Chapter 18
18
A fter that night, Flora felt strangely different, changed. She knew, deep in her heart, that she and Ethan were together and Sylvia was the unfortunate third, the interloper. She thought, some days, that Sylvia knew it too, and wondered if Sylvia might give up and walk away on her own.
The day after she and Ethan made love for the second time, Sylvia was as sick as Flora had ever seen her, waxen pale, unable to get out of her bed. Flora wouldn’t have even gone to her room if it hadn’t been for the fact that the barn door was locked, which was unusual, and she needed the key.
“Sylvia, I need the keys to the barn,” she said, standing in the doorway, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light in the dark bedroom.
“Mmm-hmmf,” said Sylvia, incoherent.
Flora flipped on the light and watched her flinch.
“Where are the keys, Sylvia? I need to feed the horses.”
Sylvia coughed, and her whole body seized. Her statuesque form was reduced, diminished. There were no needles by her bed now, but there were pill bottles and empty water glasses.
“Sylvia, please I?—”
“They’re in the pocket of my coat,” Sylvia finally managed to say, indicating the closet with a thin, veiny hand.
Flora nodded, crossing to the closet door, half-opened. She swung open the doors, and right away found Sylvia’s favorite black wool coat hanging against the door on a hook. She fished in the pocket, found the keys right away, and slipped them into her own pocket. Then, very quietly, she ran her hand over the other clothes that hung there. Cashmere sweaters by Ralph Lauren, tweed jackets by Chanel, slinky silk dresses by Calvin Klein and one after another piece of beautiful, luxuriant clothing from designers that Flora had never heard of. Sylvia, she reflected, hardly wore any of it. She looked back over her shoulder at Sylvia, who was obviously sleeping, and grabbed one charcoal gray sweater off of its hanger.
Dressed in her new riding outfit, right down to the polished boots, Flora spent the morning training the horses. She mounted Mars and took him through a few exercises, but realized that, without Sylvia or a new trainer, she had reached the limit of her ability as a trainer. The knowledge didn’t really embarrass her. She just liked riding the horses around Rainshadow on the trails and around the arena. She wasn’t passionate about the sport like Sylvia evidently had been before her addictions, whatever they were, took over, and her body failed her. So she rode in circles, wishing there was a mirror she could use to admire herself, imagining that she looked pretty sophisticated on the beautiful black horse.
Since she had the keys, she took the Range Rover into town and walked into King’s. When she first stepped into the store, everyone stared at her. Debbie’s eyes widened.
“Flora?”
“Hi, Debbie,” she said.
She saw herself in a security mirror. She cut a striking figure with the tall, black boots, snug riding pants, and soft, figure-flattering cashmere sweater. With her hair brushed, and her chin up, she looked like a completely different girl than the one who had been fired a few months before. Girl wasn’t even the right word for her anymore. No, she was a woman.
Flora grabbed a few things, coffee, for one thing, since she was the only one who drank it at the house and she was sick of the stale grounds she’d had to use. Coffee, half-and-half, fruit, cheese, wine. She strolled the aisles and filled her basket. She went through Debbie’s checkout line and paid with some of the money she’d been given after her house had burned down.
“I was really sorry to hear about your mother, Flora,” Debbie said, looking at her with more curiosity than sympathy. It occurred to her that Debbie thought she’d used the charity money to buy a bunch of designer clothes.
“The boots, all of it, were a gift,” she said, blushing. “From my boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend?” Debbie looked more confused than ever.
She blushed harder now. “Never mind,” she said.
“You look very nice, Flora,” Debbie said. “I was just trying to figure out why you looked quite so… different.”
“Oh,” she said, laughing with discomfort. “I don’t know.”
“You’re just grown up, I guess.”
“I guess so.” Flora laughed, still nervous.
Night fell on her drive home, the sunset obscured by the endless fog encircling the island. When she pulled into the driveway at Rainshadow, she saw lights on in the house, and she felt a tingle of excitement, knowing she was about to see Ethan again.
She didn’t find Ethan when she went inside. Not at first. Looking for him, she ended up back in Sylvia’s bedroom, where the other woman was still in bed.
“Sylvia?” Flora asked, stepping in, feeling strangely bold. “Are you still alive?”
Sylvia stirred. She finally sat up.
“Flora?” she said in her hoarse voice. “Will you help me? I need water. I need to… I need to…” Her head nodded forward. “Flora, you have to go…”
“Go?” Flora asked, going to Sylvia’s bedside. She spoke to her directly, without simpering or apology. “Sylvia, you would have died without me. Your horses would die without anyone to take care of them. You can’t send me away.”
Sylvia closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.
“Will you just get me a water?” she finally said.
Flora sighed and went to the bathroom for one of the paper cups. She filled it and brought it to Sylvia, then watched her drink it with her arms crossed.
“Help me get up,” Sylvia said. “I want to… I want to take a shower…”
“Why doesn’t Ethan help you?”
Sylvia looked at her then, a withering look.
“Have you not questioned why he is never out in the daytime? Or, like I did, do you explain away all of his eccentricities because you want to maintain the fantasy that he’s good?”
“He is good,” Flora said, and she noticed the flood of emotion, the way it made the words sound forceful, intense.
Sylvia looked at her pityingly, the old Sylvia, cruel and dismissive, the woman who thought Flora was an idiot. She winced.
“He is who he is,” Sylvia said. “Ask him, when you’re together at night, as I know you are now, why he sleeps all day. Ask why he never eats. You’ve noticed that, haven’t you? Why he still looks so young and so beautiful though he is older than I.”
“He is not?—”
“Yes, yes he is, Flora. I can only tell you in so many ways…” Sylvia closed her eyes again.
“What are you telling me?”
“You already know.”
“You’re jealous,” Flora hissed at the other woman. “You’re seething with jealousy.”
Sylvia smiled then and laughed, a low, ugly laugh, her eyes still closed. “Little girl,” she said, her voice a contemptuous growl. “I wouldn’t trade places with you for all the money in the world. I am at the end, terrible as it may be, but you’re at the beginning. Whatever happens, most of the suffering is behind me. I tried to save you though, I really did.”
Flora stared at her, breathing through her teeth.
“Liar,” she whispered. “You’re desperate.”
Sylvia just laughed again. “Help me to the shower. Come on, we’re sisters now, in a way.”
Flora did help her to the shower, looping an arm under her armpits as they sat side by side on the bed and hoisting her up. Sylvia was frail, she could feel it, the other woman’s slender body beneath her hanging bedclothes. She brought her into the bathroom, turned on the hot water in the marble shower, and made sure there was a clean towel.
“I’ve got it from here,” Sylvia said. “Once I warm up, I can move again.”
Flora watched Sylvia for a moment, thinking she might fall.
She didn’t want her to, of course, even if it meant she and Ethan would be alone together. Still, she watched Sylvia, watched her struggling to take off the sweater she’d worn to bed, watched her lower herself onto the toilet lid so she could take off her pajama pants.
“Please stop looking at me,” Sylvia said. “Just go. I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Flora said, her voice low.
“No, I’m not really. There are only two ways out for me, and I’m not ready to take either of them yet.”
Flora snorted, rolled her eyes. Sylvia was a diva, a dramatic ingenue in her own tragedy. Flora loathed her, but she didn’t watch her any longer, as much as she might be, just a little bit, enjoying the woman’s humiliation.
She left Sylvia to shower and went downstairs, where Ethan was sitting at the dining room table, a very old-looking book open in front of him.
“Good evening, beautiful,” he said, closing his book. “You look… magnificent.”
Flora smiled at him. “Thank you. I love these clothes.”
“They flatter you. We can go shop for more if you’d like. I can book a flight to Seattle. Or London. Or…”
“Oh,” Flora said, overwhelmed at the suggestion. “Thank you, but I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”
“You’d figure it out.”
They both smiled.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her. “I don’t think the cook is coming tonight. Maybe you should start scheduling him. Sylvia doesn’t seem that interested.”
“She’s not doing well.”
Ethan nodded, but didn’t seem especially concerned or surprised. “I wonder how long she’ll keep doing this to herself.”
Flora nodded, as if agreeing that it was such a shame that Sylvia was so self-destructive.
“What is she addicted to?”
“Addicted?” he asked, and for a moment seemed confused. “Oh, well, wine, pain medication, whatever she can get her hands on.”
“And why doesn’t she have a doctor?”
“She does have a doctor,” Ethan said. “They don’t come anymore, they just prescribe. She’s just managing pain now. She stopped trying to get better.”
“She’s given up.”
He nodded, shrugged. They both sighed, as if Sylvia was just an unfortunate tragedy about which nothing could be done.
“Why don’t you come out during the day?”
Ethan looked at her, smiled. “Because I’m a vampire.”
She laughed. He laughed too. Then, she felt a coldness creep over her skin.
He was joking, she knew he was joking.
But if she was so certain, why were the hairs on her arms standing up and her mouth going dry?
“Come sit with me.”
She went to him, let him pull her into his lap, kissed him. The house felt dark all around them, but between them there was light, warmth. She could see in him an entire future, everything she’d wanted, if only…
She rested her head on his chest. She sought a heartbeat, but instead there was only a stillness. Maybe he was a vampire. Sylvia had said as much. So had Blythe. They were both just jealous of her and this perfect man. He put an arm around her, and she closed her eyes.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“I’m not worried,” he said. “Everything is going to work out exactly right.”
She smiled and let him hold her, let herself melt utterly into him, forgetting herself.