MEGAN MAYHEW BERGMAN

The Siege at Whale Cay

FROM The Kenyon Review

 

GEORGIE WOKE up in bed alone. She slipped into a swimsuit and wandered out to a soft stretch of white sand Joe called Femme Beach. The Caribbean sky was cloudless, the air already hot. Georgie waded into the ocean, and as soon as the clear water reached her knees she dove into a small wave, with expert form.

She scanned the balcony of the pink stucco mansion for the familiar silhouette, the muscular woman in a monogrammed polo shirt, chewing a cigar. Joe liked to drink her morning coffee and watch Georgie swim.

But not today.

Curious, Georgie toweled off, tossed a sundress over her suit, and walked the dirt path toward the general store, sand coating her ankles, shells crackling underneath her bare feet. The path was covered in lush, leafy overhang and stopped in front of a cinder-block building with a thatched roof.

Georgie looked at the sun overhead. She lost track of time on the island. Time didn’t matter on Whale Cay. You did what Joe wanted to do, when Joe wanted to do it. That was all.

She heard laughter and found the villagers preparing a conch stew. They were dancing, drinking dark rum and home-brewed beer from chipped porcelain jugs and tin cans. Some turned to nod at her, stepping over skinny chickens and children to refill their cans. The women threw chopped onions, potatoes, and hunks of raw fish into steaming cauldrons, the insides of which were yellowed with spices. Joe’s lead servant, Hannah, was frying johnnycakes on a pan over a fire, popping pigeon peas into her mouth. Everything smelled of fried fish, blistered peppers, and garlic.

“You’re making a big show,” Georgie said.

“We always make a big show when Marlene comes,” Hannah said in her low, hoarse voice. Her white hair was wrapped. She spoke matter-of-factly, slapping the johnnycakes between the palms of her hands.

“Who’s Marlene?” Georgie asked, leaning over to stick a finger in the stew. Hannah waved her off.

Hannah nodded toward a section of the island invisible through the dense brush, toward the usually empty stone house covered in hot pink blossoms. Joe had never explained the house. Now Georgie knew why.

She felt an unmistakable pang of jealousy, cut short by the roar of Joe pulling up behind them on her motorcycle. As Joe worked the brakes, the bike fishtailed in the sand, and the women were enveloped in a cloud of white dust. As the dust settled, Georgie turned to find Joe grinning, a cigar gripped between her teeth. She wore a salmon-pink short-sleeved silk blouse and denim cutoffs. Her copper-colored hair was cropped short, her forearms covered in crude indigo-colored tattoos. “When the fastest woman on water has a six-hundred-horsepower engine to test out, she does,” she’d explained to Georgie. “And then she gets roaring drunk with her mechanic in Havana and comes home with stars and dragons on her arms.”

“I’ve never had that kind of night,” Georgie said.

“You will,” Joe said, laughing. “I’m a terrible influence.”

Joe planted her black-and-white saddle shoes firmly on the dirt path to steady herself as she cut the engine and dismounted.

“Didn’t mean to get sand in your stew,” Joe said, smiling at Hannah.

“Guess it’s your stew anyway,” Hannah said flatly.

Joe slung an arm around Georgie’s shoulders and kissed her hard on the cheek. “Think they’ll get too drunk?” she asked, nodding toward the islanders. “Is a fifty-five-gallon drum of wine too much? Should I stop them from drinking?”

“You only make rules when you’re bored,” Georgie said, her lithe body becoming tense under Joe’s arm. “Or trying to show off.”

“Don’t be smart, love,” Joe said, popping her bathing-suit strap. The elastic snapped across Georgie’s shoulder.

“Hannah,” Joe shouted, walking backward, tugging Georgie toward the bike with one hand. “Make some of those conch fritters too. And get the music going about four, or when you see the boat dock at the pier, OK? Like we talked about. Loud. Festive.”

Georgie could smell fresh fish in the hot air, butter burning in Hannah’s pan. She wrapped her arms around Joe’s waist and rested her chin on her shoulder, resigned. It was like this with Joe. Her authority on the island was absolute. She would always do what she wanted to do; that was the idea behind owning Whale Cay. You could go along for the ride or go home.

Hannah nodded at Joe, her wrinkled skin closing in around her eyes as she smiled what Georgie thought was a false smile. She waved them off with floured fingers.

“Four p.m.,” Joe said, twisting the bike’s throttle. “Don’t forget.”

 

At quarter to five, from the balcony of her suite, Joe and Georgie watched the Mise-en-scène, an eighty-eight-foot yacht with white paneling and wood siding, dock. Georgie felt a sense of dread as the boat glided to a stop against the wooden pier and lines were tossed to waiting villagers. The wind rustled the palms and the visitors on the boat deck clutched their hats with one hand and waved with the other.

Every few weeks there was another boatload of beautiful, rich people—actresses and politicians—piling onto Joe’s yacht in Fort Lauderdale, eager to escape wartime America for Whale Cay, and willing to cross 150 miles of U-boat-infested waters to do it. “Eight hundred and fifty acres, the shape of a whale’s tail,” Joe had said as she brought Georgie to the island. “And it’s all mine.”

Georgie scanned the deck for Marlene and did not see her. She felt defensive and childish, but also starstruck. She’d seen at least ten of Marlene’s movies and had always liked the actress. She seemed gritty and in control. That was fine onscreen. But in person—who in their right mind wanted to compete with a movie star? Not Georgie. It wasn’t that she wasn’t competitive; she was. Back in Florida she’d swum against the boys in pools and open water. But a good competitor always knows when she’s outmatched, and that’s how Georgie felt, watching the beautiful people in their beautiful clothes squinting in the sun onboard the Mise-en-scène.

Joe stayed on the balcony, waving madly. Georgie flopped across the bed. Her tanned body was stark against the white sheets.

“Let’s send a round of cocktails to the boat,” Joe said, coming into the room, a large, tiled bedroom with enormous windows, a hand-carved king bed sheathed in a mosquito net. Long curtains made of bleached muslin framed the doors and windows, which were nearly always open, letting in the hot air and lizards.

“I’m going to shower first,” Georgie said, annoyed by Joe’s enthusiasm.

Joe ducked into the bathroom before heading down, and Georgie could see her through the door, greasing up her arms and décolletage with baby oil.

“Preening?” she asked.

“Don’t be jealous,” Joe said, never taking her eyes off herself in the mirror. “It’s a waste of time and you’re above it.”

Georgie rolled over onto her back and stretched her legs, pointing her painted toes to the ceiling. She could feel the slight sting of sunburn on her nose and shoulders.

“My advice,” Joe called from the bathroom, “is to slip on a dress, grab a stiff drink, and slap a smile on that sour face of yours.”

Georgie blew a kiss to Joe and rolled over in bed. It wasn’t clear to her if they were joking or serious, but Georgie knew it was one of those nights when Joe would be loud and boastful, hard on the servants. Maybe even hard on her.

The yacht’s horn blew. Joe flew down the stairs, saddle shoes slapping the Spanish tile. Hannah must have given the signal to the village, Georgie thought, because the steel drums started, sounding like the plink plink of hard rain on a tin roof. It was hard to tell if it was a real party or not. Joe liked to control the atmosphere. She liked theatrics.

“Hot damn,” she heard Joe call out as she jogged toward the boat. “You all look beautiful. Welcome to Whale Cay. Have a drink, already! Have two.”

Georgie finally caught sight of Marlene, as Joe helped her onto the dock. She wore all white and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Even from yards away, she was breathtaking.

My family wouldn’t believe this, Georgie thought, realizing that she could never share the details of this experience, that it was hers alone. Her God-fearing parents thought she was teaching swimming lessons on a private island. They didn’t know she’d spent the past three months shacked up with a forty-year-old womanizing heiress who stalked around her own private island wearing a machete across her chest, chasing shrimp cocktails with magnums of champagne every night. A woman who entered into a sham marriage to secure her inheritance, annulling it shortly thereafter. A woman who raced expensive boats, who kept a cache of weapons and maps from the First World War in her own private museum, a cylindrical tower on the east side of the island.

“They’d disown me if they knew,” Georgie told Joe when she first came to Whale Cay.

“My parents are dead and I didn’t like them when they were alive,” Joe said, shrugging. “Worrying about parents is a waste of time. It’s your life. Let’s have a martini.”

That evening, as she listened to the sounds of guests fawning over the mansion downstairs, Georgie had trouble picking out a dress. Joe had ordered two custom dresses and a tailored suit for her when she realized Georgie’s duffel bag was full of bathing suits. Georgie chose the light blue tea-length dress that Joe said would look good against her eyes; the silk crepe felt crisp against her skin. She pulled her hair up, using two tortoiseshell combs she’d found in the closet, and ran bright Tangee lipstick across her mouth, all leftovers from other girlfriends, the photos of whom were pinned to a corkboard in Joe’s closet. Georgie stared at them sometimes, the glossy black-and-white photographs of beautiful women. Horsewomen straddling thoroughbreds, actresses in leopard-print scarves and fur coats, writers hunched artfully over typewriters, maybe daughters of rich men who did nothing at all. She couldn’t help but compare herself to them, and always felt as if she came up short.

“What I like about you,” Joe had told her on their first date, over lobster, “is that you’re just so American. You’re cherry pie and lemonade. You’re a ticker-tape parade.”

She loved the way Joe’s lavish attention made her feel: exceptional. And she’d pretty much felt that way until Marlene put one well-heeled foot onto the island.

Georgie wandered into Joe’s closet and looked at the pictures of Joe’s old girlfriends, their perfect teeth and coiffed hair, looping inky signatures. For Darling Joe, Love Forever. How did they do their hair? How big did they smile?

And did it matter? Life with Joe never lasts, she thought, scanning the corkboard. The realization filled her with both sadness and relief.

On the way downstairs to meet Marlene, Georgie realized the lipstick was a mistake. Too much. She wiped it off with the back of her hand as she descended the stairs, then bolted past Joe and into the kitchen, squeezing in among the servants to wash it off. Everyone was sweating, yelling. The scent of cut onions made Georgie’s eyes well up. Outside the door she could hear Joe and Marlene talking.

“Another one of your girls, darling? Where’s she from? What does she do?”

“I plucked her from the mermaid tank in Sarasota.”

“That’s too much.”

“She’s a helluva swimmer,” Joe said. “And does catalog work.”

“Catalog work, you say. Isn’t that dear.”

Georgie pressed her hands to the kitchen door, waiting for the blush to drain from her face before she walked out. She took her seat next to Joe, who clapped her heartily on the back.

The dining room was chic but simply furnished—whitewashed walls and heavy Indonesian teak furniture. The lighting was low and the flicker of tea lights and large votives caught on the well-shined silver. The air smelled of freshly baked rolls and warm butter. Nothing, Georgie knew, was ever an accident at Joe’s dinner table—not the color of the wine, the temperature of the meat, and certainly not the seating arrangement.

She’d been placed on Joe’s right at the center of the table. Marlene, dressed in white slacks and a blue linen shirt unbuttoned low enough to catch attention, was across from Joe. Marlene slid a candle aside.

“I want to see your face, darling,” she said, settling her eyes on Joe’s. Georgie thought of the ways she’d heard Marlene’s eyes described in magazines: Dreamy. Cat-shaped. Smoldering. Bedroom eyes.

Joe snorted but Georgie knew she liked the attention. Joe was incredibly vain; though she didn’t wear makeup, she spent time carefully crafting her appearance. She liked anything that made her look tough: bowie knives, tattoos, a necklace made of shark’s teeth.

“This is Marlene,” Joe said, introducing Georgie.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Georgie said softly, nodding her head.

“I’m sure,” Marlene purred. “I just love the way she talks,” she said to Joe, laughing as if Georgie wasn’t at the table. “I learned to talk like that once, for a movie.”

Georgie silently fumed. But what good was starting a scene? If I’m patient, she thought, I’ll have Joe to myself in a matter of days.

“I’m sure Joe mentioned this,” Marlene said, leaning forward, “but I ask for no photographs or reports to the press.”

“She has to keep a little mystery,” Joe explained, turning to Georgie.

“Is that what you call it?” Marlene asked, exhaling. “I might say sanity.”

“I respect your privacy,” Georgie said, annoyed at the reverence she could hear in her own voice.

“To re-invention,” Joe said, tilting her glass toward Marlene.

“It’s exhausting,” Marlene said, finishing her glass.

Aside from Marlene, there were eight other guests at dinner—including Phillip, the priest Joe kept on the island, a Yale-educated drunk, the only other white full-time inhabitant of the island. There were also the guests from the boat: Clark, a flamboyant director; two financiers and their well-dressed wives, who spoke only to one another; Richard, a married state senator from California; and Miguel, Richard’s much younger, mustachioed companion of Cuban descent. Georgie noticed immediately that no one spoke directly to her or Miguel.

They think I don’t have anything worth saying, she thought. She turned the napkin over and over in her hands, as if wringing it out.

Before Joe, she’d never been around people with money. Back home, money was the local doctor or dentist, someone who could afford to send a child to private school.

Hannah, dressed in a simple black uniform, brought out fish chowder and stuffed lobster tail. The guests smoked between courses. Occasionally, Joe got up and made the rounds with the wine, topping off the long-stemmed crystal glasses she’d imported from France. After the entrées had been served, Hannah set rounds of roasted pineapple in front of each guest.

“How many people live here?” Clark asked Joe, mouth open, juice running down his chin.

“About two hundred and fifty,” she said, leaning back in her chair, an imperial grin on her face. “But they’re always reproducing, no matter how many condoms I hand out. There’s one due to give birth any day now. What’s her name, Hannah?”

“Celia.”

“Will she go to the hospital?” Clark asked.

“I run a free clinic,” Joe said.

“You have a doctor here?”

“I’m the doctor,” Joe said, grinning. “I’m the doctor and the king and the policeman. I’m the factory boss, the mechanic too. I’m the everything here. I give out acetaminophen and mosquito nets and I sell rum. I sell more rum than anything.”

“Well, more rum then!” Clark said, laughing.

Joe stood up, grabbed an etched decanter full of amber-colored liquor, unscrewed the top, and took a swig. She passed it down the table, and everyone but the financiers’ wives did the same. Georgie kept her eyes on Marlene, who seemed unimpressed, distracted. She removed a compact mirror from her bag and ran her index finger along her forehead, as if rubbing out the faint wrinkles.

When she wasn’t speaking, Marlene let her cigarette dangle out of one side of her mouth, or held it with her hand at her forehead, resting her forehead on her wrist as if she was tired of the world. She smoked Lucky Strikes, Joe said, because the company sent them to her by the carton for free.

“How does she do it?” Georgie whispered to Joe, hoping for a laugh. “How does her cigarette never go out?”

Joe ignored her, leaning instead to Marlene. “Tell me about your next film,” she said, drumming her fingers on the white tablecloth.

“We’ll start filming in the Soviet Occupation Zone,” Marlene said, exhaling.

“No western?”

“Soon. You like girls with guns, don’t you, Joe?”

“And your part?” Joe asked.

“A cabaret girl,” Marlene said. “But the cold-hearted kind. My character is a Nazi collaborator.”

Joe raised her eyebrows.

“Despicable,” Marlene said in her husky voice, “isn’t it? Compelling, though, I promise.”

“You always are,” Joe said.

Georgie sighed and stabbed a piece of pineapple with her fork. The rum came to Marlene and she turned the bottle up with one manicured hand. She even knew how to drink beautifully, Georgie thought.

Joe moved her fingers to Georgie’s thigh and squeezed. It was almost a fatherly gesture, Georgie felt. A we-will-talk-about-this-later gesture. When the last sip of rum came to Georgie, she finished it off, coughing a little as the liquor burned her throat.

“More rum?” Joe asked the table, glancing at the empty decanter.

“Champagne, if you have it,” Marlene said.

“Of course,” Joe said. She pushed her chair back and went to discuss the order with a servant in the kitchen.

Georgie shifted uncomfortably in her chair, anxious at the thought of being left alone with Marlene. Next to her she could see Miguel stroking the senator’s hand underneath the dinner table while the senator carried on a conversation about the war with the financiers.

“And you,” Marlene said to Georgie. “Do you plan on returning to Florida soon? Pick up where you left off with that mermaid act?”

Georgie felt herself blushing even though she willed her body not to betray her.

“It’s no picture show,” Georgie said, smiling sweetly. “But I suppose I’ll go back one of these days.”

“I suppose you will,” Marlene said, staring hard at her for a minute. Then she flicked the ashes from her cigarette onto the side of her saucer and stood up, her plate of food untouched. Georgie watched her walk across the room. Marlene had a confident walk, her hips thrust forward and her shoulders held back as if she knew everyone was watching, and from what Georgie could tell, scanning the table, they were.

Marlene slipped into the kitchen. Georgie imagined her arms around Joe, a bottle of champagne on the counter. Bedroom eyes.

Georgie took what was left in Joe’s wineglass and decided to get drunk, very drunk. The stem of the glass felt like something she could break, and the Chardonnay tasted like vinegar in her mouth.

When Joe and Marlene didn’t return after a half-hour, Georgie excused herself, embarrassed. She climbed the long staircase to her room, took off her dress, and stood on the balcony, the hot air on her skin, watching the dark ocean meet the night sky, listening to the water crash gently onto the island.

Some days it scared her to be on the small island. When storms blew in you could watch them approaching for miles, and when they came down it felt as if the ocean could wash right over Whale Cay.

I could always leave, Georgie thought. I could always go back home when I’ve had enough, and maybe I’ve had enough.

She sat down at Joe’s desk, an antique secretary still full of pencils and rubberbands Joe once said she’d collected as a child, and began to write a letter home. Then she realized she had nothing to say.

She pictured her house, a small white-sided square her father had built with the help of his brothers, within walking distance from the natural springs. Alligators often sunned themselves on the lawn or found the shade of her mother’s forsythia. Down the road there were boys running glass-bottom boats in the springs and girls with frosted hair and bronzed legs just waiting to be discovered, or if that didn’t work, married.

And could she go back to it now? Georgie wondered. The bucktoothed boys pressing their faces up against the aquarium glass to get a better look at her legs and breasts? The harsh plastic of the fake mermaid tail? Her mother’s biscuits and her father’s old car and egg salad on Sundays?

She knew she couldn’t stay at Whale Cay forever. But she sure as hell didn’t want to go home.

In the early hours of morning, just as the sun was casting an orange wedge of light across the water, Joe climbed into bed, reeking of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She put her arms around Georgie and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Georgie didn’t answer, and although she hadn’t planned on responding, began to cry, with Joe’s rough arms across her heaving chest. They fell asleep.

 

She dreamed of Sarasota.

There was the cinder-block changing room that smelled of bleach and brine. On the door hung a blue star, as if to suggest that the showgirls could claim such status. A bucket of lipsticks sat on the counter, soon to be whisked away to the refrigerator to keep them from melting.

Georgie pulled on her mermaid tail and slipped into the tank, letting herself fall through the brackish water, down, down to the performance arena. She smiled through the green salty water and pretended to take a sip of Coca-Cola as customers pressed their noses to the glass walls of the tank. She flipped her rubber fishtail and sucked air from a plastic hose as elegantly as she could, filling her lungs with oxygen until they hurt. A few minnows flitted by, glinting in the hot Florida sun that hung over the water, warming the show tank like a pot of soup.

Letting the hose drift for just a moment, Georgie executed a series of graceful flips, arching her taut swimmer’s body until it made a circle. She could see the audience clapping and decided she had enough air to flip again. Breathing through the tricks was hard, but a few months into the season, muscle memory took over.

Next Georgie pretended to brush her long blond hair underwater while one of Sarasota’s many church groups looked on, licking cones of vanilla ice cream, pointing at her.

How does she use the bathroom? Can she walk in that thing? Hey, Sunshine, can I get your number?

 

That afternoon, as the sun crested in the cloudless sky, Marlene, Georgie, and Joe had lunch on Femme Beach. Marlene wore an enormous hat and sunglasses and reclined, topless, in a chair. She pushed aside her plate of blackened fish. Joe, after eating her share and some of Marlene’s, kicked off her shoes and joined Georgie in the water, dampening her khaki shorts. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“Marlene needs a place where she can be herself,” Joe said eventually. “She needs one person she can count on and I’m that person.”

“Oh,” Georgie said, placing a palm on top of the calm water. “Is it hard being a movie star?”

Joe sighed. “She’s been out pushing war bonds, and she’s exhausted. She’s more delicate than she looks. She drinks too much.”

“You’re worried?”

“Sometimes she’s not allowed to eat. It’s hard on her nerves.”

“Is this why the other girls left?” Georgie asked, looking out onto the long stretch of water. “You could have mentioned her, you know. You could have told me.”

“Try to be open-minded, darling.”

“I’ll try,” Georgie said, diving into the water, swimming out as far as she ever had, leaving Joe standing knee-deep behind her. Maybe Joe would worry, she thought, but when she looked back, Joe was in a chair, one hand on Marlene’s arm, and their heads were tipped toward each other, oblivious to anything else.

What exhausted Georgie about Joe’s guests is that they were all important. And important people made you feel not normal, but unimportant.

 

That night the other guests went on a dinner cruise on the Mise-en-scène, while Joe entertained Marlene, Georgie, and Phillip. They were seated at a small table on one of the mansion’s many balconies, candles and torches flickering, bugs biting the backs of their necks, wineglasses filled and refilled.

“How do you like Whale Cay?” Phillip asked Marlene.

“I prefer the drag balls in Berlin,” she said, in a voice that belied her boredom. “But you know I’ve been coming here longer than you’ve been around?”

Marlene leaned over her bowl of steamed mussels, inspecting the plate. She pushed them around in the broth with her fork. “Tell me how you got to the island?” she asked Phillip, who, to Georgie, always seemed to be sweating and had a knack for showing up when Joe had her best liquor out.

“After Yale Divinity School—”

“He sailed up drunk in a dugout canoe. I threatened to kill him,” Joe interrupted. “Then I built him his own church,” she said proudly, pointing to a small stone temple perched on a cliff, just visible through the brush. It had two rustic windows with pointed arches, almost gothic, as if it belonged to another century.

“He sleeps in there,” Joe said.

“I talk to God,” Phillip said, indignant, spectacles sliding down his nose. He slurped his wine.

“Is that what you call it?” Joe said, rolling her eyes.

“What do you have to say about all this?” Marlene asked Georgie.

“About what?”

“God.”

“Why would you ask me?” Georgie felt her face get hot.

“Why not?”

Georgie remembered the way sitting in church made her feel pretty, her mother’s hand over hers. She could recall the smell of her mother, the same two dresses she wore to church, her thrifty beauty and dime-store lipstick and rough hands and slow speech and way of life that women like Joe and Marlene didn’t know. Despite Phillip, the church still had holiness, she thought. Just last week Hannah had sung “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” after Phillip’s sermon, and it had brought tears to her eyes and taken her to a place past where she used to go in her hometown church, something past God as she understood Him, something attainable only when living away from everyone and everything she had ever known. That even if He wasn’t a certain thing, He could be a feeling, and maybe she’d felt Him here. That day she’d realized she was happier on Whale Cay than she’d ever been anywhere else. She’d been waiting all her life for something big to happen, and maybe Joe was it.

“I suppose I don’t know anything about God,” she said. “Nothing I can put into words.”

“You aren’t old enough to know much yet, are you? You haven’t been pushed to your limits. And you, Joe?” Marlene asked. “What do you know?”

Joe was quiet. She shook her head, coughed.

“I guess I had what you’d call a crisis of faith,” she said. “When I drove an ambulance during the First War. I saw things there I didn’t know were possible. I saw—”

Marlene cupped her hand over Joe’s. “Exactly,” she said. “Those of us that have seen the war firsthand—how can you feel another way?”

Firsthand, Georgie thought. What was firsthand about seeing a war with a posh hotel room and security detail, cooing to soldiers from a stage? Firsthand was her brother Hank, sixteen months dead, who’d been found malnourished and shot on the beach in Tarawa.

“That’s exactly when you need to let Him in,” Phillip said, glassy-eyed.

“You have a convenient type of righteousness,” Joe said.

“Perhaps.”

“I don’t see how a priest can lack commitment in these times,” Marlene said, scratching the back of her neck, eyes flashing.

Phillip rose, flustered. “If you’ll excuse me, one of our native women is in labor,” he said, “and I must attend.” He turned to Joe. “Celia’s been going for hours now.”

“Her body knows what to do,” Joe said, lighting a cigarette.

Joe and Marlene smoked. Georgie poured herself another glass of wine, finding the silence excruciating. Nearby a pea hen screamed from a roost in one of the small trees that flanked the balcony. The island had been a bird sanctuary before Joe bought it, and exotic birds still fished from the shore.

“Grab a sweater,” Joe instructed, standing up, stamping out her cigarette. “I want to take you girls racing.”

The water was shiny and black as Joe pulled Marlene and Georgie onto a small boat shaped like a torpedo. It sat low on the water and had room for only two, but Georgie and Marlene were thin and the three women pressed together across the leather bench seat.

“Leave your drinks on the dock,” Joe warned. “It’s not that kind of joy ride.”

Not five minutes later they were ripping through the water, Georgie’s hair blown straight back, spit flying from her mouth, her blue eyes watering. At first she was petrified. She felt as if the wind was exploring her body, inflating the fabric of her dress, tunneling through her nostrils, throat, and chest. A small sound escaped her mouth but was thrown backward, lost, muted. She looked down and saw Marlene’s jaw set into a tight line, her knuckles white as her long fingers gripped the edge of the seat. Joe pressed on, speeding through the blackness until it looked like nothingness, and Georgie’s fear became a rush.

The bottom of the boat slapped the water, skipped over it, cut through it, and it felt as though it might capsize, flip over, skid across the surface, dumping them, breaking their bodies. Georgie’s teeth began to hurt and she bit her tongue by mistake. The taste of blood filled her mouth but she felt nothing but bliss, jarred into another state of being, of forgetting, a kind of high.

“Enough,” Marlene yelled, grabbing Joe’s shoulder. “Enough! Stop.”

“Keep going,” Georgie yelled. “Don’t stop.”

Joe laughed and slowed the boat, cutting the engine until there was silence, only the liquid sound of the water lapping against the side of the craft.

“Take me back to the island,” Marlene snapped.

Georgie stood up, nearly losing her balance.

“What are you doing?” Joe demanded.

“Going for a swim,” Georgie said.

Georgie kicked off her sandals, unbuttoned her sundress, leaving it in a pool on the deck of the boat. She dove into the black water, felt her body cut through it like a missile.

“We’re a mile off shore! Get back in the boat!” Joe shouted.

Joe cranked the engine and circled the boat, looking for Georgie, but everything was dark and Georgie stayed still so as not to be found, swimming underwater, splashless, until Joe gave up and headed for shore.

Georgie oriented herself, looking up occasionally at the faint lights on the island, the only thing that kept her from swimming out into the open sea. It felt good to scare Joe. To do what she wanted to do. To scare herself. To risk death. To do the one thing she was good at, to dull all of her thoughts with the mechanics of swimming, the motion of kicking her feet, rotating her arms, cutting through the water, dipping her face into the warm sea and coming up for air, exerting herself, exhausting her body, giving everything over to heart, blood, muscle, bone.

 

That night, Georgie crept into the bedroom, feeling a little less helpless than she had the night before. The bed was empty, as she expected it might be. Even if Joe was with Marlene, she would still be worried, and Georgie liked the idea of keeping Joe up at night.

She went to the bathroom to comb her hair before bed. She stared at herself in the mirror. The overhead light was too bright. Her eyes looked hollow. She should eat more, drink less, she thought. As she reached for the comb, she heard whimpering in the walk-in closet. Her heart began to beat quickly. She tiptoed to the closet and opened the door to find Joe sitting with her back against the wall, silk blouse soaked in sweat, a cache of guns and knives at her feet. She was breathing quickly, chest heaving. She looked up at Georgie with glistening, scared brown eyes.

“Go away,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Don’t look at me like this.”

Georgie stood in the doorway, tan legs peeking out from underneath the white-cotton gauze gown Joe had bought for her, unsure of what to say. “Are you OK?” she asked. “Are you sick?”

“I said go away.”

But Georgie sensed hesitation in Joe’s voice and kneeled down beside her, sliding two guns away, bringing Joe to her chest. Joe gave in, sweating and sobbing against Georgie’s skin.

“You can’t begin to understand what I saw,” Joe whispered. “There were bombs whistling overhead, dropping in front of me as I drove. There were men without heads, arms without bodies, the smell of gangrene we had to wash from the ambulance—every day, that smell. There were the boys who died. I heard them dying. Their faces were burned off. They were not human anymore. I can still see them.”

“Shh,” Georgie said. “That was a long time ago and you’re here. You’re safe.”

“Why did you leave me like that?”

“I just wanted to swim.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Where’s Marlene?”

“Asleep. In the stone house.”

Georgie kissed Joe tenderly on the forehead, cheeks, and finally her mouth, and eventually they moved to the bed. Georgie had never been the aggressor, but she pushed Joe onto her back and pinned her wrists down, straddling her, biting her neck and shoulders.

That night, as they lay quietly on the bed, they could hear the faint sounds of a woman screaming, not in anger but in pain. Celia, Georgie thought, wincing.

When morning came, Joe acted as if nothing had happened, and Georgie found her standing naked on the patio, newsboy cap over her short hair, her toned and broad body sunned and confident, big white American teeth clenching a cigar from which she never inhaled.

“Shall we have breakfast with Marlene?” she said.

“I just thought—”

“Don’t think. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking here.”

 

Georgie came to the dinner table that night with a renewed sense of entitlement. She belonged there. She sat down, considered her posture, and took a long drink of white wine, peering at the guests over the rim of her glass.

Marlene came into the dining room like a bull. She plowed past the rest of the company, ignored Georgie, and reached for Joe’s hand across the table.

Hannah set shrimp cocktails and sliced lemons in front of each guest.

Phillip and Joe were in an argument about using the boat to take Celia to the hospital in Nassau.

“Just put her on the goddamn boat,” Phillip said, ignoring his food. “She’s been in labor for two days.”

“What did they do before I was here?” Joe asked, exasperated, letting her fork hit the plate in disgust. “Tell her to just do that.”

“Darling, have another glass of wine,” Marlene said. “Don’t get worked up.”

“Have you seen her?” Phillip demanded. “Have you heard her? She’s suffering. She’s dying. What don’t you understand?”

“I’ve seen suffering,” Joe said. “Real suffering.”

“Oh, don’t pull out your old war stories now,” Phillip scoffed, tossing his greasy, unwashed hair to the side.

“Joe—” Georgie began.

“It’s not your place,” Marlene hissed.

“Just put her on the boat and let’s go,” Phillip interrupted. “Let’s go now. She’s going to die. I’m going to get a stretcher and we’ll put her on the boat.”

“You’ll do what I tell you to do,” Joe snapped, solemn and intimidating. “For starters, you can shower and sober up before you come to my dinner table.” Georgie looked down at her plate, at once ashamed of Joe’s savage authority and in awe of it.

“Do you want to go outside with me?” she whispered, lightly touching Joe’s shoulder. “Walk this off, think about it?”

Joe ignored her.

Phillip stood up from the table, foggy spectacles sliding off his nose in the wet heat. “Sober up? Please. You’re so regal, aren’t you? The villagers hate you. You punish them for infidelity and you’ve got a different woman here every month. You walk around with a machete strapped to your chest like you’re just waiting for an uprising. Maybe you’ll get what you want,” he said.

“They’re talking about it, you know,” he said. “Maybe we’ll just take the boat.”

Joe stood up and leered at Phillip, practically spitting across the table. “They can hate me all they want. They need me. Why don’t you get back on that goddamn canoe you came in on? Yale degree, my ass. You’re a deserter. Don’t think I don’t know it.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Phillip spat back, storming out of the dining room. Georgie could hear him shouting as he marched away in the still air. “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked!”

“I think we should take her to Nassau,” Georgie said, turning to Joe.

“Oh please,” Marlene said, rolling her eyes. “It isn’t the time to interfere.”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“What do you know?” Marlene snapped.

“A little rum will make us all feel better,” Joe said, forcing a smile. “Hannah?”

“It doesn’t make me feel better at all,” Georgie said quietly. She had been determined to hold her own tonight, to look Marlene in the eye, to prove to her that she and Joe were a worthy couple. But she quickly sensed a loss of control, of confidence.

“It’s all about you, is it?” Marlene asked. “You’re lucky to be here, darling, you know that?”

“We need to get the hell out of this room,” Joe announced, knocking over her chair as she stood up.

Joe gathered her guests in the living room, which was full of plush sofas and polished tables covered in crystal ashtrays. Mounted swordfish and a cheetah skin decorated the whitewashed walls.

Joe put on a Les Brown record and opened a cigar box. She clamped down on a cigar and carried around a decanter of Scotch in the other, topping off her guests’ drinks.

“No restraint,” she said. “Drink as much as you want. It’s early.”

Georgie leaned against a window, gulped down her drink, and stared out at the black sea. Joe pulled her away and into a corner.

“Are you having a good enough time?” she asked. “Are you angry?”

“What do you think?” Georgie said.

“You’re drunk,” Joe said.

“What?” Georgie asked, voice falsely sweet. “I’m the only one who’s not allowed to have a big night?”

“It’s just unusual for you,” Joe said.

“We should take the boat to Nassau,” Georgie said.

“You’re slurring,” Joe said. “And besides, I’ve said no. If I go, I’ll lose authority.”

“You might lose it anyway.”

Joe was silent and turned to refresh her drink, pausing to talk with the financiers. Georgie stayed at the window. She could hear the islanders’ voices outside. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were loud and animated. Hannah, who was making the rounds with a box of cigars, lingered by the window, a worried expression on her face.

Would the native islanders riot? Or worse, attack the house and guests? Maybe. But what weighed most heavily on Georgie was the sense of being complicit in Celia’s suffering.

Marlene approached, locking eyes with her. She topped off Georgie’s glass with straight rum and lit another cigarette.

“Got ugly in there, didn’t it?” she said, exhaling.

Georgie nodded.

“Bet you don’t see that every day in the mermaid tank,” Marlene said. “But Joe can handle it. Even if you can’t. Those of us that have been to the war—”

Georgie held up a hand, stopping Marlene. She felt claustrophobic, drunk. She knew she wasn’t thinking clearly. Her body was warm from the rum and wine and she felt anxious, as if she needed to move.

“Tell Joe I’m off for a walk. To think about things.”

“Stay out awhile,” Marlene said, calling after her.

Georgie left the house through the kitchen and walked away from the group of islanders who had clustered near the dock. She wanted to tell them that they were right, that they should take the boat, but she was too ashamed to look them in the eyes, too afraid to speak against Joe. She wanted to talk to Phillip, so she followed the path of crushed oysters and sand north toward the simple silhouette of the small stone church.

Georgie recalled the hymn her mother liked to sing—“O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” She was tone-deaf but couldn’t help herself from singing. As the words came, her tongue felt too big for her mouth, but still the sound of her voice filled her with unexpected serenity. She took another drink from the crystal tumbler she’d taken from the house and sang the first verse again, and then again, until she could feel her mother’s nails on her back, calming her down, loving her to sleep.

She found Phillip passed out on a wooden bench in front of the church.

“Phillip,” she said, gently rocking him with her hands. He was shirtless and his skin was warm. A single silver cross Joe had given him hung around his neck and across his chest.

“Phillip,” she said. He stirred but didn’t open his eyes. She pinched the skin above his hip bone.

“What?” he said, opening his eyes into slits.

“Take the boat. Just take it.”

“I’m in no shape to drive a boat.”

“You have to. Someone has to.”

“I like you, Georgie,” Phillip said. “But you have to leave me the hell alone now.” He waved her off with one hand, the other tucked underneath his head.

“But you said—”

“I give up. You should too.” He rolled away from her, turning his face toward the back of the bench.

She took another sip of her drink while waiting for him to roll back over. When he didn’t, she walked to the place where the sandy island broke off into high cliffs and began to walk the rim of the island, staring at the water below.

Looking down at the waves from the cliffs, she remembered Florida. She remembered sipping on the air hose and drinking Coca-Cola while tourists watched her through thick glass at the aquarium show. Sometimes Georgie had to remind herself that she could not, in fact, breathe underwater.

“Whatever you do,” the aquarium owner had said, “be pretty.”

And so the girls always pointed their toes and ignored the charley horses in their calves or the way their eyes began to sting in the brackish water. Georgie recalled the feeling of her hands on the arch of another swimmer’s back as they performed an underwater adagio, the fatigue in her body after the back-to-back Fourth of July shows. She remembered a time when she felt good about herself.

She thought of Joe, and her arm around Marlene’s back. She thought of the stone house, and for a minute, she wanted to leave Whale Cay and return home. But home would never be the same.

In days the yacht would pull away and Joe would wake her up with coffee in bed. Hannah would make her eggs, runny and heaped on a slice of white toast with fruit on the side. She would take her morning swims and read a book underneath the shade of a palm. And would that be enough?

They had a rock in the yard back home. Her father used to lift the copperheads out of the garden shed with his hoe and slice them open with the metal edge, their poisonous bodies writhing without heads for a moment on top of the rock. The spring ritual had horrified and intrigued Georgie, and it was what she pictured now, standing above the sea, swaying, the feeling of rocks underneath her feet.

But she might never see that rock again, she thought.

It was dark and she couldn’t see well. There was shouting in the distance. She felt bewildered, hysterical.

She set down her glass and took off her sandals. She would feel better in the water, stronger.

With casual elegance, she brought her hands in front of her body and over her head and dove off the cliff. As she began to fall toward the water, falling beautifully, toes pointed, she wondered if she’d gotten mixed up and picked the wrong place to dive.

She was falling into the tank again, the brackish water in her eyes, but no one was watching.

She was cherry pie.

She was a ticker-tape parade.

Her hands hit the water first. The water rushed over her ears, deafening her. Her limbs went numb, adrenaline moving through her until she was upright again, gulping air.

She treaded water, fingers moving against the dark sea, pushing it away to keep herself afloat. There were rocks jutting out from the water, a near miss. There were strange birds nesting in the tall grass, a native woman bleeding on a straw mattress in a hut on the south shore, a stone house strangled by fig trees.