Lou
We smoothed our dresses and checked each other’s hair. It felt like we were three sisters about to go home way past curfew, trying to look the part of the innocent, armed with a battery of excuses.
“We need to disperse,” Marnie whispered in our ears.
Constance looked at me with the eyes of a puppy that just realized it had been left on the side of the road. I didn’t want to be alone either, but Marnie was right.
“It’s better this way,” I told Constance. “Don’t say anything to anyone. You’ll be fine.”
I had no idea where that confidence came from, because I certainly didn’t feel like I would be fine.
A big part of me wanted to do exactly what Constance had suggested.
We should find anyone who would listen and scream about what we’d just seen.
But would they listen? Who would listen?
And what did we see, really? It was dark.
We were hiding. Did we even have a good reason for hiding?
No, we didn’t. I’d averted my eyes several times, only catching snippets of the…
situation. I wouldn’t even let the word enter my mind.
And my emotions had been running sky-high.
The more time floated away, the less certain I felt of what had happened.
The less I wanted to be certain of it. I’d lost the girls now, wiggling my way through the crowd, brushing against sweaty backs and spray-tanned arms. I forced myself to take deep, silent breaths and to smile. To fucking smile as hard as I could.
I could only hope that no one would notice how much my hands were shaking.
Finally, it was my turn to get on one of the boats. As I sat down, an older woman dripping in diamonds grabbed my arm and leaned a little too close to me. There was a bead of sweat on her upper lip.
“Did you have the most wonderful time?” she said, giggling like a little girl.
“The most wonderful,” I responded through gritted teeth.
The air was cold now, and I was shivering. I forced myself to stare at the Cannes lights ahead, away from this nightmare.
“This!” she said, leaning even closer. “This is the most wonderful.”
Her face was practically in my neck now. I thought she was going to lick it.
I didn’t understand what she was talking about until I brought my hand to my collarbone. The necklace. The stolen necklace. The one Constance didn’t even seem to recognize. Or maybe it was all pretend?
“Whoever gave you this must love you very, very much,” the woman purred. Then, she cupped my face in her hands. “You are so young and beautiful. Do you realize how lucky you are?”
As strange as it may seem, my first thought wasn’t that I’d just seen a man, a very famous man, get murdered on (or maybe more accurately, off) the yacht we’d just left. No. My first thought was that no one loved me, let alone very, very much.
“So lucky,” I said.
And then we were back at the marina. All I had to do was walk away.
I needed to focus on that, but one thought kept trying to push its way to the front of my mind.
By not calling for help at the exact moment Odetta Olson had smashed Dorian Fisher with the fire extinguisher, we had shown the worst versions of ourselves.
Wasn’t it a crime to witness something like that and say nothing?
I hung on to my new friend until the crowd dispersed onto the dock and I was back on solid land.
Some people hugged goodbye while others clambered away in the direction of the string of black cars waiting on the street.
A man came to claim my new friend, and she clung on to his arm instead.
All around me, people were paired off. I worried I would stand out—sad little alone me—and quickened my pace so I could tag near a group of men.
Most of them were famous actors and directors, but there was one in particular who I’d seen talking to Dorian Fisher at the start of the evening. Had he noticed that Dorian had disappeared at the end of the party? Was anyone searching for him? Of course they’d be searching for him.
The guilt started to worm its way through my intestines. I was going to be sick. Again. I rushed over to the side of the dock and barely had time to push my hair back before the bile came streaming out of me into the water.
“You all right, sweetheart?” a man called out to me.
I gave him a thumbs-up.
“Those cocktails were deadly!” he continued, laughing.
“Deadly” I agreed, still facing down.
I waited until they were gone to stand up, then made a right at the end of the pier, onto the promenade and along the beach, in the opposite direction from the hotel.
My instinct told me I should stay far away from the girls.
As long as we were apart, we didn’t have to decide what to do next. We didn’t have to face our new reality.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at my phone, but it must have been two or three in the morning. The boulevard was eerily quiet. I immediately sensed the car driving alongside me, slowing down to match my pace, and eventually coming to a stop.
The door opened. A pair of legs swiveled and hit the ground. The metallic sandals looked familiar, but I wasn’t certain it was her until Odetta Olson emerged, her eyes trained on me.
“Well, hello there,” she said, but there was no pep in her tone.
Her eye makeup was smudged—though perhaps not as much as one would expect, given her recent activities—and her dress lay askew on her body.
“Just the person I was looking for,” she added.
“Me?” I said, stammering out the word. “Why would you be looking for me? I don’t know anything. I’m nobody.”
Had anyone ever sounded more guilty? But wait, if anyone should feel guilty on this specific patch of the promenade, it was the person who had just thrown a man overboard.
“I’d like to take a walk, if that’s okay with you,” she said.
It didn’t sound like she was giving me a choice. Her car, along with the driver, stayed parked on the side of the road. At least there would be a witness.
Or maybe not. Odetta Olson led me onto the pier, out over the water, where no one might see us. We walked in silence, me slightly behind her, for a bit.
“I think I was a little harsh earlier,” she said, as we reached the middle of the pier.
I saw Dorian Fisher leaning over the railing, almost knocked unconscious. Odetta squatting down to take hold of both of his legs. The superhuman strength she’d demonstrated as she lifted him over the edge.
“You did good work in your scenes,” Odetta continued. “Your face,” she turned to me now. “It’s so expressive.”
I stared ahead at the blackened sea, numb, but somehow managed to keep walking. Odetta Olson wanted to talk about my acting? Now?
She exhaled deeply. “I don’t really think it was you who spread those rumors.”
“You don’t?” I said carefully.
Her words to Dorian Fisher came back to me: You did this! It was you all along. All these rumors…
She shook her head but didn’t look at me. “I’ve been under some stress.”
Our surroundings appeared in a new light. The quiet hum of the sea, the deserted pier. The driver left behind. Was she here to confess? Or to kill me too? The realization hit me with chilled precision. It was both.
“My friends are waiting for me,” I blurted out. “They’re going to wonder where I am.”
“Your friends? Were they with you on the yacht?”
Oh gosh, she was going to go after them, too.
“N-no.”
“How did you get into that party?” Her voice sounded sharper now, interrogative.
“I—I wanted to see you,” I said without thinking. “I admire you. How you overcame every obstacle. But I will leave you alone forever, if you let me.”
“If I let you?”
She sounded confused, but it was probably just an act.
“I should never have come here. It was wrong. I don’t belong here. I know my place. I’m no one.”
She put a hand on my arm, stopping me. She faced me now, her expression full of resolve.
“Don’t you ever say that about yourself again. No one gets to make you feel that way.”
Fear twisted my insides. If my stomach wasn’t already empty, I might have been sick again.
“I don’t know anything. I swear, please!”
I looked down at my arm, but she wasn’t holding it anymore. I was free to go.
“I promise you’ll never see me again!” I screamed into the night.
And then, as much as my heels allowed, as fast as my shaky legs could stand it, I started to run.