Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (31 page)

Funny, but it doesn’t hurt quite as much as it once did.

I hear a shout and turn. Tom’s picking up trash from the rotting pilings of an abandoned dock, shoving soda cans and a pizza box into a plastic bag. Hands in my pockets, I walk toward him.

“Think I should salvage this?” He points to the skeletal remains of a long-dead Christmas tree caught between two poles and decorated with driftwood and kelp.

“Beats the hell out of a plastic one.”

“How’s that agency working out?” he says.

“Fine,” I say, “and thanks for the lead.”

If the job in New London comes through, I’ll do the agency work at night, on the weekends. I can’t afford not to. I’m slipping behind again. The bank just sent me a letter, a polite reminder about money owed, and I dread to think of the one I’ll get in February from the loan shark.

Tom dismisses my gratitude with a wave. “I did them a favor, not you.” He stoops to pick up a newspaper, straightens, then invites me for lunch. “I make a killer macaroni and cheese.”

I grin. “In that case, you’re on.”

Sands Point

December 2011

“You never answered my question,” Tom says.

“Which one?”

“The reason you don’t like me.”

I choke on my last mouthful of food. Why the hell did he have to go and spoil a perfectly nice lunch?

“If I promise not to bite, will you tell me?” Tom says. “More coffee?”

“No.” I stare at my plate. How the hell do I handle this?

“Come on,” Tom says. “What have I done to piss you off?”

I swallow hard. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I feel stupid,” I say, looking through the open door toward the fireplace with its mantel of photos.

He pushes back his chair, stands up. “Would you feel less stupid in my office?”

“No, it’s better in here.”

“Okay, so tell me,” he says, sitting again.

Short of running away, I don’t have much choice. I lay down my fork and stare out the window. Dunes, beach grass, Long Island Sound. “Nice view.”

“It’s the same as yours.”

Blushing furiously, I say, “I’ve got a really dumb hangup.”

Tom leans forward. “Is it kinky?”

“It’d be easier to explain if it was.”

“Try.”

It all comes out in a rush. “I have a problem with men who marry women half their age.”

His gray eyes bore into me. “That’s it?”

“Women young enough to be their daughters, granddaughters, even.” I pause. “If a woman snags a guy half her age, people call her a cradle-robber. What do they call a man who does the same thing?”

“Gay?”

I glare at him. “Men never marry women older than them.”

He sucks in his breath. “I did.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” My hands fly to my mouth. “Look, I’d better go. I’ve been thoughtless.” I stand and my chair falls backward and scrapes across the tile with a sound worse than nails on a blackboard. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

Tom says, “I think I can see your point, but I still don’t know why you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you. At least”—I gulp—“not any more.”

“Why not?” He doesn’t wait for a reply, which is just as well because I haven’t got a clue what to say. “Oh, I get it.” His face crumples into laughter. “My God, now all that nonsense in your kitchen finally makes sense.”

The door from the mud room bangs open. Molly and the dogs arrive on a tidal wave of energy.

“Grampy,” she says, flinging herself into his lap. “I’m going to misery school with Tyler.”

“You are?” Tom says. “Can I come too?”

Molly tugs at his beard. “You’re too old.”

Carrie slides sideways through the door with an armload of bags. Tom takes one from her, sets it on the counter. “Molly’s right,” he says, winking at me. “I’m too old. Much too old.”

I blush even deeper.

“And,” he goes on, with an air of complacency, “I shall go on growing older, disgracefully.”

“Dad,” Carrie says, “you already have.”

I race home along the beach because I can see Ed Bigelow’s truck bouncing down my dirt road for our two o’clock appointment. He sets up his ladder and climbs on my roof, pokes around lifting shingles and shaking his head, then delivers his verdict.

“You can patch it up and pray for mild weather, or play it safe with a new one,” he says.

Bloody hell. “What happens if I do neither?”

Ed whacks a stray shingle into place with his hammer, then another. Some are curled like slices of stale bread; others went missing in the Thanksgiving storm.

“It might last the winter,” he says, climbing down. “But if we get a couple of nor’easters like last year, you’ll be shoveling snow from your bedroom.”

Ed leaves me with a written estimate for a new roof—slightly less than I paid for my car—and tells me not to wait because once the weather gets too bad for his guys to work outside, I’ll be out of luck till next spring. Oh yes, he’ll have to repoint the chimney as well because if he doesn’t, it’ll probably fall down and my gutters are a disgrace. Do I want new ones?

Maybe I’ll move to Mongolia and live in a yurt. Do they require chimneys? Gutters?

Sighing, I tramp inside and pick up the phone. No sense procrastinating. The folks at Loans-R-Us are delighted to help and in less than five minutes, I’ve almost doubled my short-term debt.

Within a week, men with crowbars are ripping shingles off my roof. Hammers crash and boots stomp above my head. To escape the noise, I grab a coat and walk to the main road. Tom’s SUV idles at the curb while he empties his mailbox. He nods hello and leans against the fender, thumbing through a fistful of envelopes. I pull Christmas cards from my box, more bills with
PAST DUE
stamped on the front, and a letter from Beatrice’s biotech company. Probably that insurance form I’m supposed to fill out and return right away.

Tom throws his mail in the car, climbs inside and lowers the window. “Heard any more about your book?”

“Those last three editors are taking a long time to say no.”

“Have you thought about entering a competition?”

I glance at the Publisher’s Clearinghouse envelope in my hand. “Like a sweepstake?”

“No,” Tom says. “A writing contest.”

“I’m not ready for a Pulitzer.”

“Few people are,” Tom says, grinning. “But there’s an article in last Sunday’s paper about an award for children’s writers. If I can find it, I’ll bring it over.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s that agency been treating you? Any problems?”

“None,” I say. “Things are a bit slow at the moment.” A serious understatement. The work’s fizzled out and probably won’t heat up again till the spring, but I’m not about to tell Tom. Don’t want to sound ungrateful for his help.

“Then I’ll catch you later,” he says, and drives off.

I walk back to my cottage to find the hammers have ceased. The roofers are taking a break, drinking coffee and smoking. Styrofoam cups litter the driveway and cigarette butts sprout like birthday candles from a bucket of sand. Wood shingles and broken bricks lie in heaps on the lawn. My bushes sag beneath the weight of tarpaulins and bent gutters.

Ed’s foreman assures me his men will clean up the mess.

After tossing the junk mail, I set my bills to one side and open the cards. Angels in braces from my dentist, a reindeer with its leg in a cast from Zachary’s vet, and from Tom, a card with eight birds perched on telephone wires like the notes of a musical score.
God nest ye merry gentlemen
, say the words beneath. I smile and open the envelope from my future employer, read the letter, and—

What the fuck?

They’re sorry, but the position I interviewed for is no longer available and they wish me every success finding employment elsewhere.

That’s it?

Forget about us and good luck for the future?

My body slumps as if it’s just been released from a corset. I drop the letter and it lands beside a card from the bank wishing me a joyous holiday season.

Does Beatrice know about this? I call her office but she’s as baffled as me, and no, there isn’t a hiring freeze, as far as she knows. She’ll contact a friend in HR and try to figure out what’s going on.

Doors slam, someone laughs, and I hear the rattle and clank of men climbing ladders. The hammers start up again, pounding nails till my head hurts. I can’t deal with this. Hell, I can’t even think. I have an urgent need to do something, but what? Where do I begin? Where do I find another job? Another life?

The pile of bills on my table seems to double in size.

Is Lizzie home from work yet? It’s two o’clock, no three. She’ll be in her office. I punch in her number, leave a message, then sit down in front of my computer to surf the Web, track down yet more places to send my résumé. It’s too close to the holidays. I won’t find anything this side of the New Year. Probably won’t find anything the other side, either.

I lean back in my chair. Spin around twice, kick off my shoes. Now what the hell do I do?

Take in a boarder?

Sell my house?

Charming cottage on the beach. Fabulous view. New roof.

Should I mention bad plumbing?

Lizzie calls at four thirty. I’m still at my desk, turning over possibilities, trying to fight my way through this. I’m screwed. Totally screwed. I have no reserves, no place to go but down. Right now, if I could afford it, I’d drink myself stupid.

“You sound a bit ragged,” Lizzie says. “What’s wrong?”

“I lost the job.”

There’s a pause. “With the agency?”

“No, the one in New London.”

“Why?”

I read her the letter. She lets out a sigh. “Jill, I’m sorry. This is shitty bad luck.”

No, it’s bad planning. If I hadn’t been blinded by my own fantasies, my own foolish, middle-aged illusions, I wouldn’t be in this mess. I’d still have a business and I wouldn’t be heading for bankruptcy.

“I really needed that job,” I say, in carefully measured tones, “because I owe the bank rather a lot of money.”

“Don’t we all?”

“There’s more.”

“Credit cards?” Lizzie says, sounding worried.

“Worse.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No, but I will anyway.”

“Oh, shit,” Lizzie says, when I’m through explaining about the loan shark. “There was a Dean at the college who borrowed money like this. She missed a couple of payments and the bastards terminated her loan.”

I take a deep breath. “What did she do?”

“Sold her house to pay them off,” Lizzie says. “Jill, don’t do anything rash. There’s got to be another way.”

Except, right now, I’m not seeing it. Everything I have is tied up in this house, but if I sell it and pay off my debt, how much will I have left? Enough to buy a condo? Not around here. Rent an apartment? No, that’s worse than chucking money down the drain.

My cottage.

The one my ex-husband inherited twenty years ago from an aunt he never knew and could have cared less about.

For me, it was love at first sight, a dream come true, but Richard declared the cottage beyond redemption and insisted it be put on the market right away. “Why do we need a hovel with no bathroom when we can fly to Palm Beach and stay in a hotel?” he said.

One of the floorboards gave way under his foot.

Through the cottage’s broken window, I stared across a wilderness of weeds toward sand dunes shaped like portobello mushrooms. Beyond them, fringed by beach grass, lay the frosted blue water of Long Island Sound.

Buckets and spades, sandcastles, children playing in the surf.

My boys will love this.

“With the money we get for this dump,” Richard said, brushing the dust off his slacks, “I could buy that Mercedes I saw last week.”

I didn’t bother to point out his BMW was less than a year old. Instead, I watched a beetle crawl along what was left of the windowsill and calculated the driving time between our house and this quiet corner of Connecticut. Two hours, maybe less if the traffic wasn’t bad and my station wagon didn’t overheat and force me to stop along the way.

So, while my husband flew off on business trips, the boys and I drove east to a shack with an outside toilet and a leaky roof. We explored the beach at low tide and I taught them the Latin names for blue crabs, ospreys, and quahogs. We collected driftwood and shells, and reveled in sunsets shot with mauve, pink, and pewter no painter would ever dare copy. Then, after timeless days spent camping out, we’d roll up our sleeping bags and return to the pristine house in the neighborhood my husband had picked out where I’d bathe the boys in the first hot water they’d experienced in over a week, have a quick shower, and be ready with a tray of drinks when Richard came through the door. He rarely asked about our trips to the cottage; he also never got around to selling it, thank God.

And now, I contemplate the home I created from the shambles of my divorce, this shack I rescued from a wrecker’s ball. For months, the boys and I suffered splinters from walking barefoot on plywood floors. We coped with a cantankerous toilet and took showers outside while I learned to use power tools, drive a straight nail, and mix cement. I tore down walls and rebuilt them. I caulked windows, installed light fixtures, and hung doors. My hands bear the scars of mistakes and success, and I savor the hours, the years I’ve lived and breathed in this space, raising my sons and watching them turn into men.

By myself.

I was ready, finally, to share it with someone special.

An elaborate cobweb stretches from my bookshelf to the curtain rod. A large spider crouches at its center, one of those hairy jobs with racing stripes and hobnailed boots. Colin would’ve had a fit if he’d seen this. “Every smudge has eight legs,” he’d said, “when I’m not wearing my glasses.”

My heart sinks, but my hands aren’t quick enough to catch it.