As Good as It Got (29 page)

“I don’t know. Maybe we could.”

Chapter 16

Dear Eldon,

There are things going on I don’t understand. People
trying to tear us apart and deny what we have. You
must come back and claim me. You must see that this
is no longer a time to hide and be careful, but to burst
free and shout out what’s rightfully ours. You must
see that. Wake up.

Martha

Martha stood on the scattered rocks at the edge of the sea.

She’d given up trying to meditate, even trying to sit still. It was all she could do to stand here and not fling herself into the drink. She hadn’t slept since the middle of the night. The camp’s wake-up bell would ring any minute.

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For the moment, no boats disturbed the stillness. Fog still clung to the flat glassy water turned orange by the rising sun, making the islands appear ghostly and insubstantial. A gull flew overhead, wind whirring under its wings. The air smelled of sea and the freshness of sunrise.

Last night she’d dreamed again of Eldon swimming, beckoning her to join him under the water. This time she’d been afraid to go. This time she shook her head and urged him out onto dry land instead. But once again he hadn’t chosen to be with her. He’d given her a look of longing and disappointment, then dived deeper until the green sea swallowed him up.

She’d woken up and known he was gone.

Later she’d ask to use Betsy’s computer and read the details of his death. Later. Right now she could only handle being in the tranquility of this beautiful morning, suspended between knowing what had happened and having it confirmed.

Until she read the news in black and white, her dream would stay a dream. The pain would stay bearable, the fear manage-able. Barely.

She’d tried to make him real, to make them real as a couple, but saying words out loud to show the world how strong and good they were together had convinced Betsy that she had a mental illness, which had been unsettling, to say the least, and made Cindy hurl those words back into Martha’s face.

Even as she understood that Cindy’s anger stemmed from her situation with Kevin, Martha still got the same sick feeling she did when she read letters from fellow Other Women to Dear Abby. “He says he loves me, he says he’ll leave his wife, but he never does.” Then Abby’s answer, always the same, “Wake up, honey.”

Saying the words out loud couldn’t make them a real As Good As It Got

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couple again. And now that he was dead, even time wouldn’t make them a real couple again. Bianca had won when she married Eldon, and now she’d won again, having lost him while they were still together.

If Bianca were like Cindy, if she and Eldon had married for love, real true love, Martha couldn’t have come between them. But then if Bianca were imperfect like Cindy, Eldon wouldn’t have chosen her. Martha had always considered Eldon’s marriage the betrayal, not their affair. Love gave her and Eldon the right to be together. Love was much more binding and went much deeper than a ceremony and a cer-tificate. Society could think what it wanted. Society needed rules to feel comfortable. Rules could never be justified in every situation under their control.

Until death do us part.

Martha had to believe strongly in love to wait and wait and wait all those hours and days and weeks and years alone in her brown apartment. Precious chances to be together got canceled, e-mails were scarce, phone calls scarcer. Sometimes it seemed to her that weeks went by between the times she heard from Eldon. Then always with his greeting, “How’s my girl?”

She waited gladly because of the way they felt about each other, but today with Eldon gone, and with her beautiful forever-after future with him gone, it seemed their love for the past twenty years had been more about frustration and sacrifice than joy and sharing.

The morning bell summoned campers from sleep, the clanging sound rolling down to the sea and out over the water. Women would be getting up, dressing, going to breakfast. When Martha was missed, someone would be sent to 256 Isabel

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find her. She needed to go to breakfast. She needed to go to classes. She needed to find some way to cope with the rest of her life, year after unending year without Eldon to wait for.

Without Eldon to hope for. What else was there?

Once upon a time there was a good and remarkable man who
loved and was loved by an unremarkable woman. Their bond
began before they met, and strengthened each year, each season,
each day, until dark death took the man away from this earth.

When doctors performed an autopsy, they found in his chest two
hearts, one his, one hers.

On television Bianca would beautifully grieve, their children would beautifully grieve. The state would grieve its lost senator, also beautifully, and move on. What would Martha do? She had nowhere to move on to.

A seal—she was sure it was the same one she’d seen from her kayak—poked his head above the silent still water and looked at her with soulful black eyes. She stared back through tears. The seal wavered, then became a small boy like Ricky, with a dirty face and black hair, floating, smiling, eyes enormous and still beckoning.

Come with me
, he said.
Come swim with me.

Martha couldn’t swim. She stood and watched the seal boy.

Come with me!

She took a step, walked toward the water, stood at its very edge. The tide was coming in. If she stayed here, in a few hours she’d drown.

Come with me! We’ll swim to him
.

If she swam with the seal boy, she’d see Eldon again. She’d get her heart back. Or get half of his and leave half of hers so they’d be linked together forever. She took another step; the icy ocean licked and swallowed her toes.

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Come with me!

Another step, then another, up to her knees. The seal boy raised his head higher; his eyes glistening liquid glass.

That’s it, that’s it. Now you’re doing it. Good girl
.

The water reached the tops of her thighs; already she’d started to shiver. Another step then another. “Eldon.”

Come with me . . .

Her chest hurt from the pressure of the cold. The boy became a seal again, tipped his nose up and disappeared.

“No.” She searched the water, shivering, panic rising, and anger. “Don’t leave.
Don’t. Where will I go?
”

Eldon had already left her once. Now again. She’d waited so long for him to come back. She’d waited so long for their time together. So many dozens of nights she’d sat home, hoping he’d call. So many dozens of days she’d barely left her computer, hoping he’d e-mail.

Martha turned and waded out of the water.

The seal resurfaced several yards away.
Tell me a story.

Martha frowned at it. Boy or seal, she wished it would make up its mind. “No. Go away.”

Please, Martha. I need a story.

The large black eyes undid her. “I only have one story right now.”

Tell me.

She closed her eyes, reaching for the peace inside her, reaching for the beauty of what she and Eldon felt. “Once upon a time there was a man and woman who were best friends and lovers. The woman knew no one had ever loved her as much as he did, and the man knew the same about her.”

Aw, you’re not going to make this a kissy story, are you?

Ricky Seal was disgusted.

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She opened her eyes and scowled at him. “Okay, no kissing.

One day the man was enchanted by a wicked witch who—”

What was his name? What was the girl’s name?
Ricky Seal rose slightly out of the water and back down.
What was the
witch’s name?

“The boy’s name was . . . Elton. The girl’s name was . . .

Marta. The witch’s name was . . . Politica. Politica enchanted Elton, then forced him to marry a horrible woman named . . .

Binaca, who was always cold. Even in bed at night under fourteen comforters and fourteen blankets, she never warmed up, and she made Eldon cold as well. Marta was very sad, but she knew love would never die, and that underneath his enchantment, Elton still belonged to her.”

A suspicious look from Ricky Seal.
Are you
sure
this isn’t
going to be a kissy story?

“Yes.” Martha drew in breath, made herself calm down.

“Marta hoped for a long time that Elton would find some way to break the enchantment. He visited her when he could, but he could never get free entirely. Eventually she stopped hoping and trusted instead. Twenty years went by.”

Twenty years?
Ricky seal’s scorn made the water turn hot around him.
He couldn’t get free in that long? He must not have
tried.

Martha flinched. “He—”

Either that or he was a wimp
.

“He was
not
a wimp, he was noble and strong.”

Then why couldn’t he get free? A hero would have been
able to.

She took a step back and nearly unbalanced when a rock under her foot proved unsteady. “It . . . was a very strong spell.”

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Oh come on. Why didn’t Marta do something to help him get
free if she loved him?

The dull pain in Martha’s chest grew sharp. “She couldn’t fight the spell either.”

Why not?
Ricky Seal made a wet sound of derision.
Twenty
years? She’s a wimp too. I like stories with heroes.

Martha stopped telling the story. She unwrapped her arms from around herself and took in a long breath.

“Boo!” she shouted as loudly as she dared.

A splash, then nothing but smooth water.

The seal was just a seal. She was wet and cold. And tired of everyone making it sound as if she’d wasted most of her life and happiness waiting for Eldon.

Dear Kevin,

I’m still at this camp that you and Patty picked out
for me. It feels crappy, really, like you’ve shoved me
into rehab when all I’m addicted to is trying to be
happy. I don’t think you need to be institutionalized
for that. Maybe I’m wrong. You seem to think I am.

Cindy

Baking class. Cindy walked into the camp kitchen feeling as if she were approaching a gallows. Or maybe an audition for
American Idol,
where humiliation would inevitably result.

Except instead of Simon Cowell, she’d get Mistress Martha.

But . . . Hadn’t she resolved to dig out whatever fragments of internal strength she might manage to find? Yes, she had, 260 Isabel

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and she would. That included trying to recapture her trust and faith in the positive, which would include trying to think better of Martha. Things would work out. She needed to stop measuring herself by other people’s standards. She needed to follow where her heart led her, as Patrick had told her that time they sat together and waited for hummingbirds.

She couldn’t help feeling wistful about Patrick, the way you felt when you had a really good exchange one day with the most popular boy in class and came away glowing, even knowing more than that was never meant to be.

Really, she was glad she’d spent those naughty hours with him. Kevin wasn’t the only one with secrets now. Maybe at some point when she and Kevin were at dinner, she could casually mention the hot night she’d spent with the sexy camp instructor. It would teach him to take her for granted.

Martha was already standing at the counter, waiting for class to begin, looking sadder than even her usual. She quickly looked away when she met Cindy’s eyes, which Cindy expected. Cindy would have to take the lead. She doubted Martha had ever taken the lead in anything. Even in ruin-ing someone else’s marriage—her boyfriend had doubtless gotten her into it.

“Good morning.” She took her place next to Martha, determined not to be kept away by the conflict. “What are we baking today? ”

She braced herself for Martha’s monosyllable reply. The class could, after all, in spite of her recommitment to thinking positively, turn out to be completely unbearable.

“I’m not sure.” Her voice was leaden but firm. “I did see boxes of baking cups, so I guess either muffins . . . or cupcakes.”

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“Oh.” Cindy had not expected Martha to be so friendly.

But now that she had been, Cindy needed to be that way too. “Well. I didn’t do very well last time, but this week I am going to kick some cupcake butt.”

Martha actually smiled, even though it was a sad smile, and Cindy felt even better. See what happened when you spread good and positive feelings around? People responded.

She’d gotten trapped in negativity for far too long. This was her power, and it was back. Everything she needed to know she’d learned from her dog.

The instructor arrived, and yes, they were going to bake cupcakes, but first—
oh no
—more bread. Cindy started getting a headache, and it wasn’t until she realized that she was clenching her jaw as hard as she could that she was able to get it to ease at all. Flour, oats, a touch of whole wheat, sesame seeds, wheat germ, that much she could do. That far into the class she managed to keep her cheer and confidence going. It wasn’t until the dreaded moment when the yeast was to be proofed in sugar water that had to be exactly the right temperature that the veneer of her new attitude cracked. She immediately felt like crying. Just telling herself she was confident was not going to make it happen. Who was she kidding? Measuring water was enough to make her break down.

“I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can.” Martha’s gentle, steady voice made Cindy turn her head.