One Good Friend Deserves Another (25 page)

Hours later, Marta followed the girls away from the farmhouse table into the vaulted living room of the cabin. Dhara sat cross-legged on the rug. Wendy curled into a ball on the end of the couch closest to the huge stone fireplace. Kelly sprawled on the facing couch. Marta chose a little spot on the floor where she could lean against the arm of a sofa.

She’d had hours to process Wendy’s mind-bending news, far longer than the other girls, who’d just been informed over a dinner of roast pheasant, risotto, and French beans. The girls had taken the news with shock that had already warmed into compassion. But Marta was still reeling. She felt like she was walking beside herself, bundled in some invisible insulation so that even the sound of their voices was dulled.

On a lacquered cross section of a giant white pine lay boas, bachelorette-party card games, noisemakers, and three nicely wrapped presents, all the trappings of a party whose nature had been fundamentally altered by Wendy’s announcement that the wedding was canceled. Under the girls’ urging, Wendy opened the presents anyway. Marta watched, lifting the fine red wine to her mouth, not tasting the liquid that wet her lips.

Dhara’s present was a bronze statue of a dancing half-elephant. Dhara explained that it was a statue of Ganesh, the Hindu deity for—among other things—domestic bliss. Marta tried to muster an attentive smile while Wendy unwrapped the leather bustier that Marta had found in an East Village fetish store, much to the grim amusement of the girls. Amusement dissolved swiftly as Wendy opened Kelly’s gift and out tumbled a length of airy chiffon.

With a wistful smile, Wendy crushed the wedding negligee in her lap. “Domestic bliss, romance, and hot sex. I’m glad I canceled all the other guests this weekend. I knew I could count on you three to bring me everything I need.”

In the silence came the crackle of the fire and the buzz of the cicadas in the dark woods. Maybe it was the effects of her second glass of wine, but Marta was struck with déjà vu. The four of them had been together like this before, sprawled on the floor of their Terrace apartment.  That time, the table had been littered with take-out Chinese. She remembered Wendy reaching for a pack of cigarettes sitting on the table. She remembered Kelly and her solemn eyes. She remembered the way it felt, to have her entire world turned upside down.

“Here we are again.”

Marta didn’t realize that it was her own voice that had broken the silence until she became aware of all the girls looking at her.

“We’re here again,” she said, waving to the vaulted ceiling with its striking pine beams. “Different place, maybe, but it’s the same situation as that weekend in college. The whole world is turned upside down, all over again.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kelly said, hesitating. “It was pretty bad then, Marta.”

“Aren’t you still hurting, because of the exact same guy?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s different. Back then, I didn’t understand what had happened. This time, I’m the one who made a decision. And I don’t regret going back to Trey at all.”

Marta took a feigned interest in the depths of her wine. Of all the revelations of this day, at least the one about Kelly’s breakup with Trey made sense. Marta just wished she could be half as certain about anything right now.

Wendy knocked a cigarette out of a pack. “Trey would love to have you back, Kelly. You know that, right? He’d return to you in a heartbeat.”

Marta started. The stem of the wineglass slipped between her fingers.

“Last week on the tennis court, my brother knocked James on his butt.” Wendy pulled a long, slim wooden skewer from the canister by the hearth and stuck the end in the fire. “And it happened right after James made some nasty comment about you.”

Marta cast a glance Kelly’s way. Kelly drew her feet up under her floral skirt and folded herself tight into the corner of the couch.

“And now Trey is running. I mean
running.
Miles and miles and miles, every day. Like he’s training to carry the Olympic torch.” Wendy held the flaming tip of the stick to the end of her cigarette. “I’ve always wondered what kind of girl it would take to knock sense into my wastrel brother. Turns out it’s one of my best friends.”

Marta clinked her glass on the table as the room swam before her eyes. “Wendy, what are you doing?”

“I’m stating an unnerving fact. And I agree with Kelly, by the way. Broken engagement and all, this weekend doesn’t feel as unbelievably confusing as that one. For a lot of reasons.” Wendy gave Marta a raised brow, then tossed the stick into the flames and watched the fire consume the sliver of wood. “For me, Josef blindsided me that weekend. But I saw Gabriel coming. Just being around him made me realize what a fool I’d been. After Soho, I took the job my mother tossed in my lap. And then I got involved with a great guy I knew would never hurt me. And that was my biggest mistake.”

“God, we were so young then.” Dhara rolled a can of soda between her hands. “We were all so scared, trying to order the world in a way that would save us pain. I’m wondering if that’s possible, really.” She paused, for one long moment. “After everything that happened back then, Marta, I would think you would agree the most.”

Marta closed her eyes, wishing the memory away. “Dhara, tell me you’re not joining the chorus.”

“Sorry, I am. I feel different now than I felt then. I dread seeing Cole on Monday, but whatever happens, I won’t change my mind. I’ve chosen my husband. And yes,” she added, a smile teasing the corners of her lips, “I am looking forward to the wedding night.”

A length of white chiffon unfurled through the air and landed like a cloud in Dhara’s lap. “I’m sure Kelly won’t mind if I regift,” Wendy said. “You can use this more than me.”

Marta felt the earth shift beneath her feet, as if a great fissure split the pine boards of the cabin and sent her reeling away from her friends. She didn’t understand any of this. Dhara was marrying a stranger. The perfect couple was split. Wendy was encouraging the most unlikely twosome. And they were all sure they were right. Yet here she was, Marta Sanchez, hurt and confused and mentally staggering. She, who had thought everything out, right down to the very last detail.

Oh yes, she’d thought of everything back then, too. She’d avoided shellfish and caffeine and alcohol. Dhara had accompanied Marta to the local clinic to get prenatal vitamins and to confirm what she already knew. Marta had bought the book, the one whose chapters terrified her, and tried to read a little every day. With Kelly’s help, she’d made it through the torment of finals. She kept the news from her beaming mother all through the graduation celebrations, allowing her parents their well-earned moment of joy as she paraded in her cap and gown through the daisy chain to receive her diploma.

She’d made new lists, too, after the law school acceptances came in. Fordham Law would allow her a one-year deferment. She considered open adoption, but knew in her heart that her mother would never give up this grandchild. Her mother would move mountains, change shifts, and work out childcare among aunts, so that Marta could still attend classes in Manhattan. For the year off, Marta was determined to work at her uncle’s store to save money for baby formula, diapers, and all the pink or blue things that she couldn’t beg or borrow from her relatives. Kelly had already tossed her job applications to start-up tech companies in Silicon Valley in favor of a position in Manhattan, to be nearby to help. Wendy had offered the second bedroom in the Soho loft she intended to rent in the fall. The plans grew stronger in her mind every day—the list more solid. Plans that took into account a child who hadn’t asked to be conceived—a child growing ever more real inside her. A boy she would call Diego, she decided. A girl, Catalina.

And on the very day she sat at the kitchen table and told her mother that she was pregnant, those plans collapsed.

Eleven weeks.

She remembered staring at the ceiling tiles in the doctor’s office while the gynecologist ruled out polycystic ovary syndrome and hypothyroidism and various autoimmune diseases and instead discussed progesterone deficiency and chromosomal abnormalities. Her mother, the nurse, squeezed her hand and assured Marta that medically this was not so uncommon, that someday—when she was ready, when the timing was better—Marta would again conceive.

Now, in the safety of Wendy’s cabin, Marta’s breath still came short and fast. The memory was raw. She didn’t like to think about it. She’d been such a bundle of contradicting emotions. She’d made plans for her whole life, and they’d been destroyed. Then she made new plans for the baby, and those plans had been destroyed too.

Wendy was the one who’d urged her out of bed two weeks after she’d lost that baby and swept her away to her home. Wendy was the one who’d gently reminded her of the original Life Plan. Marta could go to law school in the fall now. She could return to those old dreams, and do them in the right order, in the right way, in her own good time.

This time, Marta had vowed, she would not drift from the plan. This time, she would remain in complete control.

Marta stood up abruptly. She strode toward the stairs, startling the girls. She knew what she had to do. The grim knowledge expanded inside her, like a thin rubber balloon filling with air. She took the stairs two at a time. At the top, she pushed a door open to a small bedroom. Her briefcase lay upon a quilt. She slipped her hand into a zippered pocket and tugged out a piece of paper.

She kept a version of this with her always. Through high school, through Vassar, even when she thought she’d have to cross off half the goals for the sake of a baby. She’d kept it close, to remind her where she came from, to mark the places she’d been, and to point her to where she was going.

But life was unpredictable.

Maybe it was supposed to be that way.

She padded downstairs much more slowly, feeling as nauseous and jittery as if she’d drunk a whole pot of coffee. She came upon the girls in quiet conversation, a conversation they stopped as she approached.

Marta unfolded the yellowed paper. She glanced upon the loopy, hopeful handwriting. She scanned it one last time, marking each hard-earned success. Then, with a pounding heart, she ripped it straight down the middle.

In the room rose a collective gasp.

“Marta,” Dhara said, “is that—”

“Yes.” She ripped the paper again, taking shaky pleasure in the sound. “Yes, it is.”

She tossed the remnants in the fire. She watched as the flames blackened the edges. She felt chilled and light-headed as the flames flared. She had the strange sensation that one gust of wind would knock her flat upon her face.

Then her friends were there, holding her.

Reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

D
hara walked out the rear door of the North Woods Renewal Center and caught sight of Cole immediately. He was sitting on a stone bench in the well-manicured garden with his back toward her. He wore a T-shirt from the Portland Bluegrass Festival, the one that used to be navy but had been faded to a stonewashed blue by multiple washings. His hair had grown long, and now it lay combed against his head, curling at the ends.

His neck looked pale and vulnerable.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and headed down the path. Her flats scuffed against the paving stones. She rounded a bend and noticed that Cole was not alone. He was deep in conversation with two other people sitting on benches, shielded from sight by low hedges. As Dhara approached, the woman in the group glanced up, caught sight of her, and leaned forward to say something. Cole started and shot to his feet.

Her heart did a painful little roll. An arrhythmia, she noted, probably caused by a premature ventricular contraction overriding the sinoatrial node and compensated for by a powerful subsequent contraction. Probably caused by the sight of a vibrant Cole, unfolding to his full height and striding through the sunshine with a smile stretched across his face.

She thrust out her hands to forestall what she, in a panic, perceived as a lean into a kiss. His step hitched for a moment, but he recovered quickly. He reached for her hands and squeezed them tightly.

“I’m glad you came.”

She couldn’t look away from him. Her doctor’s eye noticed the clear whites of his eyes, the flush to his skin, and the respectable portion of weight in muscle he had gained, enough to put some stress on the shoulder seams of his T-shirt.

“I know. Miraculous.” He gave her a sideways smile and a quirk of a brow. “It’s amazing what a steady diet of clean living can do for a guy.”

“You look good, Cole.”

“Right back at you.”

She’d worn a
shalwar kameez
of Rajasthani cotton, a soft, sky-blue tunic over loose pants. It was the sort of thing she always wore when she traveled long distances in the car, for the comfort of the drawstring waistline. Under his gaze, the choice took on multiple shades of meaning.

He glanced over her shoulder, searching the path behind her. “You came alone?”

“No, Kelly and I came together. We just left Wendy’s cabin this morning.” Dhara gestured vaguely to the grand lodge with its lovely wraparound porch. “Kelly’s curled up on a wicker chair somewhere reading
People
magazine. She said she’d join us later.”

“Let’s take a walk then. There’ll be a discussion group meeting out here in a few minutes. They’ll be smoking like fiends. And I don’t think you want to hear about Mr. Blowhard’s obsession with Internet porn.”

“No, no, definitely not.”

“There’s a path through the woods.” He turned down one of the winding stone lanes. “It’s officially called the Pine Promenade. But the rest of us call it the Boozer’s Byway.”

“Ah.” Dhara fell into step beside him. “A little black humor.”

“Yeah.” He made a strange little sound, half laugh, half snort. “That goes a long way in here.”

She hesitated, debating for a moment whether to wade in to the minefield. “I suppose, despite all the lovely landscaping, that there are a dozen Nurse Ratcheds in there, reeling you in with curfews and rules.”

“Well, the Swedish masseuse can be a little rough,” he admitted, “and just the other night some reality-TV-show guy was complaining about how the roast lamb screamed for a good merlot.”

Dhara didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe, so she settled for covering her mouth.

“Oh, I’m not complaining. This place is incredible, a weird mix of luxury and distress. Like a live version of
Celebrity Rehab
.” He shoved his fingers into the pockets of his low-slung jeans, striding with great energy. “The thing is, my golf game is improving. And who can complain about having nothing to do but sleep, eat, and talk?”

“Sounds like college.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Except with better food and no beer. And no freshman orientation. The first week here was hell. Still now, every day, some serious shit comes out in the morning meetings.”

His honesty was unnerving. She resisted the urge to take his arm or press her cheek against his biceps. It wasn’t her place anymore.

“And guess what?” he said, with a gravelly little laugh. “It turns out that it’s not normal for a father meeting his son for the first time in twelve years to shove him on the first bus leaving town.”

Her breath hitched.

“And it turns out,” he continued, “that it’s not normal for a twelve-year-old to be drying cannabis on the back porch, or smoking it at fourteen.”

She couldn’t help herself. She brushed his shoulder briefly, before veering away. He noticed. His step slowed as they plunged into the cool shadow of the pinewoods. Paint on the trees marked a confluence of three different trails, and without looking up, Cole led the way down the one designated white.

“Thanks,” he murmured, “for not saying ‘I told you so.’”

“Cole, I didn’t even know what was wrong.” She’d always been fascinated by his upbringing, and had even envied his no-structure-no-rules lifestyle, too blinded at first to notice the destruction that kind of freedom had wreaked upon him. “I flailed about, looking for reasons for the vodka bottles under the bed, and then brought up the very things you didn’t want to talk about.”

“Yeah, well, you figured it out. Long before I did.”

He gave her a rueful little smile. Oh, there he was suddenly, the warm guy she’d had a terrible crush on in college, the lanky, long-haired hippie with the easy ways that seemed to coax her—
come close, come near, I won’t hurt you.

Dhara focused on the path before her to steady herself from a sense of dizziness. Fresh from Wendy’s bachelorette party—and a little woozy from lack of sleep—she thought she’d be better prepared to face Cole today. She’d spent a good part of the weekend quizzing her friends for advice. Only Wendy had any to give, and it wasn’t something she didn’t know already: there was no easy way to break a man’s heart.

And yet, she had to. While Cole had been a patient in her hospital, he’d had the grace not to ask for any promises. But among old lovers and even older friends, some promises were made without speaking, and some expectations grew out of a simple request for a game of online poker.

Layers of brown needles crinkled under her feet, and Dhara breathed in the scent of resin. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you’re doing well, Cole. I’ve always wished the best for you—”

“Don’t.”

His voice was low and sure. All his humor was gone. He’d hooked his hands behind his back, as if forcibly holding them still.

“I know that speech.” A muscle danced near his jaw. “I don’t want—I don’t need—” He stopped. Then he craned his neck as if seeking a nest up the straight trunks of the white pines. “Dhara, I already know that I’ve lost you.”

Dhara stumbled, one foot catching on a stone hidden under the pine needles. She righted herself as Cole continued forward, rounding a curve to a little wooden bench. He flung himself on it. He gazed through the thinning trees to a narrow valley and, beyond, the slate blue outline of the mountains.

Dhara slipped onto the other end of the bench feeling unmoored. Around them, the cicadas sang, their buzzing music rising in the trees.

“It’s the clothes.” He crossed his arms, tucking his fingers beneath his biceps. “I knew the minute I saw you coming down the path in your
shalwar kameez
that you’d chosen the Hindu way.”

She choked down the urge to object. She could say she’d worn the outfit for comfort, but it really didn’t matter. It had been so long since she’d dealt with the sober Cole that she’d forgotten how perceptive he could be.

She found herself remembering all the years she’d resisted him, before they became lovers. In college, she’d convinced herself it was impossible. During medical school, they were physically apart but kept in contact. Even after she returned to New York for her residency and certifications, she’d told herself that it wouldn’t work. All those years, she’d gently discouraged him. Yet he always came around, just when she wanted to see him most. Just when she was most susceptible. He understood on some deep level her reticence. He kept her close—but not too close.

Now, more than ever, she understood his behavior. Ironically, the very freedom of spirit that she admired in him was the one thing that drove them apart. And the very strong sense of loyalty and family that he admired in her was the one part of her he couldn’t handle.

“There’s this thing,” he said. “It’s one of the twelve steps to recovery, they tell me. I have to apologize for all the damage I’ve done.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“Yes, I do. You more than anyone. It’s why I wanted to see you today. Why I was glad you actually showed up.”

“Of course I—”

“No,” he interrupted. “No, Dhara. There’s no ‘of course.’ Not after some of the things I said to you. You put up with more crap than any human should. You stuck with me years longer than any sane person would have. Had you not left me, who knows how long it would have continued? We might still be caught in that same cycle of dysfunction.”

She closed off the memories. She tried not to think of the terrible words he’d said to her in his drunkenness. She didn’t want to remember his unpredictable anger, the slurs he made against her family, and the hateful words he used denying his addiction.

“That’s the worst part, you know.” His knee started to bob, and then he slapped his hand on it to keep it still. “All the apologies in the world aren’t going to erase those bad memories. I can’t…make it good. Good like it used to be, even when we were just friends. What I did, in the end, will always taint what we had.”

“You’re already forgiven.”

He made a half laugh, a sound of easy disbelief, as he shook his head. “You’re making it too easy.”

“This is easy?”

He looked at her with a face full of regret. The light fell on his cheek, and she saw the constellation of freckles there, a faint cluster of Pleiades. She used to trace them beneath his wispy sideburns.

Dhara reached for his hand. His palm was cold, his muscles stiff, and it took a few minutes before he let his fingers relax.

“Do you remember,” she whispered, “the first night we spent in Cape May?”

His pulse jumped. She squeezed his hand harder.

“Do you remember,” she continued, “that first moment, after we arrived at our room, and you closed the door behind us?”

Dhara could still hear the crash of the sea and the cries of sea birds through the open window. A breeze billowed the sheer curtains and washed over the bed that filled the room. It was a four-poster with a blue spread, looking to her innocent eyes impossibly decadent. The door had clicked shut, and she’d turned to see the man she loved standing before it. Bathed in the late afternoon light. Looking tall and dangerous.

Her heart had leaped in her breast.

He said softly, “I remember.”

It had been their first time. They’d talked about it, planned it, and anticipated it for so very long. Twelve years of friendship fueled the moment, and, during the car ride down, they’d spent three aching hours holding hands and imagining.

“I was so nervous.” She laughed. “I couldn’t manage the buttons on your shirt. They kept slipping out of my hands like little peas.”

“Lost two of them,” he said. “Never bothered looking for them after.”

She could still summon the creaking sound of Cole’s footfalls on the old boards as he crossed the space that separated them. She could still summon the feel of his hands as he seized her waist, as he dragged her shirt up over her ribs. She remembered how he’d pulled the band out of her ponytail to let her hair tumble down her naked back. He’d sifted his fingers through it, over and over, as she struggled to shimmy out of her jeans. Her whole body had ached, and her skin was fevered, as bits of medical knowledge about respiratory rates and racing pulses and human physiological responses skittered through her mind.

Now, with the cicadas singing around them in the pinewoods, Dhara buried herself in the memory—in
all
of it, from the silly way he’d tripped as he dragged her, laughing, toward the bed, to the sudden shyness she’d felt, exposed under his hungry eyes, to the sublime sensation of his fingers touching her where no man had ever touched her before.

This is how a bride feels,
she remembered thinking,
when the goddess Rati stirs within her.

Then, as now, she looked up into Cole’s flushed face and saw him blinking, his hazel eyes suspiciously bright.

“Someday, I’ll be as shriveled and gray as Auntie Bhuvi, Cole. But I can promise you this.” She pressed his hand against her cheek. “Whenever I think of you, what I’ll remember is that night we shared in Cape May.”