Influence

Chapter 5

She escaped in the middle of the night. Resisting the comfort of her bed, Goldie rested on the divan that faced her bedroom's outer door. She'd told Tam the bed wouldn't look slept in—that was their arrangement. That meant avoiding it altogether because if there was anything Goldie was bad at, it was folding the sheets and covers on her bed the way a maid would, with crisp corners and fluffed up pillows placed just so. She smiled as she listened to the quiet roar of the ocean waves, salty air and the pollen of jungle flowers coating her lungs through the open door. She was doing this for Tam as much as for herself.

Her fans believed in her selflessness, and in moments like this one, it was their faith that kept her resolve high. They had no idea what lengths she would go to, of course. That was part of being selfless—sometimes you had to hide your biggest acts of kindness from the world. And other times, you had to be okay with compromising certain aspects of yourself if it served a larger purpose. That's what steeled her for tonight's secret mission. She would do this big thing, and no one else ever needed to realize it.

At three in the morning, she slipped out of her door onto the wide deck that lined the back of the villa. Another selfless act—choosing this room instead of the oceanside suite she would have preferred. She'd have plenty of ocean views in her life. That's what she'd told everyone when she'd opted for the quieter back bedroom. She liked the lush greenery of the treetop canopy. So different from LA's dry, brushland hills. Besides, she could still hear the waves, tucked away on that side of the house. The ocean permeated everything.

It made her escape easier. All she had to do was step away and keep going. No one lingered in the shadows. No one sat on the deck's rattan couch because they'd been unable to sleep and asked her for an explanation.

She walked away as though she was never meant to be there.

The flashlight on Goldie's phone guided her down the narrow road connecting her villa to the neighboring villas. As she'd planned, it died a few minutes in. Now that she'd cleared the forested part of her walk, the moonlight was a better guide anyways. It shone down on her, showing her the path forward. Twenty-five villas on this island, spread out enough to accommodate green zones in between each of them.

It took less than ten minutes to find her way to the rendezvous, a tennis court where, in a few hours, a litany of professional players would be lined up to coach the resort's guests. She leaned against the fence designating the barrier between court and lawn, the exhaustion of travel and a sleepless night making her feel like she was trying to balance a large stone on her head. She couldn't let anyone else see that the bravado she'd felt when first stepping onto the island had disappeared with the sunlight. This was the sort of exhaustion she'd meant to leave behind with her departure from LA. It had no place on this island; it didn't fit into her plan.

A figure in the distance, silhouetted by moonlight. Goldie watched with heavy lidded eyes as it loomed larger, the sound of footsteps a hypnotic beat. She pinched her arm, stepped away from the fence, and waited for the figure to speak.

Right in front of her now. She remembered during the pandemic when people were supposed to stay their distance. Six feet. The wingspan of a bald eagle. The length of a lioness. After vaccinations became commonplace, it had still taken months for Goldie to wave off those measures, to be okay with closeness again.

The figure breached the old social distancing parameters. "Are you ready?"

She nodded. She was doing this for her family, for Tam, for her fans. She understood the end of things before the beginning had begun. She was always ready.

#

Not charging her phone proved to be a strategic move. She wouldn't need to lie when questioned about it. Sorry, but my phone died. I always forget these things. Explaining why she'd been gone for the better part of a day would take more finesse on her part. She'd meant to be back only a few hours after sunrise, but here she was, on the other side of her secret mission, and it was already approaching evening.