Good Harbor (12 page)

But there was no denying that she had crossed the threshold leading out of their lives.
The end is near, Joyce thought, and laughed softly at the melodrama of the phrase.

“What?” asked Frank, smiling, waiting to be let in on the joke.

“We’re almost done.”

“With what?”

“Nina’s on her way out the door.”

“She’s only twelve.”

“Twelve going on twenty. It’s happening so fast.” Joyce thought about what the women
in her book group had said about the speed of their kids’ high school years. “What
are we going to do? She’s the center of our lives,” Joyce said, then more tentatively,
“of us.”

Frank frowned. “Joyce, for crying out loud, we’ve got five more years until she goes
to college.”

“But don’t you see the end of it from here? She’s changing so fast.”

“You’re rushing her.” He withdrew his hand. “She’s still a child, and I think that
you’re letting her get away with murder on the grounds that she’s
going
to be a teenager.”

“Frank, she’s always been precocious. She talked early. She walked early. C’mon. It’s
not just her attitude, it’s her body. She’s developing breasts, or haven’t you noticed?”

Frank stood up. “I think I’ll order pizza for dinner.”

“Are you kidding?” Joyce yelped.

“Would you rather have Chinese?”

Joyce stared after him as he went to ask Nina what she wanted to eat. Frank was worse
off than she’d realized, but she lacked the energy — or maybe it was the inclination
— to do anything about it.

The next morning, Sylvie’s family picked Nina up for a week on Cape Cod. Nina took
the bag of brownies from Joyce’s hands, gave her a quick, sideways hug, got into the
van, and didn’t look back.

Joyce felt her mood plummet. Now she had no reason to get up at seven, keep the refrigerator
stocked with milk and juice, or even cook dinner. With Nina gone, Frank would probably
work straight through until nine or ten every night.

She had to do something. Immediately. Joyce unplugged her computer and loaded it into
the car. As she packed some extra underwear and T-shirts, she dialed Frank. “I’m going
up to Gloucester.”

“Nina gone?” Frank asked sympathetically.

“Yes. I’m taking my computer.”

“Isn’t the laptop already there?”

“I hate that keyboard.”

“You never mentioned anything,” Frank said.

“Yeah, well, I do.”

“Call me later?”

“Okay.” Joyce slammed down the phone and got in the car.

Joyce was furious at Frank for the way he had walked out on their conversation the
previous night. His problem with Nina’s sexual development was probably a textbook
case, but if they couldn’t talk about Nina anymore, what the hell could they talk
about? They used to talk about music. When they’d first met, they used to go to jazz
clubs. They hadn’t done that in a dog’s age.

She reached the house in thirty-five minutes. That’s a stupid record, she thought,
a little frightened by what she’d just done.

The house was stuffy and sad-looking, the living room still empty but for the beanbag.
Joyce cranked open the windows as she dialed Kathleen, who picked up on the first
ring.

“Hello?”

“Kathleen, it’s Joyce. I’m here for the week. Want to take a walk?”

“How soon can you get there?”

It was high tide, which meant Good Harbor was reduced to a dark, wet skirt of sand
up near the dunes. From her perch in the center of the footbridge, Joyce watched the
morning fog evaporate in wisps over the flooded plain. A parade of women passed by,
bearing umbrellas, chairs, coolers, towels, plastic buckets, canvas bags, plastic
bags, paper bags. Children ran ahead, heedless of their mothers’ voices, rising like
birdcalls: “Be careful!” “Wait for me!”

A girl who looked to be no more than sixteen yelled, “Joey, come back here,” as a
skinny four-year-old with a pierced ear raced by. She put down her beach bags and
chair to light a cigarette. She rolled her eyes at Joyce and hollered, “Joey, I’m
gonna kill you.”

Kathleen arrived, wearing a wide-brim straw hat and a long-sleeved man’s white shirt
over white, drawstring cotton pants.

“You look very elegant,” said Joyce.

“Thank you.” Kathleen patted Joyce’s hand on the railing.

“Can I ask about the treatment?” Joyce said tentatively as they set out.

“You can ask.” Kathleen shrugged. “There’s not much to tell. It’s not terrible, it’s,
oh, I don’t know.” She paused. “Strange. Painless. And it’s very fast. I get there,
they zap me” — she used the word pointedly — “and then I go home.

“There are no side effects from the radiation itself. Nothing. Sometimes I wonder
if the machine is even switched on. Of course, they say you don’t really notice anything
until it’s almost over, and I’ve just started. Then my skin could get red, like having
a sunburn, and maybe peel. And who knows what else.”

“Yikes.”

“My biggest problem is that I’m not sleeping well. But they say that’s nothing to
do with the treatment. It’s the worry. And that’s all there is to it.” Then Kathleen
abruptly changed the subject. “So Nina’s off with her friend for the week, right?
Talk to me about life among the living.”

Joyce tried not to flinch.

“Sorry,” said Kathleen. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No. Say what you want.”

“No, really, I’m sorry.”

They walked for a while without talking. Kathleen kept her face turned to the water.
Finally Joyce said, “Nina’s team lost the big game last night. She was heartbroken.
I was heartbroken. Frank was heartbroken. But the dirty little secret is that I’m
relieved that soccer is over for the year, which makes me feel like a total shit.
Here my daughter is shattered, and I’m thrilled that I don’t have to watch another
game until next fall.

“I wish I felt differently, but this is just something I can’t get enthused about.”

“It’s a hard age.”

“I suppose. But I keep telling myself that she’s doing well in school, and she has
friends and all.”

“I meant it’s a hard age for parents,” Kathleen said. “I remember when Hal was fourteen
or fifteen, and one summer all he wanted to do was watch television. I said, ‘Why
can’t you go for a bike ride or read a book, like you used to.’ And he said, ‘Mom,
it’s never going to be the way it was before.’

“It was as if he’d thrown a bucket of cold water on me. All of a sudden I saw the
hair on his legs, and not that invisible baby down, either. A man’s hair. It took
me months to get over that.”

“But I feel like I’m screwing up our whole relationship,” Joyce said. “I blow up at
her for no reason, and I’m such a nag. Clean up your dishes, get your shoes off the
floor, do your homework, brush your teeth, put on deodorant, get off the phone, take
a shower, pick up your room. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. She starts crying,
and I know I ought to be quiet, but I don’t stop.

“And Frank seems totally unwilling to admit that she’s growing up. He gets on her
case about schoolwork or talking back to him, and then I get furious at him for picking
on her, and we fight about that.”

“Don’t worry, Joyce,” Kathleen said gently. “It’s just a stage. You’ll grow out of
it. And then she’ll go to college.”

“And then what do I do?” Joyce asked, her voice suddenly pinched.

Kathleen faced out at the ocean and chose her words carefully. “There’s work. Reading.
New interests. Hobbies. You start talking to your husband about things besides the
kids. It’s good. It’s never the same, but it’s good. And it fills you up, pretty much.
In time, it really does fill in. A lot of people seem to take music lessons. And then
someday, maybe you get grandchildren.”

“Nina is twelve! I don’t want to see grandchildren for a long time, thank you very
much.”

“I’ve been ready for grandchildren for ages, but my sons don’t seem to be anywhere
near it. In the meantime, I took up daylilies. Sounds prissy, but they are the love
of my life.” Kathleen smiled. “Don’t tell Buddy I said that, okay?”

Joyce held up a hand in the “Scout’s honor” position.

“I knew nothing about plants until the year Jack left for college,” Kathleen said.
“I took one of those garden tours and met a woman, a bit of a kook really, who had
three hundred varieties of daylilies in a wonderful rock garden. Now I have, oh, probably
thirty kinds myself. Seeing which ones are blooming is one of the great joys of summer
for me.”

They were already in front of the red motel, which marked the end of the beach when
the tide was this high.

“I suppose I could take a drawing class,” Joyce said.

“If that’s something you’re interested in.”

“Not really. It’s a generic kind of fantasy. I don’t have any talent for it. Besides,
it doesn’t solve my work problem. I’m not sure I can fake a shred of interest in school
bus safety, which is my next big assignment.”

“But, Joyce, you have to go back to Magnolia and tell what happened next.”

“Oh, my God, you read it! And you’re still willing to be seen in public with me?”

“Come on. It’s good. How did they let you get away with it?”

“With what?”

“The politics, I guess you’d call it. The race politics. A black woman and a white
landowner is hardly the usual romance formula, is it? Isn’t the man supposed to be
older and more experienced? Isn’t the girl supposed to tame the man? Jordan was so
restrained, and she’s such a, well,
hussy
sounds so politically incorrect, but, heavens.” Kathleen put her hand to her heart
in mock shock.

“There are so many issues: literacy, race, secrets. The sex is only one part of it.
Though the racy parts are plenty racy. All that black and white skin. It makes one
wonder,” Kathleen said, arching an eyebrow.

“The imagination is a wonderful muscle,” said Joyce. “At first, I thought all I was
doing was writing something commercial that would allow me to buy a house up here.
The means to an end. But I really got into her, into Magnolia, and the story. And
the historical period. I’m glad you saw the politics.”

“You must have done a lot of research. Where did you find out the little details like
how they starched the petticoats, and where they got ice?”

A high-pitched voice interrupted Joyce’s answer.

“Mrs. Levine.” The girl on top of the lifeguard stand was on her feet, with a megaphone
to her mouth. “Mrs. Levine, up here. It’s me, Krista!”

Kathleen waved and walked toward her. Joyce followed.

“Krista! How are you?” Kathleen asked, holding on to her hat as she looked up at the
big, blond girl above them.

“I’m good. And you?”

“On a beautiful day like this, how could I be anything but fine,” Kathleen said brightly.
“This is my friend, Joyce Tabachnik.”

“Hello, Mrs. Tabachnik.”

“What are your plans for the fall?” Kathleen asked.

“Salem State.”

“Oh, good for you. I’m so proud of you.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Krista said shyly.

“Let me know how it goes, will you? I’ll even help you with your homework.”

Krista laughed. “You were always so nice to me.”

“That’s only what you deserve, dear. Good luck. Come see us, okay?”

Krista picked up her megaphone and answered, “Bye, Mrs. Levine.”

“Beautiful girl,” said Joyce.

“Lucky she’s alive.”

“Was she sick?”

“Her stepfather used to beat her up. She was the most defeated little thing as a kid.
Totally convinced she was stupid. And then in high school, she got involved with an
abusive boy. I was really afraid for her.”

“She stayed in touch with you?”

“She used to come back every few months to see Helen Holden, her third-grade teacher.
I tutored her a few times, but it was Helen who really stayed in touch.”

“I envy the way people know you around here.”

“Mostly it’s a good thing,” Kathleen said. “Though I do wish I could just walk into
a store without someone asking me how my treatment is going.”

Instead of going directly back to the bridge, Joyce and Kathleen walked toward the
receding sea through shallow water, already lukewarm from the sun. “It’s going to
be a perfect day,” Kathleen said. “I wish I didn’t have to sleep through most of it.
I didn’t fall asleep until three last night, and then I had to wake up before seven.”
Joyce took her arm as they walked back to the bridge.

“So what’s happening with the Holy Mother at your house?”

Joyce hadn’t even looked at Mary when she’d arrived, but she promised, again, to call
Father Sherry about “getting rid of Her Holiness.”

Kathleen laughed at the phrase. “Do you have time to walk tomorrow?”

“I have nothing but time this week. I’m staying up here until Nina comes back from
Hyannis.”

When Kathleen got home, she found a breathless message on the answering machine. “Oh
my God, Kathleen, someone painted Mary! She’s all white and shiny. High gloss! Jesus,
I mean, oh, shit. And there are more flowers. Kathleen, I think I’ve got Lourdes going
on in my front yard.”