One Way or Another(68)

“Get up,” Mehitabel said. They were the only words she had addressed to me on the journey of about an hour and a half. Of course, I got up. She reached into the overhead storage, took out a long knit jacket, thrust it at me, said to put it on. I put it on. She looked down at my feet in the red flip-flops, sighed and turned away. I guessed there was nothing she could do to change them. “Follow me,” she said. I followed. I had no mind of my own. I was their puppet, a pawn, a nothing.

I breathed the fuel-scented air outside, walking behind Mehitabel, who carried the jeweled collar, which I guessed must be worth almost as much as Mehitabel’s emeralds. She, so lovely in her green satin, her spiraling black curls standing out from her head as though wired with electricity, her heels clack-clacking along, and me, the scruffy woman anyone might take for a bonded servant.

A car waited, headlights dimmed. We got in, me first with Mehitabel giving me an urgent shove forward, then her, settling into the seat that smelled expensively of new leather; a short drive to the harbor. Mehitabel left, then a while later the driver brought me to a boat, a Riva manned by a man in a dark jacket, the prow of the yacht looming ahead. The name, the Lady Marina.

I was back in bondage then, on Ahmet’s boat, lost to the world, a place where no one would ever find me. I had drowned once in the Aegean. Was I about to do it all over again?





48

Life at the beck and call of the very rich was not all bad, Martha said to Morrie while standing on the balcony of the hotel they’d relocated to while the party preparations were under way. Martha was sipping an early morning cup of very good coffee, and nibbling every now and then on a pastry picked from the basket of still-warm-from-the-oven goodies that were a calorific nightmare, but emotionally were a form of heaven.

“Why is it,” she asked, “that we don’t make croissants like this at home?”

“I heard it’s the flour,” Morrie said. “Or maybe it’s the water. Whatever, this place beats Marshmallows hands down, no contest. Don’t ever send me there again or I’ll have to quit, okay?”

Martha laughed. “So okay.” She threw him a sideways look. “Wimp.”

“I’m telling you that place is haunted, stuck out there on those bleak marshes like something out of Dickens.”

“You’ve read Dickens, then?”

Morrie gave a slight toss of his head. “Of course not. Nobody does, they just talk like they have.”

“Marco has.” Martha ventured this bit of information with another sideways look. Morrie looked sideways back.

“Well, Marco would, wouldn’t he. I mean, he’s got to talk to those sitters he paints, the well known, the well heeled, and of course the well read.”

Martha laughed. “I hope we’re not having a fight, because we have a lot of work to do. There’s a party tonight, remember?”

“How could I forget.” Morrie grabbed his iPad and began checking things off a long list. There were to be seventy guests.

“Better also check with Mehitabel,” Martha said.

“Jesus. You mean I have to talk to that witch? She’s nuts, Martha, friggin’ crazy. I thought she wanted to kill me the other night, from the look in her eyes.”

“Nobody is killing anybody, and she is Ahmet’s right-hand man, so to speak. She deals with him for us. She is the last bastion against mistakes. Nobody can get past Mehitabel, not even me, and I’m the one making his party happen.”

They both turned as the door opened and Lucy dragged in, her face childish with sleep, eyes half closed against the sunlight, clad only in a bath towel, her nail polish chipped, hair pillow-flat.

“Well,” Martha said, “we have some work to do on you before you get to work. Shoot, Lucy, go take a shower, get yourself together. Remember you’re working today.”

Lucy drifted toward the basket of pastries, picked out a flaky croissant, poured more coffee into Martha’s cup, added two sugars that came in paper twists, then sank into a lounge chair and took a sip. “I’m ready,” she said.

Martha called downstairs, organized appointments at the beauty salon for both of them in a half hour’s time, told Lucy what she would be wearing that evening and don’t even question it, got back on the phone checking innumerable details with the caterer and with Ahmet’s Tunisian chef, who would be in charge, then she called Ahmet.

“My dear Martha,” he said, sounding, she thought, as though he were smiling, “I know this will be wonderful, the best party ever seen in the south of France.” Recalling the many amazing charity balls and Hollywood fantasy evenings, Martha doubted that, but said it would be pretty special and that he must not worry about a thing, she would see him later.

Clicking off her phone, she thought all that was needed now was good luck. And Marco. Where was he, anyhow? Of course, now she remembered, he would be on his way to see Ahmet; the famous portrait was to be painted, the one that Marco said would reveal the true man.

She never disturbed Marco when he was painting, knew he needed to be lost in his work, in his vision, his own world of color and line and senses. That’s what made Marco’s portraits so wonderful, somehow his own self, his own sensuality came through, though she thought Ahmet would be a hard man to capture. A man like that who kept his feelings locked behind a smile, a handshake, a kind word. It would be tough.