by Jo Barney
I tuck the phone under my chin and pour myself a cup of coffee. What has this to do with me? I don’t know what a beta blocker is. The name atenolol is only vaguely familiar. “And is this important, now that he’s gone? My husband was closemouthed about his medications. I know very little about what he was taking. How could this affect the decision about cause of death?”
The line is silent and then detective clears his throat, as if he’s just taken as bite of sandwich, his lunch, I’m guessing. I glance at my watch, hoping Kathleen’s not trying to reach me.
“I’ll let you know if anything new shows up.”
When I cradle the phone, I see I have no messages. So I can’t tell an absent Kathleen about the new mystery the policeman has presented.
Chapter Twelve
It’s Monday. I check the time. If Kathleen started at 6:30, she’d be walking by the next block before 7:00, and it is 7:05. She apparently isn’t walking again today. I head out by myself, just as I did last week. Walking alone is okay, but not as okay as walking and talking, the blocks slipping by unnoticed. Soon I stop being disappointed at Kathleen’s abandonment and become worried about it and turn back.
Brian, when he finally answers my messages on his business phone, says that Kathleen has been very involved in the children’s school play. She will be freed up by the end of the week, he is sure. “Is there a problem?” he asks. I can hear papers rustling on the desk in front of him.
“Only you,” I want to answer, “you and your damn smell. What’s with you?” but I just say that Kathleen and I have a project that I am looking forward to getting back to when Kathleen has time. “I’m enjoying her company,” I add, and the line is silent for a beat or two until Brian says, “Good” and hangs up.
Something is wrong. I’ll go it alone, this search for Art, without my partner, just as I did on this morning’s walk. Whatever is happening with Kathleen is as important to her as the contents of the WHY? envelope are to me. Perhaps, in this past week our friendship has foundered on a lack of trust like we’ve talked about. Not my own usual distrustfulness, but Kathleen’s this time. No matter the cause, I would give anything for a knock at the door, her “Mom” at this moment.
I slip my hand into the manila envelope. I pull out the dollar bill with the telephone number on it and reach for the phone.
My fingers twitch as I dial and listen for someone to answer. The phone rings four times, then a bell tinkles, and I hear, “This call is being transferred…” A second voice, melodic and self-assured, says, “Washington, CDC social worker. I’m not here right now. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”
I can’t come up with anything to say and hang up. A female voice, mature but younger than I, beautiful, hair lying silkily on her shoulders, skinny, dressed in flowing silk, manicured nails and slinky stiletto sandals. Perhaps the sight of my own vein-crossed hands clutching the receiver has brought on this image, and the fact that I haven’t shaved my legs in months, let alone dealt with the fungus in the toenail poking out from my slipper. I sit down, tuck my hairy legs under the table, lean on my elbows to steady my nerves, breathe deeply once, twice, and I dial again. I ask the lovely electronic voice if she knows Art Finlay, and if so, I, a friend of his, have an important message for her. I add my phone number and hang up.
Maybe I shouldn’t have given my number. Maybe this woman already knows the number and will know I’m a wife, not a friend. But Art never received calls at home. I glance out the kitchen window and spot a spark of green popping out of one the pots on the terrace. The hellebore is doing its winter thing and probably needs some encouragement. I push aside the screen door, set the phone on the step, and try to remember where I put the fish oil. I am finished feeding the hellebore and the crocuses that are also stirring optimistically in the warming air when the phone rings.
The woman’s voice is not as calm as it had been on the message. “This is Ginnie Washington. You have a message for me? From Art? Where is he?”
“Art is dead.”
“Dead? What do you mean?”
I inhale, then let the words come. “Ginnie, is it? This is Edith, Art’s wife. He died weeks ago, heart attack, it seems. This number was written on a dollar bill I found in his pocket. I was curious…”
“I saw him a month or so ago. He was fine.”
What sounds like either a gasp or a sob wobbles over the line. “God, I’m shocked. His wife? He never mentioned you. I thought he was a widower or something. Grown son, right?” Ginnie stops talking, maybe waiting for an answer.
I mostly hear the “never mentioned” part and let that sink in before I say, “I need to get a few answers to questions that Art’s death have brought up. For instance, why did Art need a social worker? You are just one mystery of several he’s left dangling. I apparently didn’t know my husband very well. I need your help.”
“Like?”
“Would you meet me for coffee today or tomorrow? Somewhere convenient for you? It won’t take long.”
“I’ll be out of town until next week but I want to talk to you when I’m back. Maybe Monday afternoon?” Ginnie seems to be flipping her appointment book, then she adds, “I just can’t remember giving him my number, just my card. And I don’t have his number either. Perhaps Latisha wrote it down.”
A silent beat. “You’re right. We should talk. Monday at ten, at Cuppa’s. Do you know it?”
I have noticed Cuppa’s ads in the Oregonian. “Yes, in the Oyster district, right? Ten is good. I’ll be wearing a red jacket. And you?”
“I’ll be taking a break from work. Probably my purple suit. See you in the morning.” Ginnie, wearer of purple, is gone. On high heels, I bet. Latisha.
I’m dying to tell Kathleen about Ginnie. And Latisha. I dial. No answer. Another mystery, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve immersion in Winston and Meg’s school activities. I hadn’t walked this morning, really, only a few blocks. I could walk up Fremont Street, over to Shaver, and by Evergreen Grade School, casually, as if I were just meandering by, not expecting to run into Kathleen, of course. But if I did, perhaps I could ask my daughter-in-law what in the hell is going on. No, not like that. “I’ve missed you,” I’ll say. “I have a purple suit to tell you about.”
I put on my shoes, my wool jacket, push my red knit cap in my pocket, and head out. When I get to the school, its parking lot is empty except for one car, probably the custodian’s, the windows dark, the playground enlivened by three kids in puffy down jackets climbing on the play structure. Their mother probably doesn’t trust warm January days, I think, as I step up and try the door.
“Teacher training day,” a child’s voice informs me. “No school!”
Rain drops splatter on the sidewalk, and I pull out my cap. One thing you can trust in this town is that it will rain in January, warm or not. I hope the three kids’ jackets are waterproof. Down takes forever to dry. I know about wet down jackets. I think of my old friend Lynne and realize I need to phone her.
Chapter Thirteen
I had been so excited about the trip. Twenty years ago. Lynne had finally divorced Tim when she could no longer take his massive bi-polar bouts resulting from his refusal to take his meds. In a celebration of the first divorce in our coffee klatch, she invited me and Eleanor to join her at a mountain lodge for a weekend of cross-country skiing. Of the three of us, only Eleanor had actually skied before, but the lodge was offering lessons. Off with the old and on with the new, the invitation read and even at forty-five that slogan was meaningful to all three of us, now that our children no longer needed tending. However, Eleanor’s daughter was scheduled to have her baby that week, a new kind of tending, and so only Lynne and I went, I wearing borrowed clothes from Eleanor, including her ski pants and a down jacket.
Art had sent me off with, “Don’t expect me to take care of you when you come home with a broken leg.” And probably a ha.
In the late morning after we’d driven to the lodge, we got the maps a
nd skis, and headed out, following the finger of the tanned young woman from the ski shop who got us organized and sent us toward White Horse Gulch. “A great place to begin,” she called after us.
“I thought all we had to do was relax and glide,” I complained, my thighs burning, after a few hours of trudging uphill through snow, my poles bracing a crumbling stance. Lynne moaned and flopped sideways against a snow hump. We agreed it was time to go back to the lodge and have a glass of wine and maybe some French fries. We had earned a reward or two, we told each other.
“Then we can go out and try again,” Lynne added. Two glasses of wine later, we decided to wait to ski until the next day. “Shouldn’t do too much all at once,” Lynne said, signaling the waiter. We ordered a couple of hamburgers. Along with the burgers came two men in fuzzy after-ski boots and wind-burned faces.
“Care if we join you?
Lynne beamed. “Of course not.”
I felt a little leery, having taught my child to never talk to strangers, but the grin on Lynne’s face made me shut my mouth, and the men pulled out chairs and ordered another round of drinks as they introduced themselves. They were fiftyish, good-looking in a men-on-a-break kind of way, tanned, oiled, good teeth. They laughed and talked about themselves, and we listened and wondered where this would lead. At least, I did. Lynne seemed not to care as the good-humored man sitting next to her patted her arm.
“You’ve probably haven’t seen the suites here at the lodge, have you?” he asked, after learning our room featured bunk beds and a bathroom down the hall. “Come on. I’ll show you ours. It’s great.” Lynne nodded, and with that, he led my wide-eyed friend away.
“Another drink?” Ron, the man left at my side, signaled to the waiter although I had waved no more over my glass. Sipping at my refilled glass, I listened as Ron talked about his divorce, his kids who were angry at him, his loneliness. “I wasn’t meant to live alone,” he said. He was quiet for a moment, his hand wiping across his eyes. “Hell, I shouldn’t be talking to you like this.” He reached out for my wrist, touched it. “But you are a very good listener. Thank you.”
I realized I liked him, too.
He drained his mug and shoved back his chair. “I want to repay you. Let’s go out on my snowmobile and take a ride on the mountain.”
He wasn’t inviting me to his bedroom. “Okay, why not?” I answered, maybe a little disappointed.
Outside, bundled up in down jackets, we found his snowmobile lined up with others along the road. With a roar, we rolled away and crunched down a trail away from the lodge and into the woods. Ron waved at others moving on the same sort of machines as they passed. Red-cheeked and laughing, everyone seemed to be having a good time, and I laughed too, not releasing my hold on Ron’s waist. At first the cool breeze was exhilarating, and I was glad for my down jacket. An hour later the sky blackened, and the jacket got too warm. I wished I could let go of Ron to unzip it. “Getting muggy,” I yelled into his ear.
He shouted back over his shoulder, “Going to rain.” He stopped and I let go of him. “Looks like we got a temperature change. We should go back.”
I glanced ahead down the trail and saw that no one was in front of us or following us. The lodge had disappeared somewhere behind a high ridge. I grabbed Ron’s jacket as the snowmobile lurched into the softer snow and eased back onto the trail. We headed the way we had come, and I was disappointed.
Then the motor sputtered, and the snowmobile stopped growling. Ron got out, jiggled something, poked at the unmoving track. “Fuck. We’re out of gas.” His words were punctuated by a large splat of wet snow landing on his forehead. Both of us looked up, and I saw that what had been a lovely soft white blanket lying on the limbs of the evergreens along the trail was breaking apart, sloughing off, dropping to the ground all around us.
“We’re low on the mountain. The warm air hits here first, and—” He scanned the black sky. “—will probably bring some rain. Let’s start walking. Someone will come by and pick us up.” He took my arm and supported me until my legs got used to earth again.
Ron’s after-ski boots slipped and skidded in the melting snow with each step. My cross-country boots, too big, and my socks, heavy cotton, not wool, as I had been advised, squished juicily. Not talking, except for the occasional “You okay?” we sloshed along the trail. Huge drops of rain began beating on my hood. Minutes later, I was drenched to the skin.
“I’m really cold,” I whimpered.
Ron took my hand and pulled me toward a low cave under the limbs of a small pine, and we crawled into it. The cold ground was still frozen, and soon I was shivering so hard I couldn’t talk. When I closed my eyes, I had a fleeting vision of a little girl who died curled up in the snow. I could almost feel the stiff pages of my grandma’s old book, a sad tale meant to make kids cry. In the drawing, the dead little girl had looked quite peaceful. Perhaps I will be, too, I thought. Anything would be better than the shuddering my body was doing right then.
“Here. Take my coat.” Ron pulled his arms out of his wet jacket and laid it across my back. “I got you into this. I need to leave you here, go find help.”
“Absolutely not!” My words stuttered out between frozen lips. “Not alone! We can share our coats and sweaters.” Another scene from different survival story surfaced. “Warm bodies. I read about this.” I began to unzip my soaked jacket, and he asked, “Are you sure?” At my screech of a yes, he took off his wool shirt, I pulled my sweater over my head, and when we had bared our chests, we wrapped our discarded clothes over us. I clung to him, pressing myself against him, tepid skin against tepid skin, the both of us swaddled in wet garments.
We didn’t move and didn’t talk as darkness settled in. The evening air cooled, and our chests offered little warmth. I was almost dozing, imagining Art’s ha when he heard the news of my freezing to death on a mountain. Suddenly headlights pierced through the tree boughs, and we heard familiar voices call our names. We stumbled out, dragging pieces of clothing behind us, and we were greeted by Lynne and the suite-guy. “We found you!” Lynn exclaimed; then she noticed our near-naked bodies, and she threw her coat and her arms around me.
A small note in the Oregonian a few days later spoke of the unusual warming of the lower altitudes of the mountain and mentioned several climbers who had been forced back down the mountain once they saw the rain coming, the possibility of slides imminent, and a couple on a snowmobile who had been rescued by friends after a malfunction of their machine. After Art read the article, touched the down jacket dripping into the bathtub as I lay in bed wracked with coughs and wheezes, and heard snatches of Lynne’s and my whispered phone calls, he put two and two together. He demanded to know who the man was.
“I don’t really know. Just someone we met and who invited me to go on his snowmobile. I don’t even know his last name.”
Art ha-ed. “I knew it was a mistake to let you go off like that, with a woman whose marriage was probably destroyed by tricks like this.” He kicked at the mattress, might have wanted to kick me, and snarled, “Slut.”
Even in the echo of that word, I could feel the almost-warm skin of a man who cared enough about me to hold me close and safe.
Now, only in late-night memory tours do I ever feel a twinge of guilt. Mostly only joy, actually.
Chapter Fourteen
This morning, the person who looks out at me when I brush my teeth is vaguely familiar. My hair is still curly, not sleek as Marie’s blow dryer made it, and it stands out an inch or so from the top of my head. But it is yellow, not white. I examine my face. I’ve always disliked old faces and young hair. And now I have them both. I pull back on the skin just under my ears, and the deep lines from the corners of my mouth to my jaw disappear; well, not quite, but the erosion that has taken place, beginning at the nostrils, lessens. A number of valleys, creek beds, head south from my lips toward my chin, a weather-worn landscape. Beautiful in the wild, not so good on an old lady. Older woman. Even my vocabulary needs adju
stment.
It’s time to call Lynne, make amends for my silence of the past weeks. And maybe have a little lunch, find out what she is doing, worrying about, glad about. Get back to that trust that once bloomed between coffee sips and wine glass clinks, sick husbands, bruised wrists, maybe not yet lost in the flurry of getting older, waving goodbye to children and children’s children on Christmas morning, letting go of life instead of grasping at it.
And if anyone knows facial landscapes, Lynne will.
“I’m thinking of having a little work done,” I tell her after a moment of joyful connection. “Not Barbara Walters, maybe just a tune-up. I need to move forward like you’ve always done, not backward like my face does.”
Lynne snickers, says, “Just a minute, Honey, this is important.” Back at the phone she explains, “He’s my Wednesday/Saturday guy. He sometimes takes a while to leave.”
“And you have a Tuesday/Sunday guy?”
“God, no.” Lynn lowers her voice. “I need time for myself, too, you know. So how are you?”
We haven’t talked since the week Art died and then only a hug and a “We’ll talk.” Which we haven’t until now. “I’m doing okay, working to settle things after Art’s…”
“The lawyer things are awful, aren’t they?”
“No, all that’s going okay. In fact, I’m hoping to let loose of Art entirely very soon. Besides just wanting to hear how you are, which makes me quite envious.” I need to change the subject, to go slower, to not talk about Art yet, move into Lynne’s zone. “I’m also wondering who your plastic surgeon is. If that’s not too presumptuous. I did notice your neck at Art’s celebration of life.”
