by Lisa Unger
“Oh, yes,” said Lulu, even though Chelsea knew Lulu couldn’t care less about either of those things. “He is.”
Chelsea felt her phone vibrate in her bag. She pulled it out and read the window that had popped up on her screen.
Adam McKee sent you a message. She didn’t say anything as she opened up Facebook. Can’t make it to the mall, he’d written. But what are you doing tonight?
She felt a jolt of excitement as she quickly stuck the phone in her pocket. She’d tell Lulu later, but she wanted to keep it to herself for a bit. She knew that as soon as she shared it with Lulu or her mother, it would be less special than it was right now, when it was her little secret. A cute guy wanted to know what she was doing tonight. Before anyone warned caution, or Lulu found something to make fun of on his page, Chelsea took a few minutes to enjoy it. I am breathing in, she thought. I am breathing out.
chapter six
Joe was half listening to the weather on the radio while answering e-mail on his phone—a habit that annoyed Birdie to no end. There was absolutely no reason not to get the weather from the computer. But there was something that appealed to Joe about listening to the weather forecast on the radio. He favored the foreign-language stations because he fancied himself a polyglot (which he wasn’t; he had a middling knowledge of French, did better with Spanish). Meanwhile, whatever the language of the forecast, he wasn’t really paying attention to it. So he frequently made serious misjudgments about when to take the boat out because he hadn’t quite heard or understood the weather predictions. She would be forced to correct him in order to avoid disaster, which always got them into a screaming row. Birdie spoke fluent French and was quite capable with Spanish.
“How was your swim this morning?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
“You weren’t gone long,” he said. She didn’t answer.
“Sounds like the weather will be nice this weekend,” he said into the silence.
The weather was not predicted to be nice. There were heavy thunderstorms in the forecast, as was evidenced by the gathering dark in the sky over the mainland. If he’d only look outside, he’d see that. Wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin who said that people were divided into two groups: the weather-wise and otherwise?
When Birdie met Joe—a hundred years ago, it seemed—she knew on sight that she would marry him. She was at a Christmas party, one that her friends had forced her to attend. They’d showed up at her door—Belle, Patty, and Joan—and lured her from bed with a bottle of champagne and a red party dress “borrowed” from Macy’s. (They’d paid for it with credit. They would hide the tags, be extra-careful with their drinks, and return the dress on Monday.)
She didn’t realize it at the time, but she had been depressed, hiding out in her tiny one-bedroom Manhattan apartment on Bank Street. Depression was a private monster she would battle over and over in her life, and this was her first real taste of it. She had suffered a humiliating split-up from her fiancé, and she was sure she’d never marry. A pall had settled over her life. It wasn’t black but gray. A grayness that leached into every other color, draining her energy and spirit. She was consumed with gray thoughts. She knew she’d languish in the secretarial pool until the day she died. She was certain of it even though she was only twenty-three years old.
“Lying around here isn’t going to make anything better,” said Joanie.
“No, I’d wager it will only make things worse,” agreed Belle.
They were all so pretty and fun—dressed up, hair pinned, lips red, skin white and flawless. Had they really been as beautiful as she remembered them? Or was it that they were all so young, so hopeful, with everything before them?
She allowed them to do her makeup, sweep her long blond hair into a stylish chignon. The dress—even in her doldrums, she had to admit it—was sensational.
“It’s like someone poured you into it,” said Patty. “Oh, Birdie. It’s wonderful.”
Whatever happened to friendship like that? That selfless, cheerful, loving camaraderie? Did it go the way of the bouffant, a silly style that people laughed about now? All Birdie’s close female relationships had fallen away over the years. She wasn’t quite sure why. That easiness, that sweetness, when they were all on equal footing and just starting out, had turned bitter. Choices turned to consequences, opinions turned to judgments, and admiration turned to envy. Envy curdled everything, like lemon in milk.
And then they were on the chilly streets. Their coats were all awful, practical tweed and wool affairs worn two seasons too long because none of them could afford new. At the Stork Club, the coats were immediately shucked aside like embarrassing relatives from Brooklyn. Of course, they were all Brooklyn-born and -raised. But they thought of themselves as Manhattan girls now, leaving the outer boroughs far behind. They had educations and jobs, small apartments in the Village or on the Upper East Side. Men still paid for drinks and meals back then; a girl could live well on very little until she found a husband. For a certain set in 1960, New York City was a candy store.
What Birdie remembered most about that night was how everything sparkled—Christmas lights on the trees, sequins on the dresses, gloss on the lips, and bubbles in the champagne. A jazz quartet played hip renditions of classic carols. And then there was Joe, taller, bigger, than the other men. He didn’t belong; she could see that. He played the game as well as everyone else, but there was something about him that stood apart and above. He had a way of squinting when he looked at people. He could have been amused or disgusted. It was hard to tell. Something about that excited her.
When his eyes fell on Birdie, there was something in his gaze that made her draw in a little gasp. Birdie had been beautiful then. She wouldn’t have said so at the time, but she could see it in photographs of herself. She was slim and strong. The scarlet dress that night, her matching lips: Joe claimed that she cast a spell on him. He walked over to her, abandoning his conversation, as if drawn by a rope through the crowd. The men with whom he’d been talking turned to stare and then started laughing among themselves. She heard Joan, Patty, and Belle giggle and whisper and drift away. The band was playing a jaunty rendition of “Jingle Bells.” In that moment, Birdie felt lighter, happier, than she had in weeks.
“You’re too pretty to work at our company,” Joe said as he approached her. In those days, it passed as charming.
What did she say to him? She didn’t remember. All she remembered was the feeling she had when she looked into his face. He was strong. He was honorable. He would take care of her. She could see it all there in the square of his jaw, the wide knuckles, the thickness of his neck. She felt washed over by a sense of relief that left her lightheaded. He was the first safe place she had found, and she mistook it for love at first sight. Of course, that was before she knew the truth about love and marriage, about life.
“I’ve had a call from Teddy,” said Joe. He poured her a cup of coffee, stirred in the perfect amount of half-and-half. He always knew how to make her coffee just right. “He’s not coming.” Joe tried to sound light, but she could tell he was angry.
He hadn’t shaved, she noticed. When they were younger, she used to think he looked so sexy in the morning, before he was all combed and pressed. She hadn’t had those kinds of thoughts about her husband in a very long time.
“Oh?” She felt something grow heavy and sad inside her. When she’d talked to Teddy last week, she’d had a feeling he might cancel. He’d hinted twice about work being hectic.
“Busy with work, can’t get away,” said Joe. “You’d think he had a real job, the way he carries on.”
Teddy owned his own company, a consulting firm—whatever that meant.
“Oh, Joe. You know he has a real job,” she said. “He’s very successful.”
Her husband issued an unkind grunt.
“What is it he does now?” she asked. Teddy had told her about his business. But Birdie honestly didn’t understand what he was talking about—systems and infrastr
uctures.
Joe shrugged, peering down at his phone. He was always staring at the thing as if whatever he saw there was much more interesting than anything going on around him. “Something with computers.”
Birdie believed that Joe knew exactly what Teddy’s company did. He simply, for some mean personal reason, pretended not to. Joe and Teddy had never really gotten along. Even when Teddy was small, Joe seemed to have trouble connecting with his son. As Teddy grew, the boy seemed so delicate, so frail—so different in every way from the thick and powerful Burke men. Teddy was slender and more careful, creative and quiet, like the men on Birdie’s side of the family. Whatever early attempts Joe had made with Teddy—catch, ball games, fishing, golf—had generally ended with Teddy weeping in Birdie’s lap. Why do you have to be so hard, Joe? Birdie had asked him a thousand times. Joe would rage: What’s wrong with that boy? He’s like a china doll.
Joe had worked as an aeronautical engineer for the entirety of his career. He understood meticulous design that led to the creation of a tangible object, preferably something made out of steel, something that defied the laws of nature. To her husband, if labor did not result in a physical product, no work had been done. Teddy couldn’t show his father a solid result of his work, so Joe pretended not to get it. Was it coding or programming? Something like that. It had been lucrative for Teddy, she knew. He was successful. Of course, it wasn’t really about Teddy’s work, was it?
Kate had accomplished almost nothing, and Joe had only praise and words of affection for their daughter. Oh, our Kate’s so lovely, such a good mother, always stays in touch—blah, blah, blah. Maybe because Kate was a girl, Joe had expected less from her and, unlike Birdie, wasn’t disappointed or surprised when she never made anything of her life.
“It’s just as well,” said Birdie, though she didn’t mean it. “He’s always very distracted when he’s here.”
The truth was that he was always distracted, even when he wasn’t here. That wasn’t the right word. It was more that he was distant, disconnected. On the phone, he sounded like he was doing or thinking about something else, certainly not interested in anything Birdie had to say. When they were together, she found herself trying to catch his eye. He was forever looking away from her.
“He doesn’t like the island, never has,” said Joe.
“It’s not for everyone.”
She’d said that many times about a lot of different people. Not everyone had the constitution for this place, this lifestyle. It took some real grit to get by on Heart Island. Birdie had the fortitude for it, naturally. It was in her blood.
As if reading her mind, Joe said, “I think I’ll go back to the city for a few days.”
She drained her cup and put it in the sink. “Fine.”
There was no point in arguing. She could say that Kate and her family were coming, that she needed his help with the cleaning, the shopping. Didn’t he want to see his princess and her perfect progeny? It didn’t seem to bother anyone but Birdie that each child had a different father. One of whom was a scandalous drunk, an adulterer, and a lousy writer. And Sean? What to say about him? He was not the type of man she’d have expected Kate to end up with. Once, Kate (Katherine Elizabeth Burke, a beautiful name, a regal one) might have had anyone, could have been anything. She’d had every privilege, a first-rate education. She’d thrown it away.
If Birdie made a fuss, Joe would stay out of obligation. But then there’d be some kind of fight, and he’d leave in anger. Joe Burke always got his way. You either gave it to him or he took it.
“I’ll be back midweek to see Katie and the kids.”
“And Sean.”
“Well, yes, of course.” There was that famous Joe Burke squint. “Him, too.”
She thought about telling her husband what she had seen—a figure, a man on their island. But now she wasn’t sure of it herself. What had she seen? Was there really someone there? Or was it some tricky combination of deteriorating eyesight and the wind? It would be silly to tell him, a play to any latent desire he might have to protect her. He might even mock her. He’d always thought she was an alarmist, too quickly frightened or overwrought. She didn’t bother.
“I’ll shower and bring you to the marina,” she said. “I’ll do the shopping for the rest of the week while I’m there.” See, she thought. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.
“No rush,” he said. He was staring at the new iPhone again, checking his e-mail. He was so proud of that thing, showing off photos of the kids, the amusing apps he had bought. She hated it for no reason she could name, often imagined the look of horror on his face if she were to snatch it from him and throw it out the window of their apartment, or a moving car, or into the drink. He didn’t look up as she walked off to the bedroom. If he had, he might have seen that she was fighting back tears.
chapter seven
Emily was getting that feeling. It was a kind of swelling anxiety, a low-grade panic that made her say stupid things, that caused objects to slip from her hands.
The yield from the prescriptions she had lifted was low. The bottle of Adderall, a cocktail of amphetamines prescribed for ADD, and the bottle of Ativan, an anti-anxiety med, brought fifty dollars each, about five dollars a pill. The rest of the bottles contained only old antibiotics, which were worthless. What they really needed was OxyContin at twenty dollars or more a pill. In a perfect world, they would have hit the jackpot with the morphine ampoules prescribed to cancer patients. In the burbs, people would pay fifty or more for one of those. She’d seen the morphine only once. It was very rare.
She’d waited in the car while Dean and Brad took the meds up to the small split-level ranch where Dean’s dealer lived. It looked like any of the other houses on the block, in a working-class neighborhood just like hers.
There were some untended shrubs along the walk, a welcome mat at the door, and a sticker in a window so the fire department knew where the kids were. There was a frog-shaped sandbox on the lawn, a tricycle tipped over in the driveway. If she didn’t know who lived there, she wouldn’t have guessed. There was a minivan in the driveway, two car seats in the back. But she noticed, on the street, a black slick of various oil and fluid stains from a parade of old beater cars. People parking to pick up or drop off drugs had left an indelible stain on the road.
Dean had forgotten to leave the car running, and she hadn’t wanted to call after him to bring back the keys, so she could at least listen to the radio. She didn’t want Brad to have an excuse to turn around. Every time her eyes fell on him, he was looking at her with an ugly grin.
It seemed like they were in there forever. She must have drifted off, because the sound of the closing door startled her. She saw them walking down the drive. She could tell by the look on Dean’s face, the way his shoulders were hiked up and stiff, that he was not happy. Things had not gone well. None of them had said a word on the way home.
Now they were back at her place. Brad was sitting on her couch, feet up on her coffee table, a beer between his legs. He was watching one of those home-improvement shows, and he seemed very involved in it. Or maybe he was just high. She’d seen him pop one of the pills in his mouth when Dean wasn’t looking. Who knew what else he’d taken. He had those bad teeth that meth heads had, yellowed, decaying. Meth mouth, they called it.
“Look, Em,” Dean said. He had his hands on her shoulders, his voice a whisper. They were standing in the kitchen. He’d ordered a pizza and a liter bottle of Pepsi because Brad had said he was hungry. Why was Dean spending money when he seemed to need it so desperately? “The only way we’re going to get rid of this guy is to give him some cash.”
“How much did you get from the meds?” she asked.
“Two hundred.” He’d had more medication to sell than the pills she’d lifted. She guessed he’d gotten them from the earlier open house, the one she’d refused to attend in order to go to work at the Blue Hen. “I gave him everything.”
“Okay,” she said. “You’r
e going to have to tell me how much you owe him.”
Dean looked up at the ceiling and then back at Emily, did this little shuffle from foot to foot that he did when he was stressed. “Two thousand.”
She blew out a breath. “I don’t have that. You know I don’t.”
“Who does?”
That was when it started, the feeling—as if she were standing on shore, watching a tidal wave wash in. As the crushing wall of water pushed toward her, she was not fast enough to run, not strong enough to hold it back.
“No one,” she said.
He rolled his eyes at her. “Come on.”
Did he mean her mother?
“She’ll never give that to us,” she said. “She won’t even help me with my rent since you moved in. We’re not even speaking right now.”
“I’m not talking about your mother.” He had these icy blue eyes, a powerful gaze that went right through her. When she met him, she thought he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. She also thought he was the sweetest, the most romantic. He was that still, somewhere inside. Wasn’t he?
“Then who?” she said.
He ran his hand through her hair, then pushed back a strand that had fallen in front of her eyes. He’d be tender for a few minutes.
“They make that in a day at the Blue Hen,” he said. “You said so yourself.”
Oh, God, she thought. Why had she told him that?
“No,” she said. “No, I can’t ask her for that kind of money. Be serious.”
“I wasn’t talking about asking.”
She’d done things at his behest before. Things she hadn’t wanted to do and violently regretted. She’d hurt people who trusted her, let others down in ways big and small. Since she’d met him a year and a half ago, she’d lost three jobs, dropped out of school, fallen out with her mother. All because she couldn’t seem to say no to him. Why couldn’t she? She wasn’t afraid to be alone; in fact, she often preferred it. Was it love? Was this what love did to you? Did it cause you to betray yourself? She didn’t think it should.
