Woman, Fire & the Sea

ON THE FRENCH RIVIERA SOME DANGERS CAN'T BE AVOIDED, NO MATTER HOW STRONG THE WARNING

GIRL STANDS IN THE

crowd outside the terminal beside two matching Louis Vuitton suit­cases, wearing a red straw hat with a wide floppy brim and talking on a cell phone. Fortunato spots her right away and knows without need­ing to ask that she's the one he's scheduled to retrieve.

and reaches for her bags. "For Mr. Watts? If you will follow me?" She nods, still on the phone, and trails him across the parking lot.

He's learned over the years to observe the char­acteristics that distinguish each of Richard's women: With the London swimwear designer, sunglasses—she

wore them even in the rain. With the New York actress, clove cigarettes. Their looks alone aren't enough to distinguish them, for they are all svelte and strik­ing, their names impossible to remember; Fortunato has more important things to worry about, anyway, than whether at any given moment he's chauffeur-ing a Helen or a Sophia.

PLAYBOY'S COLLEGE FICTION CONTEST WINNER

Each year for the past two decades and more, hundreds of students have com­peted for the honor of winning playboy's College Fiction Contest. This yean Timothy Tau of the University of California, Los Angeles received second prize for Land of Origin. The three third-place winners are Eva Langston of the Uni­versity of New Orleans for Clicker, Brian Trapp of the University of Cincinnati for The Best Man, and Sarah Pearlstein-Levy of Swarthmore College for The Last Cannonball. Students of Marshall Arisman at the School of Visual Arts in New York competed to illustrate the first-place story. The winning illustration, shown on the preceding two pages, is by Clay Rodery. On this page, clockwise from top left, are illustrations by runners-up Jungyeon Roh, Philip Cheaney, Andrew Robert, Jonathan Bartlett, Kelley Hensing and Pat Kinsella. For infor­mation on next year's contest, visit playboy.com/cfc.

This one is tall and gorgeous like the rest but quite young, even for Richard. And she has a sort of trusting, wide-eyed happiness that contrasts with the cool detachment of the others. Fortu-nato recognizes her and assumes he's retrieved her before, though she offers no sign of recognition. They exchange brief pleasantries and are soon driv­ing along the Promenade des Anglais toward the harbor in silence. The buildings of Old Nice look grimy in the harsh morning light. A few tour­ists Rollerblade the sidewalks, but the pebbly beaches are mostly deserted. The girl removes her hat and loosens her hair; it falls around her shoulders, thick and dark. She stares out the win­dow as Fortunato steers to the left, fol­lowing Quai Papacino along the port.

Presently a tinkling melody rises from her purse, and she brings out the phone again. He concentrates on the road as her voice grows louder.

"Fine, Claude." Her accent is Ameri­can, her inflection like a teenager's; she can't be more than 25. "I've heard your opinion, and I don't want to discuss it anymore, okay? I'll be back in two weeks." She shuts the phone and sighs, dropping it back into her purse.

Fortunato meets her eyes in the mir­ror. "People will suck your blood!" she says and smiles.

Unsure how to respond to this, he asks, "Have you been to Cote d'Azur before?"

"Yes." Her eyes travel back to the win­dow. "Many times. Are you from Nice?"

He shakes his head. "Sicily."

Oiey stop at a traffic light. On the sidewalk a boy has dropped his ice cream and stands, wailing, as his mother scolds him, wiping his mouth witli a handkerchief.

Fortunato continues. "My family had a puppet theater there. My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather— all puppeteers." The words flow from his mouth of their own volition. "Our theater—the Teatro dei Caslellelli— was famous once."

"Really?" she says. "Ilow'd you end up here?"

"How did I end up here?" he repeats her question, the question of the day. "I followed a girl. Years ago."

He acknowledges, now, that it was a passionate and foolish thing to do. He met her on the ferry from Palermo, liis first trip to the mainland. She taught him French phrases, laughing and slap­ping his arm when he mispronounced a word. lie made love to her that night on the ferry's deck, against stacked life jackets, behind heavy coils of rope.

When she invited liim to follow her to France he accepted without, hesitation, convinced his life was already chang­ing for the better. Her parents were in Switzerland, (continued on page 115)

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(continued jrom page 66) so he took a room in their palatial ocean-front estate seated on a regal hilltop over Saint-J can-Cap-Ferrat. She threw endless parties, a stream of artists and aristocrats constantly flowing in and out. After only two months Fortunato grew frustrated by her inoodiness, and she grew jealous of his flirtations with other women. That's all they were—flirtations—and she was a vixen in her own right, but after increasingly vicious arguments, at last she threw him out.

"How long ago?" the passenger asks.

"Long," Forliinato says. The light turns green. "My first time away from home."

The girl's phone hums in her purse; she retrieves it and reads the message, smiling to herself. They drive in silence for a while. Fortunato waits until she's put the phone away again before announcing, "Today is my birthday." A lie, and a strange one— what does he think it will get him? All he knows is, he woke this morning thinking of Maria; that he could probably drive the streets of Nice backward with his eyes closed, lie needs something to happen.

"Happy birthday. How old arc you?"

"Forty." Might as well shave a few years off, too.

"You don't look it."

"Thank you."

"How are you celebrating?"

"Working."

"That's it?" She frowns, and he shrugs. "Are you married?"

"Separated." It's the first time he's spoken the word since leaving Berlin six months ago.

They fall into silence again, and his thoughts drift back to Genevievc, the French girl from the feny. Soinetinics he still regrets how things ended. Long after she threw him out, they carried on with drunken tiysts and spectacular arguments, until finally, dur­ing an off peri<xl, he followed her to a bar and made a scene, smashing her glass on the floor. The owner threw him out, and he spent the remainder of the night walk­ing the boulevards alone, too depressed to return to his hot attic apartment. In the first morning light he found himself on a hillside at the city's edge, looking out to the harbor, where Genevievc's villa loomed above eveiy-thing like some monument to her expensive tastes. lie watched as the sun rose behind it, the palm-lined terraces and pink stucco grottoes he'd wandered so freely now as elu­sive as the Garden of Eden.

Fortunato drives down a row of pastel villas and turns onto the main street of patis­series and postcard shops. He rounds a curve and slows through the open plaza, rimmed by cafes, facing the harbor of Saint-Jean. Sailboats and yachts line the jetty walls, the foothills of the mountains rising beyond.

The car rolls up to the marina entrance, where the guard recognizes Fortunato and opens the electronic gate. When they near the 40-footer little Star, Richard Watts steps out onto tiie rear deck and waves. He is shirtless, sun-browned, holding a glass of scotch.

"Bimjour, Fortunato!" he shouts when the car stops. Richard is clearly in a cheery mcxxl and clearly feeling the effects of the scotch. Lurching down the gangplank and

onto the pier, he calls, "Who've you brought to sec me this time?"

"A lovely young lady," I'ortunato calls back and winks at her. He opens her door, and she steps out into the sunlight.

"Hi, Uncle Richie."

Richard hops barefoot across the hot pavement, grabs her by the shoulders and kisses her on each cheek. When he releases her he gazes so intensely at her face that he almost looks angry. "How are you, darling Chloe? Good flight?"

"Fine."

Fortunato reaches for her luggage, feel­ing foolish: Uncle Richie.

Richard watches him place a bag on the ground. "Fortunato treat you well? No problems?"

He puts the second bag on the pavement and answers for her, "No problems. She was right where you said she'd be."

"Veiy g<xxl, veiy g<xxl." Richard lilts one bag onto his shoulder, then stoops for the other. His liquor splashes on the ground. He considers the situation, lets the bag drop and announces, "I'll send Louis down for these." Then he turns to Chloe: "All right, my dear." I Ie faces Fortunato, pressing a few bills into his palm as they shake hands. "Thanks, mate."

"Can Fortunato come," Chloe asks, star­tling them both, "for dinner tonight?"

Richard sputters for a moment. Fortunato

is embarrassed too and starts to protest.

"Today's his birthday!" she says.

"Is that right?" Richard grins. "It's about time we had a drink, Fortunate. Clan you come at nine?"

Fortunato knows he should decline, say he has plans for the evening—but the thought of another quiet night fills him with panic. "All right," he says. "I'll bring wine?"

"Brilliant." Richard strides toward the boat, with Chloe trailing behind. Just before Fortunato starts the car, she glances over her shoulder and smiles at him.

That evening he studies himself in the mirror—jaw shadowed with stubble, hair and eyes dark and shining like* the harbor at night—and wonders how much older he would look to the relatives back home. He leans in closer to his rellection and decides he doesn't look old as much as he looks tired.

"The theater is dosed," he said when Chloe asked about it. lie wonders now why he felt compelled to speak of the tealro at all, let alone with such reverence—he'd never had much interest in it, really. When he was a child, fear had tinged his fascination with the mario­nettes that hung in the workshop and behind the stage. They seemed too numerous to count, suspended in rows from the dark raf­ters and staring forward as though captivated

by the dust motes that swirled around their wooden shapes. Some were taller than Fortu­nato was then, in gleaming suits of armor and plumes of bright silk. There was a dragon with its sharp teeth bared, the whites of its eyes painted to look as though they were roll­ing back in its head.

His father took one of the knights—Oliviero, with the sunburst on his shield and across his breastplate—down to show Fortunato the work that had gone into him, the skill with which his armor had been shaped, liis intri­cately painted face and the way his knees could bend and his sword could be unsheathed.

"Oliviero battles the Saracens," Papa said, "and sometimes he's damaged in the fighting, and we need to fix him quickly offstage—hammer a dent from his armor, mend a broken wire. This one's 50 years old, and look at him, eh? Beautiful!"

Fortunato had reached out to touch Oliviero's dangling leg, and his father maneuvered the puppet to lunge forward, its defiant face swooping toward him. The boy gasped, and his father laughed.

"When you grow," he said, after return­ing Oliviero to his proper place in the rafters, "you'll learn to build \\wpupi t, the Castel-letti way. You'll learn our family secrets with your brothel's and cany them on to teach your sons." Putting his hand on Fonunato's head, he l(X)ked at the space around him, crowded with lifeless bcxlies, and inhaled deeply, proudly, as though he could smell his artistiy in the air.

Fortunato was too young to remember it, but Papa told stories of the raucous crowds that once filled the theater, shouting and cheering and hissing at the puppet villains, sometimes even rushing the little stage—so beloved were the characters, so convincing the Castellettis' performances.

His brothers were stronger and more skilled than he, and maneuvering the mario­nettes came easily to them, while Foitunato's efforts were never quite satisfactory. When he was a boy the knights and sorcerers haunted his dreams: their furious, unblinking gazes; the frightening clank of their armor as they clambered across the stage; the clash of their swords in battle. The chivalrous hero Orlando had a stubborn, unwaver­ing honesty that always struck Fortunato as somewhat foolish. The passionate pursuit of justice, in the face of misfortune and against all odds, had seemed unrealistic—almost dangerous—to him, even then.

So at the age of 20, when he should have been working in the teatro like the others, he boarded the boat to Naples and didn't look back, convinced his father's passion was an outdated piece of folklore, a symbol of Sic­ily's backwardness and nothing more.

Now Papa's dead, and Fortunato hasn't been home in 10 years. The last he heard, his brother Antonio was attempting to revive the theater as a tourist attraction there.

He shaves, puts on a clean linen shirt and brushes his hair back. As a young man he was considered handsome, and many local girls had hoped he'd choose them. On the Riviera, beautiful girls are everywhere—sprawled on beaches, bicycling along boardwalks, sitting in little dresses at cafes with their long legs crossed. Since returning from Berlin he's toyed with the idea of pursuing someone— but the very idea exhausts him. He never

expected this, but finds himself now longing for the life he once scorned—to have married a sweet, simple girl from the island, someone to feed him, tend to him and grow old beside him, to make the sign of the cross when he antagonized her but love him anyway, just as his mania had done. Even better would be to have patched tilings up with Clenevieve and live in luxurious leisure like Richard. Instead, the fates sent him Maria, and the best he can hope for is a moment's peace.

She blames him for every thing, and the ridiculousness of this blame makes him angiy. Everything in his life, it seems, has happened independently of what Fortunato would have chosen or wanted, so how can anything be his fault? He loved her; they were happy together. That should have been enough.

But though he committed himself to Maria

and swore oil" other women, he wasn't ready to lx- a lather. Should he have lied, told her he was happy about the baby, prom­ised they would all live happily forever? Instead, he told the truth; he admitted his fear. And when the unborn baby died— an act of the universe, independent of what either of them would have chosen, or wanted—she blamed him. As though his words had somehow reached the still-dosed ears of the fetus, float­ing there in fluid oblivion; as though the misgivings he had dared to voice aloud pierced Maria's womb, destroying it, deliver­ing their child back to the other world.

Fortunato stands gazing at his cramped room, the boxes still unopened and the clothes strewn across the rug. In spite of everything, he misses her.

Mama told him

once that he had been born under a blood-red ni(x>n. He'd complained about having to wake early to unload fruit crates at the market, while his brother could carve in the workshop with Papa. She said he was des­tined for dissatisfaction unless he learned to change his outlook.

"You complain, you argue, you don't accept things as they are," Mama said. "You'll need to work hard, Fortunato, to be happy in this life."

Now he glances once more into the hallway mirror, grabs his keys and leaves the stifling apartment for the summer evening.

Richard and Chloe are sitting on the yacht's real' deck, looking out to the sunset, when he arrives.

"Welcome aboard," Richard calls as For-tunato climbs the ramp. Chloe kisses him on each cheek. She wears a light summer dress, and he can see her bikini straps tied beneath it; he realizes the dinner is to be more casual than he anticipated and for a moment feels uncomfortable. But soon Rich­ard and Chloe are giving him a tour of the boat, dragging him downstairs to the liv­ing quarters, introducing him to the chef in the galley. The interior is beautiful, all teakwood, but less ostentatious than Fortu-nato imagined. It looks like an expensive, minimally decorated bachelor pad. Glanc­ing around at the clutter of magazines and the lack of any apparent feminine iniluence, Fortunato feels a renewed kinship with Rich­ard, lie is relieved.

Not long after they return to the deck and

their wineglasses, the others arrive, pulling up in an antique cabriolet convertible. The car sputters to a stop and a tall, gangly man climbs out of the driver's side, followed by a petite woman in a strapless dress.

"Sorry we're late, Walts," the man calls as he jogs up the plank, arms swinging. He wears a pink polo shirt and Bermuda shorts, and grips a wine bottle by its neck. lie smiles greetings to Fortunato and Chloe. "Ulu was fixing her hair."

"He's lying," the woman says without a trace of a smile as she ascends the gangplank behind him. "Nicholas was absurdly late, as usual. Lord knows what was keeping him." She has a German accent and her hair is cinched back in a bun.

"So nice of you to come," says Richard, bowing with exaggerated formality. Then

he grins, grabs the bottle and puts it on the sideboard beside Fortunato's.

A short time later, over bread and olives, I Jlu turns to Fortiinato and asks, "How do I know you? Do you live in Saint-Jean?"

"Monte Carlo," he says. "I worked for Mr. Watts some years ago. I've recently come back from Berlin."

"Gall me Richard!" Richard cries. Then, turning to Ulu and Nicholas, he adds, "For-tunato is the single most dependable man I've ever known. I can't say what I'd do with­out him."

"Then who am I—the second most?" Nicholas asks.

"Dependable." Ulu snorts. "We weren't sure you'd even show up tonight, Nicholas."

"lie's a Brit in the Riviera," Richard says to Ulu. "You must excuse him. The sun's

disorienting to a man like Nick—he's out of his dement."

Then Chloe says, "Fortunato was tell­ing me this afternoon about his family's puppet theater."

They all turn to him expectantly. Fortunato glances at the darken­ing sky, the lights of the cafes twinkling across the harbor. "Yes," he says. "It's true. Once the Teatro dei Castel-letti was famous there, in Sicily."

"Is that right?" Richard regards him with interest. "Fortu­nato, I had no idea!"

Fortunato isn't sure if he's Ix'ing m<x'ked. "Yes," he continues carefully. "My father was respected for his skill with the mario­nettes. It's not easy to make them, or to make them come to life. Sadly, I know as much about it as I do ahout yachts—not a lot."

"You'd still do better at the helm than old man Watts after he's had a couple, am I

light?" Nicholas jokes, glancing at Richard.

"Why not?" Chloe asks.

Fortunato shrugs. "Hide's a saying with the pupiskiliani that the skill must be in your fingei's even before you are born. I don't have it."

The stewards emerge then, to the guests' murmurs of approval, carrying plates of risotto. Attention shifts to the meal; they scrape chairs closer to the table, unfold nap­kins, lilt their forks. Richard rings a tell and a man reappears with white tapered candles.

"That's right," he laughs, addressing the steward through a mouth already full of food. "The meal deserves to be seen as well as tasted!" Then he adds, "I want to propose a toast—to my lovely niece Chloe, my little miracle, in celebration of her return to us in Nice." lie stands, raising his glass to the sky. "To good friends, and good times. And

to Chloe, the sweetest girl ever to brighten the deck of this boat. Cheers."

"What have you been up to in London, then?" Nicholas asks, turning to Chloe, when Richard takes his seat again.

"I saw the Vogue pictures," Ulu adds. "Really lovely."

"You should see her schedule!" Richard exclaims. "Globe-trotting isn't the word. We're lucky to have her for even a moment."

"Stop it, Uncle Richie." Chloe looks at the table.

"Think how proud your mom would be," Richard says in a tone Fortunato has never heard liim use before. "She's proud of you, you know." He bends and kisses her forehead, and silence falls across the table. Embarrassed by this private moment, Fortu­nato looks out to the cliffs rising beside the harbor. The lights of secluded villas glow in the darkness like galaxies, like a picture he'd once seen of the distant universe.

After the dessert dishes are cleared, Chloe turns to him. "Take the dinghy out with me?"

Fortunato falters and glances at Richard.

"She loves that thing," Richard says, wink­ing at him. "Go on—take a spin so she'll shut up about it for a while."

It's not clear if Richard's wink means tacit approval of whatever might happen on the boat—even so, the thought of being intimate with the man's young niece makes Fortunato more uncomfortable than aroused.

Chloe grabs his arm and pulls him toward the bow. The voices of Nicholas, Ulu and Richard drift from the far end of the boat as she hoists herself over the railing onto the floating dinghy, which is large enough to seat six people. She straddles the bench by the outboard and smiles up at him. "Coming?"

He climbs over and drops onto the din­ghy like a bag of stones. The vessel wobbles and Chloe whoops with laughter.

"I'm driving," she announces then, yank­ing the starter cord. The motor hums to life and she steers around the smth Hank of the yacht, chugging down the lanes of evenly spaced boats.

After a few moments they clear the break­water and head into the open harbor. Chloe revs the motor and Fortunato looks out at the black horizon, the sparkling lights of the coast falling away behind them like a curtain. If she tries to seduce him, should he resist her on principle? Or does Richard's consent to the voyage mean Fortunato is now expected to do whatever the girl demands if he wants to keep his job? Hie wind is cold against his face and he turns to see Chloe beaming at him, her hair whipping behind her.

When they've looped past the farthest yachts she lets the motor splutter out and they float, rolling on gentle swells.

"Gorgeous, isn't it?" She breathes. "I love it out here. Just sea and sky."

Fortunato agrees. The heat from their bodies is an almost visible aura hovering in the air around them.

Chloe leans over and trails her fingers through the water. "It's warm." Then she sits up and slaps the side of the dinghy, breaking the stillness. "Let's have a swim!"

Fortunato frowns. He isn't a g<xxl swimmer and has been trying not to think about the

creatures that are surely moving in the deptlis beneath their tiny craft. He guesses that not far below the surface, the water is veiy cold.

"Aren't you content to sit with me?" he jokes, trying to coax her from the idea.

"Oh, you haven't lived till you've swum in open water, under the stai's! It's really thrilling. You're one with the elements." Chloe stands and the boat lurches. F'ortunato grabs lx>th sides, trying to steady them, and she laughs.

"We're far from shore," he continues, trying to hide his nervousness. "What if something happened—if the dinghy floated away? I couldn't swim all the way back."

"Can't you swim?" She shakes her head. "Weren't you born on an island?"

"1 can swim," F'ortunato says, bristling, "but it's been a long time."

She reaches forward, ruffles his hair. "Oh, Pinocchio. What are you afraid of? Becom­ing a real boy?"

This attempt at flirtation only annoys him further. "I'm not afraid," he says. "I'm responsible."

She shrugs. "Suit yourself." In a single, fluid motion she pulls her dress over her head and tosses it at his feet. Fortunato can't help taking in the lithe length of her Ixxly, the swells of her breasts covered in black bikini.

"Stay in the boat and I'll tell you the story of Pinocchio," he says, trying to stall her. "It's a dark story, really."

"After," she says—then turns and dives, making hardly a splash, reappearing at the surface alter a moment of horiifying silence. Foi tunato sits in the bobbing boat and watches, tiying to stop the scenarios ilocxling his mind. If she hurts herself, can he save her? If he leaves the boat, they might be stranded. Rich-aid will kill him if anything happens to the girl—as it is, he might kill Fortiinato anyway, assuming the two have undressed together in the little boat. Or will Richard congratulate him? There's no way of knowing.

"Exliilarating!" Chloe sighs, kicking into a back float. He keeps liis eyes riveted on her head, slick as an otter's, for fear she might dis­appear beneath the dark water again. Ihc only sound is the breeze against liis ears and the small splashes of her limbs cutting the swells.

"Come on, Fortiinato! You don't know what you're missing!"

He turns to look back at the glimmering harbor lights; it seems they are drifting far­ther from shore. "Do you think we should head back?" he asks.

"Come on! I won't bite. What are you afraid of?"

Maria asked the same question: What are

you afraid of? Chloe is calling liim a coward too, taunting him—You haven't lived! Why are women compelled to throw his weakness in his face? Fortunato has an urge to start the motor, drive oil'and leave her floating there, alone. Who's afraid now? But the moment passes, and his impulse is weighted by defeat.

Wliat the hell. I Ie stands and pulls oil'his shirt, then steps out of his trousers and lowers him­self over the edge, careful not to propel the vessel t(X) far as he drops into the water. It's not as cold as he expected. When he slips beneath the surface, the world below in its muffled darkness feels strangely familial'. lie lets him­self sink, until the thought of the fathomless depths, the long way he has yet to go before hitting bottom, gives him pause. Then he pulls up, emerging at the surface with a gasp.

Chloe laughs and splashes his face. "See? It's good, right?"

"Yes. Refreshing."

She swims closer, and he feels the clammy smoothness of her leg against his, beneath the water. "Sex:?" she says. "Now we're both wet."

Her face is inches away; he feels too tired to resist. What happens will happen, Fortunato tliinks. I Ie reaches for her. Then the girl laughs, pressing against his chest and pushing away.

"You're funny," she says. "Say something in Italian."

"Something in Italian," he repeats, grow­ing annoyed. "What do you want me to say?" Then comes the whine of a motor in the dis­tance, and Fortunato follows her ga/e to the horizon. "What's that?"

"I don't know," she says. "Somebody out for a joyride. Like us. Tell me something sexy in Italian. I'll guess what it means."

Again he feels the weight of his weariness. Then the words come, as if by divine inspira­tion: "Donna, Jbai e marifannu I'mnu jnriaihri." Something his father used to say.

Chloe giggles. "Pee-ree-coo-lah-ree...I have no idea. What does it mean?"

"It's Sicilian, and it means 'Woman, fire and the sea are dangerous for a man.' I'm getting back in the boat."

She pouts, splashes him again, cries, "Wait!" But F'ortunato is already paddling toward the dinghy. Then he sees the speedboat coming, slicing like a shark's fin through the water. It's headed straight for them, invisible as they are in the vast darkness of the harbor.

Chloe treads water, staring in wonder at the approaching boat.

"Come here!" Fortunato shouts. The rev­ving grows louder.

"No," she says, flashing a child's naughty grin. "Relax."

He has one arm slung over the edge of the dinghy, the other waving at her, implor­ing her to return.

"Come and get me," she says.

For an instant he considers swimming back—then the boat Ix-ars down on them. Heaving himself into the dinghy Fortu­nato clings to the motor-bench, shouting a warning—but Ins voice is drowned in the roar. Within seconds the boat has come and gone, zooming so close he can see a flash of the pas-sengei's' faces and hear their shouts of suiprise before they whoosh past and are gone.

I Ie grips the bench, pressing his eyes shut as the dinghy lurches across the wake. When the r<x:king subsides somewhat he sits up, scans the undulating water. "Chloe!" he cries.

Nothing. Then he sees her—shocked and coughing, struggling on the crest of a wave.

"Are you all right?" he cries. Her eyes are rolling, panicked. She dips into a depres­sion and he dives from the dinghy, cutting toward her across the swells.

"Aie you all right?" he calls again. He catches her gaze and tries to hold it, to calm her. She nods rapidly up and down, her breath coming in shallow bursts.

Pulling her arm across his neck, Fortunate grabs her waist and begins to kick, paddling with his free arm. "Hold on, okay? Hold on to me."

She nods, her teeth chattering. The little dinghy looks far away, bobbing on a lonely swell, but Fortunato kicks steadily toward it. F.very stroke only seems to push it far­ther, but at last the craft looms beside them, lie takes a breath and heaves himself up over the side, then on his knees scoops the girl out of the water, sliding her over the wet rubber and into the boat. They slump together onto the floor, gasping.

After a few minutes, when his breathing has slowed, he sits up. Chloe climbs onto the bench beside him, wrapped in his damp shirt. She looks innocent like that, the shirt too big on her even with the sleeves rolled up, a ten­dril of sodden hair sticking to her cheek and beads of water glistening on her eyelashes.

"Bella," he says. "That means 'beautiful.'"

"I know what it means." Her voice is flat, with a touch of hardness behind it, but when Fortunato kisses her she doesn't resist.

He's flooded then with the memory of the ferry to Naples, the feverish excitement of his union with the French girl on the ship's deck so many years ago. He thinks of Maria, of the union they have foiged and broken. He thinks that this girl could be the start of something.

Back on Little Star the deck lights have been shut off and the dinner table is deserted. "Nick's car's gone," Chloe says, squinting out at the parking lot. "They're probably up the road, drinking at Orleans."

"Should I go find them?" Fortunato asks. "Aie you all right?"

"I'm fine." She shivers, and they embrace again, amid the forest of dock posts and ship masts, the black water gleaming around them. "Thank you for saving me," she says

Fortunato feels light and strange; no one in his life has ever said such a thing to him. He takes her hand and pulls her toward the bednxmis, in the direction he remembers from the tour earlier that evening.

Then Richard appears from the dark­ness below deck.

"Jesus," Chloe says. "Richie, you star­tled us."

Her uncle staggers toward them, bleary-eyed. "What in the bloody hell," he breathes, "is going on here?" At first they think he's joking; then when he reaches the top step he lunges with an angry cry and trips, fall­ing into Fortunato instead of striking him. After a moment's scuffle he rights himself. "What in the bloody hell," he says again, "are you doing with my niece?"

"Richard," Fortunato says. "I "

"Mister Watts! You call me Mister Walls!"

Fortunato has seen him this drunk before, though never quite so agitated—and never as the target of his wrath. The mail's face is twisted with fury.

"Nothing happened," Chloe says.

Richard looks wildly at her, this hall-naked girl in Kortunato's now-sodden shirt, her hair still dripping.

"This is how yon repay me?" he says, turn­ing back to Fortunato. "Alter all we've been through! I don't take bullshit, and this is bullshit. This is absolute bullshit!"

"I'm sony," F'ortunato says. "I didn't "

"Get out of here." Richard stumbles, sway­ing backward. "Get oil'my boat!"

Fortunato obeys, striding bare-chested toward the gangplank with his shoes and undershirt in his hands. lie knows this will blow over, that Richard will wake up sober tomorrow. Richard follows, calling after him, "And you're fired! Don't come back!"

Richard has never fired him before; still, Fortunato says nothing. lie stops beside the Volkswagen and bends to put on his shoes. Then the final blow comes, the words ring­ing out across the water: "That car is mine, goddamn it!"

F'ortunato straightens up to look at Rich­ard, who leans over the yacht railing, leering at him, and asks in the calmest voice he can muster, "How will I get home?"

Richard laughs. "Fuck if I know! You can walk, for all I care!"

F'ortunato hesitates just a moment before turning and hurling the car keys as far as he can across the water. He watches them hit with a dull splash and sink. Then he walks— across the private parking lot, out through the gates and up the hill to Saint-Jean, as Richard's shouts fade behind him. He walks through the village, past the lit-up bistros where the sounds of merrymaking spill onto the cobblestones. He passes the sweeping, sculpted lawns of the walled estates, where patrolling guards eye him with suspicion. Eventually he walks all the way to the bou­levards of Nice, where people roam the glittering sidewalks, disappearing into taxis and restaurants and casinos and reappear­ing again in a steady, blurring stream.

Chl<K''s calling him Pinocchio reminded him of the fairy-tale stories his mania told, and he thinks now of her solid bulk on the

edge of the bed he shared with his brothers, how each night they recited together the final transformation scene. F'ortunato was always thrilled by the magical conclusion, the redeeming moral of the stoiy—that even the wickedest little puppet could be saved.

His mama, as the Blue-Ilaired Fairy, would ask, "Have you thirsted, Pinocchio?" to which he would reply, "Yes."

"Have you hungered, Pinocchio?"

"Yes."

"Have you wept, Pinocchio?"

"Yes."

I laxieymi laughed., have you disobeyed, have you lied, haveymt grieved"! Have you repented? And to each question Fortunato replied fervently, "Yes, yes, yes," and then she kissed liis fore­head, casting the good-night spell. "Sleef), sleep, arid when you wake, be a. real Ixry for goodness' sake," and then he would sleep, in hopes of a differ­ent life, with dreams of his own awakening.

He walks on, glancing up at the water­front hotels with their glowing windows, each with somebody living behind it, a life full of stories and regrets t numerous to be recounted. After a while he leaves the Prom­enade and the downtown lights and travels through the outskirts of the city, where the buildings are smaller and more run-down and the streets are dark. He turns toward the highway to Monaco, walking along the shoulder as the rain begins to fall, and the sea disappears behind him in the distance. He thinks of Maria, of the apartment in Berlin where she might be waiting for him, wanting him to come back to her, willing to forgive. It's only life—his own, ordinary life, to ruin or repair at will. Then he thinks of Sicily, of the sheep herded right through village streets and the one pair of shoes his father and uncles shared when they were children—not even to be worn at school, but only when someone most needed them.

She swims closer, and

he feels the clammy

smoothness of her leg

against his, beneath the

water. "See?"she says.

"Now we're both wet."

Meaghan Mulholland just received her grad­uate degree from the MFA program at the University of Arkansas.