As Good as It Got (25 page)

“Condom?”

He grunted confirmation and produced one from a back pocket. Later she was going to wonder what he was doing inviting her into the woods with a condom in his pocket, but right now she just wanted him inside her as fast and hard as possible. She wanted to be punished for hating Paul and she wanted to punish Paul for what he’d done to her.

With their pants down and her leg back up, Patrick wasted no more time than she wanted him to. She cried out at the feel of him filling her. God, she’d missed this. He swept his arm under her knee so she’d no longer have to hold her leg up herself. His thrusts were coarse and savage, exactly what she wanted. A bare minute later her orgasm hit so quickly, she yelled in surprise, letting the overwhelming pleasure sweep through her with vicious satisfaction.

Oh. Yes.

Absurdly, she remembered a commercial from her childhood, where a man, slapped in the face, responded,
Thanks,
I needed that.

Did she ever.

Patrick continued to grunt and strain and push, and she was ashamed of herself wishing he’d hurry up. Her leg was cramping, the bark of the tree rubbed her back raw, even 218 Isabel

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through her top. She lifted her eyes to the patch of sky visible over the clearing, watched the clouds push by, the dark green of firs framed against its brilliance.
Thank you for Maine
and for erect penises
.

Patrick’s breathing changed, his body tensed in climax, and he let out a noise that should have been erotic and exciting, but which was frankly a little comical.

Over. Done. Back to their regularly scheduled program-ming. Thank you and good night.

“Ann.” He was breathless, disentangling his arm from her leg. He cupped her face in his hands; his penis slipped forlornly out of her. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”
After that? “For what?”

“I don’t know what happened, I never meant to . . . it just

. . . I don’t know what happened here, but it was totally unexpected.”

“Which was why you had a condom in your pocket.”

He looked startled, then his eyes narrowed and chilled for only a second before he shook his head and smiled sheep-ishly. “I had planned to go cruising in town tonight.”

“For men.”

Again that flash of cold suspicion. “Yes.”

“Ah, okay.” If he wanted to be keep pretending he hadn’t been planning this all along, she’d allow him, though she wished he’d stop insulting her intelligence and lose the act, at least around her. He could keep it up for Betsy if he needed to. “And now? ”

He shook his head, dropped his hands from her face, peeled off the condom and yanked his pants back up over his beautiful long thighs. “Now I don’t know. I don’t know about anything anymore. Except that was amazing.”

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She laughed, flushed and giddy. “It was, thanks.”

“Ann . . . ” He looked genuinely tortured. “What I mean is, this was so good, and you are so incredible, and—”

“Patrick. We’re grown-ups. We both needed this, it was great, and we’re friends.”

“Yes. Okay.” His relief was obvious. He squatted, poked the condom under a patch of moss, then made a show of gallantly checking her back for scrapes, brushed stray bits of bark off her shirt while she did up her pants. “Ready to go back?”

“Ready.” She took his offered hand and followed him, glancing back at the beautiful spot to fix it in her mind. This had been good for her. She’d been with someone else, someone who wasn’t Paul, and enjoyed herself. There were still pleasures to be had, after all. Maybe she and Patrick would get to visit here again before she left. Maybe not. But she’d always love thinking about the serene peaceful gull, carefully buried in a makeshift chapel, a mere foot away from one of Patrick’s used condoms.

They walked back through the woods in silence. Everything seemed lighter, more lovely, beckoning with possibilities. The archery field came into sight, and it seemed days since they’d stood there trying to hit their targets.

“What’s next for you during free time, Ann?”

“I’m going to work on a painting. I want to start a new one soon.” At Clive’s house, the view from his woods. She felt a rush of excitement at the thought, and she wasn’t entirely sure it was only the paint she was pumped about.

“Painting was part of my physical therapy. I totally got into the peace it brought me.”

“Yes.” She laughed for no reason except that she felt like it.

They dropped hands crossing the archery field, passed 220 Isabel

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Betsy’s cabin, and as they came to the path from the parking lot, there he was, conjured by her thoughts. Clive, holding a paper bag, stopped in his tracks, watching them approach.

“Hi.” She smiled too brightly, surprised to find herself feeling awkward and guilty over what had happened between her and Patrick. “What are you doing here?”

He was looking between her and Patrick in a way that suggested he knew exactly what they’d been up to in the woods, which made her even more uneasy. How could he know? He couldn’t. But still she fidgeted. Her body became unable to assume a natural position. What the hell? She was free to do whatever she wanted. Or more to the point, whomever she wanted.

Clive gestured with the bag. “I brought you muffins. In case you still weren’t eating.”

Heat rose in her face. He’d been worried about her? She was touched. More than she should be. And she suddenly and inexplicably wished for a chance to take back what had happened in the woods.

“Wow. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He glanced again at Patrick, and passed her the bag with the barest touch of chagrin, like a man offering a daisy to a woman who’d just received a huge bouquet of roses.

“Thanks, Clive.” Patrick’s voice held a dismissive edge. His hand touched the small of Ann’s back. “I’ll make sure she eats just fine.”

Ann felt a flash of annoyance. What was this, High Noon in the Wild, Wild East? Were they going to start dueling?

Except Ann belonged to neither. Patrick was a lying As Good As It Got

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player, and Clive was married, which made the dynamic even crazier.

She thanked Clive again, told him she’d be by one day soon to paint, letting him know with her eyes how sincerely she appreciated his gesture, then smiled briefly at Patrick and excused herself, not only to escape the weirdness, but also because the scent of muffins had just wafted out of the bag like a wizard’s enchanting potion and made her instantly ravenous. Something about Clive made her want to eat.

She jogged back to Cabin Four, leaving the men to snarl manfully at each other or whatever they planned to do—

and Patrick better not discuss her recent “progress” in the woods—hoping no one she passed on the path would ask what she was carrying, so the gift could stay private. Back in her room, she’d eat one muffin—or maybe two—and hide the others before she checked in at the lodge and resumed painting.

Then at some point soon she’d make sure she found a nice and safely platonic way to let married Clive know that lying player Patrick had brought her the daisy, and the huge bouquet of roses had come from him.

Chapter 14

Cindy walked along the path toward the building where they had group therapy. It was foggy today, dense and close, drops gathering on spiderwebs strung between birches and pattering dismally off leaves and ferns. All noises were amplified, as if the world had shrunk down to a movie sound-stage. Seals barking out in the middle of the bay might as well have been on shore. The few lobstermen who ventured out shouted conversations to each other that weren’t as private as they thought. The edge of the shore faded into gray, the tree trunks were gray, the rocks were gray, the sky was gray, the air was gray. Even their oatmeal breakfast: gray.

Approaching group therapy felt completely different today. A week ago, last Monday, Cindy had been so excited, so full of optimism. Everything in this camp would be great!

She’d have a wonderful time! Make lots of friends! Spend a fabulous couple of weeks until it was time to go home to Kevin.

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Now she didn’t feel like herself at all. Since she’d been with Patrick, she couldn’t shake off what she’d done. How could she have enjoyed being with another man so much?

She hated the revived memory of how exciting and compelling someone new could be. Was this what Kevin felt with other women? Was her marriage really as sad and lifeless as the night with Patrick had been joyous and vibrantly alive?

She hated Kevin’s other women twice as much for bringing him what she couldn’t.

Except after five whole minutes lying in Patrick’s arms, full of afterglow bliss and conflict, he’d gotten weird. Nervous. He’d wanted her out of there, though too sweet to say so with words. She understood, of course she understood.

He couldn’t be seen hosting campers in his cabin at night. If word got out about them, he’d lose his job. Maybe even his Ph.D. program in Minnesota would rethink its offer of can-didacy. She understood that, she understood all that.

But she’d barely slept the rest of the night in her own bed, and she woke up the next morning and every morning in between—double yesterday and this morning after she’d become a gull murderer—raging with guilt and adrenaline, feeling as if nothing was ever going to go right again. Cindy was pretty sure she could spend the rest of her life on that field aiming into the sky and not come close to another bird.

The death of the gull had to be a sign. She just didn’t know what kind of sign, except maybe one to show that she destroyed everything she tried to make beautiful and good.

Or maybe that she shouldn’t plan on a career in archery.

Now, as she strode along the path, her stomach and chest and brain burned and she didn’t know how to make them stop.

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How did Kevin put up with the guilt? Maybe he never felt any. Cindy hated this crazy mania. She wanted to go back to where everything was predictable, certain, and easy. She wanted to go back to her big overdecorated house and her quiet life and Kevin, and she wanted to find some way to bring Max back, too, because he adored every failing inept inch of her.

A root tripped her, and she stumbled off the path into an empty spiderweb whose sticky threads caught her face and showered drops on her pink sweater. Ironically, she did not want to go to group therapy, the place that could most help her, except she couldn’t tell anyone about Patrick or talk out any of her confusion. Maybe he did have feelings for her, though he’d been very careful in their encounters after that night together not to show any glimmer of what lay between them. Maybe he was discovering he wasn’t so gay after all.

Maybe whatever they had between them was so special that it transcended his gayness.

Or maybe that was all crap. She wished she knew. She didn’t feel like she knew anything anymore, not about herself, not about her life. And this place was supposed to help her!

She stomped up the steps to the therapy cabin and flung open the door to the cozy room, warmed by a fire dancing in the corner wood stove. The door swung too quickly and crashed into the wall. Not surprisingly, happy Betsy, chatty Dinah, snotty Ann, and weird Martha all snapped their heads around to look.

“Hi.” She gave a high, squeaky laugh that she hated herself for. “Sorry I’m late. Sorry I slammed the door.”

Sorry I exist.

“It’s fine, Cindy.” Betsy smiled, eyes watchful.

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The rest of the women kept staring. Cindy imagined herself giving off weird vibes or aura or whatever it was people like Betsy saw. She probably looked like she had a flock of killer bees swarming all around her, her personal attack force.

Like she was some superhero or supervillain able to summon the powers of nature to do her bidding. She wished.

“Have a seat, Cindy. We’re just starting.”

“Did I miss yoga?” She’d dallied in the bathroom, flossing, fussing with her hair, fussing with her clothes, anything to avoid facing her day. She was so, so tired.

“Yes. We’ve done yoga.” Betsy spoke somberly, as if she were telling a desperate mother that the last loaf of bread had already been handed out.

“Okay.” Cindy bent her head so her expression of relief would go unnoticed. Even she could tell this was not a good time to be faced with something else she couldn’t do well.

For all she knew, she’d been terrible in bed too, or broken some cardinal rule of sneaking and illicit sex that everyone else took for granted, and that’s why Patrick hadn’t tried to be with her again. She crossed to the empty chair, admon-ishing her bees to keep quiet and behave themselves.

“We were just about to write our second letter to the men we are here to heal from.” Betsy passed Cindy a clipboard gripping a white sheet of paper and a black pen. “Okay, ladies.

Write to those men and tell them what’s in your hearts.”

Sure. No problem. Except the only thing she had to say was, what the hell was taking him so long to come back to her? She did not like the person she was becoming. She did not like her life here. She needed him to protect her, to prevent her from losing it, and he was letting her down. Again.

Pens were scratching all over the room, even Martha’s, 226 Isabel

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even Ann’s. Apparently a week in this place had given them all a lot to say. Cindy had no desire to share with Kevin happy stories of her camp life. Partly because there weren’t any.

A few sentences later she laid down her pen and sat watching the others. Dinah looked the way Dinah always looked. Cindy wasn’t sure Dinah had ever actually
had
an emotion. Ann’s eyebrows were up and met in the middle, like she was sad and earnest, which Cindy thought didn’t fit her personality at all, except for that amazing hug Ann gave her when she needed one so badly. Martha was frowning as if she were concentrating heavily to get exactly the right words out. For a second Cindy forgot her anger, and her own heartache, thinking of Martha writing to her dying boyfriend and maybe having to say good-bye.