Willing by Scott Spencer

Author:Scott Spencer [Spencer, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9780061974946
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-01-07T01:27:38+00:00

11

AN HOUR LATER, I was awakened by the sound of a single piece of paper sliding beneath the door to my room. I am not a deep sleeper, but I don’t know if I have ever before been jolted out of sleep by such crumbs from the sonic table. I scrambled up, my heart pounding, and then I stumbled hastily across the room to read the message, expecting the ill-defined worst. What a relief to see that all it was an announcement of a day trip to the Blue Lagoon. I stood there, holding the sheet of paper, my heart bobbing like a little rowboat lashed to the dock during a storm. Sigrid, too, had fallen asleep. She was a thumb sucker, the first undeniably true thing about her, and as she sat up, she dried her thumb on the bedspread.

Feeling I must experience whatever the tour had to offer, I readied myself to go downstairs. When I told Sigrid I was going to go to the Blue Lagoon, she assured me it was not only beautiful but beneficial to one’s health. I asked her if she wanted to come along—I couldn’t help myself; I felt close to her and somehow obligated. She said she was happy to make the trip, but it was pretty obvious she wanted to be free to go back to her old life, and down in the lobby she gave me a quick dry kiss and walked away from me, wriggling away with increasing speed, like a trout that has been unhooked and released back into the cool rushing water.

Those of us who were going to the little side trip convened in the Royal’s main bar. It was called the Mojita and it was meant to look as if it were some stylishly seedy old place resurrected from old Havana, during the reign of Batista and Meyer Lansky, when whoring, Christianity, and free enterprise were the Cuban style. I was the first to arrive and I sat at the bar. The bartender was a young blond guy with the tattoo of an iguana crawling out of his shirt collar. I ordered a coffee, a club soda, and a glass of red wine—I didn’t know what the hell I wanted.

A few moments later, I heard the click of heels, turned on my stool, and saw Gabrielle. She was dressed in khaki pants and a safari jacket, with a silk scarf poofed up around her neck. Where is Sigrid gone? she said, as she slid onto the stool next to mine. Gabrielle was freshly perfumed, though it seemed she had tried on one kind, decided against it, and covered it up with another. Oh, she went home, I guess. What? Gabrielle’s voice was sharp with concern, as if I had just told her Sigrid had been rushed to the hospital. She began rummaging through her shoulder bag—out came cosmetics, a calculator, a small biography of Frank Lloyd Wright, and, at last, her cell phone. She flicked it open as if it were a switchblade.

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