25
Dan was feeling particularly charitable as he strolled up the outdoor staircase to the third-story room where Lenny and his men had stored Lilyanna Collins. He had a cold beer in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Lilyanna had to eat, at least—the Geneva Conventions were strict on that point. The guard outside her room was the same woman who ushered Dan into the basement yesterday morning, the one who looked like a lunch lady, and she had a pistol holstered at her hip and she stared straight ahead as Dan approached.
“Hey again,” Dan said. “Lenny radioed, right? Bringing dinner to Lilyanna.”
The woman nodded.
Dan closed one eye and peeked through the peephole before realizing he was on the wrong side of it. “How’s she been in there?” he asked, playing it off.
“Been screaming a lot.”
“Any screams stand out?”
“Something about an airplane. Gibberish, mostly.”
Dan nodded. “Okay. You’ll be out here?”
“Just holler if you need me.”
Dan knocked. Seemed like an appropriate thing to do, even for a prisoner. No response. He knocked again. Nothing. He cracked open the door.
Lilyanna sat on the bed closest to the bathroom, eyes pinned open, hair extensions on the floor beside her, frozen in place.
Yeesh. Building C rooms really were a downgrade, even worse than the pictures. No private balcony, no minifridge, TV like a postage stamp. It was a small step up from a roadside motel. Some of the cold from outside had seeped in too. Go figure—they hadn’t installed heat at a resort in the Bahamas.
“Hi,” Dan said. He shut the door softly behind him, shuffled over to the desk. “Brought you dinner. Lenny actually makes an amazing Italian sub, you’ve gotta give it to him. And there’s a beer here. We didn’t have dessert—Building A still has our wedding cake—but one of the boxes we took back was from the vending machines, so there’s a Butterfinger for you. And a Crunch bar for myself.”
He sat on the bed across from Lilyanna’s, opened the Crunch bar, got a better look at her. She hadn’t budged. She looked different in cheap light, like someone was tired of playing with her and removed the batteries. Her makeup was running a bit, her white dress stained with something.
“You gonna eat?” Dan asked. He took a bite of his Crunch bar. Delicious. “I mean, it’s whatever, but if you are—the bread’ll get soggy from all the oil if you leave it sitting too long.”
“Y’all sure are loud down there,” she said.
“Oh, good, you’re still speaking. Yeah, well, we have electricity tonight. Running water too. Guess your people want to make your stay more comfortable.”
“That was some move Lenny and your girl pulled.”
“It was all of us.”
That got a laugh out of her, returned some color to her cheeks. She scooted forward on the bed and over to the desk. She took the sandwich and stripped off the bread, ate the deli meat from her hand like an animal.
“The sun exploded, Lilyanna,” Dan said. “Have some carbs.”
“You had nothing to do with what happened,” she said, licking oil from her thumb. “That ain’t your style. You were as surprised as I was.” She looked at him for the first time. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
He didn’t.
She chuckled, twisted open the beer bottle, and took a swig. “Y’all could’ve at least put me in Building B, I swear. It’s cold, but I won’t use these sheets. Gonna have to use my dress like a blanket.”
“You shot me and put me under the resort.”
She hopped back on the bed. “So. What’s the plan, Mr. Foster? Do you even know?”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He didn’t. Plan? He thought they’d already done the plan. He improvised a new one. “The plan is to keep Building A from ruining any more lives. The plan is to let these people live in peace.” He paused. “Even if it’s only a few more days.”
“Oh, you think that’s what’s gonna happen? We’re gonna live in peace now? Join hands ’round the island and sing kumbaya?”
“Partial to ‘Lean On Me,’ myself.”
She laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“Y’all have no idea how good you had it.”
“Tell that to Julio.”
“How long you gonna hang that over my head?”
“Long as he’s dead. There are other things I can hang over your head if you’d like. You put a psychopath in charge of security.”
“That was Brody. He was head of security before—”
“You had me shot. Ordered old men and women beaten for not meeting production . Switched off water, electricity. Cut rations. Hey, Lilyanna, remember when me and Lenny were almost executed at the hangar? If it hadn’t been for Alan, I’d be in the garden right now. Jesus, saying all these things at once is bizarre. You’re insane, you know that? Did you just say something about how good we had it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Calm down, hun. Take a deep breath. You’re gettin’ all red in the face.” She sipped her beer, focused on the space in front of her nose. “I didn’t make all the right calls. Suppose you would though, if you were in charge.”
“I’m, like, 95 percent sure I wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“You look back on any of the great leaders, son, and you list their mistakes one after another like that, you’d probably think they were awful, too. Abraham Lincoln, Churchill—even Mary Kay Ash, God rest her soul. No one’s perfect. But I know this island would’ve been worse off without me. Without some order. These people would’ve torn each other to pieces.”
Dan took another large bite of Crunch bar, envisioned it was Lilyanna’s head. “We could’ve worked together. We could’ve—”
“You know how Building A came into possession of all that food and medicine, Mr. Foster? That first night after the sun exploded. You know how we got all that?”
“You paid off the guards and they helped you steal it.”
“Half-right. I paid off the guards, sure. But that’s because folks from Building C, led by your Lenny, got caught trying to take everything. Didn’t tell you that, did he? Left that part out, I reckon.”
They what ? That—that wasn’t true. Lenny wouldn’t do that. Would he? Dan put on his best poker face, pretended it didn’t get to him, but Lilyanna saw through it.
“If I hadn’t stepped in, Building C would’ve been in charge. How you think that would’ve gone? Think they’d’ve shared? What kind of rules do the uneducated put in place? Lord. We wouldn’t have to worry about the cold because this resort would be on fire.”
Dan shook his head. “You’re lying.”
Lilyanna shrugged. “You go on believing what you want. Honestly, I don’t care.” She tossed her bottle cap across the room. “Alright. So the plan’s to live in peace for a few days. That’s darling. And what about me? What do y’all plan to do with me? Firing squad?”
Dan could hardly concentrate. Had Lenny and his people really tried to take everything that first night? Is that what put everything in motion?
“Shut up,” he blurted. “Eat your Butterfinger. It was lovely seeing you, Lilyanna, as always, but—”
Lilyanna’s face curled around a mischievous grin. “Come on, Mr. Foster, you just got here. You’re the shepherd of this flock, ain’t ya? You’re the name they shout, the man they look to. You call the shots. I wanna know what’s next.”
“If it were up to me, we’d bury you next to Julio.”
“Aw. That’s not true. We both know that’s not true. Why ain’t it up to you, Danny?” It was the first time she’d called him Danny. He didn’t like it. “Ain’t you in charge? Ain’t you head honcho?”
She leaned into the gap between the beds, peered into Dan’s eyes. Dan had to scoot back to avoid their noses touching.
“No,” she said, and she rolled her eyes again, sat back up straight. “You ain’t in charge of nothin’. A scared little man.”
She stood, went back to her dinner on the desk. She unwrapped the Butterfinger. “I never eat candy.” She bit off a piece, chewed it a while. “Is this what y’all eat?”
“It has a new and improved taste.”
She spit it out. “Well, sometimes the old ways are best.”
They both fell silent. Lilyanna’s words ricocheted between Dan’s ears. Little man . I’m not a little man. I’m just a man. A fucking man . Then he accidentally said one of his thoughts aloud: “You don’t know anything about me.”
Lilyanna gave that a chuckle, took another swig of beer. “Know you? I practically married you.” She had his attention. “Let’s see here. Bet you’re a mama’s boy too. And you got trouble relating to people, and you’re confused because you thought you’d do something great when you grew up, make something more of yourself.” She raised her eyebrows, like, Am I close? She doubled down. “Bet you can’t sleep some nights because going to sleep would mean putting a pin in another day of just being plain ol’ you.” She paused. “Did I just nail that or what?”
“No.” Dan tossed the rest of his Crunch bar on the nightstand. He stood. “That Pinterest board philosophy might work on the hillbillies who buy into BeachBod, Lilyanna, but I—”
“I know you ’cause I married you.” Her eyes fogged like a shower door. “Pete was the same way at your age, I swear. Couldn’t understand why he wasn’t more successful, working some little job in finance, taking orders from people he was smarter than, funnier than, better than. He’d had all this potential, see. Grew up in a good family. Been told from the time he could lift a pencil that he was God’s gift to the world. A real special boy.” She clicked her tongue. “Does something to a man, finally facing who he truly is. To look in the mirror and see that first gray beard hair, having done nothin’. Woof.”
Dan found his first gray beard hair six months ago when he let it grow out for the holidays. He plucked it with a pair of tweezers when Mara wasn’t home, and that night, under the oppressive glow of his cell phone light, he scoured his face for others.
But what did Lilyanna know? He was nothing like Pete.
Please, God, don’t let me be anything like Pete.
“But you married him,” Dan said, returning to the bed.
“And Mara married you. It’s amazing the anchors women chain to their ships when they’re in love. I was engaged to Pete before I realized he was as useless as a price scanner at the dollar store. By the time I came to my senses, it was too late. Couldn’t live without him. So, I did what women do. Set out to fix him.”
“This is the fixed version?”
“Congregation of over a thousand. Brought in more than two hundred thousand dollars last year. He don’t wear the pants in the relationship, but I don’t have to change his diaper anymore either. I’d say I wrung just about everything I could out of that stupid man.” Lilyanna considered Dan. “I wonder what Mara’s got planned for you.” She made a box with her fingers, peered at him through it. “I’m thinking local office. You’re a decent public speaker. Alderman?”
Dan shifted his head so it wouldn’t fit in her box. “You don’t know me,” he repeated.
“Oh, hun. You think she’s happy with this current version of you? She invested in a fixer-upper. Hey, don’t take it personal. You got good bones. Curb appeal needs a little work. How’s your plumbing?” She laughed at herself. “I mean, if Mara was younger, okay, maybe she could be a bit more particular, try on someone else for a while—”
“She’s twenty-seven.”
“And bless her heart for finally settling down. Whether she admits it to you or not, son, she’s got a timeline in her head. And you happened to be there around the deadline for gettin’ hitched. Doesn’t hurt that it’s the end of the world either. Right place, right time. Ain’t that the story of men?” She took another drink. “Look at you. Fists clenched, foot tapping a hole in the carpet. Why you in such a huff? This can’t be coming as a surprise. You’ve seen a photograph of the two of you together, right?”
Dan looked down.
“Oh, Danny. You ain’t the main character of this story. Bet you think you are, don’t ya? This is all happening to you, right, and Mara’s an important part, sure, but she’s just part. The real star is Danny Foster. That right?”
“Okay,” Dan said, getting up again—again. “This has been fun. I’ve always wanted to be psychoanalyzed by someone at the tip-top of a pyramid scheme, so thanks. I’ll see you—”
“You’re the boyfriend , Dan,” Lilyanna said, undeterred. “Character actor. Second billing. Quick recap. Who rushed off to try and save Julio’s life the second he was shot?”
He tried to resist, but Dan still answered her inside his head. That was Mara.
“Who’s been pushing you to be a mouthpiece for the resistance from the beginning?”
Mara.
“Who actually planned and executed the revolt?”
…Yeah.
“You’re around, Mr. Foster, but you’re a pawn. A planet stuck in her orbit.” She smiled, proud of that one. “Mara, though, gosh. She’s a disrupter. Grabs life by the throat. I’d kill to have a few more like her on my executive sales team.” She tilted her head, real sweet-like. “It’s actually lucky she’s got a husband like you. Capable men can’t stand being outshined by their partners. Eats ’em up inside, turns ’em resentful. Little men like you though—ideal for women like Mara. You fit right into her pocket, something to carry around and look at when she’s bored. Pocket lint in the shape of a man.”
Dan was at the door. “You done?”
Lilyanna shrugged, like, I guess so. Then she got a real pensive look on her face. She put a finger to her chin. “Unless…”
Dan should have just opened the door, obviously. Why hadn’t he opened the door? His fingers wrapped around the handle, a simple twist would do it. What was the inescapable pull of this woman? She was belittling him, making him feel smaller than the sand caked to his flip-flops, but he had to listen, to hear her out. Maybe he had spent his whole life stuck in orbit around powerful women.
He dropped his hand. “Unless what?”
“You could take back control,” she said.
“Take back control.”
“Take back control! How come you weren’t in on that wedding spectacle, Danny? Why didn’t you wanna do it?”
“I—”
“You didn’t think it was the right move, did you? I told you—Mara gets shit done. Here’s the thing about people who get shit done though. They’re so focused on getting shit done that they don’t take two seconds to consider whether it’s the right shit. Lord, forgive me. I haven’t said shit this many times in years. This building brings out the slum in me. Shit, shit, shit. It’s fun. I get the appeal.”
“Wait till you try fuck .”
Lilyanna laughed, maybe the first real laugh Dan had ever heard from her. It was disarming, somehow, like a snake shedding its skin. She sat back on the bed, rested against the headboard, looked to the ceiling. “You are funny, Danny. I get what Mara sees in you. Really, I do.”
That was nice to hear, Dan needed a confidence boost today, but he considered the source. “Okay,” he said, turning back to the door. “Well, it’s been a day. So—”
“This is your chance, Danny,” she said. Her eyes again met his. She sounded…sincere? She never sounded sincere. And was it Dan’s imagination, or had she lost some of the Southern twang? “This is your chance to be the man. Take back the power. Do what you know is right.”
“Or I could walk through this door,” Dan said.
She nodded, threw up her hand. “Or you could walk through that door.” She spun, planted her feet back on the carpet. She put her hands on her knees. “I was too harsh. It’s not easy being a man. Y’all have societal pressures too. Being a man means making the call.”
“I didn’t make the call today,” Dan said, slumping against the wall.
“You still got time.” She stood, walked toward him. “Sneak me out of here, Danny. We’ll get Alan. There’ll be a seat for you and Mara on the plane. I promise. Pete could never be the man for me. He didn’t have it in him. But you—”
She clutched his hand.
“You have it in you, Danny. I know it. I can feel it. Do the right thing. Be the man. Save her life.”
He could do it. He really could. There was one guard outside, the lunch lady, Dan was pretty sure he could take her. Come out alone, act all casual, then wallop her with an alarm clock. And he could sneak Lilyanna back to Building A or the hangar, then he could sneak back again and tell Alan, who would be thrilled, and he could grab Mara, throw her over his shoulder like a man, tell her he has to do what’s best for her, and he’d ignore her kicking and screaming, because she wouldn’t get it. She’d be mad at first, like, really mad—but eventually she’d understand. She’d understand when they got home, when they saw their families again. She’d eventually realize what he did was right.
Lilyanna grasped Dan’s hand with both of hers now, and she said, “You can do it, you can do it,” and she looked at him with big soulful eyes. He smiled at her, and she laughed, like, That’s it, come on, and sparks shot across her eyes like the tail end of a firecracker.
Dan ripped his hand from hers and pulled back, but she seized him again, so this time he pushed her away, not a hard push, just a little one, but she exaggerated and fell on the bed, screaming. When she popped back up, the sparks in her eyes turned to fire.
Dan said, “You really thought that would work on me, didn’t you?” And he sounded really confident, really self-assured for a guy that definitely almost worked on. The door to the room swung open, and the lunch lady’s head popped in.
“What the hell is going on?”
“You little fucking man,” Lilyanna cried. She grabbed the clothing iron from the bedside table and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall. Lunch lady barreled in, pistol drawn, but Dan pushed its aim to the floor and said, “Whoa, whoa, it’s fine. Leave her. Come on.”
“He attacked me!” Lilyanna screamed as they shuffled outside. “That little fucking man attacked me! You fucking white-trash pieces of—”
Dan and the lunch lady slammed the door shut behind them, hardly muffling Lilyanna’s screams. The door throbbed as she collided with the other side.
“I will kill everyone on this island to get home to my babies, do you understand me? I will make a raft out of your bodies if it means getting home to my babies!”
Wow, okay. Dark. Definitely not on brand.
Dan stepped away from the door as she continued shrieking.
“I didn’t—” Dan said, struggling to find words. “I wasn’t trying to—I did not attack her.”
The woman lit a cigarette, returned her back to the door, shrugged. “Whatever, man. Not my business.”
Dan stared blankly at her.
Dan found Lenny and Alan in the parking lot, next to the bus where they’d locked that kid to the steering wheel over week ago.
Over a week ago. Christ.
They were, of course, arguing. Whisper-arguing, which was kind of funny, like an old couple having a spat during church. They’d both been drinking and were different types of drunks. Lenny was touchy, used bro every other word, pulled from a cigar like a cartoon bulldog. Alan was angry, his manic eyes searching for something to hit, something to rip apart with his hands.
“Dinner with Mrs. Collins went as well as could be expected,” Dan said.
Lenny nodded profusely like it was all going according to plan. He glanced up at the room where Lilyanna was held. “So she’s good?”
“Well, Lenny, good is subjective. Shit, it’s cold.” Dan buttoned his jacket, hugged himself. He decided against asking Lenny about what Lilyanna revealed. Best not to make another enemy right now. “What are you two doing out here?”
Lenny laughed, like, heh, heh, and elbowed Dan. “Bro, you’re asking what we’re doing out here? It’s your wedding night. Party’s over. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“It’s not too late,” Alan said, shaking, from cold or anger or both. “We take her now, Dan, and carry her straight to the hangar. Use her as leverage to get to the plane.”
Alan’s plan sure sounded familiar.
Lenny took a puff. “They’ll just shoot us and take her. Simple. Least here we got some protection, some cover. Shut up about it already. Besides, we take her from here, no reason Building A won’t overrun the place. Take back the supplies, screw all these people again. That what you want?”
“I want off this island, Lenny. Thought that’s what you wanted too. They won’t shoot me. I’m the only pilot on the resort.”
“Oh, right, so they’ll just shoot me, Dan, and our wives. Yeah, real good. Beautiful. Good thinking.”
Sarcasm didn’t suit Lenny.
“I can negotiate with them.”
“She’s staying here. I don’t wanna hear about it anymore.”
Alan turned to Dan. His eyes pleaded with him.
Desperation didn’t suit Alan.
“You’re okay with this?” Alan asked. “You really think this is the right play?”
The wind picked up, and something dull but persistent flecked past the lights of Building C.
No way. Was this…?
“Snow,” Lenny said, holding his hand out. “Whoa. Get a load of that. It’s snowing. I gotta get Gloria. She’s gonna freak. Hey, maybe if it sticks, we can line this place with trenches or something, for more cover. In Hackensack we used to—”
Dan tuned him out.
Up on the walkways, a few doors opened, and out popped curious heads.
“Snow!” someone called, like school might get canceled.
“ Snow ,” another said, like it was a death sentence. This wasn’t something to celebrate. This was the manifestation of everyone’s worst fears in delicate, floating crystals. This was perpetual winter. This was freezing to death in the dark.
Dan asked Alan, “Could you fly in this?”
“I can fly in anything.”
Lenny didn’t love that exchange. He called up to the lunch lady guarding Lilyanna’s door. “Hey, Madge, you got enough ammo for tonight?”
Madge. Of course her name was Madge. Dan had never seen a more Madgey Madge in his entire life.
Lenny stared straight into Alan when he said the next part: “Anyone comes near Lilyanna, you know what to do.”