The Wildwater Walking Club (12 page)

BROCK CLOSED HIS EYES AND LET OUT THREE QUICK PUFFS
of air. He opened his eyes again, tilted his chin up, and threw his shoulders back. “Welcome,” he said. “Welcome to all of you, and make that welcome back if you’ve been here before. My name is Brock…”

“…and I’ll be your Fresh Horizons certified small-group career coach for the next ninety minutes,” most of the class said.

“Before you know it, you won’t even have to show up,” the scruffy guy named Mark said. “We’ll be totally self-sufficient.”

“Ha,” I said.

“My second ex-wife was a ballbuster, too,” he said.

I shuffled the notes in my hand. I’d stayed up late last night, working on my story, and I’d gone over it several times in my head while we walked this morning. Today was my last small-group session until after we got back from Sequim, and I wanted to give it my best shot.

As soon as Brock finished setting up his video camera, I put my hand up.

He looked at me without one iota of anything that could be even loosely interpreted as sexual attraction. “Yes?” he said.

“Can I go first?” I asked.

“Kiss up,” somebody said.

A man walked into the room and stood just inside the doorway. He was freshly shaved, and his hair was perfectly brown, without a strand out of place. Either I was still dreaming, or it was Michael.

“Nice suit,” the messy guy closest to the door said.

“Thanks, man,” Michael said. He sat down beside him.

“Ready?” Brock asked.

I licked my lips and nodded.

Brock pushed a button on the video camera. He lifted one hand over his head and brought it down like the clapper on a movie set. “Go,” he said.

It took a major effort, but I managed to pretend Michael didn’t exist. I looked right at the camera and smiled. “My name is Noreen Kelly,” I said. “I’m good at a lot of things. I’m smart and caring, and I have excellent problem-solving skills. I’m a good leader. My problem has been that I’ve been afraid to take risks, and I sometimes have a hard time figuring out what I want.

“What I do know so far is that I don’t want to be bored anymore. I think I want to do something more cutting edge than traditional, and it has to have an appropriate amount of stretch. Plus I have to feel energy and passion for it. And I also know I want more fun in my life.”

Everybody actually clapped when I finished. Michael gave me a little wave.

“Excellent,” Brock said. “You’re well on your way to making an investment in yourself. Keep up the good work, and before you know it you’ll be behaving the Fresh Horizons way and exercising choice on your own behalf.”

Once again I waited for Brock to break into a tap dance and start singing the Fresh Horizons theme song. Still, it felt pretty good.

Brock turned to Michael. “Welcome,” he said. “Just speak clearly,
look into the camera, and tell us about yourself. Hey, weren’t you at Fresh Horizons North this morning?”

Michael shrugged. “Maybe.”

Somebody snickered.

“Hey,” Michael said. “Nothing wrong with keeping busy.”

Brock lowered his hand like a clapper. “Go,” he said.

Michael ran a hand through his perfect hair and smiled at the camera. “My name is Michael Carleton,” he said. “I just took a buyout. For the last eighteen years I was employed by Olympus, most recently as Senior Brand Communications Manager.”

“Okay, fine,” Brock said. “Tell us about you.”

“I reported to—”

Brock put up one hand. “No, tell us about you.”

“I was responsible for—”

“No, no, no.” Brock clapped his hands once for each word, which made him look like a toddler having a tantrum. “You’re regurgitating your résumé. Tell us about you. Who you are. What you hate. What you love. What you’re good at. What you hope you never have to do again for the rest of your life. Tell us the story of Mike Carleton.”

“Not Mike,” Michael said. “Michael.”

I couldn’t resist. “Tell us the story of Not Mike Michael Carleton,” I said.

Everybody but Michael laughed. One of the scruffy guys reached over and gave me a high five.

“Listen,” Michael said. “I had no idea it would be like this. All I want to do is find another job.”

As soon as the session was over, I made a dash for the door.

Michael was right behind me. “Nora, wait.”

I turned. “What?”

“I was hoping you’d be here,” he said.

“Oh, please,” I said. “Get over yourself. I certainly have.”

I STOPPED AT
the hardware store on my way home. I bought two retractable clotheslines. One was for my mother. I thought I might decorate the other for Annalisa. I could ask Tess to send it to her when she sent the journals. I knew I didn’t know her, but she just seemed like the kind of person who might appreciate a clothesline. Perhaps there was even a way she could use it in her classroom. Maybe to hang up the kids’ artwork while it was drying?

I also bought a kind of paint that the woman behind the counter assured me would stick to plastic. I chose a rainbow of colors, plus some foam brushes. I couldn’t believe how excited I was. I hadn’t done a crafts project in practically forever. I used to love bringing make-your-own-jewelry and decorate-a-birdhouse kits with me when I visited my nieces and nephews. But they’d gotten older, so I couldn’t use them as excuses anymore, and it somehow seemed really embarrassing to buy them for myself. I mean, it could escalate, and before I knew it I’d be the crazy maiden aunt crocheting those hoop skirt doll covers for the extra roll of toilet paper.

My mother was off somewhere when I got home—with Rosie’s dad, no doubt. I brought the two retractable clotheslines into the garage and covered a section of the floor with old newspapers. I left one boring beige plastic clothesline cover alone and painted the other a bright turquoise. I opened the garage doors so it would dry faster. I headed into the house to pull my suitcase out of the attic and start thinking about what I was going to take for clothes to Sequim.

After I got as far as moving my suitcase from the attic to my bedroom, I decided I’d earned a break. I brought an iced tea into the living room and sat on the couch. I put my feet up on the coffee table and sipped. On the one hand, it was kind of nice to have my house to myself. But, on the other hand, if my mother weren’t here,
I wouldn’t be sipping freshly brewed iced tea. So, it was sort of a trade-off. Maybe life was just like that.

I looked out my window. Hannah, wearing short shorts and a tiny bathing suit top, was just heading out to check the mail. She opened the mailbox, which was empty, then turned back to the house suddenly, as if someone had called her name. She shook her head in disgust, then held her middle finger up. Not a quick flash of the bird but openly, defiantly, for all the world to see.

I could remember being her age so clearly. The eternally raging hormones, the profound impatience, the intense urge to get the hell out of this honky-tonk town because I just couldn’t take it anymore. The world was filled with such stupid people back when you thought you knew it all.

Not that I still didn’t think there were lots of stupid people in the world, but the difference was that, in the years since I was Tess’s daughter’s age, I’d been one of them myself just often enough that I wasn’t so quick to judge. At least I hoped I wasn’t.

I finished my tea and walked the glass back to my kitchen. I went into the guest room and rifled through the top dresser drawer. Even my mother’s underwear was folded into neat little piles. Apparently I didn’t get her neatness gene. Maybe it skips a generation.

I felt a little bit guilty snooping, but it was for a good cause. I chose a snazzy leopard-print bra and carried it out to the garage. I looped it from the corner of a low shelf, and it dangled like a flag from some very hot country. Then I sat down cross-legged on the floor and picked up one of the retractable clotheslines. I shut one eye and held my thumb up toward the bra.

I dipped a small round brush in buttery caramel paint and dotted it haphazardly all over the beige plastic cover. I looked at the bra again for inspiration while I gave the paint a chance to dry. I dipped another brush, this one slightly bigger, into some coconut husk-
colored paint and surrounded the dots with uneven, not-quite-closed circles.

I sat back and admired my handiwork. I was pretty damn good at leopard, if I did say so myself. And not only that, but I’d created what might well have been the world’s first matching bra and clothesline set. Maybe a leopard could change her spots after all.

“Genius,” I said out loud. “Total, unadulterated genius.” I stood the retractable clothesline up on its square metal bracket so it could dry without messing up my paint job.

I went to town on Annalisa’s clothesline next. I painted bright yellow stars randomly all over the turquoise background. Then, with a black Sharpie, circling around the edges in tiny block letters, I wrote over and over and over:
Shine On
.

I was crying when I finished, though I thought it was somehow as much about me as about this woman I didn’t even know.

Hannah poked her head into my garage. “You okay?” she asked.

I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “Fine,” I said. “Your mother is sending journals to some kids in New Orleans. You know, that classroom your class adopted?” I held up the turquoise clothesline carefully, so I wouldn’t smudge the stars. “Anyway, I made this for them, too.”

Hannah glared at me. “What?”

I reached for something to get rid of that look. “Well, you know, the teacher is sick and…”

“Of course I know,” Hannah said. “I’m a
mentor
. It’s like totally none of my mother’s business. Why does she always try to take over my life? It’s so annoying.”

Hannah took a deep breath and sighed dramatically. Suddenly, her voice changed completely. “Ooh, can I paint some of those for the New Orleans kids? They’ll totally love them.”

She pointed to a pile of shoelaces. The white shoelaces Tess,
Rosie, and I had removed from our Walk On Bys were sitting on top of the tangled web of laces Rosie’s mother had dyed purple.

“Sure,” I said.

“Ohmigod,” Hannah said a few minutes later. “I haven’t done this in, like, forever.” We’d managed to separate about a dozen pairs of laces, and we were painting them in matched sets.

“You’re really good at it,” I said.

“Thanks,” Hannah said. “You, too. You’ve totally got the animal print thing down.”

“Thanks,” I said. I reached for a lavender lace and dipped a brush in some turquoise paint. “Now I’m working on an abstract wave motif for new laces for the walking group your mother and I are in. We call ourselves The Wildwater Walking Club.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Weird.” She stood up. “Can I leave mine here while they dry? Then I’m going to mail them myself, so my mother doesn’t try to take credit.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Just come back and get them whenever you want. I never lock the garage door.”

Hannah looked over her shoulder. “Okay. And, um, if my mother asks, I just left, okay?”

I was still thinking about what I should have said while I cleaned up the paints and went into the kitchen to wash my hands. As soon as I turned off the water, the doorbell rang.

I tiptoed to the door and peeked out. The mailman was standing on my front steps.

When I opened the door, he held out a certified letter. “Sign here,” he said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A certified letter,” he said.

“Do I have to?” I asked.

“Only if you want to read it,” he said. Even though he was wearing shorts, beads of perspiration dotted his upper lip.

I stood there, considering. Had anyone in the entire world ever received good news via certified letter? I squinted, but I couldn’t read the return address without my reading glasses.

The mailman sighed.

I signed.

I retraced my steps out to the garage, where I’d left my reading glasses, and then carried the letter to my kitchen table. Town of Marshbury, the return address said. Maybe I’d messed up on my property taxes. I turned the envelope over and opened it.

“
YEAH, I GOT ONE, TOO
,”
TESS SAID
. “
IDIOTS. SMALL TOWN
, elitist, clothes-minded idiots. I mean close-minded.”

“Clothes-minded was actually pretty good,” I said.

“I’d sure like to know who the looky-loo was that dropped a dime on us, that’s for sure,” Tess said. “And don’t think I won’t find out.”

“Looky-loo?” I said. “Well, twenty-three skidoo to you, too.”

We were in my garage recording yesterday’s mileage on the map.

“Okay,” Tess said. “That just about brings us to Quichickichick, where the female to male ratio is seven times worse than anywhere else in the partially inhabitable world.”

“Ooh, what are these?” Rosie said.

“I’ve been decorating clotheslines,” I said. “Not that I think you should start worrying about my social life or anything.”

Rosie picked up the retractable clothesline I’d painted like a leopard. “This is so your mother,” she said. “Though you might not want to leave her bra hanging in the garage much longer. If your garage door stays open for more than a minute, you could get tarred and feathered and run out of town.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “I forgot to put it back. She’d kill me if she thought I’d left her best bra in the garage where nobody can even see it.”

Tess picked up the other clothesline and turned it sideways to read the writing.

“That one’s for Annalisa,” I said. “I thought you could send it to her when you send the journals.”

“Nice,” Tess said, “but I think it might take away from my journals.”

Rosie rolled her eyes.

“I was just trying to make a contribution,” I said.

“Sometimes less is more,” Tess said.

“Sometimes more is more,” I said. “Especially if you live in New Orleans.”

Tess and I stared at each other.

“All right,” I said. I sighed an exaggerated sigh. “I was just thinking it would make it easier for her to hang her students’ artwork up when school starts again. She’ll probably still be really tired.”

“Fine,” Tess said. “We’ll send the clothesline. Hey, wait, you totally manipulated me just then, didn’t you?”

“Somebody had to do it,” Rosie said. She leaned over and picked up one of the decorated shoelaces. “These are adorable.”

“You don’t mind that they were your mother’s shoelaces?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Rosie said.

“Hannah decorated some of them, and I made these for us. We don’t have to wear them if you don’t like them.”

Tess and Rosie were already sitting down, untying their sneakers. “Of course, we have to wear them,” Rosie said. “It’s the Wildwater Way.”

I waited for Tess to ask me what time Hannah had left. I wondered what I would say.

Tess picked up one of Hannah’s laces and shook her head. “It’s like one minute she’s twenty-two, and the next minute she’s two. Just get me through the summer.”

“These look great, Noreen,” Rosie said. “Nice job. Come on, let’s get a walk in. I have about three trillion things to do before we take off.”

I walked up ahead of Tess and Rosie and started swinging my arms. I breathed deeply, trying to stay in the moment and really appreciate all the fresh air, even if it was almost eighty degrees out already. I’d probably been outside more in the last month than I had in the last two years. It was amazing just how much of your life you could live without coming into contact with nature. I’d spent years and years going from house to car to office to car to house. What kind of a life was that?

Rosie walked up ahead, and Tess dropped back beside me.

“So, have you taken down your clothesline yet?” I asked.

“Oh, please,” Tess said. “Stop worrying. Just unhook it and let it retract. It’ll all blow over by the time we’re back from Sequim. I went through the same kind of thing last year when we put colored lights outside at Christmastime.”

“You mean we’re not allowed to put up colored lights?” I said. “That’s ridiculous.” Not that I’d ever put up any kind of lights, but still. “What did they do?”

“Nothing,” Tess said. “By the time the board of selectmen got their act together to send me a fine, it was January and the lights were already down. So I just didn’t pay it. They never did a thing. I can’t wait till this Christmas. I’m thinking one of those ten-foot inflatable snow globes with strobe lights and disco carols….”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “I really like having a clothesline. And if it’s good for the environment, and if I don’t mind my neighbors seeing my underwear…”

We crossed over onto our side street and Rosie skipped up beside me. “I’m just being devil’s advocate here, but what if your neighbors mind seeing your underwear?”

“Then I think they should stay in their stupid houses and not
look,” Tess said. “Green is the new black, and clotheslines have gone from tacky to chic. Now we just have to wait a decade for our provincial little town to wake up and smell the lack of pollution.”

“Maybe we should try to get the ordinance changed,” I said. “Can we get it on the ballot for the next town meeting or something? Couldn’t we go to a selectmen’s meeting and try?”

“Have you ever been to a selectmen’s meeting?” Rosie asked. “You can actually die of boredom.”

“I know,” Tess said. “We could just wrap up all the selectmen and women…”

“Selectpeople,” Rosie said.

“…whatever, tie them all up in clothesline, and leave them dangling somewhere. We wouldn’t hurt them. We’d just make our statement, followed by a quick getaway to Sequim.”

“You know,” I said. “One of my regrets is that I’ve never really taken a stand. Activism doesn’t have to be just about the big things, you know.”

“Hey, don’t lecture me,” Tess said. “Who’s the card-carrying member of Project Air Dry here?”

“I don’t think we need to tie anybody up or anything,” I said. “But what if we just started a petition? Or we could make some signs and hang them up all over town?”

“I think there’s an ordinance against that,” Rosie said.

MY MOTHER WAS
dressed in black and green spandex and talking on the phone in the kitchen when I got back from walking.

“Lovely to talk to you,” my mother said. “Here she is.”

She picked up my old bike helmet from the counter and held out the phone to me.

“Bike ride with Kent,” she mouthed.

I nodded. “Be careful,” I mouthed.

My mother kissed me on the cheek.

“Hello,” I said.

“It’s me,” Sherry said. “You don’t want to go out tonight, do you?”

“Hi,” I said. “Sorry, I’ve got a trip coming up, and I haven’t even started packing. How ’bout I give you a call when I get back?”

Sherry gulped back a sob.

“Okay,” I said. “Not a problem. How about Splash at six-thirty?”

“Thanks,” Sherry said. “See you then.”

As soon as I hung up the phone, I got busy. I gift wrapped the two retractable clotheslines. I put my mother’s in the back of my closet. I’d been thinking she would just naturally go somewhere else when I left for Sequim, but I wasn’t seeing any signs of her requiring a going-away present yet.

I left Annalisa’s in the garage. The plan was that Tess would add it to the box of journals and pens in the morning and mail the package before we left for Sequim. I circled back around to my kitchen to grab a glass of water. I stood at the counter, drinking and looking out my kitchen window. My lavender was barely flowering, and now my clothesline was gone. Or at least coiled up and tucked against the side of my house.

Change was in the air.

SHERRY WAS ALREADY
seated at a table when I got to Splash. She looked up at me with sad, puffy eyes.

I slid into the chair across from her. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“That guy I was seeing,” she said. “He broke up with me.”

“Jerk,” I said.

A glass of white wine was already waiting. I took a sip. It looked like Sherry was already working on her second glass.

“Wait,” I said. “He actually broke up with you?”

Sherry looked at her cell phone, which was sitting in the middle of the table. “He just stopped answering my calls.”

“Maybe…,” I said. We each took a sip of our wine.

I took a deep breath. “Listen,” I said. “I should have told you this last time. I know it’s Michael Carleton you were seeing.”

Sherry opened her eyes wide. “How?” she said.

“Because I was sneaking around with him, too. I should have told you when I realized it, but I was jealous. I’m so glad you didn’t take a buyout unless you were sure you wanted to, because he’ll never leave to go cross country with you in a van, even if he said he would, and by the way, that was my garter belt, and he never slept with it. He didn’t even know me in junior high.”

Sherry put her glass down on the table with a
thunk
. “What an asshole,” she said. “I can’t believe I fell for him.”

“It happens,” I said.

Sherry took another sip of her wine. “Well, we can’t let him get away with it. I know, I’ll leave a message saying I have something life or death to tell him, and he has to meet me. And then when he shows up, we’ll both be waiting….”

I shook my head.

Sherry leaned forward over the table. “Okay, I’ll send an e-blast to everybody in the sneaker industry. It’s too late to stop his buyout, but we can make sure he never gets a foot in the door again.”

“He’s not worth it,” I said.

Sherry’s eyes teared up.

I held up my glass. “To better choices next time around.”

She clinked her glass to mine.

I took a sip, then picked up my menu.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s eat.”

Sherry gave her cell phone one more glance, and then she reached for her menu.