Punch it!”

  The ball flew into the net. Melanie dunked under the water, came up glistening, smoothed her hair. The ball came back to her and she held it up, ready to serve again, but hesitated, glancing at Luis.

  “Come on! You can do it! Go for it!” His voice blared.

  Melanie punched the ball and it soared over to Becky’s side. Someone hit it back, but a tall guy on Melanie’s team smashed it over. Point: Melanie’s side.

  “Seven-Five,” Chichi called as he passed the tequila around to Melanie’s team.

  People who weren’t playing lay around the pool, eating, reading, listening to music. A guy flew out of the alligator’s mouth into the deep end of the pool. A couple strolled over to the spot where Claudia Madison had landed just hours before. It had been hosed down so there were no stains. No sign that she’d ever fallen. I looked up six floors at the balcony. Saw her again, dangling there. Saw myself stuck halfway across the wall. Felt the railing under my feet, the cool morning breeze. Closed my eyes, heard a thud.

  “Señora?” The woman’s eyes were sad, her skin dark and wrinkled. She held an array of floral dresses. “Which one you like? I have something special for you.”

  Salsa music pumped. Chichi and Luis cheered and the players yelled.

  “No, gracias.” I backed away from her. Passing the recreation hut, I grabbed a boogie board and hurried into the ocean, paddling away from shore until I couldn’t hear music or voices, only the motion and splashing of water. For a while, I floated, bobbing up and down, rocking on the board. Then I rode the waves, letting the ocean lift and carry me, tossing me onto the sand. More than once, as my body slapped down against the beach, I closed my eyes and felt Claudia’s thud. I wondered if she’d felt it. Or if, hitting the ground so hard, she’d had time to feel anything at all.

  Around lunchtime, I went to the hotel lobby again to check on Susan. She wasn’t there. I called the room.

  “What?” She sounded pissed.

  “Are you coming down?”

  “If I could, Elle, don’t you think I would?” Not just pissed; sarcastic.

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Are you suddenly a lawyer?”

  Okay. I’d tried.

  “My brilliant colleagues screwed up a filing, and I seem to be the only one capable of fixing it. Sorry. Gotta go.” She hung up.

  On the way back to the beach, I saw Chichi and Becky among other couples at the beach bar, their heads leaning together. Becky was smiling, whispering into his ear. His arm was around her waist. I closed my eyes, imagined myself there with Charlie. Smelled the salty ocean on his skin. Felt his body heat beside me. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt over his bathing trunks, and we were sipping margaritas. Dammit. I opened my eyes. Why was I always thinking about Charlie? Even if he hadn’t died, we wouldn’t have been drinking together. By now, we’d have been divorced for months. Even so, the air beside me felt empty, as if marking his absence. Probably it wasn’t Charlie I was missing; it was being part of a couple. Having somebody to sit with at the bar. Somebody to whisper to. I looked out at the ocean, and there he was again, standing in the froth. Charlie was everywhere I looked, present in everything I did. Pathetic. Why was I so stuck? Was I still raw from his death? Or had Claudia’s brought it all back?

  I kept walking, moving. The sky was cloudless, the sun relentless. Even the breeze was hot. I stayed at the water’s edge, where the sand was wet and my toes dug in. Where the warm waves washed my feet and backed away. I walked past rows of couples on beach chairs and under umbrellas, past guys offering to take me parasailing, past women wanting to braid my hair. And with every step, every heartbeat, no matter what, I missed Charlie.

  Stop it, I told myself. I picked up a seashell, examined it. Dropped it. Kept on going, moving to a silent drumbeat, pounded by the sun.

  I went beyond the line of waterfront condos and resort hotels to an undeveloped stretch where the beach was narrow, lined by untended dense foliage. Even then, I didn’t turn back. I kept going, feeling alone. Not just alone. The kind of alone that was isolating and deep. The kind that had begun when Charlie died and the whole world shifted. The kind where even my best friends seemed altered—not quite tangible, as if they, like Charlie, had drifted out of reach. The kind where everything around me seemed different. Even colors—hues of red and yellow—lost their vibrancy and faded.

  I moved into the water, wading ahead ankle deep. Watching the shimmering waves, wondering at the gray-blue water, if it looked brighter to others. Aware of each splashy step. Each breath.

  For months, I’d been wandering this altered world, trying to adjust. Becky, Susan, and Jen had been concerned when I’d taken a leave of absence from teaching. They’d asked what I would do with my days. The question had stymied me; I didn’t want to do anything. Even so, for a while I’d read travel brochures, imagining dining in Paris. Going on safari in Africa. In the end, I’d stayed put. The place I’d wanted to go wasn’t listed in any brochure or pictured on a website. It wasn’t a distance of miles. It was a distance of time. I’d wanted to go back to my former life—to be with Charlie before life had fallen apart, to get a second chance. I’d had no desire to be anywhere else. So I’d stayed in my house, watching time pass, wondering if red would ever be red again, or yellow, yellow.

  When Jen had called, announcing that she was taking Susan, Becky, and me with her to Mexico, that she had booked a two-bedroom suite for the second week of December, I’d been hopeful. Maybe the change of scenery and traveling with my friends would jolt me out of my post-Charlie darkness. I’d tried to convince myself that a new place might mean a new beginning. And to believe that when I went away, I could somehow leave myself behind.

  But here I was splashing alone through unknown waters, feeling lost, still missing my past. I needed to focus on other things. The so
und of the ocean slapping the sand. Jen’s surgeries, how they’d go. How different she’d look afterwards. And her doctor, Alain Du Bois. Lord. He’d asked me to dinner. My mind moved in sync with my steps, thinking in staccato, and eventually, I came to another development. A row of gleaming white hotels along a sandy beach.

  Up ahead, a woman was standing in the sand, wearing a strapless sundress and a scarf over her hair. The breeze blew the scarf, covering her face. As I got closer, the breeze shifted, and the scarf moved away. I stopped, shuddering, eyes riveted. Where her face should have been was a flat crimson mess. Her features—lips, cheeks, chin—seemed a scrambled, indistinguishable mass of flesh. I slowed down, staring. Told myself to avert my gaze. Made myself walk on and look at the water.

  Maybe I wasn’t seeing things right. The bright sunlight must be causing distortions. Of course—that was it. What looked like raw wounds were probably sun glare and tricks of the light, not real. I kept walking, not looking at her. Got closer. Glanced her way.

  Even with the scarf and the glare, I recognized her.

  I looked away, out at the ocean. My breathing was shallow, my mouth dry. I was probably dehydrated. I’d walked too far, had had too much sun, hadn’t recovered from the shock of the day before. And my dissociative disorder must have kicked in, distorting my thoughts. I was reacting to the trauma of Claudia’s death and my failure to save her, reviving her in my mind. When I’d look back, she wouldn’t be there. I counted: one, two three. On three, I turned back.

  Claudia Madison stood at water’s edge, just up the beach. Her scarf again blew over her face, hiding the disfigurements. But, obviously, she wasn’t actually Claudia Madison. She hadn’t fallen six stories onto her face. Her wounds had been caused some other way. Don’t stare, I told myself. If she’s real, she’ll be sensitive about her appearance. She won’t want people gawking. I moved my gaze past her, toward the hotel. A man was there, stepping through a gate, approaching her. Maybe her husband?

  Or no. Not her husband.

  My husband.

  Charlie.

  I stopped walking, stopped breathing. I was hallucinating, had to be. The man looked just like him. He had Charlie’s shape and height. Charlie’s loose and confident gait. I blinked, but he didn’t disappear. I squinted into the distance, and with the glare of the sun, had trouble seeing his features. I felt off balance, needed to turn around and head back. I’d gone too far from the hotel, too far from reality. The man stopped beside the woman and turned toward me, raised a hand. Oh God, was he waving? Was Charlie emerging from the dead and just casually saying, “Hi”? Or wait—was his raised hand a warning, signaling me to stay back and come no closer? I hugged myself, unable to move, and watched as the man put his arm around the woman, kissed the side of her head, and led her across the sand into the trees, toward the road.

  I stood on the beach for a moment, deciding that I’d imagined the resemblances. Then, I turned and headed back, running most of the way.

  I might not have recognized our hotel, might have kept running all the way into Puerto Vallarta if not for Melanie Crane. She accosted me as I ran along the beach.

  “Elle—” She called from the water’s edge as if she’d been expecting me and took hold of my arm. I slowed to a stop, panting. “Thank God. I was hoping to find you. I don’t know what to do.”

  I bent forward, trying to catch my breath. Unbearably thirsty.

  “He’s been tailing me all day. I went to my room, just to get away. Grandma said that someone had sent flowers. Guess who? I went online to check my e-mail. Guess who tried to friend me on Facebook? What am I supposed to do?”

  My breathing was slower, my heart calming down. “Tell him to back off?”

  “Don’t you think I have? I’ve said I’ve got a boyfriend back home. That I’m not interested. He doesn’t listen. Before I was sitting on a lounge chair. He sent me a mojito. So I moved chairs. A while later, what do you know? Another mojito.”

  A mojito sounded heavenly. I was parched, dehydrated. I looked toward the bar, craving anything liquid. Took a step in that direction. Melanie matched my step, stayed with me, too close. I smelled pool chlorine and sunblock. How had I acquired this woman? Why did she think her unwanted suitor was my problem? “Go to management. Complain.”

  “Then he’d lose his job. I can’t do that to him.”

  “Why? If he’s a lunatic stalker, he probably shouldn’t have that job.”

  “You’re right. I just don’t feel right getting him fired. And if he found out I was the reason, I’d be afraid of what he might do.”

  “Are you really afraid? Do you think he’s dangerous?” I saw him up ahead on the platform above the pool, doing a salsa dance demo for an elderly couple. Grinning and wagging his hips.

  Melanie pouted, thinking. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Well, if you do, don’t mess with him. I saw you playing volleyball before. Just keep away from him. Don’t give him a message he might misinterpret.”

  “Wait, you think he thinks that if I play volleyball, it’s because of him?”

  How dense was this woman? “Yes, Melanie. If he’s looking for encouragement, he’ll probably find it in anything you do that involves him.”

  She was wearing a scanty bikini and huge sunglasses and was so thin that her ribs stuck out. She kept so close to me as we walked that my arms brushed her skin, and she practically stumbled over my feet. As we neared the bar and its promise of water and ice, I quickened my pace. Thought of sangria. Grapefruit juice. Beer—anything wet.

  As soon as we got there, I hopped onto a stool, welcoming the shade of the bar’s thatched roof. “Por favor—” I called out. “Agua? Can I have some water?” My voice was ragged.

  Melanie perched on the stool beside mine, twisting a wisp of hair, whining. “What should I do, Elle?”

  Ice water came. I grabbed it, chugged it. Felt it slither down my gullet, quenching and relieving. And blinding me with its frigid cold. I sat for a moment, letting the freeze fade.

  Melanie was still talking. “But you’re right. I’ll tell him one more time, and if he doesn’t back off, I’ll go to his boss.”

  She squeezed my arm as she left. I ordered a mojito on the rocks and was halfway through it before I realized that I’d pretty much brushed Melanie off. Hadn’t taken her seriously because she was so cloying. But maybe I should have. After all, a woman had died there the night before. Again, I saw Claudia fall, heard her land on the concrete. Someone at the resort had likely murdered her. What if that someone now had his eyes on Melanie? What if the killer was Luis? How would I feel if, tomorrow, Melanie’s body was found lying by the pool?

  I looked around for Melanie, didn’t see her. Well, I’d told her to go to management. That was the best I could do, wasn’t it? I gulped my mojito, ordered another. Thought about Charlie kissing Claudia Madison on the beach, right in front of me. Except that it hadn’t been him. My mind had been playing tricks again, nothing more. The mojitos were delicious. I kept drinking, stopping only when I saw Charlie sitting at the other end of the bar.

  Because of her surgery, Jen couldn’t eat after midnight. So Susan prepared a mini-fiesta to celebrate Jen’s last night with her natural God-given body. As she sliced onions and peppers for kabobs, the rest of us sat at the table beside the kitchenette, drinking room-service sangria.

  “It’s not too late, Jen,” Susan stopped chopping to push a lock of hair behind her ear. “You can still change your mind.”

  Jen rolled her eyes, turned away. Dipped a tortilla chip in Susan’s fresh guacamole. “You got burned today, Elle. Does it hurt?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You need to use sunscreen,” Becky scolded. She’d taken leave of Chichi long enough to join us for dinner.

  “Are you effing kidding?” Jen stopped chewing, gaped at Becky. “She didn’t use sunscreen?”

  Becky shrugged. “I gave her some. Number thirty.”

  “Well, did she put it on?”


  Again, they talked about me as if I weren’t there.

  “I used the sunscreen,” I told them. But in fact, I was toasted. Too much sun, too many mojitos.

  “You’ll get wrinkles,” Jen double dipped her tortilla chip.

  “Forget wrinkles, you can get skin cancer.” Susan’s knife punctuated her words. Chop. Chop. “Don’t mess with the sun, Elle.”

  Why was I the focus of conversation? Becky was sunburned, too. “So, Jen,” I changed the subject, “you ready for tomorrow?”

  “WTF?” she snapped. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Because,” Susan answered from the kitchen, “somewhere in your dim but already beautiful head, you must know that you are about to take unnecessary risks for no good reason—”

  “Will you stop, Susan?”

  “—because all surgery is risky. And it’s obviously foolish for someone as full-out gorgeous as you are to undergo potentially life-threatening procedures to alter what is already a naturally strikingly beautiful body.” As she spoke, her vegetable slicing became hacking.

  “Susan, back the fuck off.” Jen’s jaw tightened. She poured more sangria, took a drink. The only sound was the knife slamming the cutting board. It cut onions, but not tension.

  “Susan’s only saying that because she loves you, Jen.” Becky put a hand on Jen’s arm.

  “That, and because Jen’s a superficial, impulsive idiot,” Susan said.

  “This was not impulsive. I did research. I thought it through. You’re just pissed because you had to work all day. Don’t take it out on me.”

  I scooped a wad of guacamole onto a chip. Took a bite. Man, it was good. Fresh avocado, garlic, cilantro, lime. Creamy texture. I thought about avocado. No other food resembled it in texture or flavor. Or color. The argument went on around me like the chirping of birds or the hum of traffic. White noise, isn’t that what they called it? Comforting and familiar background sounds, the bickering of old friends.