On the Edge of Dangerous Things (Dangerous Things Trilogy Book 1) (20 page)

Thirty-Seven

It was an overcast June evening. The senior class lined up along the football field for the graduation procession. Hester stood in the back entranceway to the school searching the crowd for Nina and thinking about how quickly the years had passed since the girl came into her life.

There she is!
Hester spied the peace sign Nina had spray-painted in neon pink on the top of her cap.
What was the girl thinking?

Hester looked down at her chest. Her old T-shirt with the peace sign. She’d worn it that awful day when she, herself, was only seventeen.

Peace signs had faded from popularity for years, but now they were everywhere. Every time she saw one it took her back to that moment in time she longed to erase. Ironically, though, she’d kept her T-shirt. Some nights, full of guilt, in lieu of self-flagellation, which knew some saints were known to have done, she wore that shirt to bed as penance. Some cold days even, to remind herself she was far from perfect, she wore it under a sweater. 

Nina was standing off to the side. Hester watched as Al walked up to her and they hugged.
At least we have her,
thought Hester gratefully.

Preferring to work behind the scenes, Hester volunteered once again to handle the distribution and collection of the caps and gowns. Dressing up in one herself and marching with the rest of the faculty wasn’t her style. Besides, Al needed someone he could trust to see that the two-hundred-plus rentals were neatly boxed and ready to be shipped back to the company the next morning. Hester worked all afternoon setting up tables in the gym and organizing the boxes. With not much to do until the conclusion of the ceremony, she patted the pocket of her jeans jacket to make sure she had the card she’d gotten for Nina. On the front was a drawing of an oak tree. Beneath it was a quote from Coleridge, “Friendship is a sheltering tree.” It was blank inside, and Hester had written the following:

Dearest Nina,

It has been a long hard journey. You have overcome many obstacles to be where you are today. But this is not the end, this is only the beginning. College is ahead of you, and I know you will excel. Remember, the love of your mother is with you always and has helped you to survive all that you have gone through. She would have treasured this day, more than even Mr. Murphy and I do. We care deeply for you and will be here if you ever need us, so don’t hesitate to call. How proud we are of you!

Congratulations and keep in mind the words of Louisa May Alcott: “Be not afraid of storms for you are learning to sail your ship.” In other words, when things go wrong and you are afraid, trust in yourself that you will know the right thing to do.

                                                                      With much fondness,

                                                                      Mrs. M.

The band started, and the black line of students snaked its way around the perimeter of the field and into the rows of seats. The crowd stood until the graduates were in their places and Minister Norway began with an invocation. Hester stepped out onto the grass and stood on tiptoes, looking for Nina. She saw Al on the stage seated next to Superintendent Law. The faculty, in an unusual seating arrangement Al dreamt up several years ago, faced the graduates and parents.

It had been sunny all day, but now clouds were moving in and it was growing dark. Hester saw Al look up. Principal Glatton, the new principal, was at the microphone giving his speech and seemed unaware of the changing weather. The wind picked up, a flash of lightening bolted through the sky. Thunder rumbled. More lightning. Then the rain came down in sheets and everyone ran for the building.

Hester stood behind the heavy door and held it while the crowd jostled their way through. As more and more people jammed themselves into the narrow hall, Hester was trapped behind the door. It was pressing into her with such force she feared being crushed to death. She shoved against the door with every bit of her strength and succeeded in slamming it closed, unwittingly, right in somebody’s face. She tried to open it up again, but she was being swept along by others who were trying to make their way down the hall.

The mass of panicked humanity flowed into the gymnasium, where finally they were able to spread out. Everyone, except Hester and the custodians, who already had mops in hands, was soaked. The people moved the boxes and sat on the tables and flung their drenched jackets about, making themselves at home to wait out the storm.

In a matter of minutes, the room was filled to capacity. Hester was stuck in the midst of a jumble of damp arms and sharp elbows. Noise bounced off the rafters in an incoherent racket. The air felt like it had been sucked out of the room. Hester was trying to maneuver through the crowd in search of a familiar face, someone who might help her impose some order on this chaos, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Hester spun around.

“My God, Theo! You frightened me.”

“Calm down, Hester. It’s only me.” He was standing so close to her they were almost touching.

“Can you believe this mess?” Hester tried to step back, but Theo put his arm around her.

“It’s nothing like the mess your husband’s gotten himself into.”

“What?” Hester tried to pull away. “Come on, Theo, give Al a break. Just because you don’t—”

He put his lips next to her ear. “It doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with me liking him or not. I’m only telling you this because I care about you. I’ve always cared about you.”

“Theo, for God’s sake, you’re married.”

“So what?”

“What exactly are you trying to tell me, Theo? That Al screwed up tonight by not watching the Weather Channel or by not being able to predict a fluke meteorological event? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Don’t be so naïve, Hester.”

“Maybe I’m naïve, but you, Theo Ottinger, are crazy.” Hester hated the fact that Theo had been after her for years. She’d tried hard to discourage him, but he just didn’t seem to get the message.

“Hester, I am going to tell you something that you can never tell anyone I told you. I don’t want to lose my job over this. If it ever gets out that I’m the big mouth, and Al lies his way out of it, well then, I’m the one who’s going to be screwed. I know you don’t want to admit it, but these administrators stick together, and they’re sneaks, fucking sneaks about it.”

Theo’s breath was hot in Hester’s ear. She’d never heard him talk like this. She leaned back and looked him in the eyes. What she saw there, the seriousness, the concern, the—she couldn’t deny it—passion, made her feel like she’d fallen overboard in rough seas. Did she want to hear what he was going to say? Did she want him to throw her a life preserver or to let her drown?

“No, Theo, no, I don’t want to know anything about Al. Just leave us the hell alone, please.” Hester was shaking her head from side to side.

Theo grabbed her chin and turned her face so he could whisper in her ear again, “Hester, it’s better to know. I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to know so no one else will get hurt.”

“Shut up, Theo, just shut up.” She knocked his hand away from her face and put both hands over her ears. She tried to get away from him, but they were surrounded by people. Hester twisted her head around, looking for a way out. She saw Al coming toward them. But before he got there, Theo pulled her close again and she felt his erection.

Thirty-Eight

Hester didn’t go back to the trailer after the meeting but headed to the beach and followed a turtle track from a mound beneath the palms to the water. The path was wide; the flippers had cut deep wedges in the sand. Hester was sorry she hadn’t made more of an effort to stand watch one night for one of the behemoth leatherbacks in the act of depositing her eggs.

Not many shells tumbled in the surf, but a long, thin, eel-like fish washed up in front of Hester. Its needle nose was long and hard as a beak, and the thick pale body narrowed to a point like an uncircumcised penis.

“Hey, Hester, great news, huh?” Nancy George came up behind Hester. Darlene Erman was with her.

“Well, I was just thinking about that.”

“What’s to think about?” Darlene flipped the dead fish over with her foot. “A million bucks, one million dollars each!”

“Well, yes, a million dollars is a lot of money, but Al and I don’t want to leave Pleasant…” There she was, doing it again. Always saying what Al thought like she thought it too. Hester corrected herself, “No, Al doesn’t want to leave Pleasant Palms, and I’m not sure what I want.”

“It’s a done deal now, Hester, so chin up,” said Nancy. “What kind of fish is that anyway, Darlene? Looks like a slick dick, doesn’t it?” She bent over and put her chubby hands on her fat knees to examine the underside of the creature.

“What are the two of you going to do?” Hester asked to be polite.

“I guess it’s safe to tell her now, Darlene.” Nancy straightened up slowly.

“I would say so.” The wrinkles beneath Darlene’s eyes deepened as she squinted in the sunlight. “Listen, Hester, Nancy and I have been, well, in love for fifteen years. It’s been a strain on us to hide our relationship all of that time. We’ve never told anyone here about our real lives, about who we really are, because we were afraid we’d be thrown out of Pleasant Palms.”

“Darlene and I have had to pretend for too long,” said Nancy. “Damn it, I’m seventy-two years old, I spent a lifetime doing what was expected of me. I got married, had children, took care of my sick husband until the day he died, knowing deep inside the life I was living was not the right life for me. It wasn’t who I really was. I never did a thing wrong; yet, I felt like a criminal for wanting more.”

“And my life, until I met Nancy was a living hell.” Darlene took Nancy’s hand. “I had two bad marriages, and thank goodness, no children. I made too many other mistakes to mention—back in the sixties, if you can imagine it, I worked for a psychologist as a sexual surrogate for men with impotency problems. Me? Imagine that. And I wasn’t even into men, even then I knew I was different. Years later, when I’m turning fifty, with a lousy job at a dental clinic, with no love life, I meet Nancy at, of all places, her son’s wedding. He was marrying a young hygienist who worked in our clinic. When we met, Nancy took my hand and held onto it just a second longer than usual. I felt something in her touch right from the beginning.”

Hester stood silently for a minute looking at the pair, the tide rising, the feet of the women disappearing in the sand. She couldn’t say she was stunned by their confession, that she hadn’t suspected they were more than friends.
Odd,
Hester thought,
how the sale of the park seems to be flushing everyone out of one closet or another.

“I am truly happy for the both of you.” Hester meant it. They were a good match.

Nancy extricated her feet from the sand and moved a step closer to Hester. Her teeth were yellowed, and her breath smelled of peanuts, but her eyes drew Hester into their cobalt depths. “When we each get our million, we’re moving to Camp Sister Spirit, a womyn’s—that’s w-o-m-y-n’s—land in a town called Ovett, Mississippi. Have you heard of it?”

“No, never,” said Hester.

“You probably wouldn’t be interested, but the camp is a community of womyn. No men allowed. Get it. No m-e-n. That’s why they spell womyn with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘e.’ Think of it, no testosterone for miles. The theory is men tend toward confrontation and…”

“Domination,” Darlene finished her sentence.

“I was going to say control,” Nancy said.

“Well, same thing.”

“Not really, Darlene, but that’s beside the point. When a man’s around, no one listens to a woman, so we’re going somewhere where they aren’t.”

“You bet, honey.” Darlene hugged Nancy. Her back was toward Hester, and when the wind parted her short hair, Hester saw scabs in the folds of her neck fat. The scabs reminded Hester of Marge Lampo, a comedienne Al and she saw at a comedy club in New Jersey.

Lampo was a big woman like Nancy, but with a loud mouth and a thick Jersey accent. She was an over-the-top composite of all things female and Garden State, a caricature of the real women who were known for being fast and up-front. Her monologue was irreverent to say the least. She said things like, bad men like fat chicks because their backsides are big enough for them to hide behind when the cops come, or Italian men talk like they’re in the mob when all they’re connected to is a fork. Hester laughed in spite of herself. Al, on the other hand, was insulted.

The show ended with Lampo saying Courtney Love kissed Marge on the lips one time. Lampo said something to the effect that Courtney was pretty stupid about a lot of things, but she sure knew a hot chick when she saw one, even if she, Lampo, did have scabs in the folds of her double chins.

Hester didn’t think that part was funny.

“Hey,” Nancy said to Hester over Darlene’s shoulder, “talking about testosterone, your husband got pretty loud at the meeting. Is he over it?”

“Good question,” Hester mumbled and looked out over the ocean.

The women said good-bye and walked north on the beach. Hester walked south to the jetty and sat down on a smooth boulder. It was close to eighty degrees, and Hester fretted for a minute about not having applied sunscreen, but a more ominous worry arose in her mind. She pictured angry Al storming out of the meeting. She pictured sullen Al sitting in his La-Z-Boy clicking his remote. She pictured naked Al coming towards her, wanting her to make him happy. She didn’t think she could, ever again.