What's Become of Her

by Deb Caletti

  “Professor!” Lotto appears. “Phone for you. A woman. She says it’s urgent.”

  Weary rises quickly. He hurries out of the jungle, runs to the office.

  A woman. Urgent.

  It has to be her. It has to be Isabelle, making her own call from her own jungle. She’s done it! Oh, he hopes, hopes, hopes she has. He can’t wait to hear her voice. He can’t wait to say, Yes, I know. Finally! He can’t get there fast enough. He is huffing and puffing. His muscles flame from effort and speed. Right then, if he were a corvid, the call rising from his own chest would be one never heard from Corvus before—the pure joy of song.

  Chapter 35

  Every day, Isabelle swims and swims in the cove. She swims at the same time each morning. People see her. Ricky Beaker does, and so do the new neighbors, John and Rock, from way down the beach, the couple with the dog. They are always out when she is. The dog’s name is Cordelia. Isabelle pets her. She sniffs the rubber of Isabelle’s wetsuit. Even though it is summer, it’s still too cold to swim in the sound without it. She tells the couple how much she loves the water, even if her fiancé thinks it’s dangerous to swim out there.

  She meets Jane. At Jane’s house. When she drives down the gravel road to Little Cranberry Farm, she thinks about the last time she was here, and how she could have saved herself a lot of trouble. Then again, she wouldn’t be here now, doing something this large. Crows fly, planes do, and so do superheroes. All right, of course, she is not one of those. But she lately feels ready to take on every past and future villain, from cheating husbands and controlling, violent boyfriends to frightening mothers and righteous hair stylists and rage-filled drivers and superior dentists. Every dismissive, entitled, sadistic asshole, watch out. There are things you can’t unsee, and feelings you can’t unfeel, and once anger is out of the box, it ain’t going back in. Even if she can’t fix it all, even if she can’t force every bully to cower, she can make one thing turn out right.

  And isn’t this, strangely enough, the adventure, the large life, the bold move she has always longed for?

  Isabelle is happy to see Rosie and Button, and they are happy to see her. They remember her. It’s nice to know you’re not easily forgotten.

  “Are you sure?” Jane asks.

  “Very. Are you?”

  “Better believe it.”

  “Even if you’ll be—”

  “I know what I’ll be. Eddie knows what he’ll be. We’re a couple of old hippies. We do whatever the fuck we want, if we think it’s right.”

  “And Joe?”

  “We’re a family. We protect our own.”

  “Am I crazy?”

  “Indeed you are.”

  “Let’s toast,” Isabelle says. They are nervous, even with the brave words. The right toast is complicated.

  “To flight,” Isabelle says.

  “Safe flight,” Jane amends.

  —

  The contracts arrive a few days later. Isabelle signs without even reading them. All she needs is a lump sum, some of which she’ll make disappear, some of which will appear elsewhere in a few weeks time, when everything’s ready.

  —

  She talks to Henry, too. She caw-caws, coos, rattles, clicks. She murmurs a liquid coi-ou.

  They talk every night. She paces while they do. She steps carefully, measures her words. He coerces. She stalls.

  Should she feel bad? After all, he is still Henry. He is still a man she fell for and kissed and lay naked with, still a man she once saw a future with, even if it was always a complicated one. She could feel bad, because he’s not some unformed image of a criminal. He has real wrinkles at his eyes, and a laugh that makes you laugh, and real insecurities, and real dreams and fears. But Isabelle doesn’t feel bad, because Virginia had those things, too. Real dreams and fears. Isabelle doesn’t feel bad because she imagines that winged heart on Virginia’s T-shirt, momentarily in flight, and then crashing.

  “I want to come home, Isabelle. Haven’t I been punished enough? It’s been almost six weeks. Summer is almost over already. I’m sick of this. We can’t let this go on too long.”

  “This has been good, Henry,” she says. “The distance has been important. I was getting all wrapped up in my own head. Wedding, marriage, those packages in the mail…”

  “Let me come home.”

  “Henry, I’ve told you a million times. You should be here at home. I should be in the hotel. I want to be.”

  “With you! I want to be home with you. And I won’t allow it. I’ve told you a million times, if you move out, you may never move back in. I’m not taking that chance. I’ll stay if I have to. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “I just want to be in the right frame of mind.”

  “Committed, a hundred percent?”

  “Right.”

  “Let me see you at least. I miss you.”

  “Oh, Henry. The separation helps me remember why I want this.”

  “I need to at least see you, Isabelle. At the least let’s have dinner together. Sit at a table and hold hands. I can’t bear staying in this room…”

  “Are you getting out?”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t mean I’ve locked myself in here. I mean, God, I’m lonely. Please, Isabelle. Please. You have no idea what a torment this has been. Come on. Dinner.”

  “Dinner, then.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “All right.”

  What is she thinking! How can she see him, knowing what she knows? She is thinking of the greater good. She is still managing the beast.

  Be careful, Maggie says.

  Maggie’s been so quiet. It’s as if she stepped away, same as any good parent when their child is pedaling, pedaling on their own two wheels. But now the hand is back on the seat, because the bike is wobbling. There’s been so much bravery and big talk, and then there’s the truth of the tiny bike and the big hill.

  I can handle him.

  But of course Isabelle is wrong.

  —

  It’s surprising, all the ways anger looks. Viewed mostly from a frozen, crouched place, it seems like one animal. From down there, you think fury is in-your-face shouting; that it has a twisted mouth; that it has a hand on you, ready to harm. When it becomes yours to scrutinize and even own, though, it is like that—yes, it’s furious, but it’s other things, too. It’s so quiet sometimes. It simmers. It plots and plans. It manipulates and lies. But it’s not only ugly things. It’s a force. It draws the line. It’s not just an enemy.

  And, look at all the things to be angry at. The biggest injustices, like murder. Like any violence, but lesser cruelties, too: being picked at, like a bad piece of fruit. Being made small. Being made frightened. Being made most things, because being made means someone more powerful has your arm twisted behind your back. It means that someone larger has used that largeness to do harm. Isabelle is angry at sarcasm. She is angry at names she’s been called, and at unfair criticisms. She is angry at the right way, when what she does is the wrong way. She is angry at all the jobs she’s foolishly taken on: the caregiver, the nurse, the listener, the self-esteem builder. She is angry at moods, and sullen, silent expectations, meanness. She is angry at ego and narcissism and the uncharitable stance; dismissiveness and using and demand, stupid ego-poems needing glorifying.

  She is angry at her own self, for allowing. For acting like a scared child when she is a grown woman.

  She is angry at her own self for managing and placating, which is what she does now, as she stares inside her closet, trying to make a fast decision because she’s nearly late. Should she wear the same clothes she wore to work today? No. He’ll feel she hasn’t made an effort. Skirt? No. Inviting more than dinner, somehow, because he loves her in a skirt. Another thing to be angry at. He loves her in a skirt and heels, because he loves all women in skirts and heels, and so this makes her simply an image, an object.

  Enough.

  He’ll read her mind.

  She chooses a plain sundress
and sandals. She quickly dabs perfume at her wrists and behind her ears as if she’s a movie star from the golden age of film. Anger looks like this, a trick before the pounce.

  —

  He insists on picking her up. Like an old-fashioned date, he says, but she’s sure it’s because he’ll also have to drop her off. He’ll try to come in—into the house, into the bed. She can handle him! She can’t stand the thought of him crossing a threshold to where she sleeps at night. She runs outside when she hears the car.

  It’s funny that he looks familiar, like the same old Henry, a man she bought a Christmas tree with. A man she bought cough medicine for, when he had a cold. She watches his profile as they drive; she remembers their first ride together after his car broke down, which seems like so long ago now. They head to The Bayshore again. It’s Friday night, but it’s still early, and there’s only a smattering of diners sitting at the candlelit tables. Oh, he looks handsome, he does. It’s wrong, how handsome he looks. His eyes glitter in that light.

  She sits on the padded bench seat behind the table, and he sits across. Then he changes his mind. “Forget this,” he says. “You’re too far away. Scoot.”

  She does. Her purse is now on his other side. She leaves it there. This is the one wrong move, the thing that’ll do her in. Or, rather, it’s one of many wrong moves, but maybe the last.

  She isn’t thinking straight. And who can blame her? His hand holds hers, and she is imagining that hand in Virginia’s. She is thinking about inky black prints on each fingertip. Anger, well, too, it can make you feel big and bold enough to be untouchable. Bigger than you are, and that can be a problem.

  He is chatting. The drinks arrive, and then the appetizers. He has ordered two martinis, and the calamari Jerry was so disdainful of. More things to be angry at: presumption, disdain, superiority. He stabs a fried ring and dunks it in red sauce, pops it into his mouth. He dabs his lips with his napkin.

  “Wait until you hear my surprising but wonderful news.”

  “Your poems?” Dear God, say it isn’t true.

  “No, no. My heart is broken! I can’t write a thing lately, let alone wade in the publishing seas. Other news. Something else. Something for us.” He lifts her hand, kisses it. Acid burns through her flesh, fury knocks against her bones.

  “Whatever it is, it’s made you happy.”

  “I’m happy to be here with you. But yes, happy about this, too.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “I bought a boat today.”

  Jesus. Her heart drops. “A boat?”

  She thinks of Sarah, of course. Sarah, and what Isabelle now knows happened to her on her last night. Isabelle thinks of Sarah thrashing in that cold, rough water, trying to untie the knot of that dinghy as he watched. Sarah, disappearing into that blackness.

  “I couldn’t stand being cooped up all day, so I went down to the docks. And there it was! I bought it on a whim. A thirty-four-foot Sea Ray, with three berths! Master, queen, guest…”

  “Wow, Henry.”

  “I said, to hell with it! I have the money. Can you imagine the fun we can have? We’ll cruise the islands. It’s a shame we’ve lost this whole summer. Still, we can go out in any weather, really. With that kind of ceiling height, you won’t feel cramped if you’re out for days. I haven’t had a boat since…”

  “Sarah.”

  “Let’s not, Isabelle. Okay? I was going to say, ‘Since I lived in Boston.’ Let’s keep the focus on the future. Wait until you see it! It’s a beauty.”

  “That’s great, Henry. That’s fantastic.”

  And as horrible as she feels right now about a boat and Sarah and Henry wanting her on a boat, too, it is fantastic. It’s a stroke of luck. A big, expensive purchase is motive. Money, the desire for it, greed—it’s a motive people can easily understand. The real reason he pushed Virginia off that ledge—how could you even explain it, without seeing the hatred in his eyes? Rejection makes Henry feel so small and so furious that any woman who makes him feel that bad deserves to be punished. The How dare you of a fragile ego ignites a tantrum of rage and destruction that’s so incomprehensibly primal, we must blame the victim and hunt for the big life insurance policy.

  They order dinner. Plates arrive. A bottle of wine is opened, emptied. Henry is all lovey-crooney. He stares into her eyes. Isabelle forces softness into her own gaze, but truly, as she looks at him, she thinks about what makes such a man. Or any person. You can feel sorry for tyrants because they never got what they needed as children, either. You can feel sorry, or even forgive, but you shouldn’t, because they’ve had the same choices as everyone else, and because that degree of empathy and kindheartedness only leaves you with your throat exposed right in the sightline of the hawk.

  “This is why I need to see you. So I don’t forget how beautiful you are.”

  Go ahead, she thinks. Forget. “Oh, you’re sweet.”

  “Speaking of sweet, we must have dessert.”

  “It’s getting late, Henry. We’ve had so much wine on top of that martini.”

  “I want to get you drunk so I can take advantage of you.”

  “I told you! We’re just having dinner…” What a delicate lady she’s being, there in her pretty little dress! She’s making herself sick.

  “Well, then, we’re definitely ordering dessert. I want this night to last as long as possible.”

  He lingers over the menu. The waitress takes his order and then returns. She brings one plate with two forks. It’s a slice of cheesecake, with a gory drizzle of raspberry sauce. He feeds her the triangle tip; he knows that’s her favorite part of any dessert. She opens her mouth and takes it like a baby bird. He strokes her arm, up and down, up and down, and then her thigh.

  Even though her skin recoils, even though she is counting each second until she’s out of there, she stays calm. She’s got this. She’s had a little too much to drink, but still, she’s the one in command now, how about that, Henry North? She is sitting there for the greater good. She is the one with the plan, even as he brushes her cheek.

  “You have a little something right here,” he says.

  God forbid she be imperfect!

  The largeness of anger can be such a problem, if you’re not careful. It makes you sloppy. It inspires big, impulsive acts like shoving someone off a cliff, and it makes you forget the details that keep you safe.

  The check arrives. He reaches into his jacket pocket, feels for his wallet.

  “Oh, shit,” he says. “I must have left it in the room. Do you mind? We’ll use the card.”

  The card he gave her months and months ago, the card she hates to use, because it was just another way he forced their togetherness. “Oh, sure,” she says. She reaches for her purse, but it’s right there next to him, and in a moment, his hand is inside.

  Her wallet is in the center section, where she puts the things she most wants to keep safe. It’s where she always puts the watch and the photo, too, and where they still are, after her visit to the police station. Since Henry left, she has not been diligently moving those objects from her purse to the boot in the closet, and she remembers this just as his fingers are down there inside. The realization flies to her gut with the speed of a fatal collision. She grabs for the purse, but it’s too late. After all this, after everything, it is right then, at that moment, too late.

  “What’s this?” he says.

  He lifts the watch out of the bag. He sees what it is immediately. The watch dangles between them as he holds it in his fingers. He stares at her in shocked silence and she is too stunned to move, and, besides, her heart has stopped.

  He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she. But his eyes go cold and it’s clear, it’s very clear: He knows that she knows. Virginia’s watch, that photo—he may not know where she got them, but he understands that she has no doubts, none, about what happened that day on the trail.

  He stares at her silently, but the loving gaze is gone. There’s the clink and clatter of silverware and dishes, glasses and ic
e, the loud hum of conversation around them.

  “Goddamn you,” he says finally.

  “Henry…”

  “Now you’ve ruined everything.”

  His words are cold, too, so cold, and she thinks again of Sarah in the frigid water and she edges out of that seat. He grabs her arm. He grips tightly.

  She yanks free.

  “Wait—” Henry North calls, but she doesn’t wait.

  She pushes past servers and the hostess seating a party of four. She shoves and elbows her way to the doors, thrusts them open. She’s outside in the dark night, without her purse, without a car. Where to go? She’ll run if she has to. But she remembers suddenly that Tiny Policeman will be there, parked outside The Bayshore. She just needs to find Officer Ricky Beaker, waiting in his patrol car.

  She madly scans up and down the street.

  Where is he?

  It can’t be.

  He’s not there.

  He’s not there!

  She sees the packed parking lot full of Bayshore Inn diners, and she sees a Franz Bakery truck, and a pair of motorcycles across the way, but there is no cruiser. Tiny Policeman is nowhere in sight. Her own car is back at home.

  She’s stranded.

  “Isabelle!”

  He’s outside now. He’s there, holding her purse. Isabelle is in her pretty little sundress and her sandals, but she runs. The night has gotten chilly. You can feel fall coming. Dear God, yes, fall is coming, for sure—fall, a fall, falling.

  She runs, who knows where. Past the marina by The Bayshore. She turns the corner. It won’t take him long to reach his car. She searches for something, someone who might help. Her mind spins, crazy. The stores of Main Street are closed. Only the pharmacy is open.

  And then, oh Thank God! She sees her—Remy, coming out of the store, holding a small, white pharmacy bag. She’s a tiny, bent figure on the street, lit by streetlight.

  One wrong move—a watch in a purse, and she has messed up the plan so bad. There is no time for regrets, though, because the plan is something different now. The plan has changed to making it out alive.