Deadly Nightshade
Episode 22 | Still There
The morning was, she thought, full of predestinations.
At the centre of the fruit plate in Cassandra's room-service breakfast, delivered with a soft knock at 9 am, was passionfruit: two leathery half-spheres filled with tart yellow pulp and crunchy seeds. She’d seen that same fruit hanging on the vines amongst the firework flowers when she zoomed in on the picture of Alex's house again. As many times as she had seen the image, she kept discovering new things in it, as though it had changed since the last viewing.
At 9:30, Rebecca sent a message.
I'm so sorry, I forgot to mention! If you prefer to drive, you don't have to get a taxi to the museum complex. The Gallery has a bunch of new e-cars on the first floor of the parking garage, and you can use them as much as you like while you're staying. On us, of course! They're keyless with the Gallery's app - use code 3017.
Cassandra blinked at the number 3017 and rechecked the map to Alex’s house. She hadn’t misremembered the synchronicity: at the end of a straight shot down Highway 301 lay Alex’s house, number 7 Lafayette Drive.
She was due at the museum in two hours. In 120 minutes, she would be shaking the hands of the committee of people who had granted her this new lease on life. With a half an hour’s journey lying between her and Alex’s bungalow, she’d have an hour there at most.
How much trouble could a person really get into in the space of an hour, how much entanglement, if she had somewhere important to be?
Besides, if she managed to conclude this business, if she confronted Alex about his fecklessness, she would meet her benefactors as CC Edwards, Br itish portraitist and the new artist in residence at the Conti Gallery of Contemporary Art — not some overgrown lovesick teenager who wasn't all there because she was obsessing over a boy. This was the necessary move and the best moment for it.
Cassandra hardly dared look at herself in the mirror, sure that her face would be puffy, with dark circles under her eyes. But the reflection looking back at her was fresh. You look like a million bucks, the yacht broker had said. As unctuous as he'd been, perhaps he was right.
The vehicles in the multi-story car park at the side of the hotel were a fleet of clones, all new and gleaming white. In this novel environment, contrary to her usual impulse, she felt compelled by the idea of an autonomous vehicle and wondered if such a thing were even available here.
But to let herself be borne passively along this long straight road without having to think about driving, without needing to react to traffic, would only give her the mental bandwidth to work herself up into a lather of anxiety. It was better that she drive. She stopped by the door of an e-Car and opened the app to unlock it.
The last time she had driven anywhere, she was coming back from Orchard Cottage, fresh from unearthing her young mother and her American lover in the unmarked cardboard box in the loft. Now here she was, in America, on the unfamiliar side of the road. As she drove the longest, straightest route in the world, her hackles started to rise at the fact that her phone remained silent.
Outside the car windows, the territory unfurled like an exotic print in a repeating pattern. Palm trees. Fruit stands. A scattering of oranges on the ground, spilled from a lorry at the side of the road. Big-box shops arranged into a strip mall. Gun shop. Chicken restaurant. Palm trees again.
Twice she saw signs emblazoned with an upheld palm, its fingers splayed. Miss Rose, Psychic Palm & Card Reader. Miss Cleo, Palm, Tarot and Crystal Readings. At the sight of each of these placards she briefly lifted her foot, decelerating. Had she not been on a mission, she might have stopped, on the off chance that someone really might be able to reveal her fate.
A bait shop sat on the corner where Cassandra was instructed to turn right towards the river. Its sign boasted a gigantic three-dimensional fish leaping into the air, its cheek snagged by a hook it hadn't spotted at the heart of such a tasty morsel. Someone had taken considerable care over this sign - the fish was a work of art in its minute detail, each of its scales picked out carefully in multiple shades of iridescent paint. The small, squat bait shop was drab and dowdy by comparison.
The speed limit as she neared the house was ridiculously low, perhaps the optimal safe speed for the electric golf carts that she suddenly found herself sharing the narrow, winding streets with. Wood storks and ibis stalked prey in the short grass around a lagoon, and the grey-green tangled strands of Spanish moss that festooned the trees hung so low that some of them brushed the top of her car.
She piloted through a village of tiny white cottages like the one she’d seen in the photograph, varying in size but of the same vintage. The strip malls she'd passed on her journey were strewn with square buildings like giant Lego, but this place was built from a set with far smaller bricks. Arrangements of lawn ornaments were full of odd pairings: frogs and pelicans making friends, or mermaids consorting with gnomes.
Driving the golf carts and sitting on the tiny front porches and stoops and driveways and breezeways of these houses were silver- and white-haired people in sensible trainers and sun hats or baseball caps; people the same age as her admirer the night before; people who nodded and smiled at her and raised their hands in greeting as she rolled past at 10 miles per hour. She flashed back to Alex's voice issuing from Steve's mouth, like something from a hallucination or a bad trip, and she shuddered, imagining Steve’s body splitting down the middle like a chrysalis and Alex squeezing out, casting off his bloodless outer skin like a discarded piece of clothing.
At Number 7 the passionflowers hung dark purple on the vine, exactly the same colour as the bell-shaped deadly nightshade flowers her mother had warned her about when she was little, telling her that it takes only two nightshade berries to kill a child. She thought about the trouble a hungry forager could get into, if she weren’t paying close attention.
Belladonna (deadly nightshade) flowers, https://herbologymanchester.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/specimen-of-the-day-atropa-belladonna/
The car in front of the bungalow had Illinois plates, impressed with the image of some tall building and the words Land of Lincoln. The sign on the grassy patch beyond the house read Maximum 2 Cars or Carts, and she drew up there, alongside the car that she presumed must be Alex’s vehicle.
When your body goes into threat mode, Eleanor had said, breathe like there is no threat. A rabbit being chased by a fox doesn't stop and breathe slow and deep. Use your breath to tell your body that there's no danger. Breathe in...2...3...4. Hold...2...3...4. Out...2...3...4...5...6...7...8.
Eleanor was right. Animals in danger fight or run like hell or freeze, panting. They don't inhale and exhale, slow and easy. But Cassandra had never been good at applying what Eleanor taught her, and when she most needed it, she’d always forget her therapist’s advice. Now, though, she would use everything in her arsenal to be able to walk up to that door.
The wave of warm air hit her as she opened the car door. So early in the day, and yet so hot already. As her feet hit the ground, her phone buzzed in the inner pocket of her tote. The grass underfoot felt stiff and bouncy, and pricked the exposed bits of her toes like tiny pins. Even the grass was telling her she wasn’t in England anymore.
Her stomach plummeted when she saw the notification. Aware how near she was to the house, she turned the volume down and raised the speaker of the phone to her ear.
Cassandra. I am so, so, so, so sorry. You have every right to be pissed off. I got my wires crossed, and I can't believe I left you hanging. I hope you're all right, I hope I haven't ruined everything. Please - message me when you have a chance. I'll explain.
What were the chances? What did it mean? The car with Chicago plates had to be his, he must be home. At the precise moment she drew up outside his house, mere meters away, he was thinking of her, speaking to her. If the windows had not been closed, if the air conditioner were not whirring so loudly outside, she would have heard him leave the message. The coincidence left her stunned, had to be a sign from the universe.
She lifted the phone to her lips to respond — with what, she was not sure. She arranged a smirk on her face so that he might better hear the sardonic tone, so that she would sound colder than she felt.
'I had quite the evening, so I'd love to hear the explanation,' Cassandra said. 'See you in a sec.'
She stood on the tiny front porch. The house was not aluminium sided, as she had thought it might have been, but white timber, fresh painted, with black-shuttered sash windows on either side of the door. The roller blinds were pulled halfway down, but through both them and the louvered panes of glass that made up the whole of the door she saw that the hardwood floor inside was polished to a high gloss, reflecting patterns of light from other windows. At the side of the door, underneath a black-painted wooden star, hung a rectangular plaque with a name.
Montfort.
She whispered it out loud, tried it out on her tongue.
Alex Montfort. Alex James Montfort.
If she could see inside, then he would be able to see her outside. She did not want to be seen yet, wanted to retain the right to announce herself, to have the advantage. The door clattered and hissed as she knocked, shaking the panes of glass and the screen that lay beyond them.
She saw him as pure movement first, a slender shadow emerging from some inner room, silhouetted.
She couldn’t watch, couldn’t look at him as he approached the door. She took a step back to allow it space to open. She reminded herself to breathe.
As the door swung open towards her, creaking on its metal hinges, she looked at her feet, at the floor.
'Hello.'
Cassandra's face jerked upwards. The woman smiled, friendly and expectant. She was taller than Cassandra, or perhaps her dark cloud of natural tight curls lent her more height. She was brown-skinned, the colour of a nutmeg, and her long, lean, toned arms contrasted with a crisp white linen vest that was as fresh as the new paint on the house. Her flared silk jersey beige trousers were tied at the waist and draping elegantly to skim the wooden floor. Her feet were bare, displaying perfectly pedicured toes. She was the picture of elegance.
Cassandra no longer felt as confident as she had that morning when she looked in the mirror.
'Can I help you?’ the woman said, still warm, but her voice now tinged with concern. 'Are you okay?'
She reached out a hand in the way someone reaches out if they expect the other person to fall.
Who was she?
'I'm sorry. I think I've got this wrong...I think I've...I'm sorry. I...’ Cassandra stammered. She looked dizzily from left to right.
'Oh my lord, you don't look so hot. Don't breathe from there,’ the woman said, twirling her fingers around the vicinity of her chest. 'Breathe from here. Down there. Put your palm on your stomach. You're over-breathing.'
Cassandra gasped, gulping air like a stranded fish.
'Do you have panic attacks?’ the woman asked. ‘You look like you might be having a panic attack. Yes? No?'
Cassandra shook her head.
'Here, come, quick.' The woman held the door open wider, beckoned. 'Come in. Let me help you with this, and then we'll figure out what's going on. I'm not going to leave you stranded out here, come into the cool. Here. May I touch your elbow? Yeah? Okay. Come on in.’
Cassandra's feet didn't want to move, and she stumbled over the threshold. The woman's light grip at her elbow tightened to steady her.
'You sit here. I'm getting you a glass of water. Just keep breathing. From your belly!'
The water ran and the ice dispenser clattered in the kitchen. The woman had guided her to a beige bouclé sofa with a scattering of geometric-patterned pillows in tasteful, expensive-looking fabrics. Cassandra’s eyes travelled the room as she tried to work out what was happening, where Alex might be.
But no one else was in the house, which was so tiny that one glance took it all in. One doorway led to a kitchen, another to a bathroom, another to a bedroom. He was nowhere. Nothing betrayed his presence in this place, no photograph, no black-rimmed glasses on a coffee table, no camera bag slung across the back of a chair.
But that picture on the wall - her breath drew in sharply. The buildings in the enlarged photo were familiar, although they stood in a city where she’d never been. Two tall, circular structures by a river, like honeycombs or big ears of sweetcorn with their kernels nibbled away, leaving only the hollows beneath. But this version was in colour, and the one he'd shown her was in black and white.
A coincidence? After all, hundreds of thousands of other people were from Chicago too.
She focused on the diamond-patterned rug, also in shades of beige. That carpet would stain if she vomited up her breakfast here; this pale decor would be peppered with the seeds of her morning’s passionfruit.
The woman glided in again, silent and graceful in her bare feet, the only sound of her entrance the rattling of the ice in the glass. Cassandra sipped the cold water nervously, and the woman perched on the edge of an oversized ottoman opposite her and watched. Cassandra managed a little closed-mouth smile.
Alex had said that he was separated, that his wife had medical problems, that they couldn't divorce because she needed to be on his insurance, that they were amicable like that. This woman was the picture of health, like someone from the cover of a fitness magazine.
'Sorry about this,' Cassandra said.
'Nothing to be sorry about. You looked like you were about to keel over. I couldn't leave you on the porch like that! Take your time.'
She felt weirdly like Eleanor. Whenever Cassandra was spinning out, something about the way Eleanor inhabited the space, sat with her in silence, had always calmed her.
‘I’m Nicole,’ the woman said.
'I'm Cassandra,’ she said, without thinking. It was too late to take it back.
'Such a pretty name. Cassandra. Now, you sound far from home.'
She had no idea.
'Um, yes. I live in London. I...it's my first time in Florida.'
'Well, welcome. On vacation? You staying nearby?'
'Um...the...what is it...' Cassandra faltered, pressing her hand to her forehead, her palm refreshingly damp from holding the glass. She needed to get out. 'I'm staying at the, um…Gallery. I'm doing a...a collaboration, a, um, residency. With a museum, the Conti…I…I’m sorry. I'm intruding.’
She was saying too much. She reached for the handles of her bag, but Nicole held out her hand.
'Take your time, Cassandra, you're not bothering me. Just making sure you're fine. I love the Conti, how interesting.'
She paused. The two women sat looking at one another.
'Were you...looking for someone?’ Nicole continued. ‘Everyone knows everyone here, so if you're not far off I can probably help.'
‘I think I have the wrong address,’ Cassandra said. ‘I thought...I thought my friend lived here.'
Nicole nodded. ‘Okay. Lafayette Street? 7 Lafayette Street? Bradenton?'
She should have said no, but even as she thought it, she felt herself nodding yes.
'Sarasota has a Lafayette Street too, not far from the Gallery, I think. Did you take a cab here? That can happen around here if you don't say Sarasota, they’ll whip up 301 to the totally wrong place.'
She shook her head. Inside her bag, the phone buzzed, and she jumped, looked at the tote as though there were a snake inside. Nicole frowned.
Maybe she should ask, just to settle the question. At least she’d know how to respond to him, could be sure that she should tell him where to go. How much worse could it get? What did she have to lose? Nicole was so disarming, so unthreatening. If they truly were separated, then there would probably be no issue. Yet she was here, at the same time as him. Cassandra gathered her courage.
'I drove myself,’ Cassandra said. ‘I'm sorry. I was looking for someone called Alex.'
The concerned pucker between Nicole’s eyebrows deepened, and the set of her shoulders changed.
'You're looking for Alex?' she said, her tone polite but just a shade more intense than curious.
Cassandra forced herself to keep eye contact, to not look away, and nodded.
'Alex...Montfort?' Nicole said.
'Yes…?’ said Cassandra, with the barest shadow of a question mark.
Nicole's eyes rolled up and flicked back and forth as if she were scanning for cobwebs where the ceiling met the wall. She was still investigating that region as she spoke again. 'How do you...?'
'We were meant to...have...we were supposed to have a meeting last night,’ Cassandra said. ‘But I think we got our wires crossed.'
Nicole swivelled her face back down to stare at Cassandra, her mouth falling open. 'You were meant to meet last night?'
Both her hands came up, in slow motion, until they came to rest on her face, her eyes glittering at Cassandra between the gaps in her fingers. She had the loveliest fingernails, the curved tips and neatly groomed cuticles forming perfect ovals. A gold ring encircled her wedding finger.
'I don't understand,' Nicole said, her voice thick behind her hands. 'That’s impossible.'
'I should go,’ Cassandra said, standing. She heard someone calling her a coward, ridiculous, spineless, a train wreck. The voice must have been in her head but sounded like a third person in the room. 'I think I’m mixed up,’ she continued. ‘I’ve got it wrong.’
But she didn't have it wrong. She had it right, and Verity had been right too, all along. Alex wasn't separated. Cassandra was sitting in a Florida bolt hole that he shared with his gorgeous, charming, clueless wife. He was a stranger, just some lying man, and because that lying man had stood her up, she had pulled the pin and thrown a hand grenade into another woman's marriage. She needed to be anywhere but here, needed to get to the Conti and do her work, needed to stop being in Florida for this and start being here for that. Slinging her tote over her shoulder and wiping her hands on her skirt, she turned to go.
But Nicole jumped to her feet as well, quivering, every fibre of her body in tremor, including her voice.
'Wait, please,' she begged. 'Don't go. I need to understand something. What do you mean? What do you mean that you were meant to meet Alex last night? Who are you? I mean...how do you know him? When did he...'
'I don't, I mean, he’s just a friend. An acquaintance. We connected through a mutual friend...well not exactly but...we know someone in common. Knew someone in common. Olivia Noble?'
Nicole stared at her blankly, her eyes wild. She jerked her head right, left.
She doesn’t know Olivia Noble, shrieked Cassandra’s mind. You idiot. She has no idea what you're talking about.
'Another photographer,’ Cassandra babbled. ‘I mean, I'm not a photographer. I'm a painter. Alex is a... fellow artist. A colleague, really.’ She wished she could stop, shut up, cease this nonsensical flow of too much information. ‘A few months back he told me about this residency at the Conti, which was, um, helpful, in the end. So helpful. So I wanted to thank him.’
Nicole swayed on her feet and stared. She reached for and gripped the back of a chair.
'Thank you so much for the water,’ Cassandra said, shuffling in reverse until she felt her back contact with the rough screen of the inner door. She wanted nothing more than to flee but didn't want to break eye contact with Nicole, didn't want to turn her back until she had to. But what could Nicole possibly do? Tackle her from behind, stab her in the back? Cassandra flailed her arm behind her until she found and turned the doorknob. 'So sorry to disturb.'
Nicole was rooted to the spot. The door recoiled on its spring and slammed shut between them, and Cassandra, free, skittered down the steps muttering shit, shit, shit. Behind her, the hinges of the door squealed again, followed by a bang, and she was awash in fresh horror. Nicole was following her. The door of the car clicked as she approached, and she wrenched it open, only to find herself on the wrong side of this blasted American car.
She darted round the vehicle like a thief intent on getaway, slamming the door behind her in the same microsecond that Nicole reached her. In half an hour's time, the sun had heated the interior to a temperature hot enough to cook a goose, and Cassandra was instantly perspiring with heat and fear.
'Lock doors!' she squeaked, and the car responded just as Nicole pulled at the door handle and pulled again. Cassandra shot her a quick sidelong glance, as much as she could stand, and she saw Nicole's face.
Cassandra was helpless, it was not her business, not her battle to fight. She was merely an innocent bystander, drawn in by Alex's deception.
You've made your bed. Fucking lie in it, her mind said.
Nicole's voice penetrated the glass. 'Please. Cassandra.' Desperation was in every syllable. 'Please. Don't go. I need to talk to you. Cassandra!’
Cassandra gripped the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, away from Nicole. Was this the worst, most shameful thing she had ever done? It had to be close. She pressed the starter button on the dash and the console pinged. Nicole, hearing the hum of the engine’s electric surge, beat a fast tattoo on the driver's side window with the flat of her hand.
Bam bam bam bam bam.
'I'm sorry,' said Cassandra, addressing herself to the steering wheel, and put the car into reverse.
'No no no no no!' Each syllable an escalation of her panic. Blows rained down on the driver’s-side window.
Dare she be so heartless? But the pain in Nicole's voice was unendurable.
'Music on, volume high,’ Cassandra said. The car rolled backwards into the road, Nicole jogging at its side.
Now streaming classic soft rock, the display said, as the sound system sprang to life. A male voice was crooning about the sun in his lover’s eyes, how that sun made the lies worth believing.
I am the eye in the sky, looking at you...
I can read your mind.
It only took a few notes for Cassandra to recognise The Alan Parsons Project.
Fuck you, universe. Fuck you too, Alex. I am nobody's project.
Cassandra pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator and was relieved beyond measure when she found that this model allowed her to override the posted speed limit. It only took a second to exceed the 10 miles per hour allowed in this peculiar neighbourhood.
Nicole pursued her for a while, her feet naked on the hot asphalt, before surrendering to impossibility and slowing to a halt, her arms dangling helplessly at her sides, her shoulders sagging. Once again, her hands went up to her face, and her receding figure stood slumped in the middle of the road as Cassandra fled.
In the next episode, Verity and Cassandra uncover the truth about Alex. Don’t miss out! Click the button to subscribe and tell a fiction-loving friend about Still There. The more the merrier as the story unfolds.
About the Author
Known for her nonfiction work such as All the Ghosts in the Machine and Reset, Elaine Kasket is now exploring the boundaries between memory, technology, and human connection through fiction with Still There. This serialised novel is being released exclusively on Substack, with new instalments dropping every Tuesday and Friday. Join the journey from the beginning and subscribe to make sure you don't miss a single episode.
