By Marisa Gray Atha
Izzy startled at the noise, wrapping the towel tighter around herself. She’d hooked the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob outside her hotel room so hadn’t expected housekeeping to enter. But the wood-on-metal clank sounded like it had come from inside. Preparing herself to scream, fight, or both, she held the towel snuggly around her body and slowly opened the bathroom door. A shadowed motion caught her eye—just the ceiling fan blades reflecting on the tile floor. She stepped into the room, peering around the corner and rising onto her tiptoes to see over the couch. She considered flinging open the double-paneled closet doors but decided against the voice of paranoia. She only had an hour before Harold was due to return. Izzy shrugged off her prey instinct and returned to the bathroom, letting the towel fall to the floor as she quickly stepped into her underwear.
Fully clothed in a white linen button-up top and her favorite tailored Bermuda shorts, she applied another coat of mascara to darken her naturally blonde lashes, careful to avoid the cheekbone she’d already coated with extra foundation. Plucking jewelry from the delicate, filigree-rimmed bowl on the countertop, she slipped on several gold bangles, her pearl earrings, and the five-carat radiant-cut diamond ring Harold had given her four years previously.
After running a comb through her damp hair, she returned to the living room and walked to Harold’s workspace—his briefcase, laptop, converters and charging cables at the ready. No matter that their holiday on the island would only span a week; Harold was perpetually tethered to his business. Izzy pulled open the top drawer of the hotel desk to find a pad of stationery and a pen. She wrote: “Gone to the lounge for a refreshment. Be back by 5.” She scrawled her initial then turned back to the room, surveying the space.
What else could she bring without raising suspicion?
Nothing, she decided. Just her handbag and its usual contents. Slipping the room key into her purse, she walked past the suitcase full of her belongings, the carry-on bag with her laptop, sunhat, beach reads, and sunglasses, and the closet where she’d unpacked and hung an array of cocktail dresses, and formal ensembles for the dressier group dinners Harold had scheduled. In her vanity kit were thousands of dollars’ worth of precious gems and jewels—the money would be helpful, but she couldn’t afford the questions that would arise if she allowed herself the indulgence. No, this needed to be clean. She’d leave the room wearing only her everyday jewelry and clothing, carrying just her handbag. Nothing more.
Izzy pulled open the heavy hotel room door and stepped into the hallway, letting the door fall shut behind her with a heavy thud. As she strode towards the elevator, her stomach knotted—what if she ran into Harold on her way?
She paced from side to side on the fleur-de-lis decorated carpet, waiting for the elevator to ding its arrival. When the doors opened to reveal an empty car, Izzy blew out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. One step at a time, Iz, she told herself, riding from the penthouse to the lobby level.
Noise of chatting guests, bustling employees, and rolling luggage carts met her ears when the elevator doors parted at the bottom floor. Izzy stepped through the throng, making her way to the lounge. Not too quickly, she reminded herself.
Harold would be finishing his post-golf beer at the clubhouse. She had enough time. And she knew the floor plan well—she’d studied in advance of the trip.
Izzy walked to the hotel lounge and took a seat at the bar, ordering a gin fizz from the bartender. She made sure to sign the bill to her room and remained in her barstool long enough for the bartender to move on to the new group of guests a few stools down. She left the half-emptied drink on its napkin, as if waiting for her return, and excused herself to the ladies’ room across the lounge.
As she’d hoped, the last stall on the right was empty. She locked the door behind her, then reached into the storage compartment she’d accessed the day before. From inside, she pulled a hotel maintenance staff shirt, which she slipped over her own, and a billed hat, which she fitted onto her head, tucking her blond hair up inside. She shoved her Louis Vuitton handbag into the duffel of tools, wires, and other equipment. She couldn’t help the shoes, but she hoped no one would notice her pedicured feet and the delicate sandals she wore.
Izzy pushed open the bathroom door, and strode through the lounge with her head downcast, not daring a glimpse towards the drink waiting in front of her empty barstool. When she reached the hotel lobby, she bypassed the front desk and pushed open the Staff Only door flanking it, moving quickly through the break area, to the back exit that opened to the rear parking lot. She kept walking, down the winding lane, turning away from the greenery of the golf course, setting her eyes on the line ahead where the concrete met dirt.
She would walk several miles onward to the small bus stop she’d noticed on their private drive from the airport upon arriving. She’d catch the 4:15pm local bus and be across the island and boarding the ferry by the time Harold made his way to their room and found her note.
He’d wait for her, growing increasingly agitated. When it became clear they’d be late for the business dinner scheduled for that evening, he’d storm downstairs, dressed to the nines in his crisp suit, his tie clenched to tight perfection, hair slicked into submission. He’d survey the lounge, his brows lowering and pressing inward, his square jaw pulsating and fingers curling into fists. He’d interrogate the bartender who would affirm that a woman with blonde hair and light green eyes had indeed enjoyed a cocktail earlier, and who would scratch his head with uncertainty when asked when the woman left, and whether she’d been with anyone.
As Harold stormed across the hotel lobby and back up to the room to find it still undisturbed, he would pour a double, then pace, slurping the bitter astringent, cold ice clinking against his teeth. He would call the hotel desk, demanding his wife be found. He would drink another, then smash glass against ice against tile. The truth wouldn’t dawn on him until much later—too late.
Izzy would be smiling, the wind racing through her hair, her ring flung into the ocean below—a discoverable treasure for a future diver of the unfathomable deep—the real monster miles behind.
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Marisa Gray Atha is a writer and voice teacher with degrees in English, Music, and Psychology. Author of Written on the Wall, find her work in the Journal of Singing, NATS Inter Nos, OM Yoga & Lifestyle Magazine, ANTAE Journal, Months to Years Literary Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Sad Girl Diaries Literary Magazine, Down in the Dirt Lit Mag, Commuter Lit, and Speakeasy Cooperative. More at marisagrayatha.com.