As Good as It Got (8 page)

“Eggs? Bacon?”

“No. Thanks.” She dropped a piece of wheat bread into a toaster that could hold six slices, picked up tiny tubs of butter and Maine wild blueberry honey, and waited.

A petite blonde jostled by her, chattering with a friend, then turned with an apology and a warm smile Ann couldn’t seem to return. At work she had no problem meeting people or talking to strangers. Hell, it was her job, and she was damn good at it, or had been until this past year. But here . . . who was she? A widow, defined only by her pain and by her loss.

She didn’t want people to know that person. She had nothing to offer as that person. Hell, she didn’t even want to
be
that person.

She watched women fill their plates, feeling more isolated than she did in her familiar surroundings in Massachusetts, which were all now torturously notable for being without Paul.

So? No one was keeping her here. She could climb into her car and drive home again. Back to her parents’ house. Back to sleeping late, eating their food, watching their shows, drinking their liquor, scouring want ads and alumni directories for graduates of Brown with careers in information technology or sales who might help her get a job.

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Crap.

Toast popped and harvested, she headed for her primary fuel source: coffee. In mugs that held half what her gar-gantuan one did at home, the mug Paul bought after he accidentally swept her favorite off her computer table to its doom. He’d been as crestfallen as a boy, eager to make it right. One of the few circumstances in which his cynicism cracked and showed vulnerability. Too bad he hadn’t broken more of her favorite things in the year before he died. Maybe she could have gotten through . . .

Enough.

Feeling like the new kid in middle school, she ventured out onto the porch of widows, divorcées and dumpees chattering over their breakfasts as if they were already old friends.

Anxiety stirred up her already stirred-up stomach. Where to sit? She didn’t want to talk to any of these people.

“Ann!” Cindy beckoned cheerily from a corner table. She was smiling, showing her big teeth, short dark hair remi-niscent of Cindy Williams in the
Laverne and Shirley
TV

show, orange lace showing at the vee of a large navy sweater that had probably belonged to her husband. Next to her sat Martha, wrapped in the same weird musical shawl from yesterday, staring out at the sea as if she longed to hurl herself into it. Across from them—the inevitable. Dinah, bleached hair puffy and immobile, wearing one of those white jogging suits old people wore in Florida.

Ann lifted her mug to acknowledge Cindy and trudged over. Her club, apparently, her tribe. Accidental friends at best. Real friends knew better than to expect her to talk at breakfast.

As it turned out, of course, since Dinah was presiding, no As Good As It Got

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words were required from anyone else. Ann sat and sipped her coffee, which was excellent, made a halfhearted attempt to eat her toast, gave up and got more coffee.

Coffee was her friend. No, her love. No, her salvation.

“You’re not eating.” Cindy frowned at Ann’s plate and gestured to her own, which held more than Martha’s, though Martha was twice her size. “This food is incredible. I’ll probably gain twenty pounds in the next two weeks.”

“Probably.”

Cindy’s face fell. Ann considered apologizing, then settled on pretending not to notice.

The sooner people figured out she was a bitch, the sooner they’d leave her alone.

“Group therapy this morning.” Dinah picked up a piece of toast, negotiating it carefully around über-manicured nails, and started spreading jelly. The toast wobbled, then took a dive—jelly side down—onto her shelf of a chest, clad under the white jogging suit in tight yellow material that brought spandex to mind. “Aw, cheez-whiz. I swear it’s like my boobs are magnetized. I’m always doing this. This one time I was out to dinner when I was dating Frank, my second husband, and I was eating this huge rack of ribs . . . ”

Ann tuned her out, took the last tepid sip of her second cup. Group therapy. She wanted to go about as much as she’d wanted to go to Paul’s memorial service. The night before that ghastly event she’d lain awake for hours, shaking.

She knew grief was pain; she’d found out quickly it was also deep physical stress.

The next day at the Presbyterian church his parents went to, she was stunned by the turnout. Not because she thought Paul and his family had no friends or support system, but 66 Isabel

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because the crowd of sad faces had brought home shockingly that the tragedy hadn’t just happened to her.

“Good morning.”

She tensed—as if she wasn’t already tense enough—at the sound of Patrick’s voice.

“Good morning!” Cindy and Dinah chorused the greeting, faces turned eagerly toward him. Even Martha took her gaze off the sea. Ann didn’t move.

He scooted onto the bench next to her; his thigh touched hers briefly. “How’s everyone?”

Cindy and Dinah assured him they were fine. Martha nodded and turned back to the ocean, wistfully resting her chins on her plump hand.

“How’s Ann?” His low voice seemed too intimate.

“Dandy.” She didn’t look at him. His presence threatened to drag her out of the familiar black depths of her mood, and that irritated her.

“Dandy, huh.” From the corner of her eye she saw him glance at his watch. “I’ve got time, you want to take a walk?”

Boom. Just like that, her composure up and ran off with the milkman. She turned, unprepared for how beautiful he was even in broad daylight where flaws tended to show, his gray eyes probing and concerned, blond hair boyishly mussed over his forehead, skin smooth and relatively unlined. No ravages from his brutal past.

“I . . . don’t think—” Exactly. She wasn’t capable of thought at all. “—so, but thanks.”

“Do you good. Fresh air and a chance to talk to someone who gets it.”

“Gets it?” Her scorn battled an unexpected twinge of As Good As It Got

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longing to escape this box of estrogen for the simple, sensible, calming company of a man.

“Get what you’re feeling. I do, you know. I’ve been there.

Once I—”

“Patrick?” Betsy’s voice, calling from across the room.

“Yeah.” He kept his eyes on Ann’s a beat longer, then turned to grin at Betsy’s approach. “What’s doing, boss?”

“You’re needed in Cabin Three, are you able to go? Good morning, everyone.” Betsy stood solidly planted, arms loosely at her side, beaming at her flock, blue eyes serene, blond curls a flawlessly symmetrical halo. “I hope you all slept well.”

Assorted murmurings of assent, all lies. Whenever Ann had been awake, she’d heard at least one body thrashing and sighing in the dark.

“I’m good to go. See ya later.” Patrick got up with easy grace, laid his hand on Ann’s shoulder and bent his head down close. “You’ll be okay?”

“Yes-s-s.” She spoke impatiently, but his concern gave her an unexpected lift.

“Good.” He squeezed her shoulder, bowed to the other women, and left with Betsy.

“Ann!” Cindy’s eyes were completely round. “Did he just ask you
out
?”

Ann scoffed, her shoulder still feeling the pressure of his hand. “I’m sure he has instructions to scope out the worst basket cases and offer his manly chest to cry on.”

“Ha!” Dinah had resumed dabbing at the jelly staining her yolk-and-white outfit. “He’s not manly. Remember? He’s that
other
way.”

“Right.” Ann scooted disgustedly away from her. Zero 68 Isabel

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tolerance for homophobia aside, she didn’t care to share her theory that Patrick was as immune to women as James Bond.

“You going?” Dinah looked up from her monster bosom.

“See you in therapy.”

“I don’t know if I want to go.” Cindy laughed anxiously. Her hands fluttered up and pressed tightly against her cheeks, as if she were afraid of losing them. “I’ve never been to therapy with strangers. I think I’ll hate it.”

Join the club
.

“Aw, it’s nothing, sweetie.” Dinah waved away Cindy’s concern. “I’ve been in tons of therapy with my husbands, you know, to work on the marriages. All you have to do is talk. Just open your mouth and blab about whatever enters your head.”

“Which comes naturally to you.”

“Oh yes.” Dinah nodded happily, Ann’s sarcasm having whizzed harmlessly over her head. “The last time I went, with Stanley, my third husband, we were having this sexual issue, where he—”

“See you there.” Ann stood abruptly. Words could not express how little she wanted to hear about Stanley’s sexual issue.

She threw away the nibbled toast and put her tray on the conveyor belt that moved dirty goods into the kitchen. Kinsonu in a nutshell: soiled women on a conveyor belt, into the camp to be washed and made presentable for reuse. Too bad the deep scratches and cracks of the past couldn’t be repaired as perfectly.

Outside, she stepped onto the fresh, fragrant grass, mown from its normal meadow length, and walked back As Good As It Got

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to Cabin Four, sunlight already warming the morning, dappling the ground through the birches, sending out the gift of Christmas-tree whiffs among the firs.

Okay. She’d stay. She’d even work on her attitude. At least through group therapy this morning. If that didn’t push her over the edge, nothing would.

Fifteen minutes later, teeth brushed, stomach still painful from too much coffee and not enough food, in spite of a dose of extra-strength antacids, she was sitting in yet another cabin on a comfortable upholstered chair arranged in a circle with other comfortable upholstered chairs on which sat chattery Dinah, jingly Martha, horsey Cindy, and their fair and noble leader, Betsy, erstwhile cheerleading slut.

Against three of the surrounding walls, between the windows, stood colorfully jammed natural-finish bookcases, topped with brass urns, lamps, and small vases of clustered berries, bright red against rich green leaves. On the fourth wall, a brick fireplace with an assortment of shells—scallop, mussel, sea urchin, and bleached sand dollar—arranged in an abstract mosaic on the chimney. Through the windows opposite, Ann could see the sparkling blue bay and peaceful green islands, which gave her the same imprisoned feeling as being in school on the first warm day of spring.

“Welcome, ladies.” Betsy bowed her head in greeting.

“How was breakfast? Everyone get enough to eat?”

Yesses and nods all around, Cindy patting her stomach contentedly.

“Glad to hear it. Now, you four are being hit with this session first thing on Monday, our first full day. That makes it hard, I know. It’s easier when you have an activity or two to help foster trust and to relax a little before we start with the 70 Isabel

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soul-baring. But schedules are schedules and someone had to be first, right?”

She waited for an answer to the rhetorical question.

“Yes.” Cindy turned uncertainly to her cabin-mates, as if needing assurance that she’d said the right thing.

“Absolutely. “I don’t mind going first, like I said, I’m used to therapy and don’t think it’s a big deal, so I’m completely comfortable with coming here.” Dinah spoke with her attention on arranging her necklaces. “Not a problem for me at all.”

Betsy’s gaze moved to Martha, who mumbled, “Sure.”

“You bet.” Ann used her best salesman-hearty tone.

“Good.” Betsy looked proud, as if they’d all completed stage one of group therapy: Able to Respond to Simple Questions. “Now, to loosen our minds and our bodies, we’ll start with a brief yoga session.”

She got up, indicating they should rise with her. “Anyone know the sun salute?”

Martha’s hand was the only one to rise.

“I’ve heard of it!” Dinah fixed her empty eyes on Betsy.

“One time I was in New York, in Central Park with Dan, my first husband, and there was this guy doing yoga. We stopped to talk to him and he told us he was doing exactly that, the sun salute, how about that! I never took yoga, but a lot of my friends took it. They said it was very enjoyable how calm it made you. I guess that’s why you’re doing it for us here, isn’t it.”

“Right. That’s it exactly. Now . . . ” Betsy neatly slipped the words in just as Dinah opened her mouth to continue.

“We start with Tall Mountain.”

She lined them up in front of the windows facing the sea As Good As It Got

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and led them through the poses, sometimes demonstrating, sometimes coaching, urging them several times to “let the breath move them,” whatever that meant. Ann pushed her body through the routine, proud of her strength and flexibil-ity. To her right, Dinah murmured to herself, straining into the poses. Cindy puffed and grunted, unable to straighten her legs, balance a lunge, or hold herself in a plank without her butt rising skyward.

Ann smirked and turned to her left. If Cindy was having such trouble, Martha would be a disaster.

Ann was wrong. Martha’s large body moved effortlessly through the routine. She held the positions, breathed deeply, bent and flexed farther and better even than Ann could.

More than that, she seemed transformed. Her eyes were open, wide and untroubled, staring at nothing. A small smile curved her lips. The perpetual crease between her eyebrows had smoothed. She seemed powerful and peaceful, Betsy-like, but even more so.

“Eyes forward, please.”

Ann moved them forward, wanting to stick her tongue out at Betsy. What difference did it make if she looked forward or sideways or around in circles? But, new attitude in place, she completed the poses, not expertly like Martha, but obediently, in the correct order, keeping her eyes on the sea and the sky.

Ten minutes later, the sun having been saluted to Betsy’s satisfaction, they moved again to the chairs, Dinah muttering, Cindy with a hand to her lower back. Ann settled in, prepared for whatever lay ahead. Her stomach still sloshed and gurgled, but she had to admit she felt calmer, and her breath seemed to go more deeply into her body. Better and better.

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