As Good as It Got (22 page)

Martha nodded, and answered Cindy’s wave when she turned off the path. If Martha needed someone to talk to.

About Eldon. She could hardly dare to imagine it. Two women chatting openly about the men they missed. Just the thought would sustain her through whatever Betsy had to say.
Once upon a time a woman spoke to the world of her great
and beautiful love, and the world became a better place . . .

Betsy sat at her desk, peering at her computer screen over black half-glasses, but looked up with a big smile when Martha walked in.

“Hi, Martha. Come on in, have a seat.” She gestured to a cozy-looking window nook in her living room, whose windows faced the sea.

Martha dutifully parked herself on the cushion, hoping Betsy didn’t choose to sit next to her. She liked Betsy, but instinctively felt the need for space during this discussion.

She now suspected that since she hadn’t sought Betsy out for counseling after her tumble into the bay, Betsy had decided the talk would need to happen on her invitation.

Martha didn’t want to hear about how suicide was not the answer, and how her life meant too much to waste because of Eldon’s tragedy. Doubtless Betsy would consider all the hours and weeks and years spent waiting for Eldon wasted too.

Unfortunately, Betsy must have felt that this was a girl-friendy occasion, because she did sit next to Martha, then As Good As It Got

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turned sideways toward her, drawing her knee up onto the seat and clasping it. “How was your morning?”

“Fine.” Martha shifted on the cushion, arranged a throw pillow more comfortably behind her.

“I sense that you are settling into camp a little better.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve noticed you seeming more animated, and talking more with the other women.”

“Yes.” Martha looked out the window, envying the outside its freedom. The sun sparkled on the sea, giving it a warm radiant look that made it hard to remember how cold and inhospitable it had felt surrounding her body.

“Do you remember, when I wrote to you earlier in the summer, I mentioned that an anonymous donor had secured a place for you in this session?”

This unexpected comment made Martha stare until she realized of course Betsy would know that Eldon had paid for her to come. “Yes.”

Betsy’s smile became forced, and Martha sensed that more of a response was expected of her. She didn’t mean to sound recalcitrant, but didn’t know what else to say.

“You and I have never talked about it, have we?”

Martha started to feel uneasy. Were they supposed to?

What was the point? “I know who it is.”

“I see.” Betsy sounded surprised. “She is quite a generous woman, isn’t she?”

Martha’s body turned still. “She?”

“Bianca Cresswell.”

Bianca. The ice woman. Martha stared until comprehen-sion dawned. “She might have signed the check, but the in-192 Isabel

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struction would have come from Eldon. He’d have wanted plans in place to have me taken care of in case anything ever happened to him.”

Betsy’s eyes narrowed, as if this troubled her. “You think he would have discussed his wishes regarding his mistress’s care with his wife?”

Martha didn’t know what to say to that. Bianca turned a blind eye to Eldon’s personal life. Eldon had arranged for Martha to be here. Why else would she be? Certainly Bianca wouldn’t have offered this succor out of the frozen waste-land of her heart. “I guess he must have.”

“And you think she would carry them out?”

Martha’s breath began behaving strangely, and she tried to force it back into its proper rhythm. Betsy was right. This didn’t make sense. Why would Eldon ask Bianca to arrange this? Why would it be her signature on the check? Why not one of his aides, or a banker he trusted?

“Martha . . . ” Betsy laid a soothing hand on Martha’s knee, which, instead of being comforting, made her want to push it away. “Bianca wanted you here for observation. She and Eldon believe that you are suffering from erotomania. Do you know what that is?”

Martha shook her head. She was trying to get her breathing to cooperate, and it wasn’t. Hearing any sentence containing Bianca and Eldon in proximity, especially balancing the two of them against her, was nearly more than she could stand.

“Erotomania is a delusional disorder. A typical sufferer is female, a loner, who believes that a celebrity or other public personality is in love with her. A famous male example is John Hinckley, who shot President Reagan for the actress Jodie Foster. Do you understand?”

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Martha stared blankly, and then suddenly, oh yes, she understood. Bianca was behind this. Of course she was. She wanted Martha out of the way, in case she tried to get close to Eldon, in case she made a scene, in case the truth of Eldon’s love came out and the media got hold of it and ruined Bianca’s photogenic near-widow experience. “Eldon loved me. We were meant to be together. Always, we were meant to be together.”

“The love is usually idealized and intense and imagined to be returned just as intensely by the object.”

Eldon was not an object to Martha.
Once upon a time there
was an evil witch who tried to—
“I’m not imagining what I feel or what he feels for me.”

“Sometimes the condition manifests itself after an actual love affair ends.” Betsy pressed her lips together as if she didn’t want to say what she felt she must. “Eldon did leave you to marry Bianca.”

Martha knew exactly how the man in her story had felt, the one under whose feet the earth crumbled away faster than he could run. “He had to. He needed a political wife.

The marriage was for convenience only. He loved me. Even when he was on TV, he was thinking of me.”

“Yes. I read about the ‘special waves’ in your letter.”

Betsy’s tight mouth turned down. Her eyes grew sad. She was distraught. She felt sorry for poor insane Martha, who couldn’t tell love from old-maid fantasy. “Sufferers from erotomania often believe the object’s communication with the general public contains special signs or messages meant only for them.”

Martha stood.
Once upon a time . . .

Nothing came to her. She had to get away from Betsy.

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Something horrible was going to happen, she’d stop breathing, or have a heart attack, or die of shock. This couldn’t be happening. Eldon’s special signals
were
meant for her.

“Please sit down. I want to help you. Bianca wants to help you.”

“Bianca does not want to help me.” Martha’s voice came out low and shaky and strange. “She wants me out of the way, so I can’t go to Eldon, so I can’t help him. She probably knows that my voice would wake him up.”

“Martha . . . ” Betsy’s voice was so serenely and perfectly gentle that its sound waves probably didn’t even disturb the air molecules they traveled through. “I have to tell you that people with the condition often vilify the person they see as an impediment to their love. Bianca would be that person to you.”

A sob broke from Martha’s throat. Bianca had planned this so perfectly. Who would believe Martha? What proof did she have? None here. None even at home. She’d always destroyed everything—e-mails, cards, phone bills. If anything happened to her, she didn’t want anything that could shame Eldon or hurt his career. All the years waiting for him to be free—what were they for now if Bianca took them away?

“The good news is that often the disorder is part of a larger treatable condition, like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

I’m not qualified to make that assessment, but I’m going to recommend that you be evaluated by a psychiatrist so you can get the help you need. In many cases medication can completely correct the problem.”

Problem? Medication? Martha looked down, frightened by her own sudden rage. For all her wise and spiritual ways, Betsy was a fool, taken in by Bianca like the rest of them.

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“Medication cannot erase what I feel for Eldon, and not even his death can erase what he felt for me.”

Betsy let the silence go for a while, watching Martha, while Martha watched a small beetle negotiating the landscape of Betsy’s rug. Whatever sounds the beetle was making, no one could hear them over the raspy shallow heaves of Martha’s lungs.

“Will you sit down, Martha?”

She opened her mouth to refuse, but right now her only weapon was to act as sane as she knew how. “Yes. Okay.”

She sat, feeling as if she were perched on a bomb set to go off any second.

“Thank you.” Betsy smiled warmly, oh-so-pleased by nutty Martha’s compliance. “I’d like to share a story with you.”

Martha nodded, because if she opened her mouth, she was going to say,
Well, I don’t want to hear it.

“When I found out my son was gay, it took me a while to adjust and to accept it. During that time, and even later, sometimes I would still fantasize about weddings and grand-children, the same way I had before I knew. I wanted those things to be real so much that I couldn’t let go of the thoughts or my plans.” She leaned forward with a sympathetic smile, while Martha calculated how long she could sit there until she actually did go crazy. “I can understand how the shock of Eldon breaking up with you all those years ago and marrying Bianca might have led you to pretend that you were still together. I truly can understand that. I know what a good imagination you have, how you love to tell stories . . . ”

Of course. The stories. Martha had played into Bianca’s hands perfectly. She might as well admit to having the disorder.

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“It’s not like that. I don’t know how else to tell you.” She spoke dully, but managed to look Betsy in the eye, and in return she saw a flicker of doubt. “Bianca is afraid I will go to him. She sent me here to make sure I was out of the way.”

“Really, Martha . . . ” Betsey gestured helplessly. “I don’t think she sees you as that much of a threat.”

“Of course she wouldn’t let you know how much of a threat I am. Why would she tell you that?” Her voice rose in spite of herself. The earth had already finished collapsing underneath her. She was floating in a meaningless void. First Eldon had been taken away by Bianca and his career. Taken away a second time by his stroke, which also threatened her hopes for their future. Now even her memories, alive only in her brain and his, were endangered. “What happens now?”

“Because I’ve seen such progress here already, I’d like you to be able to finish out the session of camp. Then, I’ll recommend someone you can see in Burlington.”

“And if I refuse to see anyone?”

Betsy’s sad eyes grew sadder. “I can see why you might not want to accept help from Bianca. But I would hope that you would accept it from me.”

“I would accept help from you.” Martha stood up. She couldn’t bear another second. “If I needed it.”

She flung herself out of the cabin, ignoring Betsy’s calls, hurried away—not toward the sea this time, because they’d look for her there first, though all she wanted was to take a kayak and go and go and go until no one, not even Bianca, could reach her.

Toward the woods this time, finding a path, following it blindly through the trees, until she heard a voice, then an-As Good As It Got

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other, and turned back, too late. No trees large enough here to hide behind.

“Martha?”

She turned around again, facing quite possibly the last person she wanted to see besides Bianca. Patrick, returning from the woods with a flushed camper in tow, the shapely one in preppy clothes Martha had avoided on her very first day. Martha didn’t like Patrick. She didn’t like the way he popped up suddenly, like some devil spirit appearing out of nowhere. She didn’t like the way he hovered over Ann, or the way Cindy hovered over him.

She started backing down the path away from them.

“Were you just talking to Betsy?”

“Yes.”

Patrick glanced down at his belt area, and pulled up a beeper. “Hey, look. Betsy wants me to find you, and I already did!”

She didn’t return his grin. She didn’t care when he spoke to the camper in a low voice and sent her away with a friendly wink. She didn’t want to speak to him or to anyone. She didn’t want to stay here knowing now why the letter about camp had come to her brown apartment. She wanted to be home, waiting again for Eldon, waiting for him to wake up and come back to her.

“So, Martha, what’s going on? How are you feeling?”

She held up her hand. “Stop that.”

“Whoa.” He chuckled, but his eyes held an edge. “What’s this about?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Oh?” He cocked his head, puzzled puppy. “I thought we 198 Isabel

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had friendship and trust going here, but okay. You want to take a walk instead? I’ve got something to show you I think you’ll like.”

“The way that other girl liked it?”

His smile faltered, then hardened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” She was suddenly exhausted, not up to spar-ring. She wanted alone time to figure out what to do. Stay here? Get in her car and go? “I’m going back to my cabin.”

“Okay.” He indicated the path behind her. “I’ll walk you.”

Right. No problem. Escort the crazy lady. Bianca had made sure that Martha’s time here would be hell, that moving back to Burlington would be hell. If Martha dove again into the sea right now, would she still want to cling to life so stubbornly? She didn’t think so.

“Do you think your life would have been better if you’d never loved him at all?”

Martha stopped walking, whirled around and faced Patrick. She’d never been so furious in her life. Not even when Eldon told her he was going to leave her for his career. “How dare you even suggest that.”

His smile was not only a surprise, it was charming and genuine. “Then you have nothing to regret, Martha.”

Schloop
. The wind fell out of her sails. “No. I don’t.”

“Loving someone is never a mistake.”

Her body felt turned to diamond. Rock simply wasn’t hard enough. Who was this man, who undoubtedly had never loved anyone but himself? How was he able all at once to seem so completely full of crap and eerily perceptive at the same time?