Influence

Chapter 3

The only place Tam had seen so much marble was in the mausoleum where her grandmother's ashes were interred. Marble floors, marble walls, marble shower, sink, tub. Half of her apartment could fit in this bathroom. Attached to it was a luxurious, tropical bedroom with a vaulted, thatched reed ceiling, canopy bed, and French doors that opened onto a deck with stairs leading down to the beach. She stepped outside and imagined sitting there, watching waves lap at the shore through the spindly stalks of palms.

Two minutes of calm and then her phone chimed. Goldie needed to see her in the sitting room. The view of the waves disappearing as she stepped inside, but the sound of water crashing against land permeated the house. The violent rhythm carried her downstairs.

"Oh my God, Tamara, what do you think? Do you love it?"

"I love it."

Squealing, Goldie hugged her. "I knew you would. I want to get started right away."

"You want to start filming now? Isn't Jasper comatose?"

"We don't need him immediately. Besides, he's not the only one who can handle a camera. I can too. But Paul will probably do most of the filming. Come on." She pulled on Tam's wrist and they stepped out onto a veranda and then down into a small sunken garden with a semicircle stone wall closing it off from view of the house. "This part," she said with a lowered voice, "is only for you and me to know about. Can I count on you?"

No one should count on her. "Of course. What is it?" The waves folded around their voices, blocking out their conversation from prying ears as though the whole ocean meant to be in on the conspiracy.

"I'm going to disappear tomorrow."

Tam's throat tightened. "You're what?"

"Not literally. Oh my God, you should see your face. I have somewhere to be, that's all."

"It's not on your schedule." The only thing she'd put on Goldie's calendar while they were at Morinda—at Goldie's direction—was to have fun and make the best EpiGold ever!

"I have a life outside of a schedule. And some parts of my life are private. Like, I tell you everything, Tamara—almost everything. No one else knows I have plans aside from you. You're as close to a confidant as I can get."

A confidant with whom she wouldn't truly confide in. "What about Jasper?"

"Jasper especially must be kept in the dark."

"But I thought you two were really close."

"Do you tell the people you're really close to everything, Tamara? Does your family even know you're not sitting in your sad little apartment in California right now?"

"That's different. I don't have the same type of relationship with them."

Goldie puckered her cheeks. "It must have been so hard for you growing up in that family. What your parents did..."

Tam stepped back, but the sun that was Goldie still seared down onto her. Not even out on the beach yet and already she was getting burned. "What do you know about it?" She made her voice lilt up at the end so that it appeared a lighthearted inquiry instead of the piercing accusation she felt it to be in her heart.

"Enough to make me want to take you under my wing like a mama bird with her fledgling." Ignoring the personal space bubble Tam had formed around her, Goldie draped her arm around Tam's shoulder. "I can pay for a therapist if you need to work out some of that childhood trauma. I went to one once and it helped me a lot."

"Right but... back to tomorrow and your mystery plans."

"I'll be gone when you wake up. You'll alert everyone to my disappearance."