The Hot Flash Club Chills Out

by Nancy Thayer

  Polly knelt by the child’s cradle. Four dolls lay propped on a lacy pillow, but not the doll that had been her immediate favorite, a rosy-cheeked girl in a navy corduroy jumper and a red checked blouse. Her doll had brown hair done in pigtails, tied with red ribbon, and carried in her hand a little basket with a blue-and-white checked picnic cloth.

  She looked up at Faye. “No, the doll’s not here.”

  Faye stood with her hands on her hips, gazing around the room. “I don’t know what to say, Polly. Nothing’s missing from my room.”

  Polly rubbed her forehead. “Gosh, I hope I’m not getting senile. I mean, we all joke about it, but this is kind of worrisome.”

  “You’re not getting senile, Polly!” Faye assured her heartily. “We were all in such a gaggle here, all five of us running around. Why, maybe one of the others moved the doll.”

  Polly nodded. “I guess…”

  “Look, get out of those damp clothes and have a hot shower and come down and drink some wine with me. I’ll make a fire.”

  Polly shook herself out of her trance. “Right.”

  Later, after dinner, they lounged on the sofas in front of the fire, toasting their toes, reading their books, occasionally sipping an after-dinner liqueur. Outside, the wind continued to scream and batter the rain against the windows. It was deliciously snug.

  When the grandfather clock in the hallway struck nine, Polly stretched and looked over at Faye. “Good book?”

  “Good book.” Faye put it facedown in her lap and rubbed her eyes. “Yours?”

  Polly pressed the collar of her toweling robe up against her neck. “Good, too.”

  They watched the fire in silence for a while.

  “Faye,” Polly said gently. “Would you tell me about Jack?”

  Faye looked over at Polly. She smiled, while at the same time, tears came into her eyes. “I was just thinking of him. I was just wishing he were here.”

  “I know,” Polly said. “I miss Tucker. I don’t talk about him much with the others.”

  Faye nodded. “The others are all divorced. They wouldn’t really understand. Plus, I’m not sure they ever lived with a man as the center of their lives. Marilyn’s so caught up in science, Alice was an ambitious, hardworking career woman, and Shirley…well, Shirley is her own special case.”

  “Shirley’s so good-hearted,” Polly said. “And she does such a great job with The Haven. I don’t know why she has such disastrous taste in men.”

  Faye shifted on the sofa, rearranging her legs and her kimono over them. By discussing Shirley this way, they were edging toward the unspoken danger zone of their Hot Flash friendship. They’d all agreed they didn’t want to have little cliques within the larger group.

  “But perhaps that’s because there aren’t that many really good men around,” Polly said, leading the conversation away from Shirley. “My first marriage was a disaster. I was so lucky to meet Tucker and have the years I had with him.”

  “I feel that way about Jack.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  Faye’s face softened. “Jack was older than I by ten years. He was a lawyer, and very—oh, I guess morally upright is the best way to describe him. Not that he was a prig. He was just so good.”

  Polly snuggled deeper into her robe. “Where did you meet?”

  “At a friend’s party…”

  As Faye reminisced, Polly watched her friend’s face change. The years seemed to melt away, and Polly realized what a really lovely woman Faye was. Faye’s face was plump, like Polly’s, so the skin around her eyes and the two laugh lines around her mouth were the only wrinkles. Still, Faye’s face was not young. Her eyelids hung in folds, making her eyes look as if they were slightly different sizes. The bottom half of her face was heavier than the top half, almost jowly. What was it Alice had said the other day? “I know I don’t look my age! I know I don’t look like a sixty-three-year-old woman! I just look like a really ugly woman in her fifties.”

  Still, Polly decided, as she listened to her friend talk, Faye was a fortunate woman. She said as much. “You’re lucky to have loved a man so very much, and to be loved by him the same way.”

  “I know,” Faye said. Pulling her knees up, she hugged them against her chest. “Gosh, Polly, I haven’t talked about Jack like this for a long time. It’s nice, you know. It’s really nice to talk about him—it’s like being there with him again.”

  “Then tell me more,” Polly urged.

  As Faye talked, the fire cast flickering shadows through the room. Polly thought of all the other women who, over the past generations, had sat here talking. She felt certain they had spoken of love, of children, men, and marriage, of the unassailable mysteries of life. The andirons, shaped like owls, had glass eyes that glittered as the flames danced, so they seemed almost alive, and alert. Watching. Listening. What had they heard over the decades? What grief or joy had filled the air, penetrating the very core of the iron and the bricks? What sympathy warmed the room along with the firewood’s heat?

  18

  The weather continued rainy and cool all week, but the sun came out in a blaze on Friday, when Alice, Marilyn, and Shirley arrived.

  “You’ve brought us good weather!” Polly cried, hugging her friends as they stepped off the ferry.

  “I’m dying,” Alice moaned. “I’m going to barf.”

  “Rough ride?” Faye asked sympathetically.

  “I didn’t think so,” Shirley said. “But then I took ginger capsules which prevent motion sickness.”

  Alice glared. “You don’t want to be messing with me right now.”

  Faye laughed. Hoisting one of Alice’s bags off the blue luggage rack, she said, “Come on, Alice. A little walk in the fresh air will cure you.”

  At the house, Alice dragged herself to her bedroom and collapsed on the bed for a nap. Shirley said she couldn’t wait to walk on the beach. Marilyn said she wanted to tour the Maria Mitchell Museum; would Faye and Polly join her? They would.

  As much as Shirley longed to fit in, to be seen as someone who belonged on Nantucket, it was just not in her character to wear khaki shorts and sporty rugby T-shirts. Besides, in spite of the strong sunlight, the air was still cool. Shirley was glad she’d brought along her quilted jacket, patchworked in various shades and designs of purple. Her violet flannel yoga pants had no pockets, nor did her side-tie shirt, but her jacket had pockets, and she found herself shoving her hands far down inside them for warmth. It was cooler on the waterfront than she’d anticipated.

  She wandered through the village and along the curve of beach until she reached the town wharf. Many more boats were tied up at the dock than had been before. Walking out on the pier, she watched people lifting coolers down into their boats, coiling ropes, bending over charts, and scrubbing the decks. The tide was out, the wind skipping lightly over the water, so she slipped off her sandals and walked barefoot. At a small beach, she had to detour up to the street to make her way around a boatyard and seafood shop. She continued to walk until she found herself at the end of the harbor, where the ocean dwindled into creeks winding through salt marshes.

  It was very quiet here. Houses, businesses, and roads, all the edifices of man, were at a distance. Golden sand, wet and spongy, sloped into crystalline water. Looking down, Shirley saw fiddler crabs scurrying over the sand and minnows making little silver hyphens as they flashed from place to place. Grass grew in the marshes, a pale, tender green. Overhead, gulls called and flew, their shadows splashing the water.

  Spotting a piece of driftwood, Shirley sat down on it, leaned back, and took deep breaths. The truth was, she felt a little uneasy out here. She’d never had much opportunity to be at one with nature, not real nature like this. She was good with indoor waterfalls and potted plants. Being here, in this new place, made her just a tiny bit—not frightened, but alert.

  And that was good. She liked that. Perhaps she even needed it. She liked knowing that a safe house and an active town were within walking
distance, but here she could see and touch the water that had washed this way from…who knew where? The ocean was so vast. Here, where it lapped lightly against the sand, she was not afraid.

  She made herself just sit, doing nothing. She made herself just be. A plane hummed overhead, gulls cried, and if she tried very hard, she could hear the water making light lapping noises as a boat far out in the harbor sent a wake that reached all the way to this very spot.

  She was getting chilled. Rising, she turned back to town, ambling along the waterfront. As she approached the town pier, she heard a loud splashing noise. A golden Lab leapt out of a small wooden sailboat and paddled its exuberant way toward Shirley.

  “You again!” Shirley called.

  The dog shook itself, dousing Shirley’s trousers with a spray of sea water, then dashed up the beach, grabbed a stick and, tail wagging, raced back to Shirley.

  Smiling, Shirley threw the stick out into the water. Out in the shallows of the harbor, the dog’s owner tied the boat to a buoy, then slid over the side into the water, which came up to his knees, just touching the hem of his canvas shorts. He waded up the beach to Shirley. His feet were shod with ancient leather deck shoes.

  “You know she’ll never let you stop,” he told her, with a grin. “You could throw that until your arm goes numb and you collapse on the sand, and she’ll stand over your body begging for more.”

  Shirley laughed. She threw the stick again, glad to have something to do to hide the excitement that flashed through her body: this man was her age, and attractive! From under his long-beaked scalloper’s cap, silver hair curled around his ears and down to his collar. His face was already tanned a deep brown, making his blue eyes glow.

  “How do you like the salt marshes?” he asked.

  “They’re beautiful,” Shirley told him. “So quiet. So…serene.” Immediately, she flushed with embarrassment, because “serene” sounded so gooey.

  He looked at Shirley curiously. “Not many tourists ever see this part of the island, and it’s so near town.”

  She gave him an arch look. “Is it so obvious that I’m a tourist?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with being a tourist. It supports the island economy.”

  The golden Lab raced up to her, wriggling with joy. Shirley took the stick and tossed it into the water again.

  “Her name’s Reggie,” the man informed her. “Short for Regina. My little island queen. Certainly the queen of my home.”

  Shirley wondered if that was a hint that he was unattached? “You live here, then.”

  “I do.” He nodded toward the north. “Over in Polpis Harbor.” He held out his hand. “I’m Harry.”

  “Shirley.” Shirley put her own in his. His was warm, firm, hard, and callused. A working man’s hand. For a moment, Shirley felt the world tilt. It took all her concentration to seem normal. “Did you grow up here?”

  “I’ve lived here most of my life. I’ve never much wanted to be any place else.”

  “Doesn’t it get lonely here in the winter?”

  “I like lonely.”

  She studied his face. His skin was weathered and furrowed with laugh lines, but his eyes held a touch of sadness. But whose wouldn’t, Shirley thought, by his age. No one gets through life unscathed.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “Boston. Well, just outside Boston. I’m down here with some friends for the weekend. I own—we own—a spa, and one of our clients is giving us her house for the summer.”

  “Nice deal.”

  “I know.” They were walking side by side now. Shirley stopped to pick up a shell. “I’ve never spent time on Nantucket before.”

  They were almost at the town pier. Someone in a motorboat yelled and waved. The man waved back, and Regina took off galloping down the wharf.

  “Well, Shirley, I hope you enjoy your stay.” He tipped his cap, then turned to follow his dog.

  That night the Hot Flash Club went in a group to see an independent film presented by the Nantucket Film Festival. It was shown in a funky old barn called the Dreamland Theatre located between the library grounds and the Easy Street basin. Afterward, they went to the Atlantic Café for drinks and a late dinner, and then they wandered over the cobblestones, back up Main Street, to the Orange Street house.

  Saturday, Alice spent the day at the Film Festival, reveling in the sight of so many beautiful people with fabulous urban looks. Shirley meandered around the piers. Polly attended a workshop offered by a scrimshaw artist. Faye set up her easel on Easy Street and began a sketch of the old cottages extending on a wharf into the harbor. Marilyn joined an ecology field trip to the beach, using a seine net to capture—for a harmless moment—some of the various creatures who made their homes at the water’s edge. As the teacher discussed in charming detail the activities of fiddler crabs, jellyfish, and scallops, Marilyn gazed down upon each individual animal in her net. Here was one of millions, individual, alive. She loved the sense of being taught again. Even though she knew all the facts, it was still lovely to hear them told, like a favorite fairy tale read by a new voice. Saturday night, the five joined up for dinner and a concert.

  Sunday morning, they all read newspapers around the dining room table, then went their separate ways. That afternoon, everyone but Shirley and Alice packed up for the trip home. Once again they met around the dining room table with pads and pens for lists, assigning responsibility for bringing over staples like toilet paper, sugar, and cleaning products. They’d quickly realized how much more expensive even the most modest items were on the island.

  “Just one thing before you go,” Shirley said. “Since I’m the one Nora Salter spoke to, I feel the most responsible, and so I just want to ask that we all be sure, every time we come and go from the house, that we lock the door. And double-check that all the doors are locked.” She looked around the room. “I can’t be sure, but I think something’s disappeared this weekend. Wasn’t there a green pitcher shaped like a fish on that sideboard?”

  “There was!” Marilyn said. “I’m sure there was. And it’s gone. How odd!”

  Faye squinted her eyes, thinking. “I know we locked the door when we went out to buy the paper this morning…”

  “Well, I didn’t go anywhere,” Alice said defensively. She’d spent the morning sleeping in. “And I didn’t hear anyone in the house while you were gone.”

  “But you were asleep, right?” Shirley asked.

  “True,” Alice conceded.

  “And the way you snore, Alice…” Shirley grinned. “I can hear you down the hall.”

  “I think a china doll got taken,” Polly told them. “Although I can’t be sure…”

  “Maybe we should make an inventory of all the things in the house,” Faye suggested.

  “Are you nuts?” Alice waved her hands at the tables and bureaus covered with serving pieces, artwork, clocks, knickknacks, and vases. “That would take us forever.”

  “Could we put them all in storage?” Polly suggested.

  Marilyn winced. “We’d spend the entire summer moving stuff.”

  Faye brightened. “I know! Let’s take photographs! It won’t take long, and we’ll have a visual record.”

  “Good idea,” seconded Marilyn.

  “I’ll do it,” Alice volunteered. “I’ll buy some of those throwaway cameras.”

  “You’re going to have to buy quite a few,” Polly said, looking around the cluttered dining room.

  Shirley made calming motions with her hands. “I don’t want you all to get too riled up over this. We’re supposed to be coming here for relaxation, right?”

  “Right,” Marilyn agreed. “And when one or more of us is here every day, that should deter any unwanted guests.”

  Faye looked around the room. “You know, I can’t wait to get back here. This place is so beautiful, and after a few days here, I feel so relaxed.”

  “When can you come back?” Shirley asked.

  Faye made a face. “That depend
s, I guess, on Aubrey.”

  19

  When Marilyn was in her early twenties, just after she married Theodore Becker, she privately and not unhappily gave up all dreams of ever making a significant contribution to the world of science. For her, being a mother and wife came first, and she considered herself fortunate that she’d managed to squeeze out the time to finish her doctorate in paleobiology and, later, when Teddy started kindergarten, to be offered a position at MIT.

  She’d never been interested in fame, anyway; it was the studying she loved. It was the sense of connection with the profound and intimate secrets of the universe that thrilled Marilyn to her core and enriched every day of her life. Because of her teaching and family obligations, she’d never been able to do much field work, so she was surprised at how much she had enjoyed her few hours on Nantucket.

  The island had such a unique geology—she felt as if she’d just begun to read a mystery. She was eager to return to it. She wanted to study the fascinating terminal moraine, its creation by glaciers, to understand how the flora and fauna came to thrive there. She’d not yet even seen the moors, which spread across the middle of the island, nor most of the beaches. She was especially interested in the one along Coskata, one of the major habitats of the horseshoe crabs, those creatures of venerable, ancient pedigree.

  She couldn’t wait to tell Ian about Nantucket. Ian, who had a doctorate in paleobiology, was an artist who specialized in drawings of vanished species. How wonderful it would be to spend some time on the island with Ian—walking along the beaches, inspecting the variety of marine and estuarine invertebrates—it would be bliss! Perhaps, when the summer semester was over, she and Ian would be able to spend a few weekends together in a guest house.

  Faye’s voice broke into her thoughts. “You’ve been awfully quiet back there.”

  Marilyn forced herself into the present. She was in the backseat of Faye’s BMW as it zipped off Route 93 onto Memorial Drive. Faye was driving her and Polly back home, and as Marilyn’s eyes focused, she saw by the congested streets they were almost there.