Distant Shores (16 page)

“No,” she answered quickly. “I don't think I am.”

He offered her the envelope. Her fingers were trembling as she took it, opened it. Inside was an official-looking document. The word
lease
jumped out at her. It was unsigned, but still. “Oh, Jack …”

He barely looked at her. “Read it.”

She closed her eyes briefly, summoning the courage she'd so recently lost. It returned in quarter measure, almost useless to her. She unfolded a color flyer of a beautiful Federal-style house in East Hampton.

“There's a view of the water from the master bedroom. The realtor is holding it for me. I was going to surprise you for Valentine's Day. I guess this is your present to me.”

She looked up at him through a blur of tears. She knew he wanted her to take it back, to be his wife again, but she couldn't do it. It took every ounce of strength she possessed to remain silent. But she knew if she backed down now, she'd be lost. Maybe forever this time.

“I love you, Birdie.” His voice broke, and for a second, she saw how deeply she'd hurt him.

She wondered how long she'd carry this moment in her heart, how long she'd live with this sad and terrible ache. “I love you, too.”

“Is that supposed to
help
?” He stared at her for a minute, then walked out of the house and slammed the door behind him.

SIXTEEN

What in the hell had made him say divorce?

Jack slammed on the brakes. His rental car fishtailed on the muddy road and skidded to a stop. His headlights pointed out toward the rippling, black ocean.

He hadn't been this shaken since his mother's death, more than thirty years ago. Then, as now, his emotions had been a tangled mass with no clear beginning and no end.

If asked a week ago, he would have sworn that he and Birdie were in one of those rough patches that sometimes befell a long-term marriage. He would have said that it would pass, that nothing fundamental would change between them.

He'd thought—when he'd read her letter—that it was her way of getting his attention. The proverbial two-by-four between the ass's eyes. It had worked. He'd talked to that snooty East Hampton rental agent, then called in sick to work and driven to the airport.

It had never occurred to him that she meant it.

Not his Birdie, who couldn't make a decision to save her soul. How could she suddenly have found the guts to leave him? Her father's death must have really shaken her. He'd known she was unhappy, of course, but
this
 … this he hadn't expected.

He'd spent more time thinking about his wife in the past twenty-four hours than in the past twenty-four years. He'd relied on his knowledge of her in planning what to say. He'd distilled it down to a script, which he'd practiced on the flight across the country.

But the woman he'd just spoken to wasn't his Birdie.

We aren't happy. We haven't been happy in a long time.

Those two sentences had ruined all of his plans. He'd been scared by them, terrified, even. That was when he'd known she was serious. Fear had immediately put him on the defensive, made him say what he'd never intended to say, never even thought about.

He slumped over the steering wheel, listening to the rain. Always the rain in this godforsaken place.

He almost turned the car around. The urge to go to her, to take her in his arms and beg for forgiveness was so strong he felt choked by it. Desperate.

But what then?

She was right. That was the utter hell of it. He might have reacted impulsively—
saying divorce, for God's sake, what an idiot
—but that didn't change the truth.

If he turned around now, she'd take him back (he couldn't imagine that she wouldn't), and they'd slide back into that boring, half-love rut they'd developed.

Here, alone in the car, he could admit that she was right. They both deserved better.

After all these years, she'd taken the decision out of his hands.

He closed his eyes, then slowly opened them. Rain patterned the windshield, thumped hard on the roof of the car.

“I loved you, Birdie,” he whispered aloud.

It didn't escape his notice that even when he spoke to himself, in this cheap little car where no one could hear, he used the past tense.

The next day, the movers showed up with the furniture. Elizabeth stumbled out of bed to greet them. As soon as they left, she went back to bed. She stayed there for three days.

And still, she didn't want to get up.

She pulled the quilt up to her chin and lay there. Rain thumped on the roof, tapped on the window, a constant drip-drip-drip.

She understood now why couples broke up and got back together even if the love had turned stale. There was a safety in the known.

The irony was,
this
was what she'd dreamed of. All those years, as time and responsibility and daily life had slowly—so slowly—eroded her marriage and her personality, she'd dreamed of being On Her Own.

She'd always imagined that as an end in itself. A goal. A pie-in-the-sky dream that would bring with it little bluebirds of happiness.

She knew she'd made the right decision, but still, late at night when the house was dark and rain pummeled the roof, she worried that she would always be alone, that no one would ever kiss her again, or sit with her after dinner and talk about nothing. Worse yet, that no one would look at her slowly aging face and say, “You're beautiful, Birdie,” or whisper, “I love you,” just before the lights went out.

She flung the quilt aside and sat up.

It was time to start this new life of hers.

(This was a vow she'd made at least twice a day since Jack left.)

This time she meant it.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and planted her bare feet on the cold floor. Like the Bride of Frankenstein, she lumbered to a stand.

“I could paint,” she said aloud, just as she'd said every other time she'd managed to crawl out of bed, but even as she uttered the words, she felt defeated.

Slowly, her breath leaked out. She hardly made a sound at all as she sank back onto the bed.

If she didn't do
something
, she'd sink into a pit of depression.

When a woman was in this kind of trouble, there was only one thing to do. Unfortunately, the phone wouldn't be connected until “Sometime between noon and four o'clock.”

She reached over to the bedside table for a paper and pen. Before she could talk herself out of it, she started to write.

D
ear Meghann:

I'm in trouble. After years of whining, I have finally done something about my unhappiness. Jack and I are separated. It's funny that one little word, only a few syllables, can so profoundly rip the shit out of your life.

And here's the punch line (though it's a joke you've heard before): I'm even more unhappy. I want to kick up my heels and party till the sun goes down, but I can't seem to get my industrial-size ass out of bed.

You were right, it seems, about all of it.

I could use a laugh right about now. (So tell me about your newest boyfriend.)

XXOO

Elizabeth

She immediately felt better.

Reaching out to someone was better than sitting here, wondering what she was going to do with the rest of her life. What would it be like to be a woman alone?

Suddenly she thought about her stepmother, who was also alone.

You take care of Anita, you hear me?

It was the last thing Daddy had asked of her.

She'd made a deathbed promise … and then done nothing to keep it.

She reached for another piece of stationery.

D
ear Anita:

I am at the beach house by myself.

It's quiet here, so quiet that I am beginning to realize how noisy my life was before. It is the way of women, I think, to follow the loudest voice, to constantly do for others.

I am trying now to find my own lost voice. Perhaps you are, too. An empty house can be a lonely, frightening world for women like us, used to listening to others.

My thoughts often drift southward these days, and I pray that you are okay. If there's anything I can do to help you, please don't be afraid to call. I know we've always been distant with each other, Anita, but in the words of Bob Dylan, “the times they are a changin'.” Maybe we can find a new way.

My best,

Elizabeth

She got out of bed, dressed in a pair of ragged sweats, green plastic gardening clogs, and a fishing cap, like Kate Hepburn wore in
On Golden Pond
; then she walked up to the mailbox.

By the time she got home, she was breathing hard and soaked with sweat. She
definitely
needed more exercise.

She was in the bedroom, peeling off her wet sweats, when something occurred to her.

The Passionless Women.

She was one of them now.

In the days following the breakup of his marriage, Jack made sure he was never alone. Each morning, he woke at four a.m. and was at the office by five, long before any of his colleagues. After hours, he found someone—anyone—and hung out at the sports bar on Fiftieth.

He didn't know how else to handle the separation. He'd never been good at being alone.

Tonight, he stayed at the bar until it closed, downing drinks with Warren. When he finally stumbled home, he was well past drunk.

He walked into the apartment and called out Birdie's name.

The silence caught him off guard.

That was when it really hit him. They were separated. Without thinking it through, he picked up the phone and dialed her number. It rang at least eight times before she answered.

“Hello?” She sounded tired.

He glanced at his watch. It was three in the morning here; midnight in Oregon. “Heya, Birdie,” he said, wincing.

“Oh. Hi.”

He imagined her sitting up in bed, turning on the light. “It's weird being without you,” he admitted softly, sitting down on his unmade bed.

“I know.”

“I shouldn't have said ‘divorce.' ” Even now, the word made his stomach tighten. “I was angry.”

She didn't respond right away. He hated her silence; it made him feel as if this were all his fault. Finally, she said, “Maybe I should have done things differently, too.”

“What now?” he asked. It was what he really wanted to know. For twenty-four years, he'd lived with her, slept with her, cared for her. Any other way was long forgotten.

“I don't know.” She sounded faraway. “I need some time alone.”

“But what about us?”

“We go on, I guess. See where the road takes us.”

“Well. Yeah.” He tried to think of something else to say. “There's plenty of money in the bank account. You can have your bills sent to me if you want.”

“Thanks, but I've got a checkbook. I'll be fine.”

“Oh. Right.” He fell silent again, confused. It felt as if they'd become strangers already. “Well, good night, Birdie.”

“Good night, Jack.”

He hung up the phone and flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

We go on.

What else was there? At this point, there were only two choices available to them. Go forward or back.

Like her, he wasn't ready to go back.

SEVENTEEN

With each passing day, Elizabeth felt a little more confident. She could sleep alone now; that didn't sound like much. Certainly millions of women did it every night, but to her, a woman who'd slept with the same man for all of her adult life, it was something.

She was no longer afraid to eat out alone. Yesterday, she'd had breakfast at the Wild Rose, all by herself. She even tried tofu.

Today, she was determined to try painting again.

She grabbed her down coat off the hook by the front door and reached for the black canvas bag that held her painting supplies. She kept it filled with charcoal and paper, paint and brushes, and hope.

Outside, the air was crisp and cold. She crossed the porch and paused at the top of the stairs. The ocean was a smear of pastel gray and lavender. The grass in her yard looked like a patch of Christmas felt, tacked down here and there by the snow-white mushrooms that had sprouted overnight. A pair of cormorants flew overhead, circling lazily.

She flipped her hood up and walked across the squishy carpet of lawn, trying to avoid the pretty mushrooms. At the top of the beach stairs, she stopped and looked down.

It was high tide.

Disappointed, she sat down on the damp top step. White breakers bashed themselves against the rocky outcropping at the base of the cliff, spraying foam. Every now and again, she felt a sprinkle of spindrift on her face.

It reminded her of a time, years ago, when Daddy had taken her boating in the Florida Keys. Mr. Potter had offered Daddy the use of a speedboat to pay off a debt, and Daddy had thought, why not? how hard could it be to drive on water?—and off they'd gone.

It had been a disaster, of course. Every time they came into port, Elizabeth had had to lie on the bow and push them away from other boats. Bumper boating, he'd called it.

Elizabeth smiled at the memory.

“Birdie?”

Elizabeth twisted around.

Meghann was standing beside her mud-coated black Porsche Boxster. Her designer jeans and black cashmere sweater were streaked by rain, and her hair was so frizzy it looked as if she'd had shock treatments. “Are you
aware
that it's raining?”

“Meg!” Elizabeth stood up, grabbed her bag, and ran. When Meg pulled her into a bear hug, it was almost impossible to let go.

“Don't you dare start crying. Now, get me under a roof somewhere, preferably with a drink in my hand.”

Elizabeth clutched Meg's hand and led her through the gray yard.

“On the way here, I think I saw a fish swimming across the road.”

Laughing, Elizabeth led her into the house, then built a fire and got out her only alcohol. A box of wine.

Meghann looked at the box. “This is worse than I thought. You have clearly confused me with a local. Wait here.” She marched out of the house and returned a minute later with a suitcase, which she flopped onto the coffee table and opened. “Shoes come in boxes; wine comes in bottles.” She burrowed through her clothes and pulled out a bottle of tequila. “After that poor-me letter you sent, I figured we might need this.”

“You're the best friend a girl could have.”

They each drank two straight shots before another word was spoken. Finally, Meghann scooted back and leaned against the sofa. “So, kiddo, how the hell are you?”

Elizabeth sighed. “It's pathetic, Meg. For years, I dreamed of starting my life over, but now I'm
too
alone. I'm scared to death. What if I've done the wrong thing? What if—”

“Everything you're going through is normal, believe me. It'll get better.”

“Tell me you can do better than fortune-cookie scribblings.”

“You don't normally want my advice. I'm too harsh.”

“I know, but I'm desperate now. What would you tell me if I were a client?”

“Get out your checkbook.”

“Very funny. Come on, help me.”

Meghann leaned toward her. “I'd tell you that sometimes decisions are made too quickly. You've loved Jack for a long time.”

“You mean go back to him.” Elizabeth had thought that herself, mostly at night when loneliness and fear crept into bed with her. She knew it would be easier to go back. But she was tired of taking the easy road. “It was like living in quicksand, Meg. I was getting pulled under; more and more of me was disappearing. I can't go back to that.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“In Tennessee I wrote him a letter. It just said I didn't want to move to New York, that I was going back to Oregon.”

“Just?”

Elizabeth ignored that. “When he got here, I told him I needed some time alone. That's actually as far as I thought it through.”

“I take it Jack saw the big picture.”

“He used the word ‘divorce.' I hadn't even
thought
it.”

“Jesus, Birdie, what did you expect? He's a man, for God's sake. You abandoned him, refused to follow him. It's like ripping their balls off.”

“Unfortunately, I was unaware that his balls were the issue. I thought we were talking about our hearts.”

“With men, it's always a dick thing. If I had a daughter, that's the real-world advice I would give her.”

“Reason enough to keep you taking your birth control pills.” She smiled, then sighed. “I guess I should have been prepared for his anger—he's always had a healthy ego—but I know he was unhappy, too. I figured he would welcome a little time apart.”

“He probably didn't think you meant it—the letter, I mean. And then, when he found out you were serious, he blew a gasket. Just because he said ‘divorce' doesn't mean he really wants one.”

“I know. So, give me some advice here, Meghann. I feel as if I'm treading water in the deep end of the pool. I need your three-hundred-dollar-an-hour plan.”

Meghann took a sip of tequila, then said slowly, “Well, for a woman like you, I usually—”

“Like me?”

Meghann winced. “Great mother, decent income, no real work experience.”

“Oh, a woman like me. Go on.” Elizabeth decided on another shot.

“Anyway, usually I recommend finding a job. It's good for the self-esteem, not to mention the bank account. However, I drove through Echo Beach.”

Elizabeth tossed back the drink. “Yeah. Maybe the fish market needs someone to wipe up salmon guts. God knows I have enough cleaning experience.”

“I think you should cast your net a little farther. No pun intended.”

“Like Cannon Beach?”

Meghann scooted closer. “I thought about this on the drive down here. You always wanted to get your master's degree in fine arts, remember? This would be a great time to do it.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Your excuses are wearing thin, Birdie. You could have gone to graduate school twenty years ago; you chose not to. Do you really want to leave Jack and fall into the same old patterns?”

It was true. She could have gotten her master's before the kids were born. Why hadn't she?

Because it would have made life difficult. What if Jack's dinner had been late? Or she'd had a midterm on a game night?

What if she hadn't been talented enough?

“I guess I didn't want it enough.” That much was true, at least. She'd never been good at taking big risks unless it benefitted her children. And so she was here, a woman “like her,” with nothing to fall back on and nothing to reach for.

“Be bold, Birdie.
Apply.
Take the road you turned away from. Isn't that what this is all about?”

“Come on, Meg. I'm forty-five years old and I haven't painted in twenty years. Sometimes, you really don't get a second chance.” She didn't want to talk about this anymore. “I can't imagine applying for grad school on my credentials.”

Meghann was clearly disappointed. “What about painting class, then?”

Elizabeth shuddered at the thought. Sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers, pretending she'd refound a lost talent? Hardly.

Meghann looked at her. “Okay, okay. Your eye is twitching. I'll change the subject.”

“Thank you.”

“How about this:
I
need
your
help. I'm trying to change my slutty ways. The problem is, I need to figure out how to get turned on by a man my own age.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Start slowly. Quit dating men who say things like
awesome, dude,
and
that's tight
.”

“And make conversation? I think not. Let me tell you, Birdie. The dating pool is damned shallow out there. You'll see. My last date wiped his nose on the tablecloth at Canlis, which actually placed him on a higher evolutionary rung than the guy who blew his nose out the car window because the Kleenex box was empty. Just wait, Birdie. In about six months, the fish-gut guy will start looking hot. When you finally realize what men our age are like, give me a call. I'll talk you down from the ledge. Wait! Better yet, move up to Seattle. You could have my second bedroom.”

“I love it here, you know that.”

“Here? It's another damned planet—and an uninhabited one at that. And let me tell you, that is not an ordinary rain. I'm a Seattleite; we know rain.”

Laughing, Elizabeth slipped an arm around her friend's shoulders and drew her close. “The beach is beautiful.”

“When you can see it. On the way down here, I saw a group of Japanese tourists lashed together for a beach walk. They'll probably never be found.”

“When the sun shines—”

“Twice a year.”

“It's the prettiest place on earth. You can breathe here.”

“I can breathe in Beirut. It doesn't mean I want to live there.”

The alarm on the oven beeped. Elizabeth stood up, realizing abruptly how drunk she was. Her legs felt rubbery and she couldn't feel the tips of her fingers at all. It made her giggle. “Come with me.”

Meghann crawled to her feet. “Where are we going? Dancing? I love dan—” She frowned. “What was I talking about?”

They clutched each other like eighth-grade girls, their heads cocked together, giggling. Elizabeth led Meghann through the kitchen.

At the front door, Meghann stumbled to a halt. “Outside? It's raining hard enough to put your eye out.”

“A little water won't hurt you.”

“I'd rather not.”

“We're going down to the beach. I go every night at this time. It's become a new ritual for me. Sort of a fear antivenin.”

“That's because you have no life. For the next two days,
I'm
here for entertainment.”

Elizabeth dragged her forward. “Hurry up or we'll miss them. My whales are very punctual.”

Meghann stopped dead. “Whales? You're kidding, right?”

Elizabeth laughed. Damn, it felt good. “Come on, Counselor. For once, you're going to follow instead of lead.”

Elizabeth stepped into the darkened yard. Meghann stumbled along beside her, grasped her hand tightly. Rain fell hard and fast, turned the yard into a giant mud puddle.

“Be careful, it's slippery,” Elizabeth said.

They were halfway across the yard when the first call sounded.

“Hurry up,” she said. “They're here.”

“You need help,” Meghann said, spitting rain. “Serious, long-term, probably medicated help.”

Jack arrived at the studio a little later than usual. He'd been out late last night, tossing back brewskis with Warren at Hogs 'n Heifers. He barely remembered getting home.

He'd had good reason to celebrate:
Good Sports
had premiered last week and become an instant hit. Ratings had gone through the roof.

Jack was hot again.

In the conference room, he went straight to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup.

“Good God,” Warren said, laughing, “you look like hell. Just can't party like the old days, eh, Jacko?”

Smiling, Jack eased into the leather chair. “You're looking a little the worse for wear yourself, Butterfingers. Maybe you shouldn't have had that last plate of nachos.”

Before Warren could answer, the door opened. The show's executive producer, Tom Jinaro, walked briskly into the room. His assistant, Hans, trailed along behind, his violin-bow arms loaded up with yellow notebooks and reams of paper.

Tom took his usual seat at the head of the table. A moment later, Warren's assistant came into the room and sat beside him.

Jack sat alone on his side of the table.

Tom looked down at his notes, then up at the faces around him. “Hans thinks we should do something on ephedrine in supplements. Sort of the secret-deadly-killer kind of thing. What do you think, Warren?”

Warren shrugged. “If someone dropped dead, there's probably a story there.”

“Jack? What's your opinion?”

“Truthfully, Tom, I think it's dull as mud. The kind of story that
60 Minutes
or
Dateline
might do because they're on-air so much. We should be pushing the envelope a little more, making people think. I read this article the other day—I think it was in
The Christian Science Monitor
, but it might have been the
Times
—anyway, it was about the ‘troubles' in Northern Ireland. Comparing it to the U.S. after September eleventh. The Irish know about living in dangerous, uncertain times. There's got to be a way to tie it to sports.”

Tom tapped his pen on the table. After a long minute, he said, “Jack's right. I don't know shit from Shinola about Ireland, but it's a better hook than some drug no one can pronounce.” He turned to Hans. “You know anything about Ireland?”

Hans frowned, pushed the glasses higher on his Ichabod Crane nose. “There's a sports camp in the Mideast where they bring Jewish and Palestinian kids together. Maybe there's something like that in Ireland. You know, Catholics and Protestants coming together on the soccer field or some damned thing.”