The Girls of Tonsil Lake

by Liz Flaherty

  Chapter Eight

  Andie

  We were all going to wear dresses we’d bought on the island, shapeless floaty things that were slit thigh-high on the sides. We were quiet as we got ready, and I wondered if our slumber party atmosphere had ended with David’s arrival. Even though I’d teased Suzanne about it, I’d loved it, too, that camaraderie that seems to exist only between women.

  But now David was here. He would sleep in Jean’s room tonight, so none of us could barge in and sit on her bed to talk or borrow clothes because she was the only one who kept up with her laundry.

  In the morning, would he suggest that Jean go home with him? Would she go? It would still be fun with only the three of us, but not the same. We would miss her steadying presence, her unexpectedly wicked sense of humor, the tapping of her fingertips on her laptop at all times of the day and night.

  We would miss her cooking, too—her meals were the only palatable ones we ate here in the house—but that didn’t matter. I hoped she knew that didn’t matter.

  We met in the kitchen in varying stages of readiness. Suzanne was pulling her hair into a high, sideways ponytail and I was still looking for the thongs that protected my feet from the rocks on the paths when Jean said, “Oh, poop, we forgot.”

  Vin looked up from where she was kneeling before the wine rack. “Forgot what?”

  “The question of the day. We haven’t had it. Whose turn is it?”

  “Mine.” Vin was still for a moment, her hand on the edge of the counter for balance. Finally, she straightened, bringing two bottles of wine up with her. She turned so that her eyes met ours in turn. “Do you think people actually get second chances, or do you think if your first chance runs out you’re just out of luck?”

  We all had to think about that one. Suzanne braided her ponytail then combed it loose with her fingers. Jean lay on the kitchen floor with her hands behind her head and did crunches in brand new white eyelet underwear from a boutique on the island. I counted for her.

  “I think we all get second chances,” said Suzanne. “And thirds and fourths, if that’s what it takes. What we do with those chances”—her laugh was soft and self-deprecating—“that’s another story altogether.” For a moment, she looked sad, her pink-tipped fingers flashing as she braided her ponytail again. “And you just keep hoping and praying you have one more. That’s all you can do.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jean, coming to a panting stop. “Sometimes I think you have only one, but different people’s chances come at different times. I don’t believe a chance ends because something bad happens…because you get a crummy deal. You just have to hold your cards close to the vest sometimes and play conservatively until the luck of the draw comes your way again.” She frowned and I could tell she wasn’t completely happy with what she’d said. “But you have to work hard at the game. You can’t just wait for the good cards; you have to look for them.”

  “Andie?” said Vin.

  I looked down at my chest, at Jean’s too-thin face, and thought of Paul and Jake, and said, “Yes, I believe in second chances.”

  Vin smiled, and there was a lightness in the expression that made her appear younger, almost happy again. “I do, too.”

  Jean

  The men had laid a fire on the beach. After we all ate far too much steak, lobster, rice, salad, and cake, we walked down to the ring of stones surrounded by folded blankets and unopened bags of marshmallows.

  David and I left for a walk almost immediately, a blanket tossed over his shoulder.

  “It’s nice here,” he said, looking around in the star-studded darkness. “You won’t want to come home.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I gave him a teasing look. “You’re still going to be there, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  When we’d gained enough distance from the others that we could no longer hear the words in their voices, we moved to a grassy, protected area and spread the blanket.

  I sat down, arranging the fluttery skirt of my dress. “Do you want me to come home now?”

  David lay on his back and pulled me down on top of him, not at all concerned about my dress, unless it was with how he was going to get it off of me. “No.”

  His hands were moving, gliding, finding all the places he knew so well. Did I mention a lack of urgency earlier? I lied.

  “No?” I spoke between kisses, my voice hitching in my throat.

  “No.”

  Then I couldn’t think any more for a while. Although there are many things about being fifty-one that aren’t as good as they were ten, twenty, and thirty years ago, sex isn’t one of them. It deserved all of my attention and I was glad to give it.

  It was only when we lay sated and sweating, my head in its accustomed place on his shoulder, that I said again, “No?”

  “When I retired,” he said, “I thought I couldn’t wait. Remember how we’d planned for it all those years before? And we did the things we intended, I guess. We’ve traveled a little, made plans to travel more, and God knows I’ve played golf.”

  He sighed, his fingers stroking up and down my arm. “We got Kelly married and the nest emptied except for the boxes of dolls, trophies, and baseball gloves in the attic.”

  His fingers continued up and down in a light, sweet caress that made me turn my lips to his shoulder. I loved this man so.

  “And I hate it,” he went on heavily.

  I stopped all movement, gazing up at him in the starlight.

  “I hate not having a purpose when I get up in the morning. The only thing in my entire life that’s still okay is you. There with coffee first thing in the morning; there at your computer when I come in from outside or, up for air from the television; there for the kids when they need something.” He leered at me and squeezed my shoulder. “There for the best imaginable sex and some we couldn’t have imagined twenty years ago.”

  I chuckled because I knew he wanted me to. “So,” I said, laying a hand on his chest, tangling my fingers in the soft brown and silver hair. “What are you trying to tell me, David?”

  “That it’s time I found something to do and that I need to do it on my own, without you making things easy for me.”

  “What if you’re not ready at the end of two more weeks? Do you want me to stay longer?”

  “Oh, honey.” He captured my face between his hands and kissed me hard. “I don’t want you to stay now, but I really do think I need to work a few things out on my own. And, to be honest, I think it’s good for you, being here with the girls.” His hand moved from my arm to my breast, then over my ribs and down my hip. “But you’re losing weight, Jean. Are you feeling okay? Should you come home just long enough to pay Carolyn a visit?”

  “No, I’m feeling fine.” And I was right then, so I wasn’t lying to him. Not really. “Do you suppose we should go back to the fire? They’ll know what we were doing.”

  “Well, hell.” He hauled me against him, laughing, and I felt his laughter against every inch of my skin. “Do you think they’d know if we did it again? We’ve been saving up.”

  Suzanne

  I’m much better today. It’s Sunday, and everyone’s off doing their thing. Jean and David went to church this morning and are having lunch at the café before he takes the afternoon ferry in order to catch a plane from Bangor. Vin and Lucas took the morning ferry to the mainland to shop for things not available on the island. (Vin’s going to get me more concealer.) Andie’s sitting on our rock on the beach writing letters. Jean offered to let her use her laptop, but Andie said she’d probably just break it when she tried to erase something.

  Lucas and I had a chat about my antidepressant use. He said Vin was absolutely right to stop me from doubling it up. I don’t like relying on anything at all, and it’s scary when I look at the arsenal of pills I’ve built up. He suggested I get a physical, which Carolyn’s been after me to do, too, and he said I should put all my pills into a baggie and take them in with me.

  I’ve been
thinking, sitting here on the porch, wondering if I’m the reason Tom’s the way he is. I don’t mean his drug use, because I never took more than an aspirin while the kids were growing up and I spent as much time repeating “just say no” as anyone.

  But did I do something else horribly wrong? I was never the consummate mother that Jean was or the fun one that Andie was—my children always preferred their houses to ours—but I always loved them. Didn’t they know that? Did they know it even now?

  Then the questions got harder. Did the fact that I had loved men—always the wrong ones—always right where the kids could see it happening, cause the distance between the kids and me?

  I had thought it was wrong that Jean damned near martyred herself raising her children, that she never took any time for herself, that she always put them first. Always.

  And I thought it was wrong that Andie kept her relationships and her children separate. They knew she dated, and as they got older, they probably knew she had sex. But she never had anyone spend the night when they were home and never spent the night with anyone else when they were even in town.

  “Do you want them to grow up believing in fairy tales?” I asked once.

  “It’s okay with me,” said Jean, watching David and Josh tossing a baseball back and forth. “I think maybe I still do.”

  “I’m not a fairy tale to Jake and Miranda,” said Andie. “I’m just Mom, and they don’t need to know I’m human till later.”

  Their children are all right. Young Jake’s a cop, Miranda and Carrie are teachers, Kelly’s a photographer, and Josh is a medical resident. My Sarah is a veterinarian, and I’m so very proud of her, but she’s also alone and bitter.

  And then there’s Tom.

  I stare blindly toward the sea, not even seeing Andie come up the path.

  “Suzanne?”

  I jumped. “Holy shit, Andie, you scared me to death.”

  “Sorry.” She stood in front of me. Her white hair was longer than it had been when we came, and it lay in soft waves that she pushed back from her face. She looked healthy and fit, and I sent up a little prayer of thanksgiving. “I’m starved to death,” she complained. “What do you say we go in there and rape that cake we brought home from Lucas’s last night?”

  “Works for me. We got any ice cream?”

  “I think so. Jean never lets us run out of staples.”

  We grinned at each other and went inside.

  A while later I put our dishes into the dishwasher while Andie brewed coffee. We returned to the porch, perching ourselves in rockers with our feet on the porch rail, a small round table between us holding our cups.

  “You know…”

  She hesitated, which isn’t at all like Andie, and I turned my head to look at her. “Know what?”

  “We need to talk about it.”

  The back of my neck prickled, and I could envision the fine hairs back there standing straight out. “About what?”

  “We need to talk about Jake.”

  Vin

  Lucas took my hand on the tabletop between us. “Did you know I fell in love with you that first summer you and Mark came to the island?”

  I felt my eyes go wide.

  “That’s always the way of it, you know,” he said, his smile reaching out like a caress. “Country doctor without a pot to piss in falls in love with rich woman who just happens to be married. Only the husband isn’t supposed to be a nice guy—he’s supposed to be a loser with mafia connections and a blonde mistress who lives in a penthouse somewhere and wears leopard-skin pants.”

  “You’ve been watching too many movies.”

  “That’s what we do on the island in the winter. We read books and watch movies, and by the time April gets here, the movie pickings are getting pretty slim. I watched the Star Wars series three times last winter.”

  He held my hand up to his, measuring their differing lengths. “Maggie—you know my brother Zeke’s wife—has three different versions of Little Women and we watched all of them. Every time Beth died, Zeke and I had to go to the kitchen.”

  “You couldn’t stand it when Maggie cried,” I guessed.

  “No. She made fun of us when we did.”

  I laughed over at him. “You’re such fun, Lucas Bishop. I’ll miss you when I go back to New York.”

  He didn’t laugh back, and his eyes were the color of fog. “Don’t go back,” he said.

  “My home is there, and my job. People depend on me.”

  “Is your home there?” he asked gently. “Without Mark, is it?”

  I looked down at where my hand rested in his. The warmth went all the way up my arm.

  There was no warmth in the brownstone, just two lonely women who’d loved the same man rattling around in its opulent and empty splendor. I realized with sudden and brutal clarity that I hated it. It had been a good and beautiful home for the wife of Mark Stillson. But when he died, his widow became once more just a girl from Tonsil Lake who no longer fit her own skin.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “Do you love your job?”

  “Sometimes.” When I’m sitting in the island house with Andie, arguing over syntax, I do. Otherwise… The thought trailed away. “But I can’t give it up. It’s all that’s left, really, of my life with Mark.” I met his gaze again. “I loved him so much, Lucas.”

  But I couldn’t see my husband’s face clearly anymore. I no longer started when I saw medium-height men with thinning gray hair. And I could scarcely hear his voice in my head. Even if I played the old answering machine tape with his crisp, “We can’t come to the phone…” it didn’t sound like it did in my fading memory.

  The man who’d made the tape had been Mark Stillson, man of business and massive wealth. I wanted to hear Mark, my husband, who’d sung Irish ditties in the shower and told the most awful jokes in the world.

  “He called me Vincent,” I said. “He said Lavinia was such a pedestrian name for someone he loved, whereas Vincent brought to mind beauty and grace and…something else. I don’t remember what else.”

  “Power.” Lucas’s voice was devoid of expression, his eyes opaque.

  I stared at him. “Yes, that’s right. Power.” I didn’t ask him how he knew, or guessed. Something told me I wouldn’t like the answer.

  “We’d better go, or we’ll miss the ferry.” He reached for the check in its unobtrusive leather cover, raised his eyebrows when he saw the price of our lunch, and pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket.

  We were on the sidewalk outside the restaurant before he spoke again, and then he didn’t look at me. He just tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow and said, “It was Lavinia I fell in love with.”

  I stopped walking, right in the middle of the sidewalk so that people had to go around us. I looked up at him and all I could think was that the man who loved Lavinia, who I knew for a fact really was occasionally paid in lobsters and blueberry pie, was a bigger tipper than the man who’d loved Vincent. An unselfconscious tipper who’d left the bills crumpled up when he put them inside the leather folder.

  Lucas pulled his arm loose from my hand and put it firmly around my waist, holding me full-length against him. “I still love Lavinia,” he said, and kissed me as though we had all the time in the world and we weren’t standing in the middle of a Bar Harbor sidewalk.

  It was forny wonderful.

  Part Three

  “Life is simply one damned thing after another.”

  Elbert Hubbard

  Chapter Nine

  Andie

  Suzanne and I watched from the porch as Vin and Jean negotiated the path on either side of Lucas Bishop. They were singing “Hey Jude” at the top of their not-very-tuneful voices and all of them were carrying plastic shopping bags from Vin and Lucas’s trip to Bar Harbor.

  Oh good, we won’t have to talk about this now. The relief I felt was immense, and a sideways glance at Suzanne showed it mirrored on her face. God knows what I’d been thinking when I brought it up in
the first place.

  “Look at Vin,” she said, pointing. “She’s all lit up.” Her relieved expression slid into a frown. “And Jean’s white as a ghost.” Fear threaded through her voice. “What do you think’s wrong with her, Andie?”

  I shook my head. I wouldn’t go there; I couldn’t say out loud the thing that was hammering at the back of my mind. Ovarian cancer was still among the sneakiest and most lethal of killers. Jean’s mother had been fifty-one when it had claimed her. And Jean turned fifty-one in May.

  Lucas greeted Suzanne and me and set his share of the bags on the porch. “I’m going to go home,” he said. “Jean, please remember what I said.”

  “I will, Lucas,” she said, sinking into a rocking chair beside Suzanne and setting her bags on the porch floor. “Thank you.”

  Lucas took off on the path to his house and Vin sat in the fourth chair. I gave Jean a hard look. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “You look like warmed-over death.”

  “Thank you, Andie. I needed that.”

  Her withering look was interrupted by a flinch, and I wanted to run after Lucas, yelling for help all the way. I absolutely do not know how I used to make people afraid of me when I am the biggest chickenshit in the world.

  “Did David enjoy the island?” Vin’s fingers were light on my arm, but I recognized a signal for me to shut up.

  Jean’s eyes got kind of dreamy, and she seemed to look a little healthier because of it. “Yes, he did.”

  “You two need to come back sometime on your own. You can use the house any time,” said Vin. She flushed. “Even if I’m in it, you can use it. I hope you all know that, that I want you to come to see me when this time is over whether I’m here or in New York. I’d love for it to be an annual thing, sort of like our drunken brawls at the Tonsil Lake Tavern only longer and soberer. We owe it to your children and grandchildren to show them fun can be had without throwing up on your Birkenstocks.”

  Oh, we had come a long way on this sojourn.