The Mountains Bow Down (26 page)

Jack cleared his throat. “Yeah, and I should find Milo.” He waited. “Check back in, what, an hour?”

I nodded, eyes still averted, and began walking farther back toward the aft. The ship was retracing its path down Tracy Arm, and as I walked in the opposite direction, the mountain walls appeared to stand still, as if I were treading ground. I walked faster, then broke into a run, trying to shatter that feeling of being stuck.

When I ran inside the Salt Spray restaurant, I was ahead of the crowd and took a table by the window, waiting for my mom and Aunt Charlotte with a heart that refused to quit pounding.

And it wasn't pounding from the run, that much I realized.

Minutes later they arrived—with Claire. There was no getting away from her, I realized. My mom's dark curls looked flumed from the wind.

“Where are you sitting?” she asked, staring at the three chairs.

“I have to run an errand. Go ahead and start without me.”

I was holding the chair that had the best view, holding it for my mom, but Claire plopped into it.

“Hey, get a load of that view,” she said. “I can do some serious channeling here.”

I clenched my teeth, resisting the temptation to tip the chair over.

“You're not eating breakfast?” my mother asked. Though her cheeks were pinked by the wind, she looked drained. Almost haggard.

“I'll be right back,” I said. “Eat a good breakfast and save me something good.”

Claire nodded. “You've got to go hunt down whoever killed—”

“Claire!” Aunt Charlotte glared at her.

My mother was glancing among us. Her expression was like somebody receiving two different sets of directions and uncertain which to follow. My aunt suddenly softened her voice.

“Claire, I think they're making those omelets again.”

“Hot diggity.” Claire pushed back the chair and shot toward the buffet line.

While my mother watched her go, I mouthed a silent thank-you to my aunt, who nodded back. I held another chair out, waiting for my mom to sit. Her eyes had an almost dull expression, something remote, unreachable, and I realized another glacier was at work. This one was inside her mind, the ice smothering reality and crushing the truth, pulverizing joy and spewing forth a silt that churned in her hazel eyes. My father had once warned me of these moments. “She might not get better, Raleigh. She might get worse.”

“Then what?” I had asked.

“Then we'll get better at loving her.”

But now “we” didn't exist. My dad was gone. And my sister was no help. It was just me, and I was inadequate. So very inadequate. As she took her seat, she turned away from the view, gazing down at the table. I leaned over her dark hair, kissing her cheek, feeling her skin cooled by the wind. But I sensed something else. Something colder, more distant, so far away she couldn't feel my touch.

And as I uttered my next lie, I felt nauseated. “I'll be right back.”

I crossed the restaurant, walking out the door and across the deck. The heated swimming pool steamed like a lake of fire. Running down to the stairs, palms sweating, I wondered if my lies contributed to her terror. No, it must be something else. Like Claire. Claire was a bigger problem than I was. Because I lied to protect her.

Didn't I?

Without a clear answer, I opened the door leading up to the Sky Bar. On this morning, it looked different. Rather than an overexposed Dalí nightmare, the space-age room was dimmed and the Plexiglas furniture seemed muted and dated. But as I came into the room, the bartender hit a switch on the wall. Suddenly the panels covering the windows and skylights slid back. Once more the place was flooded with sunlight so bright my eyes stung.

“I prefer it dark,” I said.

He hit the switch again, covering up even the clear floor panels. I took a seat at the bar. Like every bartender on this ship, this guy looked Filipino. But his name tag said “Jessie, United States.”

He said, “I've got a special on Mimosas this morning.”

“Mimosa it is, hold the champagne.”

He scooped ice cubes into a stainless steel shaker, then poured in orange juice. Watching the frothy drink fill an iced glass, I felt my salivary glands go into overdrive.

I picked up the pen on the bar, ready to sign the tab.

“It's on me,” he said.

“Now that's what I call a special.”

He smiled. “You're my first customer in three hours. You're helping keep me awake.”

I sipped and licked the foam off my lip, gazing around the bar. The tables were wiped clean. So was the plastic flooring, including a parquet dance floor at the back of the room. There was no dust, anywhere. Milo was lying.

But to make sure, I asked, “By any chance was there some construction in here recently?”

“Yes,” he said.

I spun around. “Really?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.”

“But you don't know?”

“Yes.”

I frowned, wondering what game we were playing.

“Oh, wait.” He shook his head, as though clearing his mind. “I just realized what I did.” He sighed. “Sorry, it's a habit I picked up on the ship.”

“Playing games with people?”

“I'm sorry,” he said again. “I don't know if you've noticed but all the bartenders are Filipino.”

“I have noticed that. But your tag says United States.”

He drew himself up. “My grandparents came over from Manila during the Marcos fiasco. I'm a proud Filipino American. But you should know that if you ask any Filipino on this ship a question, the answer is always yes.”

“Always.”

“Yes.”

“Like that?”

“Yes. Only the ‘yes' means three different things.”

“I'm intrigued.”

“The first type of ‘yes,' means ‘I agree.' Simple, right?”

I nodded.

“The second type is, ‘Yes, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm going to agree in order to avoid conflict.' And that's what I just did with you. Sorry.”

“It's okay,” I told him. “I'm from the South. We have a ‘yes' like that too.”

“I'm glad you understand. But the third type of ‘yes' gets complicated. ‘Yes, I hear you, and I completely understand, but I have no intention whatsoever of complying with your request, even though I'm telling you yes.'”

“That's impressive.” I sipped the orange juice. “So whatever I ask you, you're going to say yes?”

“No. I'm an American. What's your question?”

“About the construction in here.”

He nodded. “Between cruises, when the boat docks at a home port, they sometimes work on the ships. For instance, we just got repositioned from Mexico. When we got to Seattle, they did some work at the dock.”

“Do they ever work on the ships at sea?”

“No way. That would look bad to the passengers. And it's probably some kind of insurance risk.”

I took another sip and tried to phrase my question so that it couldn't be answered yes or no. And I decided on the lawyer's trick, asking a question whose answer I already knew, courtesy of Geert.

“Where were you working Monday night?”

“Right here. I've got the graveyard bartending shift. Every night.”

“I heard there were some famous movie people in here that night.”

He picked up a rag from behind the bar and began wiping down the plastic counter, which was already spotless. “I get it,” he said. “It is about insurance. You're looking into some claim.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because that guy's wife died. The actor. Rumor is she committed suicide.”

“How did you hear?”

“Everybody's talking about it.” He flipped the rag over. “There's not much else to do at sea except gossip.”

“The actor, Milo Carpenter, says he was in here that night.”

He nodded. “He was. And he was already wasted when I came on my shift at 2:00
AM
. He left at one point, then came back and ordered another Johnny Walker. Then left again.”

“What time was that?”

“I'm not sure, because I try not to watch the clock. It makes the hours seem slower. But I can tell you some other stuff.”

“Such as?”

“He drinks Johnny Walker Black with three cherries and ties the stems into knots with his tongue. He leaves the stems on cocktail napkins to impress women.”

Knots
, I thought, finishing my orange juice. “Did you see his wife that night?”

“I didn't, but the bartender working the shift before mine told me she watched her husband flirt with other women. He said it was depressing to watch.”

“Do you know if she drank?”

“Funny. I asked him the same question. I wondered if she got drunk and killed herself. But he said it was Diet Coke all night. You know, we get movie types pretty often. They take cruises. And I've watched them.”

“Tell me.”

“They drink but they don't tip. Instead of tipping they smile, real hard, like seeing their caps is better for you than if they reached into their pockets. They pose at the bar, they hate to dance, and they laugh like they're practicing how to get a joke.”

I couldn't help but smile. “There was another guy that night.” I described Vinnie the bodyguard and his forehead. “Did you see him?”

“Yes—I mean really,
yes
. But he left with some girl. Looked like a hook up, you know, one-night stand. He came back later, had a couple drinks and talked to Carpenter. It seemed like he was telling him to quit making a fool of himself.”

“Why?”

“Because Carpenter got belligerent, the way most alcoholics do when you tell them to stop drinking. Carpenter stormed out, then, like I said, he came back for another drink. It might have been around three. Early part of my shift. I get off at ten. When I came off my shift, that's when I heard that somebody killed themself. Later people said it was Milo Carpenter's wife. It seemed sad.”

I reached into my credentials case and slid my business card across the bar. “Hang on to this, okay? If you see anything else that doesn't look right, call me.”

“FBI, really?” He stared at the card. “For real, you're an agent?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, for real.”

Back at the Salt Spray restaurant, Claire was sipping a cappuccino and staring vapidly out the window. Aunt Charlotte was writing notes in a small book.

“Where's Mom?” I asked.

My aunt looked up and removed her reading glasses—bright pink frames with white polka dots. “Here's yet another reason why I ditched the Episcopals,” she said. “Your mother said she wanted to go pray and I said, ‘Nadine, look out the window. We're in the world's most spectacular cathedral. Stay here.' But no, she said she had to have a cross.”

Claire closed her eyes, making a weird humming sound, like an electrical transformer.

Exasperated, I turned to my aunt. “Do you know if she ate breakfast?”

“I wasn't paying attention, I was working on my notes for the actors.” Reaching across the table, she tapped Claire's arm. “Did Nadine eat anything?”

Claire opened her eyes. “Your mother is haunted by death.”

“Brilliant,” I said. “Of course she's haunted by death—she's a widow.”

“No, it's something more,” Claire said. “I tried contacting your father's spirit last night and when I told Nadine she—”

“You did
what
?”

“Raleigh, we are not connecting. It's like we're not on the same wavelength.”

“We're not.”

“All I wanted to do was ask your dad why she's so scared.”

I turned to my aunt, prepared to unleash my fury, when several accusations turned themselves on me. Whose fault was this, really? Who left her alone with these two nuts?

And who was living a lie?

“Aunt Charlotte, do you know where she went?”

“I should have been listening.”

Claire piped up. “She went to find the chapel. I told her that stuff 's just superstition but—”

I was gone before she could finish the sentence.

Chapter Twenty-one

T
he chapel was on Deck Five, a narrow room with cottony silence, sealed by a heavy wooden door.

I was panting from my sprint down nine flights and stood at the back of the room trying to catch my breath. Rows of white chairs faced a one-foot platform that was flanked by urns containing white lilies and sprays of baby's breath. The room seemed to be waiting for a wedding but there was only person in here: my mother.

She sat in the front row, with her face buried in her hands.

I walked down the middle aisle and sat beside her. She didn't seem to notice my presence. For several moments, I listened to the words she murmured into her hands. I could feel my pulse throbbing against my temples.