“You know I’m always up for fun,” Claire said, “but we’re in the middle of suburbia.” She waved beyond the tips of the park trees toward the glow of a business district. “And until this moment on the road trip, you’ve always been the sensible one.”
Nicole attacked the other set of laces. She wasn’t feeling much like the sensible one right now. She didn’t know what she was feeling, really, except that it had become vitally important to finish something she wasn’t sure any of them should have started, just because instinct told her it was the right thing to do.
“C’mon, ladies.” Nicole kicked off the other sneaker. “Are you telling me you’ve never gone skinny-dipping?”
“Well,” Claire confessed, “there was that one time in Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand—”
“Then strip.”
“I was a lot younger. There was a hot, young New Zealander involved. And I still had breasts.”
Nicole tossed her socks aside. “We’ve been sharing cheap hotel rooms all the way across country. I’ve seen your scars.” Two wobbly, persimmon-pink crescents tilted across Claire’s chest like the stitched edges of closed eyes.
“I’ll just stay covered,” Claire said. “I wouldn’t want to scare the wildlife.”
“You should show them off like battle scars.” Nicole struggled up from the cool sand, loving the silky feel of it as it shifted between her toes. “Or tattoo them into something dramatic.”
Jenna leaned into Claire. “Did someone slip her a roofie when we were in that bar?”
“Damned if I know.” Claire shrugged. “There was that weird guy eyeballing us across the room.”
“She was only drinking beer,” Jenna said, “but who knows what happened between the time the bartender cracked the bottle open and that Frankenstein of a fan handed it over to her?”
“Wait a minute.” Claire pointed at her. “This is it, isn’t it? This is that thing you’ve been teasing me about since Iowa. The thing you wanted to do that you’ve never done before?”
“I married young,” Nicole said, grabbing the hem of her T-shirt. “I missed the chance to do all those embarrassing things young adults are supposed to do.”
Jenna said, “Clearly I missed something.”
Claire explained, “It’s not a roofie that tipped Nic over the edge. Nicole told me there was something she really wanted to do in Chicago—”
“—and this is it.” Nicole hefted her shirt over her head. “I’m not hanging here all night, ladies. Let’s dive in.”
Jenna sucked in a gulp of air. “Oh thank God, you’re wearing a sports bra.”
“Not for long—”
“Stop.” Claire held out a palm. “Just stop and think about this for a moment.”
Nicole paused with her fingers underneath the elastic band of her sports bra as she caught sight of a jogger heading down the beach. She wasn’t shy about nudity in front of her friends, but once she got naked, she wasn’t hanging around for the show—she was going in.
“What Jenna and I are trying to figure out,” Claire said, “is exactly what time during the last few days the pod people invaded your body.”
Nicole expelled a breath. In high school, she used to be known as the fun one. “You guys really think I’m a stick in the mud.”
“I say it must have happened in Iowa,” Jenna said. “If I were a pod person, that’s where I’d hide.”
“Calling yourself a stick in the mud is a little harsh,” Claire added. “But you can definitely be rigid.”
“Rigid is too strong a word,” Jenna countered. “Still, she’s not the kind to normally do something impulsive.”
Nicole smothered a ripple of irritation. The jocks at Pine Lake High School weren’t exactly paragons of virtue. They were usually the ones caught at Coley’s Point at three in the morning with two empty bottles of blackberry brandy, scattering like deer at the sight of the police aiming the beams of their flashlights into the woods.
She thought about her truncated first year as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Like so many other students before her, she spent a lot of time trying to live in the moment and avoid the big decisions. One night she came to Promontory Point with a crowd. Instead of laughing and fooling around, she stared deep into the inky waters of Lake Michigan in the hopes of an answer to a dilemma she—the consummate planner—had never expected to have to make. Then her friends all came and fetched her, shucking clothes in the process, racing one another to the shore as they dared one another to jump into the frigid April waters.
Though she’d wanted to, she hadn’t gone skinny-dipping then. She’d had a good reason. Her friends would have seen the evidence if she’d stripped off her clothes. They hadn’t yet known she was three months pregnant.
Nicole blurted, “Why do you think we’re all here?”
Claire said, “Because after we left that stinking bar, you were the first one to talk to the driver when we stepped in the cab?”
“No, no.” Nicole dropped her hands to her hips. “Not why we’re on the shores of Lake Michigan. I mean ‘why are we here’ as in what Maya asked all of us back in South Dakota. Why did we all decide to go on this road trip?”
“Personally, I attribute it to taking advantage of Jenna’s good intentions,” Claire said. “And maybe a little too much Percocet after the surgery.”
“Claire, I can practically see your nose growing.”
“Honey, my secrets are all out.” Claire rolled her shoulders and turned her face to the silvery whoosh of Lake Michigan, away from what little light fell onto the beach. “I just wanted to get the hell away from my sisters and their grand medical plans.”
Nicole glanced at Jenna, who just shrugged and said, “My life is a disaster and I want it to disappear in the rearview mirror.”
Nicole waited for Jenna to say something more. During the baseball game, the only news that Claire managed to tease out of a reticent Jenna was the fact that her efforts to save the marriage had failed and that Nate had a pregnant girlfriend. Then Jenna clammed up. Nicole had hoped—wrongly, it turned out—that a postgame noisy bar would be the perfect place to give Jenna a chance to confess whatever other details she seemed to be hiding. But Jenna had kept her secrets to herself.
She decided to cut her friend a little slack. “Okay then,” she said, her heart tripping, “I’ll confess that I’m here to get away from the reality that in a few more weeks, my son will bring home his behavior and mood issues again, and despite all his sweet promises and honest intentions, his condition will get the better of him just like all the other times before. Once again he’ll be suspended from school, and there’ll be police at my door, and our whole family will have to watch this boy that we love just spiral.”
Nicole dropped her gaze to her bare feet. She heard Claire’s footfalls in the sand as she tried to close the few feet between them. Nicole shifted away, took a few steps toward the water. It rippled under the light of a sliver of moon. She focused on the glare of the red light at the end of the far pier and tried to parse everything she was feeling, this rush of emotions she’d been suppressing, she supposed, for longer than she would have liked to admit.
Back in Des Moines, Claire talked about finding the seeds of joy in the middle of heartache. Now Nicole stared at the lake and smelled the damp and sand and the vague scent of waterlogged wood from the nearby pier. She listened to the cars rumbling by, muffled by the distance. Water gurgled against the pylons. She used to jog along this area when she was in school, running miles and miles, clearing her mind of worries, opening her thoughts to contemplate her future as the cold Midwestern sun rose over the horizon.
She’d made a life-altering decision back then. She’d taken a turn in an unexpected direction. And every good, difficult, and neutral aspect of her life arose from that terrifying, dangerous choice, in ways she had only begun to understand.
Nicole said, “We’re doing this road trip all wrong. We can’t keep dragging all these problems
along behind us.”
In the pause, Jenna murmured, “Like Marley’s clanking chains.”
“We’re worrying too much about the past,” Nicole continued, “when we should be living in the present.”
Claire’s voice, low and sly: “I’ll make a Buddhist of you yet.”
“We need to crack open our thinking. So let’s start right now.” Nicole turned to Jenna. “We’ve got days before we reach Pine Lake. If you could do anything at all, Jenna, what would it be?”
“I asked myself the same question just yesterday.” Jenna hugged her elbows as a breeze swept off the lake. “I spent that day talking to a three-hundred-dollar-an-hour lawyer going over the divorce papers and plans for our response. When that was done, I found myself tooling around in a hotel room with nothing to do but watch Law and Order reruns.”
Nicole said, “That gave you lots of time to think.”
“Exactly. I have ten days or so before I have to face Nate in a divorce lawyer’s conference room.” Jenna traced patterns in the sand with the toe of her sneaker. “I decided that more than anything, I’d rather be hanging around with friends.”
A flash of headlights set Jenna’s blonde hair momentarily alight. Nicole felt the tingling awareness that told her there was something more Jenna wanted, something bigger, but now didn’t seem the right time to probe.
“All right then.” Nicole turned to Claire. “If you could do anything, Claire, what would it be?”
“Change the world.”
Claire chased those words with a sarcastic smile. Her teeth gleamed in a flash of light that swept quickly over them, the headlights of some distant car turning. Nicole sensed her friend meant them, bone deep, meant them so much that it hurt too much to take them seriously.
“That’s a tall order,” Nicole said, “but tomorrow morning, we’ll all sit down and brainstorm. For now, what I want to do,” she said, as she flicked the button of her jeans, “is take a nice, long swim in Lake Michigan.”
Jenna looked away in sudden embarrassment as Nicole shimmied out of her jeans.
“Are you guys in?” She stood on the dark beach in her underwear and a sports bra. “Or are you just going to stand here and watch me from the shore?”
Claire groaned and reached for the hem of her T-shirt. “Promise me absolutely no pictures.”
Nicole grinned. “Not even shoulders up?”
Jenna muffled a laugh as she kicked off a sandal then wriggled like a kid trying to tug her shirt over her head.
Claire tossed her shirt on the sand. “I just know I’m going to regret this.”
Nicole yanked her sports bra over her head and shot toward the surf. “No more regrets.”
“Stop.”
At the sound of the masculine voice, Nicole froze and slapped her hands over her chest as a beam of light rolled past her, casting her shadow on the sand.
“Ladies,” the voice said, “I’m going to need you to come away from the water. This is the Chicago PD.”
Chapter Seventeen
To: Paulina, Alice, Zuza Petrenko
From: Jenna Hogan
Subject: Claire and Officer Gomez
Attached: NotaNudeBeach.jpg; BreakingTheLaw.jpg; RideInaCruiser.jpg
Hey, Petrenko sisters, it’s Jenna here. Don’t be alarmed by the picture of a wet Claire with her arm around Officer Gomez of the Chicago PD. Although last night Officer Gomez surprised us on Pratt Beach as we were about to take a swim in Lake Michigan, he was very accommodating once he caught sight of Claire’s mastectomy scars. It turns out his mother is a ten-year breast cancer survivor. So under the cordon of two of Chicago’s finest, we all had a good, long, naked splash before getting a free ride to the hotel in the back of a cruiser.
I noticed that the “Claire and the Big C” blog has gone real quiet over the past few weeks. It occurred to both Nicole and me that all of Claire’s friends might start to worry if they aren’t kept up-to-date with how she’s doing. We’d be happy to share some photos from the road trip along with a few PG-13 stories. We hope you post them on the blog. As you can see, Claire is taking full advantage of this pause in her treatment.
We’re making our leisurely way east, planning a few more stops. Barring further interaction with the local police, we should make it to Pine Lake before long.
Chicago, Illinois
Jenna shifted Lucky’s weight on her lap, trying to avoid his tongue as the pup snuggled close to her. She scratched him behind the ears as she scrolled down the little screen, nervously rereading the e-mail on her phone amid the white-noise burble of coffee shop conversation.
“Just send it, Jenna.” Nicole rolled a large paper cup of coffee between her palms as she slouched behind dark glasses. “Enough fiddling, it’s perfect as written.”
“The last time Paulina got an e-mail from one of Claire’s friends she hopped on a plane to Kansas and hunted us down in a pool hall.” Jenna raised her screen. “This might make her call out the National Guard.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. As it is, I’ve been answering Paulina’s texts practically every day. I know more than I ever wanted to know about the signs of lymphedema.” Nicole shook her head. “Maybe if her sisters see Claire relaxed and enjoying herself, then they may relax a little, too.”
Jenna winced as she tapped the Send button, eyeing the bar until the phone beeped that the e-mail and its attached photos had gone through.
Just then Claire appeared from around the coffee line to slip a corrugated flat of four hot coffees next to its twin on their table. Claire’s T-shirt bore a picture of a round, jolly Buddha with the words I Have the Body of a God.
“Second batch.” Claire sucked a sticky drip of coffee off her thumb. “One more batch of coffees and we’re off.”
Jenna watched Claire head back to the counter to wait for the rest of her order, still feeling a bit off-kilter. She’d only been gone for a few days, but she sensed she’d missed some change in the air, a shift in the relationship between her two friends that left her feeling one step behind. This morning, Nicole had sat them all down in the luxury room’s seating area with a pen and a paper, intent on making plans for the rest of the trip—but Claire had blown those plans to pieces. Claire had something she wanted to do. Nicole, with a secret smile, had pushed the pad of paper aside and reached for her purse. That’s how the three of them ended up in this fair-trade organic coffee shop purchasing twelve hot coffees to go.
Now Claire called out to them from the front of the shop where she waited, balancing the third tray of coffees. Slipping her phone in her purse and Lucky to the floor, Jenna picked up a tray and strode away from the dark-roast aroma into the heart of Chicago.
They passed a bakery and a bodega and a check-cashing store while Claire strode fiercely ahead. Straining against the leash, Lucky froze and nearly had a seizure as they passed underneath an elevated track and a train clattered overhead. A breeze ruffled off the Chicago River, pushing papers and leaves across the sidewalk like skittering insects. Jenna finally swept him up into the hollow of her waist. The poor little pup quivered against her, unnerved by the traffic and the milling crowds.
The first victim of Claire’s generosity lay dozing on the stairs of an old stone church. Claire climbed up the steps and leaned over to say something to the man who barely moved in the cocoon of his blankets. Jenna wrinkled her nose. She could smell the ripeness of him even from a good distance. Claire didn’t make any sign of noticing. She talked to him as she tugged a coffee out of her carrier. She put the coffee down close enough for him to reach but in a place unlikely for him to tip over.
Jenna watched her old friend turn and descend the stone stairs, and she was reminded of a time Claire had bounced down the stairs of the Baptist church in the cannery section of Pine Lake after delivering three boxes of shoes out of the trunk of Jenna’s car. Jenna hadn’t always paid attention to exactly what Claire was involving her in—which of the many coat and clothing and toy drives her friend took
it upon herself to coordinate—because she had just been so gratified to be invited to the planning meetings, put in charge of the logistics, and given responsibility in a committee of smarter and more enthusiastic students. It never struck her until now, with a flat of hot coffee in her hand, that all along she’d been following the trail of a comet.
Nicole must have remembered something, too, for she suddenly leaned into Jenna. “Claire would have made a fabulous nun.”
Jenna paused, confused. “She was a nun.”
“I mean a Catholic nun. Working with the homeless. Just like this. Honestly, if she were willing to shave her head and eyebrows and put on a white sari, then I can’t imagine she’d object to the black habit.”
“There’s that little issue that she’s not Roman Catholic.” Jenna tried to remember what church the Petrenkos attended. Not the Episcopal church, like her own family. “Also, she already rejected the contemplative life in Thailand. I think she’s too much of a rebel for a convent.”
“My aunt is an Ursuline nun in Quebec. She’s been arrested three times for civil disobedience.”
Thinking about Nicole’s puckish sense of humor last night, Jenna was no longer surprised Nicole had a rebel aunt. It was funny what you learned about people after fighting with them for blankets.
Then the small muscles of Jenna’s neck tightened. Last night at the Cubs game, she’d been very grateful of Nicole’s hesitation to prod her for more details of her visit with Nate in Seattle. She hadn’t been ready to spill the whole tale while drunken Cubs fans jolted up around her and cursed the blindness of the third-base umpire. The subsequent excitement with the police had absorbed them, and this morning Nicole had been adamant about sending photos and an e-mail to Claire’s sisters.
Now they walked in companionable silence under the bright light of a Chicago August. Lucky raised his snout and licked her face once again. Jenna took the look in his bulging brown eyes for encouragement.
“While Claire is playing coffee fairy,” Jenna said, “I thought maybe I could ask you for some professional advice about—”
Random Acts of Kindness Page 18
