A Summer in Sonoma (27 page)

“I married you because you cared! You used to
try!
If I said, ‘Joe, bring your dishes to the kitchen and rinse them off,' you did it. If I said, ‘Joe, wipe all your black curlies off the bathroom floor,' you got right on it, because you wanted me to spend the night and shower in that bathroom! And you never, never tried to seduce me smelling like sweat and compost!”

“Okay, wait a second. Give me something I can do right now to make you happy. Anything. Because I'll do—”

“Joe, you're not listening again! I'm not getting in your bed. I don't care what you fucking do—I'm through begging. I have something else a little upsetting to worry about right now than whether you can finally step up to the plate and be a partner!”

“Partner…” he mumbled. “Partner,” he repeated, as if hearing it for the first time. “Okay, I probably deserved that….”

“Yeah,” she said, tiredly. She turned her back on him and leaned against the island, swirling her drink.

To her back, he said, “Okay, I'm a blockhead,” he
said absently. “Marty, I thought I
was
trying. I swear to God, I'd prance around the house with your bra on my head and feathers shoved up my ass if I thought it would make you smile at me one time. Jesus.”

She turned around and looked at him.

“You used to smile at me all the time, Marty,” he said softly.

“You used to care if I was happy,” she said to him.

“Honest to God, I thought there was nothing I could do anymore. I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I couldn't make you happy no matter what. I thought I was doing my job, doing what a good husband does.” He leaned on the island. “I care if you're happy. Jesus, I'd give anything to make you happy again.”

“Well, we'll see about that,” she said evasively. “Right now you might as well just go to bed, because I have other things on my mind. And guess what, Joe? Whether you and I work things out is
not
one of them. I can't talk about this anymore right now. Can't you see I'm in pain over Beth? God, just leave me
alone!
”

He straightened up and got a look on his face like he was hurt. Cut to the quick. And the thought that came into her mind was, So what? Fuck you for thinking about what you can get from me when I'm wondering how I'm going to deal if one of my best friends since childhood dies. But she didn't say it; she was too angry. Angry with him, with Beth's disease, with the way things sometimes turned out. She just lifted her chin, stared him down and bit on her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

Then he turned and left her and she felt the desola
tion of having shut him down when, for the first time in her memory, he seemed to actually hear her. But she couldn't deal with that now. Tears rushed to her eyes anew and she wasn't entirely sure why. It could be that she'd given up on her marriage and knew it. It could be about what Beth was going to go through, trying to beat this beast that got to her again. Or maybe it was the fear of possibly being alone forever.

She grabbed the neck of the Grand Marnier bottle and took it to the family room sofa. After kicking off her shoes, she curled up in the corner, her glass resting on one thigh, the whole bottle on the other. And she let herself just cry. Her sniffs were loud, but she kept her sobs as quiet as possible; she didn't want to wake Jason. And she could've grabbed the tissue box from the kitchen counter, but there was something punishingly satisfying about just wiping her nose and face on her good sweater instead, suffering. Through it all, had Beth cried or fallen apart? Not at all! She'd been trying to reassure them that this would be as it would be and they'd all get beyond it somehow. It was devastating that she could be so strong.

Completely unaware of how much time had passed, she felt him beside her before she saw or heard him. He sat down close to her, lifted the glass and bottle from her hands to put them on the coffee table. He said, “Come on, baby.” He put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. “Come here, baby. Let me hold you.”

Instinctively angry, she slugged him in the chest, hard. But then immediately, her head dropped to his shoulder
and her cries came out unrestrained, loud and wrenching, and he only pulled her closer. “God,” she said through her tears. “God, God,
God!
It just isn't
fair!
”

“You're damn right about that,” he whispered. He kissed her head and stroked her hair while she let it go. Her tears and snot were matting his chest hair, but all she could do was vent. It seemed to her she might never stop; it felt as if she'd been holding in tears like this for a long time. She was vaguely aware of his voice, whispering to her that she was right, it was wrong, this shouldn't be happening. His arm around her was protective; his gentle caresses were comforting.

It was a long while before she lifted her head and looked up at him. She had a bad case of the hiccups and her face was wet and sloppy. “Her chest,” she said in a hiccuping gasp, “it's
ravaged!
”

“Aw, Marty,” he said, pressing his lips to her forehead.

“It's so mean and painful looking. And she's so brave, you can't imagine how brave. She says this is what it is and we're going to get used to it.” She let her head drop and cried a little more. “If I had to go through that, I couldn't be a tenth as brave.”

“Oh, I bet you're wrong. You're one of the strongest women I've ever known.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I'm not. I'm scared all the time, you have no idea. I'm scared of what's going to happen to me and Jase. Scared of facing something like Beth's facing, and being alone like she is. You don't know—I'm worried and scared all the time.”

He gave her a small smile. “You sure can't tell it,” he
said. “You're pretty feisty. Real tough, if you ask me.” He gave her hair a stroke. “Listen, she might get through this okay. The worst might be over. She could beat it, you know? Still have a full, long life.”

“We were just ready to get married when it happened before. She wore a wig at our wedding, remember? Because she was bald. Mark was going to marry her, but he couldn't take it. He left her.”

“I remember that,” Joe said. “I didn't even know the guy, but I hated him for that. Weak dick. He oughta be ashamed of himself.”

“Now she's in it again, and all she has is us—the girls. What good is that? What can we do?”

“It's better than having that weak dick, that's for damn sure. Marty, listen. You know that I'd never walk out on you for something like that, right? They could carve up every piece of your beautiful body, remove your gorgeous face and sew your vagina shut and I'd be with you for life. You know that, right? That it's not about that with me? I mean, I'm stupid enough to be cocky proud of your good looks, but that's not what's really important. Not what I love. You don't have to ever be scared about something like that.”

“Well, that's pretty decent,” she said with a huff of teary, disbelieving laughter. “Considering I'm ready to leave you for refusing to shower and shave….” She put a hand against his cheek. She sniffed. “You showered and shaved.”

“I didn't think you'd let me hold you if I didn't…”

Her hand dropped to his lap and true to form he
muttered a throaty, “Whoa!” But she ignored that. “These are not the crusty, nasty shorts.” And then her hand snaked around the elastic waistband and came in contact with the new purchase tags. “They still have the tags on.”

“I should probably get those off, huh? Uh, I might've torn up the closet a little finding 'em, but I set the alarm for early. I'll clean it up, I promise.”

“I have hardly any confidence in that….”

“I swear to God!”

She put her hand against his cheek again. “It was nice of you to shave before… Your whiskers are so hard on my skin.”

“You never complained when we were engaged…”

“You always shaved before we got married…”

“I did, huh? Jesus, Marty, I'm a dunce. I'm sorry. Your skin's so soft… I'm an idiot.”

“I'm still going to my room down the hall.”

“Sure. Yeah. Really, I only shaved and showered so I could get near you. I didn't want you crying like that alone. You want me to go to your new room with you and hold you till you're asleep? I know you're so out of your mind with this thing. This thing with Beth.”

“No,” she said. “Just right here, right now. That's as far as I can go, all right?”

“Okay. As long as you believe me, no matter what comes for you—sickness or health—I don't scare easy.”

“I hope we don't have to face that, because seriously…if it takes me moving out of the bedroom to get you to wash up, I'd hate to think how you'd handle something truly serious.”

He kissed her forehead and pulled her head back against his chest. “Gimme time, honey. I might not be hopeless.”

A
ugust disappeared. It was still hot in the valley in September; sometimes it seemed hotter than ever. Billy and Jules finally had a meeting scheduled with their credit counselor after weeks of waiting, not knowing if the news would be that they had to file for bankruptcy or if they'd be presented with a recovery program that was even more tight and stressful than what they'd been going through for years. Their tension was prickly in the car on their way to the meeting.

“I really need you to accept whatever's coming, Billy,” she said. “If we have to file, we'll get beyond it somehow.”

“I don't want to do that, but I will,” he said shortly. “I'll do whatever it takes. You know that.”

“I want you to like me again.”

“That's not part of the problem. I love you. It's just hard to swallow that I couldn't make it work.”

“I handled the money—don't you think it's hard to swallow that
I
couldn't make it work? Be fair. It's a team effort and we did the best we could. I need you. I hate it when you're gone, and now even when you're with me, you're still gone.”

He reached over and squeezed her thigh, but his eyes stayed on the road. “I'll work on that. I don't want you to feel that way.”

When they walked into John's office—an impersonal cubical—they took chairs in front of his desk expectantly. Fearfully.

“Hey, you two,” he said cheerfully. “Well, we got everyone in the program. You're not in good shape yet, but you're in recoverable shape.” He opened their file on his desk and took two identical printouts off the top. “Here's a new payment schedule for you. Let me explain. The college loans have been suspended for two years. You have no idea how many people just default and never repay them, anyway. They're thrilled you want to make them good, and at four percent, they're a bargain. Oh, they reduced the balance for you—firefighting qualifies as government service because they're state loans. They need first responders—firefighters and law enforcement.

“We rolled over your mortgage, second and equity line of credit into a refinance at a fixed rate, no qualifying necessary, thank God. A first and second at eighty percent and fifteen percent, which gives you ninety-five percent debt to equity coverage but eliminates PMI—rates are still good. The bank dropped the loan initiation
fee and will split closing costs—you save a total of eight hundred a month. They're sniveling like crazy,” he laughed. “They made out like bandits on this deal. There's no default, no repo, they're getting their money at a fair market value and they should be kissing my feet.

“I can't do anything about utilities or insurance, but we have three credit-card companies in the game here. They each reduced their principal, gave us a zero interest rate for six months and a fixed twelve percent after that. Still too high, but we're gonna make that go away. How about you let me see those cards right now, if you don't mind?”

Julie and Billy were just staring wide-eyed at the new payment schedule and only when they heard John say, “Please,” did they dig their credit cards out of wallets and hand them over.

“We really have to carve these up,” he said, holding six cards from three companies. “You can't do this anymore. It feels like help—it's not help. They'll kill you with the fees, rates, late payment charges. Really, they have to be laid to rest. You stick to your budget, you'll never miss them. I promise.”

Julie nodded eagerly and Billy just stared dumbly, still in a trance.

“Good,” he said, putting them aside for the moment. “Okay, your expenses were on the low side, and with your income you should be able to run the heater in winter and fix a turkey dinner for the family at Thanksgiving. I increased your budget for household items, from groceries to clothing to miscellane
ous expenses. It's a personal thing with me, but I think if you can find a way to take the kids out once in a while, it's good for your frame of mind. Not Disneyland, but how about a kids' pizza joint, or one of those afternoon movies you leave with gum in your hair, or a picnic at the lake? And a husband and wife should have an evening out alone sometimes, and I'm not talking about a family or friends' get-together where there are lots of other people around. Just you two. Dinner. Maybe a movie. Maybe a walk in the park. You don't have to give up the nest egg, but go see a five-o'clock cheap movie and have dinner at the Olive Garden or something. Get alone. Talk. Put your arms around each other. Thirty bucks toward your relationship and perspective can help things more than you realize. Make time for your marriage. You'll never regret it.

“I know I've said this before,” he went on, “but your marriage and family is your greatest asset. That isn't just a pie-in-the-sky, goody-two-shoes Mormon thing I'm passing on. Ever think what would happen to these bills and expenses if you split up? The expenses would double and the bills would be divided between you, leaving each of you with debts you could never pay and expenses even more out of your reach. It's not just a spiritual thing, though my commitment and faith are rolled together into one big package. It's practical, fiduciary. No law protects your home from divorce. That's not to mention what happens to the kids. I won't even get into what happens to your spirit when some
thing like money rips you apart. Money's nothing but a tool. So take care of each other—that's my advice.

“Now—”

“Wait!” Julie said, holding the piece of paper. “John, wait a minute! You screwed up here somewhere. This can't be right.”

“What?” he said, leaning toward her. He backed right up and picked up his copy of the new payment schedule. “Oh,” he laughed. “Sorry.” He fished some more papers out of the file and passed them each one more. “Here are your new balances. The mortgage total is about six thousand higher than it was, incorporating closing costs and the equity line, but the payment is lower and the credit cards and student-loan balance reduction is far more than six thousand lower, plus the student loans are on hold for the time being. You'll have to go to the title office to sign papers for the refinance, by the way, but no money is due. Go ahead, look everything over. Take your time. Want my calculator?”

Julie was in shock for a long moment, scanning over one sheet, then another, her mouth hanging open. When she finally looked up, she said, “Maybe I better borrow the calculator. I've never had this much money left over after bills….”

“Julie,” John said with a smile. “As far as I could tell, you never had
any
money left over. I don't know how you did it.”

“John, how did
you
do this?”

“I took a look at what you needed and divided what
was left between the bills. That's the trick, when you put the family first. You
pay
the family first. Then I called each one of the creditors and explained exactly what you could afford to pay them. Now, if you think you can make this work, I have some serious advice.”

“What?” she asked, riveted.

“Put twenty percent of that expense money away, at least, because you still have a couple of problems. You have two old cars and I don't think a car payment is going to fit in here too well. Your mortgage won't go up, but your taxes will. And if you pay your bills online, which is free through your bank, you'll save probably fifty bucks a year—a couple of those pizza dates with the kids. If you can manage to stop paying late fees or annual credit-card charges, according to your past twelve months of debt management…” He fished around on his desk for a moment until he located a paper. “Nine hundred and thirty-eight dollars last year alone. That's an extra grand right there.”

“Holy shit,” she said. “Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to swear.”

He smiled. “This budget has the advantage of some better rates, reasonable debt consolidation, a couple of suspensions… You have a fighting chance.”

“I tried to do this, you know,” Billy said. “I called the credit cards…I went to the bank…”

“I've spent ten years developing a relationship with some of these creditors. Sometimes we have to suggest to our clients they file for bankruptcy, then no one gets paid. If we can't get a level playing field, that's what we
do. The client is the important factor. So by now they know that when I call I'm not bluffing.”

“But these reduced rates…I feel like I'm cheating them or something.”

“They've gotten their money out of you tenfold. You're their favorite debtor. High interest, late fees, escalating balance. Please, don't waste any guilt here. I'm a real stickler for ethics—no one got screwed. Well,” he said, “you did. Sort of. I mean, you bought into the programs, but that was because you hadn't studied and practiced this aspect of management. I've been doing this for years. That's why I'm here.”

Billy was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I think we owe you a lot of money.”

“It's all on there,” he said, pointing with his pen. “I don't hand out services for free, but it's my goal that you think it's the best money you ever spent. And that the product is worth it.”

“Oh, God,” Jules said, getting a little teary. “Oh, yes!”

“If it works out, maybe you'll recommend me,” John said.

Billy connected eyes first with John, then he put an arm around Julie's shoulders, pulling her close. “You happy with this?” he asked in a whisper.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered back.

Billy looked back at John. “How long before we're out of the mess?”

John shuffled papers again. “If you can keep those cars running, in four years you should have only ordinary expenses plus a mortgage and hopefully a savings
account. I don't know where your salary will be by then, but county employees get pretty good pay as they get seniority. Starting out takes commitment, but—”

“Four years is good.”

“Um, Bill, I based this budget on you working your part-time job two days a week as opposed to almost four. You gotta check in with the family, man. It's the most important thing you'll ever do.”

Billy stared. He held his lips tight, but his eyes watered. Julie was less controlled. She almost collapsed against him, openly crying. She hadn't seen this light at the end of the tunnel in at least eight years. Billy turned away from John and held her to console her, but he couldn't stop at least one tear from running down his cheek as he did so. It took a few moments for them to compose themselves and finally Billy looked up and wiped at his nose. “I'm, ah, sorry, John. We've been fighting this monster for such a long time—”

“Hey, think nothing of it,” John said. “Happens all the time. I appreciate the relief—I felt exactly the same way when I found a potential solution. You realize it's up to you now. You go out and get another loan, another credit card, this whole program falls in the tank. You understand that, right?”

“Sure, absolutely,” he said. “You have no idea what kind of gift you gave us, here. This is so incredible.”

“Sure I do,” he said. “Why do you think I do this? You think it's making me rich? It's making me happy.” He grinned very largely. “You just don't know how well I sleep at night—that's what's incredible. Now, what do
you say—can we cut up this plastic? Because it's not doing you any good at all.”

“Go for it,” Billy said.

 

If riding along the beach in summer was refreshing, riding into the mountains in the fall was miraculous. It was Cassie's favorite time of year to start with, and it seemed the leaves were more stunning this year than ever before. Maybe it was being on the back of a bike rather than in a car that made all the difference. They took a ride every week—on a weekend if she was off, and if she only had a weekday, Walt took that day away from the shop to be with her. The last two weeks in September had given way to October and the hillsides had become stunning, on fire with color.

They drove a little farther north before getting in the hills; most of the color was in the foothills, thankfully. As the elevation increased and temperature lowered, pine, fir and ponderosa took over, which maintained their rich, dark green.

Walt had memorized hundreds of trails over the years and he always had a stopping place in mind that was comfortable, scenic and private. Plus, he had favorite restaurants everywhere. After a couple of hours of enjoying the crisp fall air, he pulled off to a grassy place.

“We're stopping?” she asked, pulling off her helmet.

“Isn't your butt asleep by now? It usually is.”

“Since I met you, my butt has gotten even better padded,” she told him, dismounting. “This is gorgeous.”

“I thought you'd like it. Coffee?”

“Great. Blanket?” she asked.

“Coming up.” He first spread the blanket on the cushiony ground, then produced the thermos and cups. He poured for them and said, “By the way, I think your butt's looking real good.”

“You're not supposed to be looking at my butt.”

“I'm not?” he asked. “Gee, Cassie, you should've told me. I've been looking at your butt for about four months. I'm not sure I can just stop now.”

She laughed at him and took her coffee. “We've been riding almost that long, and you come up with someplace new every time. You amaze me.”

“I told you. There's lots to see around this world. We'll never run out.”

“I guess we'll have to stop pretty soon,” she said, leaning back and bracing on her elbows.

“Why?”

“Cold. Rain. You know me—I'm not into roughing it.”

“There will be plenty of sunny days, and we'll pick a softer climate. You should be an expert on Sonoma by now—we'll go south when it gets cold. I never stop. I take days off, but never stop.”

“You must have ridden through some pretty incredible weather during your eighteen months on the road.”