The Love Season (22 page)

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Candace gazed at Marguerite and started to cry. Because of the heat and the steam, however, it looked like she was melting.

Marguerite reached out. It might have been awkward, an embrace with both of them naked, but to Marguerite it felt natural, elemental; it felt like they had been friends since the beginning of time, like they were the first two women put on earth. Eve and her best friend. Candace cried with her head resting on Marguerite’s shoulder, her hair grazing Marguerite’s breast. It was absurdly hot, their bodies were being poached like eggs, and yet Marguerite couldn’t bring herself to move. She knew she would never have Candace closer than she was right that second. Marguerite wanted to touch Candace, but she wasn’t sure where. The knee? The face? Before she could decide, Candace reached for Marguerite’s trembling hand and placed it on her taut, smooth stomach.

“I’m pregnant,” she said.

Marguerite prepped the asparagus by chopping off the woody ends and peeling the skins. She drizzled it with olive oil and sprinkled it with
fleur de sel
and freshly ground pepper. Nearly two decades later and a hemisphere away, it was astounding how well she remembered those minutes in the hammam. Her best friend was pregnant. Marguerite had found she didn’t know how to respond. She should have been ecstatic. But she felt offended by the news. Betrayed.

You’re pregnant
, Marguerite said.
Pregnant. I can’t believe it
.

Candace blotted her eyes with her towel.
I thought I was sick
.

You’re pregnant
, Marguerite said.

Pregnant
, Candace said with finality.

They returned to the center room. An attendant asked them,
Massage?
In a daze, Marguerite remembered to nod. They were led to mats and instructed to lie down. Marguerite had never been massaged by anyone
other than Porter and she was anxious about a massage out in the open, in public, so she closed her eyes. The attendant’s hands were both firm and soft; it felt wonderful.

Marguerite let her mind wander. A baby. She should have been relieved. She had thought perhaps Candace was homesick, missing Dan—or sick of Marguerite. But a baby. It was the best news a person had to give. It would be, Marguerite told herself, more of Candace to love.

And yet, as the hour wore on, as Marguerite peeked at Candace—on her stomach with an attendant kneading her shoulders, and later in the pool, her hair caked with greasy clay, her hair rinsed by the same attendant and smoothed with a comb—Marguerite experienced a jealousy that left her breathless. Candace’s body would bear a child, and as Marguerite glanced about the room she guessed that most, if not all, of the bodies surrounding hers had borne children. They were, in some unspoken way, more of a woman than Marguerite would ever be. She thought back to her eight/nine/ten-year-old self in leotards and tights in front of the mirror of Madame Verge’s studio. The reason she had never graduated to toe shoes, the reason she quit Madame Verge altogether, was that with adolescence came the cruel understanding that she was not pretty, she was not graceful, she would not dance the
pas de deux
, she would never be someone’s star. Promises would go unfulfilled. She would not marry and she would never reproduce. The real shame of her body was that it contained some kind of an end. She would die.

Marguerite decided not to wash her hair—it was far too long and it took hours to dry—though the attendant seemed to enjoy touching it, admiring its length and its thickness. Marguerite waited by the side of the pool, dangling her feet in the water, until Candace was finished, and then they walked, wrapped in their towels, back to the room where they had gotten undressed.

Marguerite made what felt like a Herculean effort to be upbeat.
Success?
she said.

Success
, Candace said. She beamed.
I’m so glad we came
.

They drank mint tea and ate dainty silver dishes of watermelon sherbet in the courtyard of the hammam. Candace talked, gaily, about names. She liked Natalie and Theodore.

What names do you like?
Candace asked.

Inside, Marguerite was dissolving. Candace was married to Dan; she would bear Dan’s child. She would form her own family. Marguerite could feel Candace separating herself, breaking away.

Names?
Marguerite said.
Oh dear, I don’t know. Adelaide? Maurice?

Candace hooted.
Maurice?
she said.

Candace was right across the table, laughing, and yet to Marguerite she had already started to vanish.

They boarded the plane the following evening. While rummaging through her carry-on bag for her book, Marguerite found the notes for her half-French, half-Moroccan menu. She read the pages through, wistfully, then tucked them away. There would be no restaurant in Africa.

4:06 P.M.

Patient’s full name
.

Renata peeled her sunburned thighs off the vinyl waiting-room chair and eyed Miles. He wasn’t doing well. His hands were shaking so badly that Renata had had to drive the Saab to the hospital while he clumsily
grappled with the surfboard. (Renata had stopped, for just a second, at the white cross in the road and said a little prayer—for Sallie, for her mother, for herself.) Now she was filling out the admittance form, even though Sallie was already upstairs, hooked up to oxygen and an IV, awaiting someone’s decision as to whether or not she should be medevaced to Boston. It was unclear as to whether that decision would be made by the doctors here or by her parents. Renata felt, absurdly, like she knew Sallie’s parents: She could picture them standing on a beach in Antigua with a black preacher, Sallie’s mother with flowers in her hair, wearing a white flowing sundress to hide her burgeoning belly. Renata could picture this, but she didn’t know where the parents lived, and Miles had shrugged when she asked him. They had called Sallie’s house, but none of the roommates answered, so they left a message, which felt woefully inadequate.

Patient’s full name
.

“Sallie,” Miles said. “With an
i-e
. Her last name is Myers. But I don’t know how she spells it.”

Renata wrote:
Sallie Myers
.

Address
.

Miles exhaled. “She lives on Mary Ann Drive. I don’t know which number.”

“Do you know
anything
?” Renata asked impatiently.

“Do you?” he snapped.

Renata wrote:_____
Mary Ann Drive, Nantucket
.

Phone number
. Miles started reciting numbers. Home and cell. He had them memorized.

“You’re sure she’s not your girlfriend?” Renata said. She meant this to be funny, but Miles didn’t crack a smile. He had let Renata wear his shirt into the hospital since she had agreed to take care of all the official stuff like talking to the doctors and filling out the forms, and he, in turn, had
plucked a zippered tracksuit jacket out of the abyss of his car’s backseat. The jacket was wrinkled and covered with crumbs; it smelled like old beer. He had it zippered all the way up under his chin. His teeth were chattering. The air-conditioning was cranked up. Renata herself was freezing, in no small part because her entire body was red and splotched with sunburn; however, you didn’t see
her
shivering.

Miles didn’t answer Renata. His blue eyes were glazed over. Renata gathered this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He wasn’t used to accidents, to bad luck, to tragedy. He hadn’t lived with it, maybe, the way Renata had.

She scanned her eyes down the form. “Age?” she said. “Date of birth?”

“No idea.”

When they’d arrived at the hospital, Renata explained to the admitting nurse that they were friends of the young woman who’d had the surfing accident at Madequecham Beach. The nurse slid them the clipboard with the form and Renata had stared at it, wide-eyed, like it was a test she hadn’t studied for.

“Just do the best you can,” the admitting nurse had said.

“Occupation?” Renata said. “Place of employment?”

“She’s a bartender at the Chicken Box,” Miles mumbled.

“Really?” Renata said. She had pictured Sallie owning something, a surf shop maybe; she had pictured Sallie as the manager of a hotel or as one of the charming, witty guides on a tour bus. She had envisioned Sallie in a starched white shirt, with pearls replacing her six silver hoops, as the sommelier at a restaurant like 21 Federal.

Renata wrote in:
Bartender
.

She wrote in:
The Chicken Box
, wishing for something that sounded more dignified.

“Phone number of the Chicken Box?”

Miles rattled it off from memory. Renata gave him a look.

“I go there a lot,” he said. “That’s how I know her.”

“Does she have a boss?” Renata said. “Maybe we should call her boss.”

“Why?”

“We have to call someone,” Renata said. Her voice was so loud that the admitting nurse looked up from her desk. A few chairs down, a woman was breast-feeding a feverish infant. Past the row of chairs was the large automatic sliding door of the emergency room, and on the other side of the door was bright sunlight, fresh air, the real world. It was after four o’clock. Renata felt a strong pull of responsibility to be here, and just as strong a desire to find someone who knew more about Sallie than they did, someone who could take charge, make decisions. But for the time being, Sallie belonged to them. Renata had promised to keep an eye on Sallie in the water and had failed miserably, but Renata was not going to fail now. She was going to handle this. “Listen. We’re going to call her boss. Maybe he knows how to reach her parents.”

“Maybe,” Miles said.

Renata could see Miles was going to be absolutely no help. How had she ever found him attractive enough to sleep with? Only an hour later, it was a mystery. “Do you know the boss’s name?”

“Pierre.”

“Pierre what?”

“I don’t know. People just call him Pierre. That’s his name. If you call the Chicken Box, there’s only one Pierre.”

“Fine,” Renata said. She had no money; she was at the mercy of the admitting nurse—who, much to Renata’s grateful surprise, offered to dial the number for her.

The phone rang and rang. Finally, someone answered. A man. There was loud rock music in the background.

“Hello?” Renata said. “Is this Pierre?”

“What?”

Renata cleared her throat. “Is this Pierre? May I please speak to Pierre?”

“He’s not here.”

Renata sighed. She had a vision of Sallie upstairs, plugged into ten machines, with only Renata to advocate on her behalf. Renata said, “Is there another way to reach him?”

“His cell phone.”

“Great,” Renata said. She reached over Admitting Nurse’s desk in search of a pen. “Can you give me the number, please?”

“Who is this?”

“My name is Renata Knox,” she said. “I’m a friend of Sallie, the bartender.”

“Do you know Pierre?”

“No,” Renata said. “I’m calling because—”

“I can’t give you the number.”

“But I’m calling because Sallie—”

“Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want his number passed out. There are too many psycho chicks in this world.”

“I’m calling about Sallie Myers? The bartender?” Renata said. “You know her?”

“I know her, but—”

“She had a surfing accident,” Renata said. “She’s in the hospital.”

“She is?”

“She is?”

“But she’s okay, right? She’s supposed to be in tonight at seven. It’s
Saturday
night.”

“I promise you, she won’t be coming in. She’s in the hospital. She’s unconscious.”

“Dude.”

“When you see Pierre, will you tell him?” Renata asked. “Will you tell him to come to the hospital? In fact, will you call him on his cell phone and ask him to come right now, this second? We need his help.”

“Sallie’s not going to die or anything, is she?”

“No,” Renata said. Renata didn’t care if she had to donate a lung herself; Sallie was not going to die. “But it’s serious, okay? Tell Pierre to come; tell him it’s serious.”

“Okay,” the man said. “Dude.”

Renata hung up. She thanked the admitting nurse and returned to her chair. Miles didn’t look the least bit curious about her conversation. He looked like he might need to be admitted any second himself. He had lost his tan, and the shivering had turned into convulsions.

Renata picked up the clipboard and delivered the sparsely filled-out form to the admitting nurse, who checked it over while sucking on her lower lip.

“No date of birth?” she said.

“Sorry,” Renata said. She lowered her voice. “I don’t know Sallie very well. I just met her today.”

The admitting nurse’s mouth formed an O. Her face was sympathetic, though, and Renata felt like she might be able to confess:
I told her I’d keep an eye on her. But I didn’t. I was up in the dunes cheating on my fiancé
.

“We called the house where she lives and left a message, but her roommates weren’t home. So that’s why I just called her boss. I thought maybe he would know more than we do.”

At that second, Admitting Nurse’s phone rang. She held up a finger to Renata and answered the call, speaking in such a low murmur, it was impossible to hear. Renata turned her back so as not to seem too interested. The skin on her chest was throbbing, but the tops of her thighs had taken the worst of it—they were red and shiny and very hot to the touch. How was she going to explain this hideous sunburn to Cade? How was she going to explain any of this? She raised her head to see a very tall, very dark-skinned black man walk through the automatic door.

Pierre
, she thought.

He stopped, surveyed the room, took in the woman breast-feeding, Renata at the desk, and the admitting nurse. Pierre wore tiny rimless glasses that seemed like toy glasses on his wide face. He pushed the glasses up with a long finger and surveyed the scene suspiciously, like maybe this was all a hoax. But then he saw Miles and his shoulders jumped in recognition. He jogged over. Miles, miraculously, stood up and shook Pierre’s hand.