by Nancy Adams
“Relaxing…or boring! Whichever way you look at it. In fact, I got a little work at my father’s surgery. It’s only filing and helping out, but it keeps me busy for part of the day. Plus I think the old man likes to keep an eye on me.”
“Why would he want to keep an eye on you?” Shelly asked innocently enough.
Paul looked a little embarrassed and searched for an answer that wouldn’t put her off of him.
“I guess because I gave up my residency in New York and split up with Claire, they think I might be a little vulnerable.” He put great emphasis on this last word.
“Oh!” Shelley exclaimed lightly. “But you’re not, though, right? Vulnerable?”
“No not at all. I mean, I was real down for sure. I was drinking every day and I had a panic attack while at the hospital. But I wasn’t suicidal. And I’m not now. Just because I was down, didn’t automatically mean I’d hurt myself. But I guess my folks aren’t convinced.”
“You’d just lost your girlfriend,” Shelly said with compassion. “You were entitled to fall off the rails a little. When Ben left, I took Lacey to stay with her grandparents and spent a whole week at home on my own drinking and crying. I felt that I needed something, needed to embrace that pain. I had a problem with drink for a while.” This last part had been whispered, and she’d glanced about them as she’d said it.
“You did?” Paul asked in surprise.
“Yeah, I had to go to some AA meetings. Even had a sponsor for a year. And haven’t drunk a drop since.”
“I wouldn’t have believed that Shelly Temple—prom queen, class president, cheerleading captain—would need to go to AA.”
“It was real bad. I kept waking up and not knowing what I’d done the day before. I would have these blackouts.”
Paul felt a warm glow emerge inside of him as she spoke. He felt a kindredness beginning between the two of them.
“I also blacked out,” he began. “You see this?” And here he lifted his hairline slightly to reveal the not-yet-fully healed gash on his head. “I did this when I was drunk and I still have no idea how. It was waking up with this that made me realize I had a problem and had to come home no matter what.”
“Why’d you feel that you needed home?”
“Because everything about New York reminded me of Claire. I only ever knew that place with her, through her. When I was suddenly on my own, it became the loneliest place on Earth and I just fell in on myself.”
“Fell in on myself,” Shelly repeated, almost to herself. Then, speaking up, she added, “That’s exactly what it felt like for me too. After I found out about Ben’s cheating and threw him out, everyone decided to inform me of all the other women that he’d been with over the years of our marriage. It was like they wanted to hurt me with it. They were supposed to be my friends; and they’d known all along! Yet, they couldn’t say a word to me when they really should have, but only afterwards, as if they were rubbing salt into my wounds. I felt so alone here in Casselton. And it was the same for me as it was for you. I felt as though I were falling in on myself.”
Paul spotted a tear rolling down Shelly’s cheek and he reached across the table to wipe it away with his thumb. As he did, she smiled and her sadness melted a little.
“I feel silly,” she remarked as he handed her a tissue.
“Not at all. It must have been hard on you, especially with Lacey to look after.”
“She’s my salvation, you could say. The only good thing to come out of six long years with Ben. I mean, if it hadn’t been for her, I would have had nothing to work for, nothing to quit the booze for.” She paused, before shaking her head. “Look at me,” she went on, “unloading all my problems onto you.”
“No, it’s okay. Honestly, Shelly.”
She twinkled a pretty smile at him and looked across the table with a gleeful expression.
“You always were so sweet, Paul Bishop. You were always willing to listen to me when we were kids. Remember how you used to walk me home when we were at junior high?”
“Yes.”
“I used to like that. We used to talk about all sorts of stuff; how we both wanted to leave this town and go somewhere else. Do you remember that?”
“Of course.”
“Probably seems silly to you, but those were some of the happiest memories of my childhood.”
Again she smiled widely and Paul noticed how beautiful she looked.
“You know,” he began, spurred on by his heart, “I was thinking exactly the same thing when you were just telling it to me: that it was probably my happiest memory of back then.”
Her smile grew wider.
“You’re just saying that,” she remarked, blushing slightly as she did.
“No, for real. We used to walk back through Willow’s Creek and climb trees. We would make dens out there and read books out loud to each other, putting on silly voices for all the different characters.”
“My gosh! Yes, I remember.”
“I liked you so much back then, Shelly.”
He blushed suddenly at these words and went silent for a moment, wondering if he’d gone too far.
“But then high school came along,” he continued, “and I guess we just went our separate ways. You had your cheerleading and I had my grades.”
Her smile dissipated a little and she looked at him with soft eyes.
“I am sorry for that, Paul,” she said in a solemn voice. “High School was completely different. It became a popularity contest and you could no longer hang out with who you wanted…or date who you wanted.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“But I do. I was mean. And for what? To find myself with a group of friends that didn’t really give a heck about me or who I was, just that we were popular? To be strung along by Ben Slater the school dick?”
Paul grinned.
“He was a bit of a dick,” he agreed with her.
“Yes, he was. A total dick. But he made me popular.”
“Where are all of those girls you used to hang with now? The whole cheerleading set.”
“Gosh! Most of them are married with kids, still in Casselton. Some got good husbands, others bad. Some of them are well-off, middle-class suburbanites, and some of them live in trailer parks, or worse. None of them ever achieved anything of note. Oh! Except Dolores Fletcher. She married an orthodontist and they moved to Miami where he set up a practice. She sends me nice e-mails every so often, pictures of her and the kids sitting together in the sun. But most of them, I don’t see anymore. Like I said, a lot of them knew what Ben was up to before I found out, and they should have told me. But instead, they preferred to say it all behind my back.”
“Just like back at school. They were always picking on some poor sap that had incurred their wrath. Talking about them behind their back and spreading rumors.”
“Yeah,” Shelly let out with a sigh. “And I used to be one of them, gossiping away. What a bitch I was back then!”
“You were never a bitch, Shelly Temple,” Paul pronounced with meaning, looking her straight in the eyes. “You were doing what you thought you should: surviving. You were pretty; it was natural that you’d be spotted by the school jock and elected to the position of his girlfriend. It’s the high school hierarchy. Heck, if I had of been chosen to be as popular as what you were at school, would I have turned it down? Probably not.”
“But look where it got us. You made it out of here. You made something of yourself that didn’t need Casselton. But what about me? I was left behind with all the vacant people who never had it so good as what they did in high school, and who think about that fact every single day. Their lives shone brightest back then and are forever destined to dwindle more and more with each passing day. But people like you, Paul, your lives shine brightest in adulthood.”
“I don’t feel like it’s shining that brightly now.”
“Even sitting here with me?” she asked with a playful frown.
“That’s not quite
what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“It’s just you keep saying that I got away from Casselton, but here I am: in Casselton! I’m not just staying for a short while either. I have nowhere else to go, no more residency, no more job, living with my parents…in Casselton! I don’t think I’ve shone at all brightly.”
“But you got through college, didn’t you? Through medical school.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then you’re still set to be a doctor. You’re just taking a little bit of time out, because you’ve been through a lot with this girl you were with. How long did you say you were together?”
“Five years.”
“That’s a terribly long time to be with someone and then have them leave you. It’s like having an arm cut off, but still feeling it there all the time.”
“Yeah, it is.”
At that moment, their food arrived and the conversation was halted for a time while they tucked into it with relish. Paul had a t-bone steak, medium rare, with fries and a salad, while Shelly had ordered chicken cordon bleu with minted potatoes and mixed vegetables. Once they’d finished the food and ordered coffees, the conversation once again began to flow at its former rate.
“You know there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you all night,” Paul said to her after a while. “Out here, I haven’t really got anyone to talk to. I can’t talk to my folks. They’re great and all, but not the best for having a talk. But it’s something I’ve been meaning to get off my chest and I decided—well, it came to me tonight while we sat at this table—that I wanted to confess it to you.”
“A confession,” Shelly let out gently as she sipped her cafe latte. “This sounds like it’s going to be interesting.”
“It may or may not be interesting, but I feel that you might be able to give me some advice on it. Or at least another point of view other than my own.”
“Well, stop keeping me in suspense, Paul, and tell me.”
“Okay, here goes. I didn’t tell you why I split up, did I?”
“No.”
“Well, it was because my girlfriend got back in touch with her ex and they started back up again.”
“My word! That’s terrible, Paul.”
“After five-and-a-half years of not seeing the guy, she finished with me almost the moment they rediscovered each other. She ended it with me only four days after they had started to see each other again.”
“At least she didn’t cheat on you for years like Ben. That’s something you can take from that, that she was honest with you.”
“Yeah, I didn’t feel it then, but you are right. Maybe she hadn’t been honest for all those years when she’d told me that he was just a distant memory and that it was me she truly loved. She’d lied there. But at least she had the guts to call it a day when she truly realized that she and him were going to be together again.”
“She could have kept you both going. That would have been cruel.”
“She could have. Anyway, that wasn’t what I wanted to share with you. You see, back then, when she broke up with this guy, she found out that she was pregnant and she ended up deciding not to tell him. She had the baby and then had the kid adopted. That was when I first began seeing her—when she was pregnant. I was there at the birth and everything, and the whole time not even her own mother knew that she was having a child, just me, her and her best friend. So that brings me to my confession.” Here he paused. Not for effect, but because he felt a lump forming in his throat at the thought of the next part. “Three days ago I went to see her new boyfriend—or old boyfriend, whichever way you look at it—and I told him about the adopted son. She clearly hadn’t told him yet and he appeared horrified when I let him know. I simply gave him all the details that I knew about it—as much proof as I had, as I knew he’d be able to find out for certain—and left his house before coming out here.”
“My word, Paul Bishop!” Shelly cried softly, raising her hand to her mouth.
“I know; I had no right to do that. At the time, I got myself thinking that I was doing it out of some virtuous reason—to extinguish all the secrets from their relationship. I even went to see her the day before and warned her—but not in any obvious way. I just did it vaguely. But since I got out here, I’ve realized that I didn’t do it out of any purity of feeling, but out of spite, out of revenge.”
Shelly reached her hand across the table and took Paul’s own, entwining her fingers within his.
“You felt you had a right to revenge, Paul,” she stated. “That’s not uncommon.”
“Not like that, though. What I told him, I had no right to say. It was up to her to tell him and no one else’s.”
“I drove Ben’s Corvette into a tree,” she then confessed.
“But that’s not the same. If I had done something like that, I would feel okay. But what I did may have ruined them both. And for what? Because I felt aggrieved? The moment I did it, I felt terrible. It brought me no relief, only more misery.”
“You’re a good man, Paul Bishop,” she said softly, looking him in the eyes and smiling benevolently. “You were upset and mad for a moment; just the same as I was when I drove that Corvette into that tree. I was crazy then. Crazy with hurt. And so were you. We do such terrible things when we’re angry. You wanted retribution and you sought it.”
“But not like that. Not ruining their lives like that. I had no right to do that.”
“Maybe you were cruel. But so was she for treating you so callously. You feeling bad about it just shows that you’re a good person. Good people do bad things when they’re pushed into it. Good people can be driven to do bad things through anger just as much as bad people. You were pushed into it by having your heart broken.”
“I guess,” Paul let out gently. “I guess.”
They remained in silence for a while, holding hands across the table and sipping their coffees, Paul feeling as though a one-ton weight had dropped from his heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jenna woke up with a bump and found that she had fallen asleep with her head resting on Alex’s shoulder. He was still asleep, more used to bumpy bus journeys than her. They were currently riding in a coach northeast through Utter Pradesh from Delhi to the spiritual city of Varanasi, said to have been built by the Hindu Gods. The previous day, Alex had asked her if she wanted something calming or to see something crazy. Perhaps it had been the beer, or perhaps the chance to do something difference for once, but she agreed to something crazy. Therefore, Alex had bought them two coach tickets to Varanasi, the holy city built into the bank of the great river Ganges.
Shortly after Jenna awoke, the coach stopped in some dust-ridden little town in the middle of a series of square, dry shrub fields, and a young boy at the front shouted out, “Breakfast time. Thirty minute!” and everyone began sleepily getting up and leaving the coach, including Alex and Jenna. Soon they were seated at a table in a far corner of the restaurant, drinking chai and gazing out across the barren fields that baked under the harsh Indian sun.
“You sure we can’t eat at this place?” Jenna asked.
“No. If you want something, buy some chips for the coach, but other than chai, I wouldn’t suggest it. Someone who hasn’t quite gotten used to things here doesn’t want to risk eating somewhere like this.”
“Okay,” she replied, blowing on her chai.
A few hours later they arrived in Varanasi. It was noon by then and they immediately took an auto rickshaw from the bus station toward the main ghat, close to the river and the oldest of the ancient buildings. There, Alex explained, they would stay in the heart of the eclectic, spiritual city.
It took the auto almost an hour to get them through the tightly packed streets and to the market on the outskirts of the buildings built upon the bank. The whole place thronged with bodies, spilling out onto the roads from the sidewalk and mixed with the congested traffic. Once they paid the auto, they took their bags and began pressing on through the tigh
t streets into even tighter and narrower alleyways that weaved through the ancient city like cracks in a clay pot. As she walked along, people came to Jenna offering everything from a room to musical instruments and potions to marijuana. Alex had taught her well, though, and she had become very good in the four days they’d been together in brushing people away firmly, while retaining a level of politeness.
The further they dived into the chaos that was Varanasi’s cramped, labyrinthian nooks and alleyways, the more spiritual the people got—men in robes of white and orange, marks upon their foreheads, caked-on paint, a red thumbprint or several white lines, sometimes two, often three. They came upon a tight street of beggars and weaved their way through, hands thrust in their direction; women with waif babies pressed to their chests; cripples scraping along the floor with small metal trays held in their mouths, their feeble legs bound by rags that had grown black from being constantly dragged along; the elderly in the worst conditions.
“Watch out for the cow shit,” Alex advised her, pointing out a large pile she was about to tread in.
A little way on, they came across a large cow that had planted itself in the middle of the alley and blocked the passage completely. People helped each other over and around it, shopkeepers tried to move it and people riding motorbikes blew their horns at the great beast.
Once they were around it, Alex led them down another alley, and it was there that they emerged onto a set of giant stone steps that led down to the wide Ganges river, a haze of blue smoke hanging over the whole thing like some kind of spirit, wafting from the little boats that continually crossed it.
Jenna stopped and gazed at it all in awe, getting her camera out of her bag. Alex stopped a step or two below her and smiled. It had been the same for him many years ago when he had first emerged out onto the great, ancient steps of the city and saw the huge river, a sandy stretch of land on the other side of it. He too had immediately pulled out his camera and begun snapping away.
After she’d taken several pictures, Alex led Jenna along the steps for a while, before they went back up into the city and found the guesthouse he was looking for.
