Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (26 page)

She holds up a bottle of wine. “And I got this because it’s Friday.”

Sands Point

August 2011

From the pocket of her long, shapeless dress, Lizzie pulls out a card—the
WISH YOU
WERE
HERE
postcard I sent her last month.

“I sure hope you meant this,” she says.

My stiff upper lip crumbles and I burst into tears. Shit, I hate this. I hate breaking down in front of somebody else, even Lizzie. No, make that
especially
Lizzie. She’s intimidatingly strong. She’d never unravel over a man.

Lizzie hesitates. “Should I leave?”

“Don’t you dare.” I wave her inside. There’s a moment’s uncertainty as we jostle in the hallway, then she grins and so do I, although I’m sure it looks more like a grimace, and we hug one another awkwardly because Lizzie’s holding a half-gallon jug of chardonnay and I’m trying not to drop the pizza. Zachary leans against my legs, meowing pitifully as if I haven’t fed him in days.

“I’m sorry for being such an obstinate old fool,” Lizzie says.

I gulp. “My fault. All mine.”

“Will you forgive me?”

“Nothing to forgive,” I say, sniffing and trying to wipe my nose on my own sleeve and not hers.

She pats my back. “Best friends should know better, huh?”

I let out a sigh that feels as if it’s been trapped inside me for ever.

We disentangle ourselves and Lizzie’s eyes sweep over me. “Jill, I hate to be critical, especially right now, but, to be honest, you don’t look too hot.” She brushes toast crumbs off the front of my bathrobe. “Are you sick?”

A lump of self-pity surges up my throat. I choke it back. “No, not sick. Just—” I rake a hand through my hair. Can’t remember the last time I washed it.

Lizzie glances at my foot, still bandaged, and raises her eyebrows. I shrug and she squeezes past me, into the kitchen, and clears a space on my table for the wine. “Got any clean glasses?” she asks, eyeing the pile of dishes in my sink, the mugs and plates stacked on my counter.

“Probably not.”

Lizzie runs the tap and rinses a couple of plastic tumblers. She turns toward me, worry lines creasing her face. “Jill, it’s really none of my business and I have no right to ask, but—” She catches her breath. “What the hell has gone wrong?”

I point to a chair. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

It pours out, a torrent of words about my mother, the mess I’ve made of my business, Colin’s check, his letter, his reaction to Harriet. Lizzie pulls me into her arms and rubs my back. She makes soothing noises and doesn’t say “I told you so,” even though she has every right to. Greedily, I suck up her sympathy, her warmth and her uncritical love, and I don’t feel quite so alone any more.

“Jill, he’s no good.”

I speak the truth in a whisper. “I know, but I still love him.”

Reaching for Colin’s fax, Lizzie skims it again. “Jill, listen to this:
You’ve created a lovely life in Sands Point. Live it without me, as I know you can
.” She looks at me, shakes her head. “That’s plain cruel.”

Bloody hell, I’m going to cry again.

Lizzie hands me a tissue. “Let it out, Jill. Cry, scream, throw things. Allow yourself to be angry with him.”

I have to get over loving him first.

I blow my nose. “How?”

“Focus on his bad points,” she says. “He’s a coward, a cheat, and he’s homophobic. That’ll do for a start. And after you get good and mad, you can tear up his letters and flush them down the toilet.”

“Scribble on his picture with a laundry marker?”

“That’s the general idea.” Lizzie pours us more wine. “Jill, I hate like hell to repeat myself, but all you had with Colin was a cruise-ship romance. Nothing more.”

So why didn’t I see it? The evidence was right there, all along. Colin’s obsession with the past—our past—and his need to turn back the clock. The way he brushed off my questions about our future with a kiss and a promise.

Always a promise.

Never a plan.

He had no intention of settling down over here. I was confusing reality with a movie star I once had the hots for. I’m exactly what Lizzie said I was. A nineteen-fifties cliché with her head in the clouds.

Love gave me wings, then took away the sky.

I remember reading this somewhere, but never thought it’d apply to me. I mean, I never really expected to fall in love. Not the way I fell in love with Colin. The joy I felt with him is hard for me to imagine now that he’s gone. All I feel is pain, as if someone has wrapped my chest in bands of steel, like a barrel. They tighten and I fight for breath.

Lizzie tells me to put my head down. Lower Jill, between your knees. That’s it. Now relax and breathe deeply. Her strong hands comfort my shoulders.

In, one, two, three … out, one, two—

I remember the lessons I learned in Lamaze class with Harriet, and more tears well up. Another loss. Shit, how many more do I need?

“Thanks,” I say, once my breathing is steady. God, I hope this doesn’t happen again. I fumble in my pocket for a tissue. My hand closes around a soft, familiar lump, and I wipe my eyes with Anna’s yellow socks. “You must think I’m dumber than a bag of hammers.”

“No, I don’t,” Lizzie says, “because this was Colin’s fault. Not yours. He charged into your life, turned it upside-down, and broke your heart.”

If I knew
why
he’d left, it might be easier to deal with. At least it’d give me something to mourn and put behind me so I could move forward. But the not knowing, the niggling doubt that somehow it could have been my fault he bailed out is eating at my insides like rats gnawing on cheese.

Lizzie voice is soft, gentle. “It’s been what, a year, since you met? Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days. How many of those did you spend with Colin? Thirty, forty? Most of them making love, walking the beach, and watching old movies in bed. Celluloid, Jill. But not real life.” She pauses. “You had a fabulous affair, and now it’s over. He isn’t coming back and you have to move on.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Yes, you can, but it’ll take time,” Lizzie says, “and remember that the guy you fell in love with last year isn’t the same one you remember from childhood. He doesn’t exist any more.” She drains her glass. “Have you told the boys about any of this?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“Because kids, even grown up ones, don’t want to know everything about their parents. So, for what it’s worth, I suggest you tell your sons about Katie—”

“I already did.”

“—and Emma Katherine,” Lizzie says, “but leave the rest in the past. Where it belongs.”

Lizzie leaves and I keep busy, loading the dishwasher, wiping the counters. I scrape egg off a plate and wonder what it’d feel like to chuck it across the room, watch it shatter on the tile floor. Would it help? No, because I’m not angry. I’m fucking miserable, and miserable people don’t throw crockery. They curl up in a corner and cry.

Biting back more tears, I have a sudden, overwhelming urge to hear another friendly voice, so I pick up the phone and call Dutch. If he’s surprised to hear from me, he doesn’t say. He asks about Colin and I hesitate because I really don’t want to whinge.

“Come on,” Dutch says. “I can hear something’s not right.”

So I tell him.

“Then I’ll be expecting you here tomorrow,” he says, “for vintage champagne, good conversation, and straightforward sex.”

I close my eyes. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“One hundred days,” Dutch says.

“What?”

“A hundred days. That’s how long it’ll take you to recover.”

I count the weeks. “I’ll come down right after Thanksgiving.” I won’t, of course, but it’s nice to be asked.

“For you,” Dutch says, “the porch light will always be on.”

After a much needed shower, I pull on shorts and a t-shirt and head for the beach. A chill wind walks up my spine and I shiver. My arms are covered with gooseflesh and I’m about to run back to the house for long pants and a sweatshirt when somebody calls my name. I turn. Damn, it’s Tom Grainger and he’s alone. No sign of Molly or the dogs.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he says.

I shrug, digging at the sand with my heel.

“I’m by myself for the next few days,” Tom says. “Would you like to have lunch with me?”

Lunch? Is he mad?

More gooseflesh erupts on my arms.

“How about tomorrow?” Tom says. “We could—”

“We could not,” I say, glaring at him, “even stampede in the same direction. Much less go to lunch.”

His brow wrinkles and for a second or two, he looks genuinely puzzled. Then he turns and walks off, hands in his pockets, shirt tails flapping loose in the wind.

I stare after him. The toad. The unspeakable toad.

On Monday, Iris tells me what I’ve already figured out for myself. The bank won’t refinance my loans unless I have a steady source of reliable income.

“How long can you give me?”

“A week. Two at the most,” Iris says, with the look of someone who suddenly hates her job. “I’m sorry, Jill. If it was up to me, I’d—”

“That’s okay.” It isn’t, but what else can I say?

Lizzie takes charge. “You can’t go looking for work with scratches on your knees and clothes fit for the trash,” she says, forcing me to wear pantyhose for the first time in almost a year. I turn around in front of the mirror. My body, accustomed to t-shirts, shorts, and no shoes, feels unwieldy in the blazer and black linen dress Lizzie has unearthed from the depths of my closet. I’d forgotten they were there.

She hands me a brush.

I drag it through my hair and adjust the tiny gold earrings that Lizzie has also insisted upon. I glance down at my dresser. The bracelet, whose intolerable presence I have yet to deal with, lies in a mocking curve behind my candles.

Lizzie reaches for it. “What are you going to do with this?”

“Leave it. I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Why don’t you put the damned thing out of sight?”

I stop brushing, place both hands on the dresser, and lean my head against the mirror. “Just leave it, okay?”

There’s a small, complicated silence.

“Lizzie, I’m sorry. Forget I said that.”

“Said what?”

There are times when I wonder why Lizzie puts up with me.

As I suspected, the local job market sucks. Nobody needs help, at least not from me, so I look farther afield and wind up with a three-month assignment doing data entry for an insurance company in West Hartford. Fifty-two miles away.

This is going to kill my car.

Alistair phones from North Dakota. His work-study program has been extended another month and he won’t be flying back for Labor Day weekend. How about Columbus Day instead? Fine, I say, and then I call Jordan in Washington to make sure his plans haven’t changed as well.

They have. He’s bringing home a new friend.

Her name is Bridget. Like Jordan, she’s a virtual reality programmer, and I spend most of the holiday weekend trying to understand what they’re saying. Finally, they switch to a subject I know something about. Jordan’s found a small house in Bethesda—a fixer-upper—and he wants to buy it, then rent out the extra bedrooms to help cover the mortgage, and I wonder if Bridget will be in one of those rooms or sharing my son’s. I hope they’re planning to share because I rather like this young woman with auburn hair, freckles, and emerald green eyes.

Of course, seeing them together, holding hands and finishing one another’s sentences, reminds me of what I had and what I lost. I plaster a smile on my face and keep my sadness firmly under wraps. I
will
get through this, I know I will. Hearts aren’t like eggs. They’re like rubber balls. Unfortunately, mine seems to have lost its bounce.

Late Sunday night I snatch a moment alone with my son. I tell him about Emma Katherine and we kneel on the floor in front of my cedar chest, looking inside her treasure box and crying. I show him Katie’s letters and we shed even more tears.

I say nothing about Colin. I mean, what’s the point. It’s over, well and truly over, and I’m not about to upset my son in exchange for a shoulder to cry on. Besides, Lizzie told me not to and right now I’ll take her wisdom over my own.

Jordan hugs me. “Poor Mom. You’ve had a horrible time.”

“I’m okay,” I say, feeling good just being held by someone who loves me.

One evening, after work, I bump into Beatrice at the library. She asks after Colin.

“Things didn’t pan out,” I say. “He went back home.”

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” Beatrice says, looking down at her feet, festive in orange socks and blue plastic sandals. “Despite everything, you guys were good together.”

And we were. For a while we had it all.

“Give Anna and Harriet my love,” I say.

She nods and trundles off, arms full of books, her dayglo feet a startling contrast to the library’s somber gray carpet. But Harriet doesn’t call so I send her a card that says
MISSING YOU
. It worked once before. Maybe I’ll get lucky again.

Joel calls to say his marketing guys have finally decided they’re interested in Claudia’s squirrels. They’ve pulled my mockup to bits and rebuilt it with several improvements, and it’ll tie in nicely with a line of educational toys and books they’re developing for their English market. It all sounds rather exciting. Should they talk to me about this, Joel wants to know? Best to call Claudia, I say. She’s in London with Sophie. I give Joel the number and hang up with a sigh of relief.

At least something’s going right.

Lizzie talks me into attending a surprise party for her next-door neighbors. Ruth and George have been married for sixty years. Some of the guests look as if they’ve been married even longer and as I observe the silver-haired couples, frail and stooped and leaning on one another for support, I think, why them and not me? Why couldn’t I have looked forward to sixty years of memories with the same man?