The Water Trilogy Box Set

Chapter Four

It’s probably best we didn’t meet, not yet. Sometimes people have to prepare themselves for a person, a thing, a life. If we’d had a proper introduction—if you’d asked my name, I’m not sure what I would have told you. My life exists inside the hat of a magician. You could pull a dozen names out, and it wouldn’t matter, it’s likely any one of them would be right for the moment.

I do my best to look at the bright side even though we weren’t properly introduced. Maybe there are no absolutes in life, and maybe you will think it’s okay that I can be so many people all wrapped into one. Maybe, you won’t think I’m crazy. It isn’t as bad as having multiple personalities, but then again, maybe that diagnosis wouldn’t be so far from the truth.

If we were to meet today, I would tell you my name is Callie Jones. But that would mostly be a lie. Callie is just another alias in a string of many. By birth, I am Lydia Hartman, a murderer on the run. But that girl is long gone, and she took the name with her. I don’t presume to know you well, but I think you would like Callie. I have grown quite fond of her.

It’s strange to think of you this way, in the abstract, when you are so real. It feels strange to ponder what you might like and to consider whether or not I have it in me to shape myself into that person. And right now, I’m not so sure, although I want to be. You have a hold on me, the kind that won’t let go. It started when I first laid eyes on you and ends with you running through my mind with abandon. You take up space, make it yours. You are a squatter—one I can’t get rid of.

But crazy or not, I know what’s real and what isn’t—and you are not squatting here today, which is too bad because I know you would love this pastel blue sky of summer. I stare at it and think about you reveling in the sound of the waves crashing into one another, in the vastness of the sea. It’s breathtaking to know the ocean, to understand that it can swallow you whole and spit you out before you even know what hit you. Being here on this beach, in this moment, it is everything words cannot capture. But then I realize—I don’t even know if you care about words—or the sky—or me, and I wonder if I really know anything at all.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to be curious, and I do know at least one thing. It’s hard to love one person and be with another, and I wonder if you know this, too. The truth of the matter is, I have to find a husband, and it’s sad to think that person may not be you. I realize now, sitting here on this beach, in order to find out, Callie Jones has to evolve, like the shedding of skin, the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. I can’t be Callie and get what I want.

I have to become someone else. Someone new, more desirable, more compatible with the life I want. Kate is someone I think you will like. Kate is the kind of girl you need—whereas Callie was apparently the kind who didn’t deserve a proper introduction, the kind of girl you run from. Not to worry, though. Kate will be the kind of girl you chase.

apparently* * *

I thought it might interest you to know that I sent Callie out with a bang. I am becoming Kate—someone steady, for you—and after all, becoming someone new isn’t free. To be comfortable in my new life, I had to make a few bucks and Robin Hood-style seemed a good way to go about it. Take from the rich and give to the poor—socialism at its finest—and I wonder about your politics. I bet you’re proud. I bet you’d never accept a handout or a leg up. I bet you’re blue blood through and through. I bet you’re the kind of man who understands the value of a dollar.

I don’t know if you like numbers—but they fascinate me. My whole life has been one mathematical equation I cannot solve. And maybe this is the way it’s meant to be—this unknowingness, this perpetual state of limbo—for if we knew the answer, that would solve the question—or if we ran out of them, both questions and answers, we’d be dead.

A problem is only a question you haven’t yet found the answer to; at least, that’s what my father told me once. It’s a sentiment that seems fitting given it has been thirteen days and eight hours since my last kill and this is something I must solve. But then, sometimes things find you and sometimes you find them.

For me, as luck would have it, that thing was a woman named Dina and she found me. Dina Polanski, the granddaughter of a Russian immigrant, visiting from The Garden State. Beautiful and fun, for sure—she was also your typical gold digger. Dina was not blue blood through and through, but she was proud. Proud of the fact that she made off with a fair bit of her ex-husband’s money after getting ‘accidentally’ knocked up. You wouldn’t like Dina— I know this even without even really knowing you—I know because Dina’s are hard to like. Even for people like me. Especially for people like me. People like Dina are work, and I think you will appreciate knowing that I did, in fact, work hard for every cent I earned off her. I met Dina on her second day here, and just like the others I’d come to know before her, she’d set off in search of a vacation from her normal everyday vacation.

thing reallyEspecially for people like me.This is why it’s fairly easy, in resort towns, to find the Dina Polankskis of the world. You can spot them a mile away, even if you’re not looking, and I wasn’t because I was too busy thinking about you. But for the sake of a good story, it might be helpful to know that, generally, you’ll find them in one of two places: in the daytime, they enjoy lounging by a hotel pool (four-star or above), and after dark, they set up camp in the hotel bar. You’ll know one when you see her, no doubt. You’ll know because these women are loud and audacious when they’re surrounded by familiar company—but if you get them alone and let them sense that you know who and what they are, then suddenly, they become meek, unsure of themselves—and all too eager not to let it show.

True to form, this particular gold digger and I ran into each other at her hotel bar while I was searching for you. Forty-two, with two kids, and two baby daddies to match, both of whom happen to be highly successful. It was easy to know right away what Dina was looking for—a good time, someone to fill the role she wanted, nothing more and nothing less. And suddenly, there it was, or rather there she was—the answer to my question. Dina wanted what most women want—she wanted to be needed. She wanted someone to make her feel better about being past her prime. Dina wasn’t dumb. She realized that sooner rather than later, the kids would be grown, and the gravy train would inevitably dry up, and all she’d have to show for it are two kids that the help raised and a better understanding of the worthless pond scum she’d allowed herself to become. Dina was looking for the answer to a question, too.

sheAnd sure, maybe I was angry about not finding you—maybe I needed to get you off my mind, maybe I needed the money, but the simple fact of the matter was Dina was an easy target. She sought me out—and she sealed the deal when she ordered me a drink even though I hadn’t asked. Dina was easy to seduce because I knew what she needed—and I gave it to her. I think you would be proud of my effort.

She’d sworn she’d always wanted to be with a woman, after just an hour together, she confessed she’d even kissed one—way back in college. The way she told the story, her eyes wide, voice low, you would have thought she was special, as though I’d never heard any of it before. Men are easier that way. You don’t hand everything over, and I’ll never understand why women are incessantly confessing.

But you know what’s funny about the whole thing? Dina thought I had money. She thought I was like her, and I let her believe. This is how I won. It’s how I always win. When she said she thought I was fun, a nice distraction, I ran with it—I mean, what could a sun-kissed, sand-ridden, love affair possibly hurt? Nothing, she’d whispered as though I were anything but another secret to be kept. Nothing at all. She wanted it known that she was traveling to get away from the drama of it all. She was just looking to have fun, she said proudly, after downing her third vodka tonic. Turns out, so was I.

Nothing at all.And I gave her fun. You have to know I did. Later, in her oversized walk-in shower, I ate her like she’d never been eaten, and she called my name (Callie) and whispered that maybe she’d never go back to screwing men. She wouldn’t.

She wouldn’t.We could have so much fun together, she purred afterward, as she stroked my hair.

Only poor Dina was wrong. It didn’t turn out to be very fun for her in the end. Our love affair only lasted three short days and then she was dead.

I have to admit (which isn’t the same thing as confessing) that it was nice killing Dina. It took my mind off you, off the future, and put my focus where it belonged—in the present. I would have killed her sooner—she turned out to be a stage ten clinger—had it not taken me that long to get the bank account info I needed in order to make the transfer. Sixty-five thousand dollars in total—half of which I transferred into an American bank account, and the other half, into another. Within a day or two, I transferred the sum of both to another. Always keep moving.

Always keep moving.I want you to know my MO because it’s important you know upfront that I am a rule follower. And I am ruled by my intuition. I feel things. I know who’s worth killing. I understand the value of things. I have a certain way I work, and I never take everything. Ever. Three-fourths at most. And I never leave money sitting in one spot for long.

Ever.I hope you won’t think ill of me for saying so, but I won’t say I feel bad about the whole thing. Dina Polanski was a mediocre lover at best, and the only thing worse than mediocre s*x is mediocre s*x with a drunk. In that sense, she drank herself to death. That’s what the kids who consider the nannies their mothers will think, anyway. It’s almost less sad this way, you know? I saved Dina from herself. I saved her from further embarrassment. The men she screwed (literally) will toast unknowingly to this fact, and this is how I know I did a good thing. I know the value of a dollar as well as you do, and I will tell you, I earned that money every bit as much as Dina did. I was just smarter in the way I went about getting it.

These men will thank me. I consider myself an unsung hero. They’ll be delighted to finally be off the hook—thrilled to have one less needy gold digger causing them headaches. Good riddance, they’ll say. And later, years down the road, their spoiled children will lament to their therapists how sad it is that their mother drank herself to death. But what they won’t know is the kind of hell I saved them from. They’ll never understand the lesser of two evils, and I wish someone had done me this service. Instead, this will be their crutch, having a dead mother. They’ll use it for all kinds of things—for gaining sympathy with teachers, for getting laid—but mostly, as a way of explaining why they never lived up to their full potential. But I guess one has to choose their battles.

won’tDina never lived up to her potential either. I did her a favor, too. She was as easy to kill as she was to seduce, and this world wasn’t meant for easy people. You and I, we understand the concept of survival of the fittest while people like Dina are clueless. She was weak and shallow, and she didn’t know love. She used me to make her feel wanted, and I returned the favor by crushing sleeping pills and adding them to her third glass of red. Dina should have known better. She should have known the third time would be the charm. Three strikes you’re out. Life has rules.

Three strikes you’re outBut no, she was hell-bent on learning the hard way, via the firm hotel pillow I used to cover her face as she slept—right after we’d made love—right after she’d called it the best s*x of her life. How lucky for her to go out like that, and I bet you like your pillows soft.

Thankfully, only me and Dina—and now you—will ever know the whole truth—that she didn’t go away to kill herself, the way an old dog runs away to die.

But then, honestly, how well can we ever really know what goes on inside a person? Just like those old dogs, washed-up Dina did those she loved a favor when she met me. She may not have known love, but she saved them with it, and this is how I will save you.

You see, I’m learning too. I learned the answer to a question from my time with Dina. I learned that whatever I do in the future, one thing is for sure—I never, ever, want to become her.

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