As Good as It Got (5 page)

They shook, the woman’s lackluster grip taking Cindy by surprise. She looked forceful enough to complete a triatha-lon, then come back to start her real workout.

“I’m Ann.”

“Ann Redding?” Cindy clapped her hands together. “You’re in my cabin!”

The woman’s eyes flicked briefly over Cindy’s outfit, resting for an extra beat on the ruffled ankle socks. “Really?”

“Oh, don’t worry. Not everyone here will be as dowdy as I am. And besides, you know what they say . . . socks don’t 36 Isabel

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make the woman.” She smiled widely, expecting the startled look on Ann’s face. Women like Ann expected women like Cindy not to know how they came across. Cindy liked to surprise them with direct acknowledgment. “I’m a good roommate, I’m quiet, and I don’t snore. There are other women here you can—”

“Roommate?” Ann said the word as if it was something foul she ate.

“Cabin-mate. We have our own bedrooms.” And then as Ann sagged into relief, Cindy couldn’t help adding, “But the walls are practically cardboard, so there’s not much privacy.

Need help with your cases?”

“No thanks.”

“You sure?”

“I’m fine on my own.”

“Hey, none of us is fine on our own or we wouldn’t be here.” She said it breezily, and laughed at her own joke. Ann didn’t join in. Ann must have been through much worse man-stuff than Cindy had.

Another car moved into the driveway. Cindy said a cheery good-bye and left Ann in her cherished aloneness to struggle with her heavy-looking suitcases over the bumpy grassy terrain, instead of accepting help from a potential friend.

Whatever.

This car looked more promising. A Hyundai, with a few small rust spots. Maybe this person would be gladder to see Cindy. If her name turned out to be Martha or Dinah, then she’d be in their cabin too.

The car pulled in cautiously, then the driver switched off the engine, which seemed fairly huffy about being switched As Good As It Got

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off because it jolted and knocked a few times before accepting its fate.

Cindy waited, craning her neck to see. The driver’s door squawked open. A spiky brown head of hair emerged, followed by a large slow-moving body wrapped in a faded purple, yellow, and black shawl that jingled.

“Hi there.” Cindy waved and moved closer, holding out her hand for a shake.

The woman had striking features. Light eyes that bulged slightly, long lashes that pointed down over them, a small sharp nose, and a cupid’s bow mouth. Her skin was very pale and fine-pored, but she had a natural blush that kept her from looking corpselike. Her age was hard to guess, with the fat smoothing out any wrinkles. She looked sad, and a little freaked out, and didn’t respond to Cindy’s greeting or offer to shake hands.

“I’m Cindy.” She found herself speaking clearly and gently, in case the woman was mentally challenged or deaf, or not a native English speaker.

The woman nodded and looked back into her car as if it might offer her the chance to escape. “I’m Martha. Danvers.”

“Oh, Martha! How great! You’re in my cabin.”

Martha looked startled instead of pleased. Maybe Cindy’s enthusiasm seemed over the top, but when you came to a strange place at a difficult time in your life, the people sharing your cabin were sort of like family, or would become that way. At least, that’s how she looked at it.

Apparently, Martha didn’t.

“Do you want me to help you with your suitcases?”

Martha took in what appeared to be the largest breath 38 Isabel

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Cindy had ever seen anyone take in. Then she blew it out for what seemed equally like forever. Cindy waited. Slapped at a mosquito on her arm. Scratched another bite on her leg . . .

“I only have one. One suitcase.”

Whew! Cindy had started to think she wasn’t going to answer at all. “Oh, good for you. I really envy people who know how to pack light. I didn’t know what to bring, so I ended up bringing everything.”

Martha’s mouth turned up wryly. “So did I.”

On cue, a sea gull shrieked laughter out on the bay. Cindy cringed. “Oh. Well, I’m really silly about shopping. Nothing ever seems to look right, and instead of wiping everything out and building a sensible coordinating wardrobe, I just keep buying pieces here and there and hoping I come up with something.” She gestured disparagingly at her comfortable clothes. “So far no good, huh.”

Martha didn’t answer. She must be in a lot of pain too.

Cindy wasn’t exactly having the time of her life either, but at least she could be pleasant.

“Where are you from, Martha?”

“Vermont.”

“Oh?”

A nod. End of that story, apparently.

Okay, so this wasn’t going to work. Maybe when Martha had settled in more, she’d be friendlier. Cindy hoped so. She hadn’t come here to feel as lonely as she did at home with Max gone. And Martha looked so sad and lost, Cindy wanted friendship for her sake too.

“Registration is in that big building right there.” She pointed. “I’d be happy to help you with your—”

“Please.” Martha held up a ringless hand. Cindy still wore As Good As It Got

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her wedding band, though she had considered taking it off in case some of the women here objected that she still considered herself firmly attached. It was just that she hadn’t taken the ring off since Kevin slipped it on her finger twenty-one years ago, on June 30. “I’d like to be alone.”

“Oh. Sure.” Cindy backed away, wanting to ask why the hell Martha and Ann had come to a camp crowded with women if they wanted to be alone? “No problem. Just offering. I’ll see you later, I guess.”

Martha didn’t answer. She moved around to the back of her car, opened her trunk and just stood there, staring inside.

Cindy’s heart broke. This woman’s husband must have left her for real.

“You know . . . ” She walked over to Martha, put her hand on the woman’s shoulder, felt her flinch and moved it off quickly. “This is really hard for all of us. We’re all in this together, for the next two weeks. I just think if you—”

“Thank you. I’m okay.”

Cindy felt a twinge of annoyance at the curt dismissal and had to stop herself from saying
Fine
in an injured tone and making this into more than it needed to be.

Martha hauled her suitcase out of her trunk, slammed the lid and lumbered toward the registration building. Halfway there, she stopped, stood frozen for several beats, then turned and plunged down the path toward the shore, leaving her suitcase, which hesitated, then slowly toppled over onto its side.

Oh gosh. Cindy moved quickly toward the administrative cabin, then broke into a jog, then a run, passing Ann, who was still trying to drag her suitcases over the gravelly path.

Someone should know Martha was on her way down to the 40 Isabel

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sea, in case she was crying or, God forbid, tried to kill herself. Someone with experience in how to handle women in pain. So far Cindy had struck out twice, and a third time might mean an end to Martha’s inning.

Whoever their fourth roommate, Dinah, was, Cindy hoped she’d turn out to be more of a friend than Martha and Ann were ever likely to be.

Martha stumbled on an exposed root then walked faster and faster through a small clearing, past a large shingled building with a wooden sign that read REGISTRATION, and under it, a red sign on white cotton, WELCOME, with the W like a sea gull in flight, until the path dead-ended perpendicular to another path along the rocky edge. A woman was coming toward her from the right along the oceanside path, wearing some cute shorts/top combo straight from an L.L.Bean cata-log, calling a greeting and smiling.

Martha whirled in the other direction and strode toward an area where the pines grew larger and the alders reached shoulder height. Ahead on the path she saw another woman, this one shapely and fit, blond hair long and thick, wearing tight jeans and layered tops. Martha hesitated, feeling like a video game character escaping predators, and plunged through a growth of alders, their leaves catching and pulling the fringe of her shawl, creepy fingers holding her back.

Eldon. She missed Eldon. She didn’t want to be here, she wanted to be home waiting for him to wake up and come to her. Why had she enrolled?

Because Eldon had chosen this place for her and she had to keep reminding herself that he’d have wanted to take care of her. He could still wake up. And having come so close to As Good As It Got

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death, he’d rethink his life and his priorities. She and Eldon had found that rarest of treasures: true love, the kind that never died, never wavered. Its power would bring them back together. She had to remember that and believe.

One final push and she was on the other side, breathing fast, sweat breaking out on her forehead. In front of her the bay spread blue and inviting, space and peace and freedom.

She felt as if a dark box that had been holding her inside was suddenly opened up to let in light and air.

Once upon a time there was a woman named Martha, who
was so full of pain that she walked to the end of the earth, following the setting sun. At the end of the earth lay a clear blue beckoning ocean. Though she didn’t know how to swim, Martha took
off her clothes and plunged into the water. She found magically
that she could swim, and she set out toward the sun, hoping to
fling herself into the clean yellow fire. Eventually, though, she
became exhausted and was forced instead to welcome the long
slow drop under the sea. But the gods, who had been watching
her long journey, took pity and turned her into a mermaid, who
still haunts the sea with her eerie sad songs.

The drop to sea level from the shore was about ten feet, but in front of her a flat-topped outcropping sloped gently down. She moved forward onto the craggy rock, buckled and cracked and scarred, colored with white veins of quartz and green scabs of lichen. Not to mention generous contributions by the gulls—crab and mussel shells from their dinners and postdigestive offerings. She scanned the shore on either side.

No one.

Thank God. She needed time to recenter. To rid herself of the conviction that it had been a mistake to come to this camp. Eldon wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. As his 42 Isabel

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journey would teach him about his life, so this one could teach her about hers.

She sank down on the flattest surface she could find and pulled her legs under her, straightened her spine, closed her eyes and went inside herself.

The call of a sea gull made one eye open. It swooped down and settled on a rock sticking out of the green-blue water, shamelessly photogenic.

Again she closed her eyes, starting the familiar relaxation patterns, the familiar retreat inside . . .

A boat engine, at first a distant drone, became suddenly louder, and she saw that the small craft had come out from behind one of the three islands in the bay. Two men were in it, one tiny shape standing in the stern, one even tinier sitting in front. Her heart pounded hopefully. Eldon, coming to meet her. The boat drew closer on its way west, and she realized the man in the front was of course not Eldon, but a dog. She imagined it, eyes narrowed, fur and ears streaming back, loving the speed and the salt spray and the company of its master. Life would be much simpler as a dog.

She blocked the sight again and let her mind reach beyond the present space, beyond consciousness, to the place where she was at complete peace, where no thought disturbed her, the place of total relaxation where inadvertent joy filled her like a golden—

“Hey there.”

A male voice, unexpected, jerked her somewhat painfully back into full consciousness and she opened her eyes. He was young, probably early to mid-thirties, and very handsome, coming toward her on the rock in sure, bare feet, which would explain why she hadn’t heard him.

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“You okay?” He stood looking down at her, tousled hair falling nearly to his eyebrows in front, shorter on the back and sides. His eyes were light—not quite blue, she couldn’t tell what color exactly. A tiny gold hoop glinted in one ear.

His nose was lightly sunburned. He wore a blue T-shirt and faded ripped jeans, and looked like a rumpled pop star. She could imagine throngs of women throwing their underpants at him.

“I was meditating.”

“Oh, yeah, okay.” He sat down beside her, long legs stretched along the rock in front of him, leaning back on his palms, oblivious to the concept of meditation requiring silence and, in her case, privacy. She felt a prickle of irritation. “Meditation is cool. I spent some time in a temple in Thailand. Did a lot of self-exploration, a lot of chanting, a whole lot of meditation. Very cool people, those monks. Very cool. They’ve got their heads on straight. A lot straighter than most people in this country, chasing the dollar all day long. That’s a wearying bullshit race.”

Martha had no idea what to say to him. Men didn’t come up to her and start talking.
Go away
seemed extreme, but it was on the tip of her tongue. “Right.”

“What’s your name? I’m Patrick. I work here at camp. Just started this summer, actually.”

“I’m Martha.”

“Yeah, right, Martha Danvers.” He grinned as if she was a celebrity he’d been wanting to meet all his life. “Nice to meet you.”

She wasn’t sure if it was mutual, but she murmured something polite.

“That’s a great shawl. Is that a prayer shawl? I know be-44 Isabel

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sides the Jewish faith, there’s a Christian feminist ministry that uses shawls to—”

“It was a gift.”

“Yeah, okay. All right. It’s really fine.” He lifted his hands from the rock, examined his palms, brushed them off and settled them down again, staring out into the bay. “It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it? You ever been to the Maine coast before?”

“No.” She and Eldon had wanted to schedule a weekend away for the two of them farther south, near Kennebunk-port, but it never worked out. She’d been trying not to remember her disappointment, and was further irritated when Patrick brought it up.