As Good as It Got (12 page)

“They remind me of you, Cindy.” He put a hand on her shoulder, heavy and secure. “Full of energy, exploring their surroundings, bright and beautiful.”

She bent her head, unsure how to respond, half ready to dissolve into sentimental tears, half ready to get up and dance from the sheer joy of his compliment. His hand left her shoulder, began massaging her neck, working on the tight muscles, which barely got to relax anymore, even at night.

Cindy closed her eyes and gave herself over. At home, her massages were administered by a dark, silent woman in an exclusive salon in Fox Point. But this was just as good, if not better, for the deep connection between them.

She’d been after that connection when she brought home a massage video for her and Kevin to practice, but while Kevin had lain blissfully still while she massaged him, when it was his turn, he’d become irritated and uncomfortable, and she’d spent twenty minutes lying rigid with guilt while he grunted in annoyance, until she finally thanked him and said she’d had enough. Which hadn’t been a lie.

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But Patrick’s hands felt sure and strong, melting her muscles, making her realize how much tension she’d been carrying. And the more she relaxed, the more her deprived body craved sleep . . .

“I’ve met a lot of women in a lot of places all over the world, but I can tell that you’re a very special lady, with a lot of power inside you.” His other hand joined the ecstasy on her neck, then both moved slowly outward to treat her shoulders—then down, where they remained still, firmly cupping her upper arms, making her stifle a groaning protest. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you a lot better in the next couple of weeks. I know you’ll keep going in a positive direction. I’m proud of what you’ve already done.”

“Thank you.”

He was proud of her. She wanted the feeling from those words to go on and on and on, so she stayed, head down, not moving, as if his hands clamped on her arms had bound her to the stone beneath her. The hummingbirds had flown away or gone silent, the woods still except for faint noises down from the camp. An occasional voice or screen door slamming, the rhythmic thump of tennis balls against the backboard.

“Turn around, Cindy.” His whisper broke the silence.

She obeyed, helped by the pressure of his hands urging her into an embrace against his chest. His lips touched her forehead; she closed her eyes and let herself register as precisely as possible every sensation. The grassy smell of his shirt, the smooth muscle underneath it, the strong encircling protectiveness of his arms. This too her memory would want to call back up in the days ahead.

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Because the difference with how it felt when Kevin held her was immediately obvious and immediately shocking.

Kevin’s touch was dutiful, paternal, part of their familiar and admittedly stale marital ritual. While Patrick, a man she’d known barely a day, held her like he meant it.

Chapter 8

Dear Eldon,

What saves me is that it’s so beautiful up here. The
colors are so vivid, and the air is so clear and flavorful. It makes my life in Burlington seem even more
brown and airless. But there’s also beauty about this
place that goes beyond visual. A peace, that affects
you in deeper ways than ordinary calm. A constant
pull to be who you are at your innermost level, as if
any sort of artifice would pollute what’s around us. I
can see why Betsy picked this setting for women needing to reach inside themselves for knowledge and balance. She is a powerful and inspiring presence. You’d
like her.

Now that I’ve been here, I regret more than ever
the weekend I suggested we come here that didn’t
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work out. Of course at the time I was less into Maine
and more into the idea of being with you outside, in
public together, for the first time in over a decade. The
chance to have you acknowledge me with more than
just your special wave from the speaker’s podium. I
planned to savor every second of being a “real” couple
again. I use the quotes because we were always more
of a real couple than most, but in this case appearances mattered, at least to me.

Thank you for arranging for me to be here. Your part
in it is the only reason I decided to come, and most of
the reason I’m staying. Everything I see, everything I
observe about this place and the people, I find myself
storing, squirrel-like, to share with you, the way I’ve
always stored up the bits of my life for you. It made for
a hyphenated existence, but worth it.

I check the Internet every day for news of you. Betsy
understands and allows me to use the computer in her
office. It’s hard with her hovering over me, wanting to
grab at my every emotion, like a frog waiting for flies
to buzz by, but it’s better than not knowing.

Miracles happen. Come back soon. I’m waiting.

I love you, I miss you,

Martha

Martha opened Internet Explorer on Betsy’s computer and typed in the familiar address for Google. She spent a lot of time on her computer at home. Surfing the ’net felt more worthwhile than watching television. Her brain was As Good As It Got

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undoubtedly more active, and she always learned something, even if it was that people would do anything for attention.

Particularly, she suspected, those most terrified of finding out they were completely unremarkable.

“How are you today, Martha?” Betsy asked in a voice that meant a response of
Fine, thank you
would not cut it. Being part of this camp meant she was expected to put her feelings and her relationship with Eldon into words, instead of having them reside comfortably in her head where they had for so long. She’d frozen in group therapy, not at all sure how she could bear up under the scrutiny or questions of others. Especially after Ann nearly strangled Cindy with her scorn.

“It’s beautiful here. That helps me cope.” She took her hands off the keyboard and gave Betsy her full attention.

That way she could put off having to type in Eldon’s name and read the same news all over again. No change. No change.

No change.

Last night she’d dreamed Eldon had been underwater, gasping for air, and that she had dived under too, so her presence could bring him lifesaving oxygen. Sure enough, like the Disney mermaid movie, the touch of Martha’s hand had made them both able to breathe, and they’d swum happily around coral reefs together—minus the warbling shellfish.

“I’m glad you’re doing well.” Betsy smiled, perched on the edge of her desk, but her eyes were cautious and watchful.

More even than usual. “Go ahead. I’m here if you need me.”

What did she mean? Martha quelled the darting worry by relaxing and loosening her muscles, opening her lungs wide for air.

She typed in his name, wrote
Edlon
by mistake and had to 104 Isabel

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acknowledge Google’s superiority when asked if she meant
Eldon
. Yes. She meant Eldon. She was sorry to have been so imprecise.

The hits came up. Martha scanned the summaries and felt her diaphragm squeeze to a stop. Eldon had pneumonia.

This morning she’d assumed the dream assured her and Eldon of a happy shared future, but the underwater freedom could also have meant a shared future in death.

She opened the first article and read. “Common complication,” “antibiotics,” “prognosis uncertain.” A quote from chilly Bianca, about trusting that the doctors were doing everything they could.

Martha pretended she was still reading, but the words started to blur and jump. Once, she’d made up a story about a man who always ran away. When his life went badly, he’d put on his special shoes, brown and green and blue like planet Earth, and run until he reached a place in which he felt the pull to start over. One day after being fired, he went home and found the shoes in a box under his bed, put them on, and started running, west, as he always did. He left his house, his block, his neighborhood, friends, family, and city behind.

Trees thickened into a forest, rose over mountains, thinned to a prairie on whose far edge a strange brown rippling appeared. On he ran, through the whipping grasses, until he realized the rippling was the ground eroding, buckling, collapsing in front of him, falling off the end of the world. He turned back, but the dirt and grass eroded faster than he could run, poured off the edge of shrinking Earth like a brown and green waterfall, until the ground beneath his feet—

“Martha?”

She turned to Betsy. She couldn’t speak, but she couldn’t As Good As It Got

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cry either. She was trapped, caught between denial and a harder place. The undersea dream had been about death.

Eldon’s and hers, if she wanted to stay with him.

“Would you like to talk?”

Martha worked to unlock her throat enough to speak.

“I . . . ”

She was going to say that she’d like to be alone, but the last time she tried that, on her arrival here, Patrick had burst forth to save the loony from herself.

“I . . . have kayaking now.”

Betsy tipped her head gently to one side, watching Martha with gentle patience, wearing a gentle smile, waiting for her to crack and admit that instead of kayaking she was really going to find a stake to drive into her own heart. Which would be redundant because the article had already done that.

Eldon was going to die. Maybe Martha had known it all along, but she hadn’t truly felt it until now.

“Okay.” Betsy rose and stepped back to let Martha pass.

“I’ll walk with you. I’m going that way myself.”

What a coincidence. Martha stepped out into the humidity of the day, felt sweat gathering between her breasts. She wouldn’t be out of anyone’s sight for the rest of her stay, she felt it instinctively, a pressure building in her chest. Caged even here, in this beautiful place, caged by grief and fear and people’s worry. Then back to her brown apartment, which she’d no longer be able to pretend, even to Ricky, was like living in chocolate, and to her job. Without Eldon for the first time in two decades, since they’d found each other shortly before Eldon graduated from college and were drawn together as if each had a force of gravity meant only for the other. They’d been together four years out in the open. Then 106 Isabel

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Eldon had settled on a political career and met Bianca, the perfect political wife.

Until this morning, when Martha found herself facing Eldon’s death, she’d thought nothing would ever hurt as much as when he told her he was marrying Bianca for his career. Before that day, Martha had been sure love would conquer all. Now she knew that love conquered people, but it couldn’t do shit about circumstance. Even the truest of true love hadn’t been enough to earn her a right to Eldon’s name, and it wouldn’t be enough to save his life.

Down by the water, on the coarse pebbly part of the beach exposed by the tide, seven other women had already lined up in shorts and water shoes. Eight kayaks taken from the boathouse, four red, four blue, rested between them and the gently swishing waves.

Six of the women had already paired off. Ann stood to the side, alone, looking at Martha as she crossed the sand. She looked the way boys looked at Martha when she was the only option left during the week P.E. students were taught the basics of ballroom dancing, which none of them would use and all promptly forgot. The scars from the process, how-ever, had miraculous staying power.

Anger surprised her, spearing her chest—lightning in an already tense sky. Anger of an intensity she usually felt only for Bianca and the warden’s grip she held on Martha and Eldon’s happiness. Martha forced herself to step calmly in place next to Ann instead of hauling off and socking her perfect nose. Years of working at the DOT had taught her to block out negative and frustrated people. They owned their problems, not Martha. Martha owned plenty already. But As Good As It Got

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she still felt the hostility beside her, coming off Ann in waves larger than the ones licking the shore.

She waited, a tiny breeze occasionally cooling her sweat-filmed skin and ruffling the hems of her Indian print pants, while Betsy had a talk with Cheri, the instructor, who flashed concerned glances at Martha, which made all the women turn to see what could possibly be so much more wrong with her than with any of them. Ann’s cold hazel eyes stared hardest.

Let her wonder. Let them all wonder. Martha gazed across the bay, at the restless blue-green expanse dotted with jewel-like lobster pots, and felt the urge to swim, swim, swim, even not knowing how, until her head became a dot in the middle of the bay, indiscernible from the lobster pots or clumps of floating seaweed or bumps of driftwood.

Eldon had pneumonia. He was going to die.

The instructor handed Martha water shoes and a bright pink life jacket, then reminded the women of the safety tips they’d learned in the first class on Monday, and had them all practice one more time with paddles until they got the feel and rhythm for the stroke back. Martha had been canoe-ing a few times before, when her parents and nine siblings swarmed into Gus, the bouncy, squeaky school bus her dad bought to transport their oversized family, and went to visit Aunt Peg in New Hampshire. Canoeing was okay, but Martha had been half as big then, and these kayak looked tiny and unstable in comparison. She stood awkwardly next to the rail-thin women lined up on the beach, who all seemed so comfortable and energized in their bodies.

Maybe men left thin women in greater number than fat.

That would be some justice.

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“Okay, ladies, let’s each get into our kayaks and I’ll help you shove off. We’ll stay close to shore at first, then we can take a quick paddle out to one of the ledges if you’re feeling up to it, since it’s so calm today.”