A Summer in Sonoma (26 page)

“Oh, God, did rushing to you the last time make it worse instead of better?” Julie asked. “I'd hate it if—”

“It's not that, Jules,” Beth said. “It's the high drama. I hate drama, you know that. I've never minded being alone, but I sure mind being left. The whole diagnosis and treatment along with Mark's leaving focused so much attention on the severity, rather than the potential to get well. Still, if you girls hadn't come then, what would I have done?” She shook her head. “I had this insane and probably irrational idea that if I didn't advertise it, didn't talk about it till it was almost over, maybe we could all go on living. Have fun. Enjoy life.”

“We can still do that,” Cassie said. “We can do that and help you through the tough days. But you can't keep us out of the loop anymore, Beth. You have hardly any character flaws, but if you have one, it's holding things inside. I'm afraid that one could come back and bite you in the ass.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “My oncologist would agree with that. Our first meeting was all about who's in my life. Good people, I told him—all of whom I planned to keep out of this mess.”

“Her oncologist calls every day,” Cassie told the other girls.

“He's a good guy. Being that we're colleagues, he admitted he's been thinking a lot about what life might've
been like for him if he'd gotten cancer at twenty-five. It's reeled him in. He wants to be my friend as well as my doctor. I haven't found anything wrong with that yet. I like him, he makes a good friend. It's okay.”

“I think he must adore you,” Cassie said.

“As a patient and friend. And,” she said, lifting one corner of her mouth in a half smile, “someone named Walt calls Cassie at least three times a day.”

“Well, now,” Marty said.

“Oh, this
is
getting serious…” Julie said.

“Oh, please, it's just Walt,” Cassie said. “He knows I took a little time from work to make sure Beth is taken care of. He knows she's one of my best friends and that I've been a little shook up about this. He's very sweet, actually—he's supportive.”

“And why isn't it getting serious?” Jules wanted to know.

“I'm not going to let it get serious,” Cassie said. “I'm keeping him as a sweet, supportive friend—that works real well for us. We don't have anything in common. We have completely different tastes. That would wear on a person before long.”

“What's that got to do with anything? Different tastes?” Julie asked.

“Well, he has a naked woman tattooed on his arm—not like up on his shoulder but right down here,” she said, tapping her forearm. “For all the world to see her tits sticking out every day. I'm just crazy about him as a friend, but if you think I'm getting myself mixed up with some biker…well, just forget it.”

 

When Marty got home after the evening at Beth's, it was almost eleven. They'd clearly overstayed their welcome; when they left, Beth was showing signs of being worn out. But it had been like group therapy—everything came out. Everything. From Beth's anger and fear to shocking revelations about what Jules and Billy had been going through as they tried to hold the marriage and family together through some of the most daunting financial troubles a couple can endure. And there was talk about Cassie's struggle to keep what sounded like one of the most positive male-female relationships of the past ten years in a safe place. There was hysterical laughter that had Beth holding an arm against her incision, and tears here and there.

And, of course, Marty spilled her guts. She was not only tempted by Ryan, she was nurturing a wild fantasy that when it was over with Joe, she'd get in touch with him and maybe they'd pick up their old relationship. Of course that made them all crazy; no one believed Ryan had become a different man, so different from the boy who'd treated her so badly. For that matter, Marty only half believed it herself. The thing that had her so confused and hooked was that she felt better with Ryan in just two hours than she had felt with Joe in such a long, long time. Ryan focused on her, treated her like a woman, not just a household asset.

“Because he wants to get in your pants! It's all he's ever wanted from anyone!”

But, she told them, you can't imagine how great it
feels to have someone at least go to the trouble to want to get in your pants! Joe doesn't bother with that anymore; he thinks it's his right. No more sweet talk, no more nice dates, no more helping out, trying to please her. Even in bed, he used to be committed to her orgasm as though it was his responsibility, but now he hated taking the time. He stopped trying and now it was as if it was her fault! She was supposed to just take what she ended up with—an insensitive jerk who thought the lord and master ruled and her happiness wasn't his issue.

That was all distraction, though. Cassie's biker, Julie's money problems, Marty's disintegrating marriage. The real reason for being there at all, and staying so late, was Beth—whose chest was now a flat, scarred wasteland that she had no interest in trying to reconstruct. She showed them. All of them struggled to hold in the gasps and tears; mastectomy scars could be brutal and hers were scary. “Let's get it over with,” she had said, pulling up her shirt and unfastening the prosthetic bra. “This is what it is.” And then, “It's okay if you cry— I did. But this is what it is.”

They didn't dare cry. She was clear about what she needed—to move on, hoping the harsh treatment would get her past the danger and eventually be able to live on without always being afraid. They didn't have any trouble getting the message; she needed strength and acceptance on her side, not pity, not fear, no high drama. So while some of them might've teared up, they held it in and told her, Good! Be rid of the damn things, then, if they're cancer catchers for you! Let's make this pay
off; let's trick the fucker! Live to a hundred and five! A lot of great things can happen without boobs!

But when Marty got home, and went into the kitchen of her darkened house, she saw that although she'd moved down the hall, Joe had left a night-light on for her in the kitchen.

Even though she'd have to get Jason to her mom's in the morning and get to the shop by nine, she was a long way from sleep. All alone, the tears finally came. Beth was the one they'd all envied, all secretly wanted to be. How can a woman so young and vital, so beautiful and brilliant, be stricken by a thing like this? A thing that could kill her after punishing her so much? And if the disease didn't beat her down, the treatment was harrowing. It was so wrong!

They'd talked for a long time about how people died young all the time. They were stacked up on U.S. freeways to the tune of almost fifty-thousand a year, in which case no one had time to get their heads wrapped around the passing, the loss. They couldn't clean out their files or straighten the underwear drawers and get rid of any nasty undies with stains; they couldn't decide what their survivors should do with their things. The only thing different about this was time, and Beth said that time, in its own perverse way, was worth something whether you were twenty-nine or ninety-nine. But that had done nothing to soothe Marty. The idea that the one of their clique who'd really made good could be swiped away devastated her.

There hadn't been any alcohol at Beth's. She wasn't
drinking with her meds and chemo; she was focused on keeping her body as strong as possible. And if Beth wasn't drinking, none of them were. They had a round of orange juice instead. But, she'd said, if there's ever a wake, I want everyone to get drunk and obnoxious!

Marty got up in the high cupboard and dug out the good bottle of Grand Marnier, tears spilling down her cheeks. Now was as good a time as any to get a little drunk and sloppy. This is what it'll be like when I have major life hurdles to get through—alone in a dimly lit kitchen, figuring it out over a solitary drink. But then, how would that be any different than it had been since she got married? Joe never noticed if she was mad or sad or—

“Just getting in?”

She looked up when she heard his voice. He stood in the entry to the family room, looking across at her. Even sheathed in the darkness, she could see he wore the nasty, smelly gym shorts. He took a couple of steps toward her and revealed his heavy growth of whiskers.

“Yeah,” she said, sniffing back a tear. “Go back to bed.”

He came toward the kitchen and stood across the island from her. “You crying?” he asked.

She wiped at her tears and took a sip from her glass. “I'm fine. Just go back to bed, Joe. We don't have anything to say to each other right now. It's late. I'm tired.”

“Tired and screwed up about something,” he said, and not gently. “Maybe you weren't out with the girls, maybe you got something going on the side, huh?”

“I was at
Beth's,
” she said hotly, loudly. “Her cancer's back. She had her second breast removed and now she
has nothing, except maybe a shot at living till she's thirty-five. And, yeah, I'm a little screwed up about it. Now just leave me
alone!
”

“Aw, Marty,” he said, reaching toward her and then stopping himself before he actually touched her. “Aw, jeez.”

Her chin dropped and she just looked into the glass, silent but for the barely audible sobs that shook her shoulders. Then she lifted her glass, took a calming swallow. Why wouldn't he just go?

“Marty, come on, I'd like to do something to help you through this.”

“There's nothing you can do, Joe. We hardly even live together anymore.”

“Babe, I've been thinking… If you just tell me what you want…”

“You're too late, Joe,” she said. “I've been telling you for a long time what I want, and I'm sorry, but now it's just too late. There isn't anything you can do to make up for at least three years of not hearing a word I've said. Go on, get your beauty sleep. I'll be going to bed soon myself and I don't want to talk about it.”

“That why you're crying? Beth?”

She laughed humorlessly. “Yes, Joe,” she said patiently. What an idiot, that he would even have to ask. That's how unconnected they were. “She's one of my best friends and this is the second time in five years. That's why I'm crying. I can't stand the thought her life might be in danger from this. She's so brilliant, so perfect, so young.”

“Yeah,” he said, scrubbing a hand over the back of
his neck. “Yeah, that's awful. I'm sorry, Marty. Really sorry.” He took a breath. “Listen, Marty, tell me something I can do.”

“There's nothing you can do,” she said. “Nothing I can do.”

“Tell me one thing I can do to make you feel better. Anything.”

“Forget it. I'm all done counting on you.”

“I've been stupid, I see that. I guess I wasn't taking this seriously, but you have my attention. Tell me something. Please.”

“I want you to help around the house,” she said tiredly, feeling sucked in by the question, like winning would make a difference.

“Marty, I have been,” he said. “Every time you bitched I tried harder. I spent every waking minute on the yard, the cars, the house, the boat and RV, the—”

It pushed her buttons. “Joe, are you brain dead?!” she nearly yelled. “I want you to pick up your own shit! Your dishes and the mess you make in the house all day when you're home! I want you to hang your towel and not leave it in a wet heap on the floor! Put your nasty underwear in the hamper instead of leaving it open-faced on the floor for me to pick up and wash! I want you to help with the dishes and wipe your spit off the bathroom mirror and your hair out of the shower and off the bathroom floor! What in the holy hell is the matter with you?”

The look on his face was priceless. He was in shock. It took him a moment to respond. “You want me to work
inside
the house?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” she muttered, looking away and taking a sip of her drink.

“
Inside
the house?” he repeated.

She looked at him levelly. “You cannot be this stupid….”

He swallowed, shook his head. “I bet I can be,” he said. “Baby, every time you got on your tangent, I went at that yard and garage harder. I thought we had a division—I thought all married couples did. My mom and dad do—they each have a territory to take care of. Shit, baby, I planted ten new trees in the past two years, hoping you'd notice I was trying my best. I paid the bills, made investments for our future, painted the house, built the patio cover and brick grill, poured the concrete myself, laid brick down the front walk to the street…. I worked like a bull all day, every day.”

She shook her head as she looked at the positively earnest expression on his face. “Joe, how would you like it if I took my supper dishes, wet towel and dirty clothes out to the boat and just scattered them around there for you to clean up? Maybe I could brush my teeth in the front seat of your car and spit on the windshield.”

“But why would you—”

“This house—it's my yard and garage. I leave it perfect and when I come home it's like some filthy vagrant broke in and destroyed the place—and is still here, lying on the couch. Every day, you turn it into a shit hole! You leave your yard and garage spotless and I don't do
one thing
to upset the immaculate appearance of it all. But, besides smelling you at the dinner table
and in bed after you spend all day digging in compost, what's it do to help
me?
What about this don't you get? How totally stupid are you? Really?”

After a moment of silence, he said, “Whew. I don't think I got that….”

“See? It's hopeless!”

“Why'd you marry me if I'm such a loser?” he asked. “I've never been good at housework, you knew that. You even complained about it, but you still—”