As Good as It Got (33 page)

She was going to start her life all by herself. Right now. “We need to think what to do if Patrick doesn’t come.”

“They’re not going to leave us here.” Ann scoffed. “If he can’t come, they’ll send someone else.”

“What if the boat broke down, it could be hours before they find another one.” Cindy bit her lip anxiously.

Dinah patted her round belly. “I hope they hurry. I’m getting hungry.”

“Well, what would you suggest, Martha?” Ann gestured in exasperation toward the bay. “Swimming for it?”

“I’m pretty sure we’d never make it in this water. Have you felt it? It’s cold as anything. I remember once I went swimming during the winter after I’d been in a sauna with Frank, my second husband, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. You wouldn’t believe how—”

“Dinah, I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh.” She shrugged amiably. “I didn’t get that.”

“Did you have a plan in mind, Martha?” Cindy asked.

Martha stood up. Her breathing was coming fast, but she didn’t even try to slow it down. Bianca had no power over her anymore. Eldon was gone.

“Yes. I have a plan.”

“Well?”

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“Dinah.” Martha pointed at her. “You know what to eat here. We all saw the berries and the mussels.”

“Which we would cook how?” Ann. Challenging as usual.

Cindy stood up. “We can make a fire between two of those ledges. I saw charcoal there, someone’s done it before. And there’s that metal bowl our lunch salad came in.”

“There is a lot of driftwood on the beach. It would burn quickly and hot. I went camping with Stanley all the time in our RV, and I’m pretty good with a fire.”

“The second we start, Patrick will show up, you know.” In spite of her objection, Ann was standing too.

“So? We’ll ask him to join us.” Martha took a few steps toward the ocean side of the island, energy rising, powerful energy, the kind she usually felt only during meditation or yoga or when she told her fantasy stories. “Oh, and Ann?”

Ann and the rest of the women waited expectantly. Martha liked the feeling of someone waiting for her.

She smiled. “I think this is a good time for that wine.”

Cindy finished her third paper cup of wine. My my, it tasted awfully good. The first sip was a bit strange, but it just got better and better, didn’t it. Yup.

She kept thinking Patrick would show up and rescue them, but he hadn’t, and by now she wasn’t sure she cared, though she didn’t want to spend the night there. They’d all had a really fun time, gathering berries, gathering mussels, which they washed in a deep tide pool and cooked over the driftwood fire in the metal pot. They had a few packages of butter left from lunch to dip the sweet fresh meat in, and some leftover rolls. Dinah made a fairly weird salad out of As Good As It Got

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plants growing along the shore, one slightly bitter and salty, one with a distinct mustard/horseradish taste, one crisp but bland. She even found beach peas growing, though at this time of year they were way past their prime.

A feast by any standards.

They’d laughed together, even Martha and Ann had laughed some, and talked. Now they were getting slowly hammered—

all except Dinah, who finally gave into wine, but only one cup—while the sun started thinking about putting itself to bed for the night. They’d missed the final bonfire at camp, but maybe this was better. In fact, yes, she was glad Patrick hadn’t come on time. Everything this week had been so complicated and emotional and intense, and doubtless the final bonfire would be also. It felt wonderful to kick back with girlfriends and talk.

“Okay, who wants to play Truth or Dare? I played it with Tom, my first husband, on our first date, and let me tell you, things got pretty crazy.” Dinah shook her head and made
mm-mm
noises that had Cindy imagining scenarios she didn’t want to be imagining.

“Truth or Dare?” Ann snorted. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“What? It’s fun.”

“Forget it.”

“Okay, okay. Then . . . ” She scootched closer into the circle. “If you promise not to let anybody else hear this, I will tell you a fabulous secret.”

Cindy leaned closer in spite of herself. Even Martha looked interested. Ann rolled her eyes.

“You all promise?”

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“Yes, we promise. What is it?” Even though Cindy figured it was probably something embarrassing about one of Dinah’s husbands, she couldn’t help being curious.

“I promise.” Martha held her glass of wine as if it was fine champagne, delicately, with her pinky sticking out. The alcohol had made her features flushed, and she looked almost pretty.

Cindy felt a rush of unexpected affection. Maybe it was just the wine, but she hoped Martha could be happy now that her cheating man had died. She hoped Martha could find someone who treated her better.

Ann was lucky to have found a guy already, though Cindy wouldn’t have expected her to hook up with a fisherman.

She figured Ann would need the high-powered type. Cindy didn’t believe for a second that it was platonic. They’d probably be having wild sex all over the place. Dinah would find someone new too, probably in less than a week.

And Cindy would go back to Kevin.

“Yes, yes, okay, I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, etcetera. Now tell us.” Ann made a sound of disgust, obviously wanting this over as soon as possible.

“Well . . . ” Dinah pushed her cup in among the pebbles and clapped her hands. “Guess what?”

“Dinah.”

“Okay, okay, okay.” She slapped both hands palm down onto her thighs. “You know how Patrick said he was gay?

Well he’s not.”

All of a sudden things got much quieter around the fire.

“You know how I know?”

Oh God, please no
. The wine started to pound unpleasAs Good As It Got

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antly in Cindy’s head. She was about to go back to her husband. This was the last thing she needed. Who had found out? Who had told? Not Patrick, surely. Had someone seen her go into his cabin? Or come out? Or seen the two of them holding hands down on the rocks in that awful fog?

“How?” Martha asked sadly in a gentle voice that would have made Betsy proud of her.

“I slept with him.”

Cindy gasped. Ann put her hand over her mouth, so she probably gasped too, but Cindy didn’t hear it because her own was so loud. Martha looked resigned.

“You
slept with him?” The words came out of her mouth without thinking. She felt as if she were back on the bed at home, clutching Patty’s panties, missing Max and waiting for the emotions to hit, like someone tied to the rails listening to the train whistle blow.

“Uh-huh. He was incredible too.” Dinah was obviously delighted at the sensation she was causing in her listeners. She just, as usual, had no idea what the sensations were.

Cindy drained the rest of her wine. “Oh my God.”

“What? Why does everyone looks so upset? What is it?”

Cindy looked at Ann, and found Ann looking at Cindy with a very odd expression on her face. Then, as if she’d figured something out, her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped.

“No way.”

“Yes, I did. I told you,” Dinah spluttered. “Why are you looking at Cindy?”

Ann finished her cup of wine and reached for the bottle.

“Me too.”

“Oh my God.” Cindy held her cup out and let Ann fill it after hers. “Oh my God.”

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“Me too what? Oh my God what? Would someone tell me what the heck is going on here? You can’t possibly be that shocked. There is nothing wrong with consenting adults.”

“Dinah.” Ann held her cup out like a toast. “Patrick and I consented too.”

Dinah’s turn to gasp.

“And me.” Cindy took a big gulp of wine and realized it was a bad idea to drink right now. “We consented.”

This time Dinah’s gasp nearly choked her, and Cindy pounded her on the back to get her to stop coughing. “
All
of you? ”

The three women turn to look at Martha.

Martha raised an eyebrow. “Do I look like an idiot?”

Ann spit out her wine in a burst of laughter that seemed to pour out of her like sickness. Dinah looked utterly bewildered. Cindy did not find any of this funny. How many times would she give herself to a man believing in something as rare and beautiful as love, and find out he’d just been getting his rocks off as often as he could with as many women as possible? Was that all they were good for?

“I don’t think this is funny.” She got up on her feet, and realized that loose pebbles were not terrific for balancing. “I don’t think this is funny at all. I hate men. I’m not sleeping with Patrick ever again. I’m not even going back to Kevin.

I’m going to become a nun with Dinah, like in
The Sound of
Music.
”

Ann laughed harder, and Cindy found herself struggling with giggles, even as her own passion and strength frightened her. “Except that when a rich handsome widower shows up needing a governess for his seven kids, I’m going to tell him As Good As It Got

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to do his own work for a change, and then I’m going to kick him where it counts.”

Ann toppled over, clutching her stomach, gasping for air.

Cindy understood how Ann’s laughter could have come out like sickness, because she couldn’t stop laughing either, and at the same time she felt as if she were throwing up every angry feeling she’d ever had.

And there had been a lot of them.

“Are you serious about Kevin?” Martha wiped a tear away from her eye, and Cindy realized she’d been laughing too, and was sorry she missed it, because she didn’t think Martha laughed very often. “You’re not going back?”

Cindy raised her glass unsteadily. “No. I’m not going back.

Screw them all.”

She hadn’t been serious, not really, but when she said the words, they suddenly rang something deep and true inside her. Not go back? Not go back to the shame and the bore-dom and the humiliation, waiting for Kevin to do this to her again? He would. He couldn’t help himself any more than Patrick probably could. But where else was there to go?

Her cabin-mates cheered, and Cindy laughed again, while tears ran down her cheeks, but not from being happy. If she didn’t go, her daughter would hate her. Kevin would hate her.

She’d be single-handedly disappointing everyone. Again.

But maybe this time she wouldn’t be disappointing herself.

“Getting serious now, ladies, I don’t see how Betsy could have allowed this to go on.” Dinah planted her hands on her hips. “She saw through everyone else in the whole place. She worked with Patrick closely every day.”

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“Everyone has a blind spot. Everyone sees what they want to see sometimes.” Martha finished her wine and put the cup back in the basket. “I bet Patrick reminded her of her son.”

Even Ann’s laughter had died. “I bet that’s it.”

Cindy’s heart turned over. Poor Betsy. She’d be horrified when she found out Patrick had—

The faint noise of a motor, growing gradually louder. The women turned, exchanged glances. Cindy ran down to the water’s edge, peered out into the bay until the boat came into view.

Patrick.

She ran back to the women, shaking, out of breath. “It’s him. What do we do?”

For once, confident in-control Ann looked blank. “We could . . . God, I don’t know.”

“Maybe see what he has to say?” Martha did not look as if she thought this was a good idea, even though it was her suggestion.

“Maybe pretend we didn’t find out . . . ” Cindy knew that wouldn’t fly, but it would certainly be easier on everyone.

“Well, I don’t know about you three, but I’m going to bust his skinny gay ass.” Dinah got up, brushed pebbles and sand off her lemon yellow jogging suit, pushed up her sleeves, and walked down to the shore to meet Patrick.

Of course the rest of them followed her. Cindy wasn’t sure she wanted to see, but then who could resist watching a professional ball buster in action?

“Ahoy there, ladies.” Patrick waved over his head, grinning his charming grin. “Sorry about being late. Had a little issue back at camp.”

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“Probably six or eight other women found out they had something in common,” Ann murmured.

Cindy winced, but it didn’t hurt as badly as when she first found out. Still, as she watched Patrick striding toward them, then stopping to tie up the boat at a large metal ring sub-merged on the beach, her heart still gave a little flip. Maybe that was her problem, she had so much trouble letting go of what she wanted to believe about people. Maybe this was where expecting the positive got her in trouble.

“It’s okay. We found things to eat, and . . . well, we were okay.” Cindy didn’t know why she was trying to make it better for him. Why did she always do that? He didn’t deserve it.

“Good. Good for you.” Patrick beamed at the four of them.

“That’s what I like to see, your resourcefulness in action. No helpless females here.”

He was standing in front of them now, looking from face to face. His confident smile slipped a little. “So. Ready to go back?”

“You have a lot to answer for, Mr. Homosexual.” Dinah lunged forward and poked him viciously in the chest.

Patrick stepped back and held his hand out to the side.

He stepped back again, starting to look wary. “What do you mean? ”

“You know exactly what the hell we mean. You had your dick in so many of us, you probably can’t remember which is which.”

“Whoa. Hey.
Dinah.
I certainly do know who is who.”

“How could you do this, you bastard?” Ann stepped up next to Dinah, the two of them reminding Cindy of the girl bullies at her junior high. Cindy stepped up next to them.

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“You knew we were all vulnerable.” She tried to sound as angry and tough as Dinah and Ann, but she just sounded hurt and bewildered. There was only so much she could change.

“Look.” Patrick pointed his finger angrily at each of them.