Barefoot: A Novel

by Elin Hilderbrand

  Vicki took a breath. She’d suspected things would explode one way or another.

  Melanie rol ed her eyes and stood next to Josh as he shoveled sand. A wailing noise came from the car.

  “Ted?” Vicki said. “Wil you . . . ?”

  Ted was already up. He returned with a very cranky Porter. “I can’t find his bottle.”

  “But you did pack it, right?”

  “Right,” he said uncertainly.

  “Oh, Ted,” Vicki said. “Please don’t tel me . . .”

  “Vicki . . . ,” Brenda said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t do that armchair Napoleon thing.”

  “What armchair Napoleon thing?”

  “You just sound a little bossy is al . A little dictatorial.”

  “Josh?” Vicki said. “Do I sound dictatorial to you?”

  “You have him digging ditches,” Brenda said.

  “A hole,” Vicki said. “For the fire. So we can roast marshmal ows.”

  “I want a marshmal ow,” Blaine said. “Mom told me if I ate . . .”

  “So we can have a nice time!” Vicki said. She could hear herself above Porter’s cries; her voice was loud and frustrated. “So we can have a bonfire and enjoy the evening.”

  “Vicki?”

  The sun was setting over the water; it was a melting, golden blob. Vicki stared at the backlit figures of Josh digging the hole and Melanie standing beside him and Brenda with her hands on her hips declaring she was not a thief and Ted rocking Porter and giving him a bottle (that he found who knows where). They were, al of them, familiar to her. This scene was so familiar to her that she felt she had witnessed it before—and she had, maybe, in her mind’s eye, when she’d imagined what this picnic might be like. They were having this picnic for her—to get her out—but there was also a summer-of-final-wishes element to it, a desire on everyone’s part for this to be a perfect beach picnic, memories of which Vicki could take to her grave. So although the bickering was unpleasant, Vicki was glad they were letting the fantasy go and being themselves.

  But then something odd happened. Brenda and Josh and Ted froze, they became perfectly stil . Why? Vicki realized there was someone else among them, a foreign presence, the owner of the voice that had just spoken her name. Vicki? The voice was curious and kind, but with deep, authoritative undertones. She knew that voice, but how?

  “Vicki Stowe?” the voice repeated. “Is that you?”

  In general, Vicki hated to be recognized in public. (She thought back to the god-awful scene on the beach with Caroline Knox.) She didn’t like to be caught unawares, and whoever was standing before her now—it looked like a man, in waders, with a fishing rod—was interrupting her family picnic and had, on top of that, interrupted a family squabble. Who knows what this person overheard and what this person now thought of them?

  Vicki squinted. The sun was behind the man’s head, radiating like a halo. “Yes,” Vicki said.

  “It’s Mark.”

  “Mark?”

  “Dr. Alcott,” he said.

  “Oh!” Vicki said. She leapt out of her chair. “Hi!” Once she stood, she could see him clearly: It was Dr. Alcott, but in his waders and Atlantic Cafe T-shirt and Red Sox cap, he was unrecognizable, and although she knew his first name was Mark, she had never once cal ed him that. Vicki wondered if she should shake his hand, and as she was wondering this, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek, and Vicki felt like she had just been kissed by a new boyfriend in front of her parents. Ted and Brenda and Melanie, and even Josh, were watching this exchange like it was something that was being shown on TV. None of them knew who Dr. Alcott was—not even Brenda had met him—and she was just about to make the introductions when she remembered about the previous morning. She had skipped chemo—and now here was Dr. Alcott, appearing out of the blue to blow the whistle on her. To inform her family that she was sabotaging her own care. To tel them that Vicki didn’t give a shit if she got better or not. At the very least, Dr. Alcott would ask Vicki where she’d been, and she would have no good answer; she would be forced to confess the truth in front of everyone. I skipped. The prospective humiliation of the moment was enough to leave Vicki temporarily tongue-tied.

  Dr. Alcott took a step toward Ted and said, “Hi there. I’m Mark Alcott, Vicki’s doctor.”

  “Aha!” Ted said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Ted Stowe.”

  The men shook hands.

  Vicki, realizing she had to take control of the conversation, jumped in. “And this is my sister, Brenda. My friend Melanie Patchen, and our . . .

  friend Josh Flynn. And my sons, Blaine and Porter.”

  “Quite a group,” Dr. Alcott said.

  “Yes,” Vicki said. She fingered one of the tails of her scarf. Small talk! she thought. Smal talk might save her. “You’re fishing?”

  “You bet.”

  “Josh caught a fish,” Blaine said. “A big one. And Dad threw it back.”

  “Good,” Dr. Alcott said. “Great. It’s a beautiful night.”

  “Beautiful,” Vicki said. “We had lobsters.”

  “Yum,” Dr. Alcott said. He eyed Ted’s fishing rods, poking out of the sand. “Those are some real beauties.”

  “Thanks,” Ted said. He grinned. “We might try again in a little while.”

  There was a beat of silence, then another beat. Vicki panicked. She was not a trouper, she was not a star patient—she was a fraud! Dr. Alcott had tracked her down, al the way out here on the far edge of the island, to cal her bluff. “Okay, wel ,” she said. “Don’t let us keep you from your fishing.” She cast around for someone safe to look at and came up with Melanie. “Dr. Alcott loves to fish.”

  Melanie widened her eyes and nodded in a good approximation of interest.

  “Okay,” Dr. Alcott said. He took a breath and seemed about to add something else. No! Vicki thought. He smiled at her blandly, and Vicki realized then that he didn’t know she’d skipped chemo. Didn’t know or didn’t remember . . . or didn’t care? “Good to see you. Nice to meet al of you.”

  “Likewise.” Ted shook Dr. Alcott’s hand again.

  “Bye,” Vicki said. She sat back down and exhaled as Dr. Alcott strol ed off down the beach. She knew she should feel relieved—she’d dodged a bul et—but instead, she felt hol ow. Here she was stil alive, stil among them—and yet, already forgotten.

  Josh had thought that once they got back to Shel Street, he would be free to go. But everything had to be taken out of the car: the cooler, the chairs, the trash bag, the sleeping kids—and Josh offered to help. It was easy work, especial y since Ted Stowe insisted they do it with the aid of yet another beer, Josh’s sixth or seventh of the night. The beach picnic had been a success, or almost: There had been the fishing, the sunset, the lobsters—and later the fire and s’mores for Blaine. Melanie had made a big deal about going swimming in the dark. She’d changed into her suit behind the car and, despite protests from Vicki and Ted and Brenda, al of whom were pretty sure she would drown, charged into the water. She was gone al of thirty seconds before she returned, curled into herself, shivering and dripping. Josh handed her a towel, and he found himself gazing at her body—her breasts, the stil -smooth plane of her stomach, bare in the bikini, her curly hair hanging in dark corkscrews around her face.

  Looking at Melanie that way had been careless, the result of too many beers too fast. The problem, Josh realized later, was that Melanie saw him looking, and that was al the confirmation she needed to move forward.

  The moving forward happened after the remains of the picnic were tucked away, after the Stowes and Brenda had said good night, after Josh, too, had said good night, thank you for inviting me, nice to meet you, Ted, see you Monday, Boss. Josh tripped as he headed down the flagstone walk. After six or seven beers, he thought, he shouldn’t be driving, especial y since the police loved to sit on Milestone Road picking off young drunk kids just like him. So he sat in his Jeep for a minute, searching through the console f
or his tin of Altoids, wondering if it was only his imagination or if the surprise appearance of the doctor had changed the night. Because after Dr. Whatshisface wandered away, Vicki clammed up, she burrowed into her chair and gave everyone the silent treatment. Everything had been going real y wel up until then, but the doctor’s visit seemed to cast a shadow over things, reminding Josh and everyone else that Vicki was sick. For whatever reason, Josh thought again about those Sundays on the beach with his parents. If Josh went to Eel Point tomorrow, there would be a different group of parents playing with their kids. His parents’ circle of friends had disbanded right after Josh’s mother died—not because of Janey Flynn’s suicide, maybe, but more likely because the kids were al older by then and asking to go to the big-surf beaches. But there was definitely a sense of loss, of an era passing.

  We have to enjoy it now, his mother said. Before winter comes.

  Those Sundays were over and done with, and hence at that moment they seemed unspeakably precious to Josh, as precious as his mother’s lost love. Josh felt this so fervently, and he’d had so much to drink, that he thought he might cry. But then there was a tap on the Jeep window, frightening Josh. He yelped and put his hand to his heart like a woman.

  It was Melanie.

  He rol ed down the window. “Jesus,” he said. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  She didn’t apologize or ask what he was stil doing there. “Want to go for a walk?” she said.

  “A walk?” he said, like she’d suggested a trip to outer space. It wasn’t particularly late, maybe ten o’clock, and he was, at this point, too intoxicated to drive to the end of the street, much less home. A walk wasn’t a terrible idea.

  Josh looked at the house. It was dark, the door was shut tight.

  “They’ve al gone to bed,” Melanie said.

  He heard conspiracy in her voice and he knew right then that agreeing to a walk with Melanie meant agreeing to some whole huge other thing that he wasn’t sure he was ready for. She was ten years older than he was, she was pregnant, she was married, but overriding these compromising circumstances was the fact that the hair on his arms was standing up. Listen. Observe. Absorb. This was, he sensed, part of the story of his summer. He was supposed to walk with Melanie. He opened the car door and stepped out—and because there was no use pretending that it would happen any other way, he took Melanie’s hand and they headed down Shel Street.

  She was his second choice. As Melanie and Josh meandered down the narrow streets of ’Sconset along the short picket fences, past the tiny, ancient, rose-covered cottages—many of them dark, but a few here or there with a light on and one place ablaze with the end of a party—Melanie forced herself to acknowledge this fact: Josh had wanted Brenda first. And it was only because of Brenda’s inexplicable devotion to her former student John Walsh that Melanie was now holding hands with Josh. Holding hands with Josh! The children’s babysitter! It was funny and ridiculous and impossible to comprehend now that it was actual y happening—and yet this was what she had wanted. This was what she had secretly hoped for, never once al owing herself to believe that it would ever come to pass. But here they were. Josh seemed to know where they were going. He led her past the tennis club, then through an arched opening in a pruned hedge. Suddenly they were in front of . . . a church. The ’Sconset Chapel, a shingled Victorian with white trim and a bel tower.

  “There’s a garden in the back,” Josh said. “With a bench. We can sit.”

  “Okay,” Melanie said. It was the cutest church in the whole world—something out of a storybook—and yet, she hesitated. Churches meant weddings and weddings meant marriage and marriage led Melanie right back to thinking about Peter.

  So it was that they sat on the bench in the church garden—with Josh holding Melanie from behind—while Melanie told Josh a little something about her marriage.

  What she chose to tel him about was Peter’s office Christmas party the previous December. It had been in the city, al the way down on Elizabeth Street, at a restaurant cal ed Public. Public was both hot and cool at the same time; it was so cool, they hadn’t even bothered to decorate for the holidays.

  Strange place for a Christmas party, Melanie murmured to Peter as she handed her fur wrap to a six-foot hostess.

  Don’t start, Peter had said. I’d like to try and enjoy myself.

  “Peter was good at making me feel like a shrew,” Melanie told Josh. She knew now that if she’d been even half paying attention, she would have seen the demise of her marriage at that party instead of floundering through five subsequent months and accidental y getting pregnant. She had gotten her period the day before the party, heralding failure for IVF round number five. It was another F on her body’s report card. Everyone in Peter’s office knew Peter and Melanie were trying to have children, hence Melanie expected an evening of inquiring glances and indirect questions.

  She didn’t want to be there and Peter knew it. Melanie went directly to the long slate bar for drinks; she ordered two glasses of champagne for herself and a Stoli and tonic for Peter. She drank one of the glasses of champagne straight down, then tried to locate Peter in the crowd. She got caught talking to Peter’s boss’s wife for a while, then she saw Vicki waving from a corner of the room. Vicki was wearing a slinky red top and gold, dangly earrings; her hair was up. She had been gorgeous before she got cancer—gorgeous and fun and kindhearted and the world’s greatest mother. She was the only person at the party, in the world, that Melanie could stand to be with. Melanie remembered excusing herself from the conversation with Cynthia Brenner and heading over to the safety of the space next to Vicki Melanie told Vicki about failed round number five. I’m being betrayed by my own body, she said, and then she’d started to cry.

  Vicki whisked her into the ladies’ room, where the two of them sat on a velvet divan and finished their drinks. When they emerged, they bumped into Peter. He was standing near the emergency exit—Melanie remembered his face bathed in the red light of the exit sign in an otherwise dark alcove—talking to Frances Digitt. Frances Digitt was dressed in the suit she’d worn to work, a dark suit with a short skirt—and over the suit she wore a fleece vest. She looked like an executive for Field & Stream.

  Melanie thought nothing of the sight of Peter and Frances together. She was more concerned with having to answer Frances’s questions about the latest round of IVF. Frances showed enormous interest in the Patchens’ quest for a baby; her sister, Jojo, in California was going through the exact same thing, or so she claimed. And, too, Melanie felt embarrassed about being caught emerging from the ladies’ room with Vicki. This was one of the antisocial behaviors Peter always accused her of after an office party: You snuck off to the bathroom with Vicki like the two of you were in junior high.

  “Now, if I’d been paying attention,” Melanie said to Josh. “If I had seen past the end of my own nose . . .”

  “He was having an affair with her?” Josh asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Melanie said. “Yes, he was. He stil is.”

  “Stil is? Even with . . .”

  “He doesn’t know I’m pregnant.”

  “He doesn’t? ”

  “Nope.”

  “How come you haven’t told him?”

  “Ugh. Because he doesn’t deserve to know.”

  Josh squeezed Melanie. It was exactly what she needed—a person to console her, a young, handsome, male person. She twisted around so that she was facing him. He was looking very serious.

  “What?” she said.

  “This is weird,” Josh said. “Can we please just acknowledge how weird this is?”

  “Why is it weird?” Melanie said. She knew why it was weird but she wanted to hear him say it.

  “You’re married,” he said. “You’re pregnant. I know you’re pregnant but your own husband doesn’t even know.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Peter,” she said.

  “I’m not worried about Peter,” Josh said. “I’m worried about what everyone is g
oing to think. Vicki. Ted.”

  “They’re not going to think anything,” Melanie said. “Because they’re not going to know.”

  “They’re not?”

  “They’re not.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Okay.” He exhaled and seemed to relax a little bit. He was drunk, or nearly so. Whatever happened tonight happened tonight—

  and that would be the end of it. Okay? Melanie asked herself. Okay. She kissed him, and this seemed to catch him off-guard, though what were they doing on a bench in the church garden if they weren’t planning on kissing? It only took a second or two for Josh to get it, and then it was as if Melanie were a car he decided he wanted to drive after al . The kissing, which Melanie had intended to keep sweet and soft, turned into something faster and more urgent. Josh ran his hands up and down her back, then up and down her back inside her shirt, and Melanie, who hadn’t kissed a man other than Peter in nearly ten years, couldn’t keep herself from wondering if this utterly intoxicating foreignness was what Peter experienced when he was with Frances Digitt.

  Josh’s youth was apparent in many ways. He was strong, forceful, intense. (With Peter, at the end, physical contact had been like work, like a duty—he complained of this and she’d felt it, too.) Josh fondled her tender breasts, he chewed on her earlobe and whispered into her ear, “God, you are so amazing.” Amazing? Melanie thought. Me?

  But when Josh moved his hands down over her stomach, he pul ed back, like he was afraid he might burn himself. Melanie took hold of his hands and tried to place them on her midsection, but he resisted.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered.

  “It is?” he said. He al owed her to press his hands to her bel y, but stil she sensed reluctance. What was she doing, forcing a drunk col ege student to acknowledge her budding pregnancy?

  “Relax,” she said. “It’s okay.” She should just let it go, she realized. Let him take what parts of her he wanted and choose to ignore the parts that lay outside his comfort zone—but if they were to go any further, Melanie wanted him to accept her as she was. Thirty-one years old. And pregnant.