by Joy Fielding
“Have a nice evening?” the voice asked.
Not Alison. A man. “Who is this?”
“I have a message for you from Erica Hollander.”
“What!”
“She says you better watch your step.”
“Who is this?” The phone went dead in my hands. “Hello? Hello?” I slammed down the receiver, too angry to speak, too weak to try. I fell back on the bed, hands shaking, heart pounding, my brain alternating between trying to place the voice and to put it out of my mind altogether. What did his strange message mean? Of course, sleep was no longer an option. I spent the balance of the night rolling from one side of the bed to the other, either too hot or too cold, my teeth chattering or my forehead bathed in sweat, my arms securing the blankets tightly under my chin, my feet kicking them angrily back to the foot of the bed. For hours I lay on my back observing the moonlight slither through the lace of my curtains, watching the darkness bleed from the sky until it grew light. Whenever it looked as if I might be granted a few minutes respite, a not-quite-familiar voice would sneak up beside me and whisper in my ear: I have a message for you from Erica Hollander. She says you better watch your step.
At around eight o’clock, I pushed myself out of bed. I was still nauseous and weak, but at least my stomach was no longer threatening to burst from my body. My forehead felt a little warm to the touch, and my hands were still trembling. I decided to make some tea, maybe eat a piece of toast, although, at the thought of food, my stomach lurched. Maybe just tea, I decided, about to head downstairs when I heard voices outside my window.
I shuffled toward the sound and pulled back the curtains, careful to stay out of sight. Alison was standing in the open doorway of the cottage talking to Denise, both still dressed in last night’s clothes. Denise was doing most of the talking, although I couldn’t make out what she was saying. The look on Alison’s face, however, told me she was paying close attention.
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Denise suddenly shouted toward the inside of the cottage. “Time to get your bony ass out of there.”
Seconds later, K.C. stood in the doorway. His shirt hung open and his blue jeans rode dangerously low on his skinny hips, emphasizing the line of dark hair that spiraled from the center of his bare chest down past his belly button, then disappeared beneath the buckle of his black leather belt. His short brown hair was matted and uncombed, and sleep clung to his eyes as carelessly as the half-smoked cigarette that dangled from his lips.
I watched him toss the cigarette into my bed of pink and white impatiens, then lean toward Alison and whisper something in her ear, his fingers playing with the gold necklace at her throat as his eyes glanced toward my bedroom window. Was he talking about me? I wondered, careful to keep out of sight. Did he know I was there?
Alison pushed him playfully aside, waving after them as he and Denise ambled along the side of the house to the street. My eyes followed after them until they disappeared into the shadow of a nearby tree. When I looked back, I saw Alison staring up at me, a strange look on her face. She waved, signaled that she was coming over. Seconds later, looking remarkably fresh and rested for someone who’d been up all night, she was at the kitchen door.
“Are you all right?” she asked as soon as she saw me.
“I was sick last night.” I promptly collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs.
“Sick? You mean like throwing-up sick?”
“I mean like throwing-up sick.”
“Oh, yuck! That’s awful. I hate throwing up. It’s my least favorite thing in the whole world.”
“I can’t say I’m overly fond of it myself.”
“You know how some people tell you that throwing up will make you feel better? Not me. I’d rather feel sick as a dog for weeks on end than throw up. That’s why it was always such a joke to me when people thought I was bulimic. As if I would ever do anything to make myself vomit. I mean, yuck!”
I could almost see the exclamation point.
“I remember when I was a little girl,” she continued, “and I got sick one night after eating too much red licorice, and every night after that, when I’d climb into bed, I’d ask my mother if I was going to be all right. And she’d roll her eyes and say yes, but I wasn’t convinced, so I’d make her promise. Even still, I’d grit my teeth until I fell asleep.”
“You didn’t believe your mother?”
Alison shrugged, her eyes circling the kitchen. “You want some tea?”
“I’d love some.”
She busied herself with the mechanics of making tea. She filled the kettle with water, dropped a tea bag into a mug, got the milk out of the fridge. “You probably drank too much champagne,” she ventured, eyes glued to the kettle.
“A watched pot never boils,” I told her.
“What?”
“ ‘A watched pot never boils.’ One of my mother’s little aphorisms.”
“Aphorism? Good word. That’s like, what, a saying?”
“More or less.”
Alison obligingly looked away from the kettle and toward the window. “So I guess you saw me talking to Denise and K.C.” It was more statement than question.
I nodded, said nothing.
“They wanted to see the cottage.” She paused, studied her bare feet. “Anyway, we stayed up pretty late talking, and next thing I knew, Denise was curled up in my bed and K.C. was passed out on the floor.” The teakettle whistled its readiness. Alison jumped at the sound, then laughed. “Looks like your mother was right. I just had to stop watching it.”
“Mother knows best.” I chose my next words carefully. “Did you call your family to wish them a happy Thanksgiving?”
“No.” Alison poured my tea. “Not quite ready to do that yet. Here. Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I hope so.” I took a tentative sip.
“So, did you enjoy last night? I mean, aside from the throwing-up part.”
I laughed, understanding the subject of her family was closed, at least for now. “I had a wonderful time.”
“I think Josh really likes you.”
“You do?”
“I could tell by the way he looked at you. He thinks you’re something special.”
“He’s a very nice man.” I took another sip of my tea, felt it burn the tip of my tongue, pulled back.
“Careful,” Alison warned too late. “It’s hot.”
“So, what are you up to today? Going to the beach with your friends?”
“Not a chance. I’m going to stay right here and make sure you’re okay.”
“Oh, no. I don’t want you to do that.”
Alison pulled up a chair, plunked down beside me. “You took care of me when I got sick, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but …”
“No buts.” She smiled. “It’s settled. I’m not going anywhere.”
NOT LONG AFTER I FINISHED THE TEA, my nausea returned, and I suffered through an agonizing round of dry heaves. Surprisingly, Alison made a wonderful nurse, holding a cool compress to my head and not leaving my side until I was safely tucked back in bed. “Sleep,” I can still hear her repeating as she stroked my hair. “Sleep … sleep.”
Whether it was from exhaustion, the sound of her voice, or the touch of her hand, within minutes I was sound asleep. This time, no dreams plagued me. I slept soundly, deeply, for several hours. When I opened my eyes, it was almost noon.
I sat up in bed, twisting my neck from side to side to get rid of the stiffness that had settled in. Then I heard a voice talking quietly from the second bedroom and realized it was Alison. “I didn’t call to fight,” I heard her say as I climbed out of bed, steadying myself against the wall as I shuffled toward the door.
“Everything is going exactly as planned,” she continued as I stepped into the hall, drew closer. “You’re just going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
I must have made a sound because she suddenly spun around in her seat, went ghostly white.
“T
erry! How long have you been standing there? Are you all right?” The words tumbled from her mouth in a frantic rush, like sand from a broken hourglass. “Look, I have to go,” she said into the portable phone at her ear, before stuffing it unceremoniously into the pocket of her white shorts. She jumped to her feet and quickly ushered me toward the sofa, then sat so close to me, our knees were touching. “My brother,” she explained, patting the phone in her pocket. “I decided you were right, that the least I could do was call my family and wish them a happy holiday, let them know I’m okay.”
“It didn’t go well?”
“About as well as expected. Anyway, how are you? You look a hundred percent better.”
“I feel better,” I said without much conviction. What had Alison been talking to her brother about? What, I wondered, was going exactly as planned? “What have you been doing all morning?” I asked instead.
“First I went home, took a shower, changed my clothes. Then”—a huge grin swept across Alison’s face, temporarily obliterating my concerns—“I found this.” She grabbed a large, leather-bound photo album from the pillow beside her, balanced it across her lap. “I hope you don’t mind. I stumbled across it when I was looking for something to read.” She flipped it open. “Are these your parents?”
I found myself staring at an old black-and-white photograph of a smiling young couple at a public swimming pool, my father’s skinny legs sticking out from underneath a pair of dark, oversize swim trunks, loafers on his feet, a straw hat on his head, my mother sitting beside him in a modest gingham bathing suit, hands clasped primly in her lap, hair piled high on her head, large, white sunglasses swamping her small face. How long had it been since I’d looked at these pictures? The album had been tucked away at the back of the highest shelf. How had Alison simply stumbled across it? “That’s them,” I said, brushing an invisible hair away from my mother’s face, feeling her swat my hand aside. “They weren’t married yet.”
As Alison steadily turned the pages, I watched my parents grow up before my eyes, from shy young lovers to self-conscious newlyweds to nervous parents. “This one’s my favorite.” Alison pointed to a picture of my mother pressing a sad-eyed baby to her cheek. “Look at how cute you were.”
“Cute, my ass. Just look at those bags under my eyes.” I shook my head in dismay. “My mother claimed I didn’t sleep through the night until I was three years old. And I peed in my pants until I was seven. No wonder they decided not to have any more kids.”
Alison laughed, studied each page in turn. “Which one’s you?” she asked suddenly, indicating a large photograph of a bunch of small children arranged in neat little rows, like pansies in a garden—my senior kindergarten class.
I pointed to a little girl in a white dress, frowning from the back row.
“You don’t look very happy.”
“I never liked having my picture taken.”
“No? I love it. Oh, look at this one. Is this you?” Alison’s index finger landed on a little girl in a plaid jumper, scowling beside her third-grade teacher.
“That’s me all right.”
“Would you just look at that face.” Alison laughed. “You have the same expression in every picture, even as a teenager. Which one’s Roger Stillman?”
“What?”
“Roger Stillman. Is he in any of these pictures?”
“No. He was a few grades ahead of me,” I reminded her.
“Too bad. I would have liked to see what he looked like. What do you think happened to him?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you ever think of just picking up the phone and calling him? Saying, ‘Hi, Roger Stillman, this is Terry Painter. Remember me?’ ”
“Never,” I said, louder than I’d intended.
“Do you think he still lives in Baltimore?”
I shrugged my lack of interest, flipped to another page, saw my parents, now in glorious color, posed together on the front lawn of their first house in Delray Beach. They looked a little stiff, as if aware there were difficult times ahead. “Would you mind making me another cup of tea?” I asked.
“It would be my supreme pleasure.” Alison pushed herself off the sofa. “How about some toast and jam to go with it?”
“Why not?”
“That’s the spirit.”
I leaned my head against the burgundy velvet of the sofa, closed my eyes, the sound of Alison’s voice soft against my ear. Everything is going exactly as planned, she purred. And then another voice: I have a message for you from Erica Hollander, the stranger whispered in my ear. She says you better watch your step.
But I was too tired, too weak, to listen.
ELEVEN
The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were especially busy, both at the hospital and at home. In the five years since my mother’s death, I hadn’t bothered much with the festive trappings of the holiday season. Indeed, I’d gone out of my way to ignore the holidays, often working overtime and volunteering for the graveyard shift. But Alison was determined to change that.
“What do you mean you’re working on Christmas?” she wailed.
“It’s just another day.”
“No, it’s not. It’s Christmas. Can’t you switch with somebody else?”
I shook my head. It was late afternoon and I was working in my garden. Alison was pacing restlessly back and forth on the lawn behind me.
“But that really sucks!” she protested, looking and sounding at least a decade younger than her twenty-eight years. “I mean, I was kind of hoping we could have Christmas together.”
“We could do Christmas Eve.”
Immediately her face brightened. “That’s right. Lots of families open their presents on Christmas Eve, don’t they? I guess that would be okay. Can I go with you to pick out a tree?”
“A tree?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a Christmas tree.
“You have to have a tree! What’s Christmas without a tree? And we’ll get decorations and little white lights. My treat, of course. It’s the least I can do. It’ll be so great. Can we do that?”
How could I say no? In the weeks since I’d been sick, Alison had become a regular—and increasingly welcome—part of my day. We spoke often on the phone from our respective places of work, had dinner together two or three times a week, occasionally went to the movies or for a leisurely stroll along the beach. No matter how busy our schedules, Alison found time for us to be together. And despite my initial reservations about tenants in general, and Alison in particular, she simply ran roughshod over any misgivings I might have had. I was powerless where she was concerned, I realized as we drove along Military Trail some days later, a tall Scotch pine protruding from the half-open trunk of my car. Alison had managed, in the space of only several months, to become an integral part of my life, and despite the twelve-year difference in our ages, probably the closest friend I’d ever had.
“Is this not the most absolutely gorgeous tree in the whole wide world?” she asked after we’d finished attaching the last of the delicate, pink bows to its long, sharp branches. We stood back to admire our handiwork.
“It’s absolutely the most gorgeous tree in the whole wide world,” I concurred, and she hugged me.
“This is going to be the best Christmas ever,” Alison declared as Christmas Eve drew closer, and she added yet another present to the growing pile under the tree that she’d stationed in the corner of my living room.
“I think she’s homesick,” I confided to Margot at work. “I mean, you should see what she’s done to the house. There are decorations everywhere, mountains of holly sprigs, and I can’t move without bumping into one of these weird little Santas she has everywhere.”
“Sounds like she’s taking over,” Margot observed with a laugh. “How long before she moves in and you go back to living in the cottage?” She reached for a patient’s file, answered the ringing phone beside her.
“I think she’s just homesick,” I repeated, vaguely annoyed w
ith Margot, although I wasn’t sure why.
Margot held out the phone. “For you.”
“Terry Painter,” I announced, expecting to hear Alison’s voice. Had she somehow sensed we were talking about her?
“Terry, it’s Josh Wylie.”
My heart sank.
“I really hate to do this to you again,” he was saying as I lowered my chin to my chest, silently mouthing the words along with him. “Something’s come up, and I’m going to have to cancel our lunch. I’m really sorry.”
“So am I,” I said truthfully. This was the third lunch date Josh had canceled in as many weeks. Aside from a few quick exchanges when he’d dropped by to visit his mother, we hadn’t seen each other since Thanksgiving.
“How about dinner?” he surprised me now by asking. “I have to be up your way later and I have a little something for you.”
“You have something for me?”
“ ’Tis the season. It’s just a little token of my appreciation. For being so nice to my mother,” he added quickly. “How about I pick you up at seven o’clock?”
“Seven o’clock would be fine.”
“Seven o’clock it is.” He clicked off without saying good-bye.
“Somebody looks awfully pleased with herself,” Margot said with a sly wink.
I said nothing, my mind already on the night ahead. So what if Josh had canceled three lunch dates in a row. One dinner equaled three lunches any day. Not only that, but he had a gift for me—a small token of his appreciation, he’d said. For being so nice to my mother. I tried to imagine what it could be. A bottle of perfume? Some fancy soaps? Maybe a silk scarf or even a small brooch? No, it was way too early for jewelry. Our relationship—if a few kisses and several canceled lunch dates could be called a relationship—was still in the beginning stages. It wouldn’t be appropriate, as my mother might have said, for him to be showering me with extravagant gifts. It didn’t matter. Whatever Josh gave me would be wonderful. I wondered what I could get him in return, deciding to ask Myra for her advice. Her condition had deteriorated in the last few weeks, and she was understandably depressed. Perhaps news of my upcoming dinner date with her son might cheer her up.
