Page 71 of Saltwater

And then, before I can run down the steps back to town, two hands grab me and pull me into the remains of Tiberius’s Roman baths.

Sarah

July19, 1992

Capri

Sarah could hear Richard’s unevengait in the darkness. A lopsided beat that followed her to the Casa Malaparte, which stuck out like a red, flat finger on the Punta Massullo, two hundred feet above the sea. When the Giorgio Ronchi Foundation reached out to the Lingates for additional funds to complete the restoration of the 1930s modernist home, they had emphasized the family’s generational attachment to the island. Their generosity.

But Sarah knew what it really was: an appeal to their vanity. Tonight was another dinner, another celebration of what the Lingate money had accomplished.

Marcus did love an opportunity to step in. And for so long, Sarah had let him.

The house was lit from within. Every window poured yellow light out into the darkness. The roof of the house, which also served as a sundeck, was strung with lights and dotted with dining tables anchored by tumbling white flower arrangements. Sarah plucked a glass of champagne off a passing tray and took a long sip. After the drinks on the Piazzetta, a cocktail at the house before the walk, and now the dinner, she was verging on drunk. She could feel it, the way her tongue didn’t quite fit against the roof of her mouth, the slipperiness of hers’s.

Still, she drank the champagne. It made the hours go by more quickly, or if it didn’t, it made her notice them less. She drained herflute and picked up another. She waved at Stan, who was locked in an argument with someone she didn’t recognize. For a minute, it seemed like he might pull himself free and join her, but then a voice said from behind her:

“You’re Sarah Pratt, aren’t you?”

The woman was older, with a shock of white hair and enormous gold earrings. Sarah liked her immediately because she hadn’t started with that most familiar refrain:Are you Richard Lingate’s wife?No one used her real name anymore. She had never changed it, but that didn’t matter. People had turned her into a Lingate immediately.

“I am,” Sarah said. She tried not to slur, but it was getting harder.

“I was hoping you would be here tonight.” She gestured to another woman. “Julia, itisher.” Then she turned back to Sarah. “I’m sorry, it’s just that we’ve been trying to get ahold of you through the Lingate Foundation, but maybe…” She searched Sarah’s face. “Maybe the message was never passed along?”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “How long ago did you try?”

“Oh god.” The woman still hadn’t introduced herself, but that didn’t stop her from continuing. “We started trying a year ago? At least.”

Before she had even begunSaltwater.

“We’re just so excited to meet you,” Julia said. “We think we have the perfect thing.”

Sarah was still trying to catch up, to place these women, to figure out what they wanted, when the first said, “Julia and I have been providing funding for Broadway shows for almost a decade now. You know, ‘producing.’ ”

Julia nodded enthusiastically as the first woman put the word in air quotes.

“We just bought a theater space off-Broadway. It’s very nice”—she reached out and put a hand on Sarah’s arm—“I promise. And while we love musicals, we’ve been wanting to branch out into drama. We want to take on a project from the very beginning. Julia had seen one of your plays—”

“It wasThree Sisters.”

“Yes. She sawThree Sistersand remembered being so impressed that we thought you would be the perfect person to launch the new space. We sent a message to that effect a while back through the Lingate Foundation but never heard anything. We assumed you were booked, but now that you’re here, we can ask you directly.”

Booked.Sarah hadn’t been booked in years. Through the haze of champagne, she focused on Julia’s nodding head.

“I would love to do something like that,” she said. “What’s your timeline?”

The women shrugged.

“Do you have something new?” Julia asked. “We were hoping the space might be more experimental. We’d offer it to you with financing for the production. Everything else would be up to you: casting, if you want to hire a director, staffing, all of it.”

There was some part of Sarah, no matter how small, that regretted it would be her last Lingate dinner. Standing on the roof, surrounded by the Mediterranean and the flickering lights, a sea of white flowers, she knew she hadn’t married Richard for this. For casual encounters with money. But she wasn’t a fool. There were opportunities that came with the Lingates.

Which was why she wanted to grab this one with both hands. And she almost did, until Richard appeared at her elbow.

“Would you excuse us, Julia, Laura?” he said.

His voice was so smooth, the way it had been back at the brownstone overlooking Turtle Bay Gardens. Only now Sarah could hear what lurked underneath. Had it always been there? That edge?

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