Kindred Spirits

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  It was Carol who insisted that all their martinis be made of the highest-quality spirits. In her opinion, nothing less than velvety Jewel of Russia or Chopin would do for vodka, though Beth, who could be just as much of a snob, was satisfied with good old Smirnoff. Mary Kay didn’t give a tinker’s damn as long as it wasn’t gin, which made her depressed, while Lynne was partial to Hornitos tequila simply because it reminded her of her honeymoon with Sean in Cancún.

  She cracked open the tequila and added it to ice in the martini shaker along with a shot of Cointreau, some lime juice, limeade, and a dash of Blue Curaçao for color, following from memory DeeDee’s recipe for the exotic Blue Martini—turns strangers into friends and, therefore, turns failures into triumphs. Good icebreaker for tough crowds.

  Taking a taste, she was instantly whisked to the Mexican beach where she and Sean had frolicked, swimming in sparkling turquoise waters and lazing on the sand under the breeze of gently waving palm trees, steel drums playing softly in the background. She could still smell the coconut oil. She could feel Sean rubbing her tanned back and leading her by the hand to their secluded bungalow, where he proceeded to slowly and seductively untie each tiny bow on her bikini.

  So fit. So young. So completely sure that their vitality and youth would last forever. Such a gift.

  Having shaken vigorously, she poured out the drink and stood back to admire its dazzling aqua beauty. How could a drink that pretty, that sexy, play a part in something so lethal?

  Mustn’t think.

  She grabbed a quilt off her hospital bed and went through the dining area, where family photos of better times dotted her china cabinet. Kevin and Kyle as naked babies splashing in the bath, her wedding day with Sean holding her as if he’d never let her go, the boys eager on their first day of school neatly dressed in matching khakis and wetted hair, the whole family blueberry picking, flying kites on Cape Cod, prom, graduation. Sean and the boys hugging her on Christmas morning, their last together. She carefully lay each on its face, putting them to bed.

  Hers hadn’t been an “exciting life” in terms of accomplishments. She hadn’t earned a million dollars or become the next Laura Ingalls Wilder or married the prince of England, as her girlhood plans had presumed. But surveying the tiny house that she had decorated with her homemade curtains and colorful quilts of purple, red, blue, and green; her watercolors and oil paintings; and even her students’ clumsy clay models, it had been a good life, rich with love and laughter. She was glad for the choices she’d made.

  A zap of pain shooting up her spine pushed her back on track, even if the sliding door off the dining room to the screened porch wasn’t. Sean really needed to fix that thing. It was insane that they’d paid all that money to have it installed just over a year ago and already it was stuck. She tried to yank the door shut by forcing it back and forth, but it wouldn’t budge. Screw it. One more thing she wouldn’t have to worry about—again.

  She collapsed onto the fancy Swedish divan Carol had sent her and let out a sigh, stretching her slippered feet as her aching body melted into its patented design.

  Craning her neck to sip her martini, she spilled a bit on her hateful robe and concluded there was not much else Sean or anyone, really, envied about her situation. But if there was bitterness in this thought, the sunny tequila and Cointreau took care of that, the martini’s blue fire rippling to her toes. She was getting warmer, though the air was colder. She pulled the quilt around her shoulders to stop the shivering.

  Her first blue martini finished, she downed the second, poured a third, and decided it was now or never.

  The oral morphine in the plastic specimen jar was thirty milligrams of instant death. If her oncologist, Dr. Bikashini, knew, he’d go ballistic, she thought, laughing to herself, slightly drunk perhaps. Old Bikashini had doled out the pain meds like a miser, drily explaining the dangers of developing a narcotics addiction. Right. As if becoming a junkie were a terminal cancer patient’s biggest problem.

  With a quick prayer, she knocked back half the entire specimen jar. It was incredibly bitter, as death should be. Gripping the edge of her divan, she managed to swallow the rest, chasing it with the martini. The rush of the morphine and alcohol was so intense she began to shake in panic. Perhaps this is it! So soon? No, no, no.

  She decided she should call 9-1-1. Forget the embarrassment, just get the damn medics here to pump her stomach. But then what? The outcome would be the same.

  Only worse.

  Tears came to her eyes, she couldn’t help it, thinking of her sons and her husband, even her abiding cat snoring on a nearby chair. The Brezinski boys next door ran out to play kickball in the dark as their mother flicked on the back light. A howl of wind blew dead leaves against the screens of her porch. Somewhere a dog barked.

  Please, she begged God. If it is Your will.

  Lynne had always passionately defended life, had fought for it with courage and determination. Until recently, she believed the end was God’s to decide, not hers. But then years of poison and pain and the elimination of options that is the hallmark of terminal cancer treatment led her to one last conclusion.

  She refused to accept an ending that would destroy her sons’ memory of their mother as a healthy, strong woman and would drag her family into depression and inching despair and bankruptcy. She would not let cancer call the last shot. If there was nothing left to do, then she would go on her terms.

  Shh, she heard Mary Kay whisper as clearly as if she were kneeling by her side, felt her stroke her forehead. Let it be, honey, let it be.

  Lynne did feel sleepy and heavy, sinking deeper into Carol’s soft sofa like a baby falling asleep in her mother’s arms, the aroma of Beth’s brisket snaking from the broken door, enveloping her in a motherly hug.

  They were here with her in spirit if not in body. She knew they’d come. Lynne could sense them holding her, supporting her without judgment or pity as they had so many, many times before, buoying her with their wisdom and humor and boundless love. Her head began to buzz like the whistle of a teakettle. She was going under. This was it.

  And so, because she could not bear to think of things that were too painful, of her sons and husband whom she loved with all her heart, she slid under the quilt and remembered the first time Beth, Carol, Mary Kay, and she cupped their martinis and vowed to preserve and uphold the endangered cocktail—the night the Ladies Society for the Conservation of Martinis was formed—and let her friends carry her home.

  Chapter Two

  Alone, at last.

  Carol depressed the button on the custom-made blinds and shut out the honking horns of the Fifth Avenue rush hour below. Dimming the lights, she opened the cherry walnut doors to the private bar and, throwing protocol aside, proceeded to mix herself a very dirty martini, three olives, splash of vermouth.

  She didn’t often drink alone—at least, not in the office. As the only attorney at Deloutte Watkins specializing in fertility law, she and her clients didn’t have much use for alcohol. She was in the business of making miracles. Not martinis.

  Sliding into her large leather chair, she propped her feet on the desk and slipped off her $800 Stella McCartney pumps that fell with a soft thud onto the thick mauve carpet. The martini—cold, clear and powerful—rested gently between her long, delicate fingers as she slowly brought the glass to her lips.

  She closed her eyes and braced herself for the initial shock of one hundred proof expensive British gin, relishing the satisfying jolt, the instant, if momentary, burst of headiness. As the effects of the martini rippled through her knotted muscles, untying them one by one, she let the truth sink in.

  Lynne did it.

  Carol cocked her head, impressed. “Dying with dignity” had become such a buzz phrase it was hard to take seriously these days. She would hope that, faced with debilitating illness and pain, she could spare her friends and family by quietly and civilly ending it all. It would be the right thing to do.

  And yet, she couldn’
t imagine taking those final steps, allowing herself to pass that point of no return. She surveyed her collection of framed photos of dimpled babies in the arms of their overjoyed parents, clients who’d mortgaged their homes, begged relatives for loans, worked second jobs in order to afford the technology to create life when nature had failed its most basic duty. Intentional death was so counterintuitive to the human drive.

  She shuddered and took another sip, debating only briefly the pros and cons of reaching into her right-hand desk drawer for the ancient pack of Marlboro Lights she retained for emergencies. There were forty-three known carcinogens in the average American cigarette. Would lighting up be a form of dishonor?

  Nah, she could hear Lynne say. One’s not going to kill you. Besides, I never smoked.

  True. Lynne never smoked. Carol removed a slim cigarette thinking, not for the first time, how unfair it was that some people got away with smoking and committing all manner of sins without suffering any repercussions, while Lynne, so virtuous, had been inexplicably cut down.

  Lynne had rarely indulged in anything forbidden except when the group got together for martinis. She was the last person you’d expect to develop a rare and particularly virulent cancer, not with her daily exercise and organic vegetables, all of which helped her fight for so long and so well. For a while there, it seemed, by gum, little Lynne Flannery had beat the damn thing on pure pluck.

  But cancer waits. It lurks like a spider in its dark corner, pacing time until its victim can struggle no more, then descends quickly to deliver the final, lethal bite.

  Unfair.

  That was the word she and Beth and Mary Kay used over and over during that afternoon’s round of phone calls, rehashing every detail until there was nothing more to say. Mary Kay had recounted how she and her boyfriend, alarmed that Tiffany had been given the night off, tried calling Lynne the next morning and when there was no answer, rushed to her house where they found her cold body on the divan. They’d clucked their tongues over poor Sean up at the cabin after Lynne insisted he get a jump on the Columbus Day weekend traffic and leave on Thursday instead of Friday. They mused about the guilt he must have felt for letting her con him into leaving her side, how unfortunate it was that the boys had to learn from their college deans their mother had died.

  Then they discussed the funeral plans, the menu, the flowers, and, at last, how weird it would be for Carol to return to Marshfield, the first time in two years. She hadn’t been back since the dramatic departure that had made her the subject of gossip for weeks.

  By the following week, it’d be over. Carol would return to New York and get on with her life as if Lynne had never lived.

  She watched the smoke mingle with her memories of her friend, rising to the heavens. “To you, baby,” she whispered, presenting her glass for an invisible toast. “Wherever you are.”

  There was a soft knock. Since her secretary, Janis, would know better than to interrupt when the smell of cigarettes wafted from under her door, it had to be Scott.

  Scott was the Deloutte in Deloutte Watkins, the saint who’d mentored her straight out of law school and rewarded her with an associate’s position after she passed the New York Bar. When she and Jeff decided to move to Connecticut to raise their family, Scott stoically wished her well and promised there’d always be a spot waiting for her should she ever change her mind. As if she would ever think of returning to the law, she’d scoffed to Jeff.

  But Scott knew her better than she knew herself. Once Amanda and Jonathan were teenagers with their own lives and activities, no longer eager for their mother to meet them at school or hold their hands as they crossed the street, Carol began to grow restless. Feeling useless and, she would later realize, probably clinically depressed, she called up Scott and, over an exquisite lunch of beef carpaccio salad, launched into a monologue about how her days had blurred into years of carpools and laundry and school committees, how she’d lost her identity, had lost her reason for getting out of bed. Much to her horror, she couldn’t stop the words from flowing until Scott reached across the table, took her hand, and asked if part-time, two days a week in the New York office, one day at home, would fit the bill.

  “Yes,” she’d said with a sigh, nearly melting with gratitude. “Yes.”

  Now she was a junior partner, putting in twelve-hour days while Scott was a dashing widower, physically fit, though graying at the temples. So far, their dates had been quiet dinners and nothing more.

  So far.

  Scott pulled up a chair and tented his fingers, judiciously keeping his disapproval of her cigarette to himself. “How’re you holding up?”

  “Numb.” She yanked down her skirt. “The funeral’s a week from today, in the morning. I’m staying to clean out her closet with Mary Kay and Beth, but then I’m hightailing it out of there as soon as the last box is packed and taped.”

  “Not eager to return to the old stomping ground?”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing my friends. That’s it.” She tapped an ash, the sickening apprehension returning as she considered what lay ahead.

  She did not relish making an appearance in Marshfield and dealing with the stares and whispers. Few in town had not heard the rumors about how she’d stormed out of her seemingly solid marriage, simply abandoned her charming pediatrician husband and comfortable house for no valid reason.

  “Worried about seeing Jeff again?” He regarded her without judgment. Scott was not one to let jealousy get the better of him. He was too much of a lawyer to succumb to such a barbaric emotion and he was too much of a good lawyer to consider the possibility of inadequacy.

  Carol studied her cigarette. It would be so easy to nod and say, Yes, it’s Jeff. Scott would see right through her, though, and then he’d ask more questions. There was no choice but to come clean.

  “Not exactly.” She took another sip of the martini, which unfortunately was growing warm. “The night I left Jeff. . . something happened.”

  “You said you had a huge fight.”

  “Right, but. . .” She was going to come off like such a jerk. An ache spread across her forehead, sign of impending doom. “Before that, though, there was an incident at the school board meeting.”

  Carol chose her words carefully. “I was extremely tired that night. It was the day the Barnegat decision was overturned and, like I said, Jeff and I had been sniping at each other for months and not really talking. I’d been begging him to go with me to marriage counseling, but”—she took a last draw—“he couldn’t stand the idea of outsiders weighing in on our business. He insisted we should work it out ourselves, privately.”

  Scott remained silent. Carol stubbed out her cigarette, remembering how she’d been so helpless and alone.

  “The last thing I needed was to be harassed by some overly earnest parent demanding another food ban. We were already fed up with eliminating peanut butter and vending machine candy and soda, anything with nuts. It was getting to the point of ridiculous.

  “Anyway, this mother, Michelle Richardson, stood up at the meeting and started lashing out about how irresponsible the board was for condoning. . .” She paused because it seemed so silly. “Bake sales.”

  Scott grinned. “Bake sales?”

  “You know, the usual standard fund-raising fare—chocolatechip cookies, brownies, cupcakes. The bread and butter, not to pun, of the PTA. I guess she wanted them to raise money by selling carrot sticks or apples instead of food loaded with empty calories, I don’t know. Anyway, I lost it and burst out laughing. Then Michelle called me ignorant and said she had half a mind to file a lawsuit. So, I shot back a few choice epithets. Not my finest hour.”

  “What did you say?”

  Let’s see. What had she said, exactly? Carol leaned against her hand, remembering the look of shock on Michelle Richardson’s face. “Entitled soccer mom. Trustfundarian. Something about suggesting she get a real job instead of bothering the board with hysterical causes that were totally pointless. You get the gist.�
�

  Looking back, what Carol saw was a crazed woman under pressure, her complexion splotchy from lack of sleep, eyes red from exhaustion. And that woman wasn’t Michelle Richardson, it was her, Carol Goodworthy, hitting rock bottom.

  She’d conned herself into believing she’d fooled everyone with her expensive suits and cool composure. Surely, no one knew that the dynamo who chaired the school board and commuted to New York to work as a high-powered attorney while still managing to deadhead her champion Barbara Bush roses and bake a mean strawberry pie was an absolute wreck. Carol took pride in being so disciplined that no one suspected that she hadn’t slept with her husband for months, that she would spring wide awake at two a.m. only to ramble around her big house like some sort of vampire yearning for rest. Much, much needed rest.

  If she’d been able to rest, if she and Jeff had been able to sit down and talk about what was going wrong in their marriage, the façade wouldn’t have crumbled. She wouldn’t have taken out her frustration on a well-meaning mother of five.

  And now, because of Lynne’s funeral, Carol was forced to go home and face Michelle, face all of them. What must they think of her? She rubbed the ache that had now blossomed into sharp, stabbing pain. What must they call her behind her back?

  There was a chuckle and Carol snapped out of her reverie to find Scott at the sink washing out the ashtray. “What?”

  “Bake sales.” He shook water out of the dish and turned it upside down. “A life thrown into chaos over cupcakes. I’m sorry, Carol, but talk about pointless. Leaving your twenty-year marriage over a fight about something so inane—that’s pointless.”

  “It might seem so now, but it wasn’t then. When I got home that night, Jeff was pissed. He said I’d gone too far and that working at the firm had turned me into a cold, hard bitch who constantly crossexamined him, our children, even innocent neighbors like Michelle. Made me impossible to love, he said.” She bit her lower lip, willing herself not to slip into the velvet trap of self-pity, a hole she’d visited far too often. “There was no one on my side, Scott. No one.”