Good Karma

by Christina Kelly

  “Yes, I’ve got it.” Speak slowly and clearly, Ida told herself.

  “An Internet connection?”

  The woman outside shook her head and motioned Ida toward the computer. “Wait, stay on the line.” Stay on the line! Ida Blue felt like a 911 operator. Keep him talking! She stood up from the couch. Some bite-size Tootsie Roll wrappers drifted like butterflies to the floor. But once she rose, she couldn’t move, paralyzed by the fear that she might lose the connection, struggling like a rusted TV antenna clamped to an aging roof.

  She could hear Fred cough and start to say something. Yet nothing mattered but this gift of energy and matter that was flowing through her. She tasted something metallic. Her abdomen was a vacant amphitheater that was suddenly hosting the Golden Globes. Don’t panic, she told herself. And yet she had to move or she’d lose him. She was a fisherman who had caught the biggest fish of her life, a thrashing marlin, and needed to set the lure by yanking the line in a leap of faith.

  She inched toward the kitchen table she used as world headquarters. “Just a moment.” She touched the mouse and the computer came alive. The woman outside had turned away to face the back woods. Ida clicked on her email and saw new messages in her inbox: The Ethics of Juggling, Joke of the Day, Mastering the Mermaid Braid. “Yes, my connection is fine.” My connection has never been better in my whole life, she thought.

  “Oh, it must just be me.”

  “Can I come over?” She said it so suddenly, even she was surprised. Ida Blue could only imagine the connection she’d feel if she were nearer to the energy source, closer to the mother ship.

  “Come over?”

  “To help. I can reboot it. Check the router.”

  He remained silent for a moment, considering her offer. “So kind of you, but I’ll try to suss things out.”

  “Please call again.” She heard the desperation in her own voice, as if she were the one now having the emergency. Don’t leave me! Don’t hang up! Stay on the line!

  “Thank you.”

  And she heard the line go flat. Ida Blue looked at her phone, then out the window, but the woman in the golf outfit had floated away.

  chapter 9

  Catherine and Ralph settled into the outside seating area at the Village Café, the on-island restaurant adjacent to the village and golf cart retailer.

  She’d wondered about this new business of specialty stores selling only golf carts or French cheese or flannel bedding. Really? Even downtown the previous afternoon, they’d happened into a place that just sold salt, friendly clerks offering them samples as if they were carriage horses.

  “What are you thinking?” Ralph asked distractedly. He was looking at the menu, but Catherine knew he was thinking of the marsh view or perhaps even the curve of Audrey’s bosom.

  A young waitress brought them their iced teas and took out a paper pad. “So, what can I get y’all?” she asked. Her nose was pierced with a single diamond stud. Catherine prayed that Ralph wouldn’t mention it. The previous night, he’d asked the bartender at the 17hundred90 Inn if he’d been drunk when he’d gotten the hammer tattoo on his neck, and Catherine was sure the young man had watered down their drinks in retaliation.

  Ralph ordered a turkey sandwich and Catherine a BLT. As the waitress moved away from the table, Catherine called out, “And he doesn’t like too much mayo, please. Just one side, light.” She couldn’t help herself.

  Ralph placed his cell phone on the table in front of him. “Honestly, the golf course view is nice but I’m leaning toward the marsh,” he said. Momentarily, Catherine imagined him leaning toward Audrey.

  “Did you remember to feed Karma?” Catherine asked suddenly.

  It was the type of question that might send Ralph into a tailspin. The type of question that married couples ask each other a thousand times during a lifetime: Did you turn off the stove? Did you lock the car? Did you take your medication? Of course he had, and of course she didn’t need to ask, but something made her seek assurance. It was solidarity and support she was looking for, a way of asking, “Do you still love me?”

  “I don’t know,” Ralph answered. “Probably.”

  She was going to have to get used to retirement. The breakfasts, the lunches, the afternoons. It was one thing to speak on the phone a few times a day. What’s for dinner? Do we need anything at the store? It was another thing entirely to putter about under the same roof. Now Ralph’s questions were closer to (1) Where’s a paper clip? (2) Can you cut my toenails? (3) Are my eyebrows starting to curl? They’d had friends back in New Jersey who divorced after forty years. “I married for life, not for lunch,” the wife said. “Once he retired I got twice the husband and half the time.” Ralph sometimes offered to help with cooking dinner or making a bed, yet trying to explain the most efficient way to cut an onion was painstaking. And teaching him hospital corners was like teaching a toddler origami.

  Catherine sipped her iced tea and watched as Ralph tried to harpoon the lemon rind that had settled at the bottom of his glass. As he poked at it repeatedly with his fork, she wondered if he’d done the same thing at business luncheons on Wall Street. If anyone had ever suggested a spoon. If the firm had finally found a star investor who didn’t impersonate Captain Ahab during client meetings.

  “The garage of the last one isn’t bad,” he said.

  She knew he was speaking of the empty space for the golf cart, the side door with a separate entrance. He could pull in straight from the golf course, the equivalent of a ski-in condo at a Colorado chalet.

  “I’d be able to work on projects at the bench,” he added.

  What projects he had, she had no idea. He needed an instruction manual to change a lightbulb. One time he’d fixed a toilet paper holder by replacing an anchor bolt, and the way he’d talked about it for months, you’d think he’d reconstructed the Eiffel Tower. “And Audrey?” Catherine asked.

  “Competent, it seems. Knows her stuff.”

  As it turned out, Catherine was grateful for Audrey and her pathetic flirtation. At the house on Happy Rabbit, Ralph had been so transfixed by her that by the time the two had returned from honeymooning in the backyard, the woman in the closet—Amity—had easily slipped away. Although Catherine felt as self-conscious as if she were wearing a gorilla suit, Ralph and Audrey had hardly noticed her when they came back in. They spoke of property lines and covenants, while Catherine kept silently repeating the phrase, “I like to live other people’s lives.”

  As Ralph sipped his iced tea and checked his email, Catherine tried to envision what it was that Amity did in vacant houses. Try on clothes? Cook meals? Read diaries? Steal medication? Catherine had heard somewhere that crooks sold painkillers on the Internet for large profits, but what medication could there be to steal at Seven Oaks? Viagra and cholesterol-lowering statins and blood-pressure pills? Of course, people of all ages lived in the community, but retirees seemed to make up the biggest segment.

  The waitress returned and set the plates in front of them. Catherine’s sandwich was flanked by french fries while Ralph’s had coleslaw and pickles.

  “Here,” Ralph said and winked as he placed the pickle slices on her plate. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  Across the open courtyard an older man sat eating alone. His white hair was combed neatly to one side. Although clearly in his seventies, he had good posture and strong arms, as if he had been a college rower. He flipped through a glossy newsmagazine, wire glasses perched at the end of his nose. A spotted Great Dane slept at his feet, her giant head resting on his shoes.

  “That’s another good thing about Georgia”—Catherine watched Ralph thumb his phone’s screen with one hand while he held his sandwich with the other—“whether it’s a gun or a dog, they let you bring it into a restaurant.” She wasn’t sure if either part were true, but Ralph nodded, oblivious. Then the older man started coughing deeply and the Great Dane lifted her head until he stopped.

  Suddenly Catherine wished Karma were there
with them. They had left him locked in the laundry room at their rental, his eyes beseeching them to take him along, but Ralph had put his foot down. “I’m sorry, honey,” he’d said matter-of-factly, “but he doesn’t have voting rights in this.” But, really, Catherine felt that Karma was as much a part of their family as Ralph was. In recent years, while her husband had been commuting to New York, working long hours, golfing with clients, Karma had been the one with whom she’d spent the most time.

  If she were alone, as the man and his dog perhaps were, she wondered which house she would choose. Instead of chicken and white rice every other meal, she could prepare salads with things Ralph was afraid to try, like garbanzo beans, shaved almonds, anchovies. She remembered the vague freedom she had before she’d gotten married. Of course she was only twenty-five and living in rural Monmouth County, in her parents’ clapboard house, a place as serene inside as it was outside, but there was something to be said for doing only your own laundry.

  Then she wondered if Amity was alone. The young woman was pretty and athletic, but Catherine didn’t remember seeing a wedding ring. She was probably in her thirties. Perhaps Catherine should have called the police when she’d found her in the closet. Or even informed Audrey. But what would Audrey have done? Gotten security on speed dial to call in the National Guard?

  The waitress with the diamond stud returned. “Everything okay?”

  “Delicious.” Ralph gave her a toothy grin and touched his finger to his left nostril. The waitress didn’t seem to notice the implication and so he added, “You’ve hit it on the nose.”

  Catherine felt her face flush with embarrassment.

  The man in the corner reached down to scratch his dog’s head, and the Great Dane snorted gratefully. Then he placed both hands on the chair’s armrests and pushed himself up. The dog rose as well.

  Ralph’s phone vibrated on the table and shook the salt and pepper shakers. He put the receiver to his ear, pursed his lips together, and listened, a million miles away from her. Then he stood and retreated beside a decorative planter.

  Stepping slowly, the man walked in her direction, across the courtyard and toward the outside exit. The Great Dane stopped in front of Catherine. “Sequoia,” the man said gently. “C’mon.” He pushed his wire glasses back on his nose.

  Catherine put her hand out for the large dog to sniff. “She must smell my dog, Karma.”

  The man laughed. “Karma? Fantastic. Do you have good Karma or bad Karma?”

  At that moment, Catherine moved her gaze from the dog to the man. In an instant, she looked at his face and saw the most extraordinary blue eyes. The man’s pupils were entrapped in a sea of pale turquoise. They seemed to sparkle in the light, a shimmery expanse of hope. She felt as if they had met somewhere before, as if they had been friends for years.

  “Good Karma, I hope,” the man continued, perhaps mistaking her silence for irritation. “I’m sorry about this.” He gently pulled the leash. “Come along, girl.” But the dog wouldn’t move. The man pulled his hand through his trimmed hair and continued, “Sequoia. Just like the tree—strong, sturdy, and for the first time in her adult life, irrepressibly stubborn.”

  “What a lovely dog,” Catherine whispered.

  Embarrassed, the man tugged hard at the leash. “Sequoia!” But still the dog wouldn’t budge. She held her head steady, staring at Catherine. Long tail swinging back and forth like a pendulum.

  Ralph’s voice was low and his back was turned. He spun around and lifted his hand in acknowledgment of the man and his dog, but continued his cell phone conversation.

  “My apologies. She’s usually not like this.”

  And just as he said this, with great difficulty the Great Dane reared up on her back legs and placed her front paws on the armrest of Catherine’s chair. Without hesitation, the dog started licking Catherine’s face, moving her big tongue in wide arcs across her cheek and neck, and Catherine suddenly remembered what it was to be loved.

  chapter 10

  While Karma remained asleep behind her in his doggie seat, Catherine drove south on I-95, past signs for Philadelphia, Wilmington, the Brandywine Valley. After she and Ralph returned to Short Hills from Seven Oaks, they received a generous offer on their New Jersey home and put in a winning bid for the house at One Happy Rabbit Lane. It seemed all stars were aligning.

  She and Ralph had hoped to caravan together back to Savannah. They’d even talked about a mooch march, visiting friends near Annapolis or staying a few days with a cousin in Baltimore. But packing had taken longer than expected and they hadn’t foreseen the attention needed to the dozen jigsaw pieces that made up their lives: a festive farewell dinner with neighbors; a final cleaning at the dentist; updated vaccines for Karma; and a face-to-face farewell with all their doctors. Ralph left several days before Catherine to prepare for the closing in Savannah. Meanwhile, she remained in New Jersey, watching tattooed men in puce coveralls cart their belongings into a moving truck as big as Giants Stadium.

  As she drove, Catherine became entranced by an audiobook that explained the inner workings of the planets and universe. A client had given Ralph the CD as a retirement gift, but he preferred to listen to The Zen of Golf—to learn why his putts weren’t straight instead of how the universe worked. So she spent the morning learning about plate tectonics. How even though the world seems stable, it remains in motion, shifting constantly in infinitely small distances until it decides to take a six-inch leap and the resulting tsunami wipes out a distant island nation.

  Around lunchtime Karma started snorting, bodily noises making up for his linguistic challenges. Since Catherine needed a break from the highway and the audio, she exited and followed signs to a rest area that turned out to be two sad little gas pumps in front of an Arby’s. And she knew she should really call Ralph. She could use her cell phone while driving, like every other person on the planet, but she was unfamiliar with the state laws of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware and didn’t trust herself. She’d read too many articles about cognitive distraction, about how the human brain can’t concentrate on two things at the same time. And for a moment she thought of Audrey Cunningham. Could Ralph concentrate on two things at the same time? Could he really be attracted to their Realtor? Or was he just flirting because that’s what men did? To Catherine, Audrey seemed one-dimensional. Brassy. Impertinent. “All chrome and no engine,” as her sister, Martha, might say. Audrey had negotiated a reasonable price on their new house—the house in which Catherine had found Amity in the closet—and had even managed to get the golf cart thrown in to sweeten the pot for Ralph, but her appeal to Catherine stopped at the negotiating table.

  Once parked, Catherine pulled Karma out of his baby seat, and he stretched with delight. As she called Ralph, she let her dog pull her in the direction of a hulking green Dumpster.

  He answered on the third ring. “Hey, how’s traffic?”

  “They say sixty is the new forty.”

  “Are you driving?”

  “Why, hello to you too. Yes, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “No, I pulled over.”

  “Good, I need you here in one piece.”

  Karma tugged Catherine to a patch of gravelly bone-colored rocks that might have been part of an archeological dig. “How’s it going?”

  “Good. Lawyer this morning. Insurance agent this afternoon.”

  “Have you had lunch?”

  “Just getting it now.”

  “Alone?”

  He paused. “With Audrey. She’s helping sort out the inspection.”

  Catherine felt her face redden, the blood erupting in a pool beneath her cheeks. She thought of telling Ralph what she’d learned about the zones of convergence and about continental drift. That he walked on an eggshell crust with molten iron teeming somewhere below his spiked golf shoes. Then Karma let out a little yip and Catherine realized the dog had become tangled in the leash, as if he were a lassoed steer ready to b
e flipped, branded, and sent inside to Arby’s. “Well, we’re stopping for lunch. I’ll call you tonight when I get to the hotel.” Catherine thought she heard the tinkle of glass and wondered if Ralph and Audrey were at a fancy restaurant. A restaurant that had embroidered napkins and tablecloths. A restaurant that served steak tartare.

  “Okay. Just use your blinker.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m just reminding you to pay attention. And don’t dawdle. You’re allowed to drive over fifty-five.”

  After she hung up she cursed him quietly even though she knew he was right about being careful. She was often surprised to find herself in the far left lane, a pace car in front of a pack of impatient drivers at the Indianapolis 500. She’d had three minor accidents in two years, but they weren’t technically her fault. The last one—backing into someone at the Super Wawa—had more to do with getting Ralph’s melting ice cream home and in the freezer than any sort of criminal recklessness. At an age when their car insurance rate should have dropped, they’d just received an increase.

  Ten years ago she would have just laughed at the suggestion of living in a gated community, but as she aged, she felt a growing anxiety. Not about physical ailments—receding gums or middle-of-the-night leg pain—but about being vulnerable. She had to start concentrating on things she used to do without thinking. Things like grocery shopping without a list, remembering where she set her eyeglasses, getting out of her car without losing her keys and cell phone. Life, it seemed, was getting hairier.

  SHE SPENT THE afternoon at a steady seventy miles per hour. Cars and trucks passed her as if she were driving a tractor. She made it through three of the CDs, listening to how a giant asteroid had hurtled to earth and struck Manson, Iowa, and left a twenty-four-mile crater in its wake. How it came from nowhere and without warning. Again, Catherine thought how lucky they were for finding Seven Oaks. For moving to the safety of coastal Georgia rather than a condo on the San Andreas Fault or a quaint cabin overlooking Mount Saint Helens. She likened the gated community to retiring to a childproofed play area. No sharp objects. No electrical cords. No glass-top tables. Only Audrey Cunningham to worry about.