Barefoot Beach (18 page)

“Parts missing?” My voice rippled with rage. “Let me tell you: he's the most together man I know. He's not bitter or filled with self-pity, and God knows after what he's been through he'd have the right. He's smart and kind. And he thinks I'm wonderful.”

In the silence that followed, I almost heard Margo cheering, “Go, Nora!” Even Sister Loretta was strumming a different tune, and their words and music were finally getting through to me. My life was far from over, and love, the kind I'd fantasized having with Scott, wasn't the be-all, end-all of happiness, but it could be a hefty chunk. I'd be damned if I'd give up on it this soon.

Jack, wide-eyed at my outburst, said, “All I'm asking is, don't make any quick decisions. You don't want to have buyer's remorse down the road if something better comes along.”

Now it was my turn to gape. When I got my voice back, I said, “I'm not known for quick decisions, Jack, so you shouldn't worry about that. You
should
worry about your attitude, though. And if you want to talk remorse, how about some from you?”

He gave me a tentative smile, took in a lungful of the salt air sweeping in from the ocean, and exhaled what seemed to be a shrug of a breath.

“I guess I'll hang out here for a while,” he said, ducking my nudge for an apology. If that wasn't cheeky enough, he extended his hand with the e-cigarette pinched between two fingers. “I was just trying it out anyway. I thought it might be fun. Not so much. You can trash it.”

My simmering anger boiled over. “Since you're so good at trashing things,” I snapped, “trash it yourself.”

Yeah, that was a “gotcha,” and had it been flung at anyone but my son, I would have swaggered off in triumph. But this was Jack. So there was no swaggering. Just slouching to the kitchen to drink what was left in the bottle of pinot noir, and trudging upstairs to my bed and a restless sleep.

Jack wasn't in the kitchen when I came down for coffee the next morning. He'd brewed a pot of Emine's best ground and laid out my mug, a spoon, and, on a napkin, the last black-and-white cookie from Margo's welcome gift, the one I'd tucked in the freezer as an upcoming surprise for him. And there was a note.

Hi, Mom. Walking the pups, then hanging out with Ethan. I may stay overnight. Don't wait up or worry. Cell is on. Love ya.

My reaction was mixed, relieved that I wouldn't have to face more questions, irritated that there wasn't even a hint of “I'm sorry” in his note for the acting out and the damaged-goods slur. His suck-up arrangement of coffee and cookie, while it amused me, didn't entirely appease me. So best we didn't run into each other until he'd had time to think it through.

The coffee tasted bitter. I poured it down the sink, tossed the cookie into the trash, slathered myself with sunscreen, wrapped a pareo around my swimsuit, grabbed my straw hat, pulled a book from the shelf in the great room, tossed it and a bottle of water, two towels, and my cell phone
into a bag, and exited the kitchen. As I crossed the deck to hook a folded beach chair, I stopped at the chaise littered with Jack's discarded vape and a magazine with the cover ripped off.
Playboy
? God forbid,
Hustler
? I hesitated for a morally split second and snatched it up. It turned out to be
Rolling Stone
, one of my own favorites at twenty. See, I told myself, he really wasn't a bad kid.

I was the only person on Barefoot Beach, though it was beginning to get spotty with blue rental umbrellas three blocks up where the boardwalk began. The sun was still low in the sky and I could have walked the night-cooled sand without flip-flops. Local news had warned of an invasion of jellyfish on the Delaware coast, but according to the reporter, the stingers hadn't crossed the state line yet.

Just as I sank into the beach chair, my cell started ringing. Scott, I hoped, though I wasn't sure what we would say to each other after the way the night before had ended.

It wasn't Scott, at least not from the name on the screen. Who was Petersen with a Maryland area code?

I answered it, and on that warm beach my blood ran cold. “Hi, Nora.” I recognized her voice, the Vintage corporate administrator, but I made her say her name anyway.

“It's Kimberly Kline. So sorry to bother you on your vacation.” She waited for my protest, which didn't come. “I promised I'd get in touch as soon as I knew something. I'm afraid I've got bad news.” As if she had to tell me, as if her voice hadn't oozed pity from “Hi” on. “It went down to the wire between you and pottery, but—”

I interrupted her, trying to stave off the inevitable speech. Seized by the urge to shut her up, to bury my phone in the sand or toss it into the ocean, I death-gripped it and bought ten seconds by saying, “You came up Petersen on my cell.”

“Right. I'm working from home. My cell phone is charging so I'm
using the landline. Petersen's my married name. So . . .” She would not be diverted.

Digging in my beach bag for a tissue, I tuned out most of her long explanation rigged with financial terminology that supposedly explained why I was being—I heard her humming search for the right words, although she had to have rehearsed this speech before delivering it—“released.”

“I'm beyond sorry, Nora. I did everything I could. But in the end, since it applied to more than one facility, this was a board decision.” She sighed. “I really wanted to give you better news.”

Yeah, I really wanted to hear better news. A part of me had read the headline during our meeting on the day I left for the beach: “Nora Farrell Fired. Life Falls Apart.” But another part of me, the one that protected me against pain, was deliberately illiterate. That's why, how, I'd been able to shelve the issue of my Vintage contract in the attic of my mind for the past couple of weeks, assuring myself, as I shoved it behind rhyme and reason where cobwebs grew, that the executive committee would never opt for clay play over dance therapy. And that if they tried, my supporters would revolt like the peasants in
Les Mis
, only wielding their crutches and canes while chanting for justice.

Kimberly seemed to be reading my mind. “I have to tell you, lots of folks aren't happy about the outcome. In fact, Mr. Lewisohn circulated a petition to retain you. He filled two pages with signatures. Unfortunately, the budget has been officially approved, so it's a fait accompli. Still, I thought it might be a comfort to know how our residents feel about the decision. And about you, Nora.”

It
was
a comfort, actually. I sniffed, I blew my nose, but I didn't cry. I shut my eyes and managed to say, “Mr. Lewisohn is a sweetie. They all are, the ones in my classes.” Mr. Hancock, depressed after a stroke, whose participation in the weekly Dance Out Your Feelings exercise had
strengthened his left side and occasionally teased out a laugh. Mrs. Morgan, totally blind, who sang along with the music in our stretching circles, and Estee Friedenham, our ninety-four-year-old Holocaust survivor. I'd set her poetry to movement so the group could express their fury and then the triumph of the human spirit. Even the nursing home patients with dementia, the violent charges who took swings at the nurses and hurled breakfast trays at the wall, calmed down when I played “Paper Doll” or “I Found a Million Dollar Baby” and laid my hands on their shoulders to sway them in their chairs.

At the moment, I felt a bit like taking a swing at someone myself. So much was slipping away.

“I'm going to miss them,” I choked out. Oh God, miss my life with them, making a difference fifty minutes at a time.

“Well, the economy could take a turn next year and free up money for ancillary services,” Kimberly said, her voice chirpy with false optimism. “One never knows.”

One never did. And that was, to my mind, the crux of the problem.

As the conversation drew to a close, I opened my eyes and stared out at the everlasting sea, which looked smooth and glassy this morning. But I knew that was an illusion. The sea was always moving, with tides, with waves. Nothing stood still as the earth turned.

For a movement therapist, I was lousy at moving. Well, I'd better get good with it—moving on, and moving out too, I reminded myself. And ASAP, because, like it or not, those effin' everlasting waves carried you where and when
they
wanted to go.

When I'd received the phone call telling me they'd found Lon's body, and for weeks after that, I didn't cry.
Couldn't
really, and was convinced I was a crazy person because my grief was deep and wide, but dry. It made my bones ache and played havoc with my sleep, my appetite, my ability to work,
because I'd lost my focus, and my legs hurt, but mostly because music, which was essential to my practice, made me itch. Not metaphorically—really, physically. Especially the theme music from old sitcoms, which was all I wanted to watch on TV. No news, no murders, no wars, no political debates, no drama—just
Everybody Loves Raymond
,
Frasier
, old familiar reruns. I sat huddled on the living room sofa or in bed with the blanket pulled to my chin, bingeing on TV Land, Lifetime, and Netflix.
The Golden Girls
was my favorite, but its theme music made me break out. “Thank you for being a friend,” the chorus sang, and
boom!
hives blossomed on my arms and neck. I chuckled and I scratched but I still didn't cry.

And then one night, almost a month after we scattered my husband's ashes, I was in the shower, ready to soap up, and it occurred to me that I was tasting salt in the fresh spray. I moved from under it, touched my cheeks, and then brushed my fingers against my tongue: tears. I licked snot from my upper lip, and that was when I felt my chest heaving and knew I was crying. Uncontrollably, almost soundlessly, and, it seemed, endlessly. When I finally stopped, my fingers were pruny and there was a net of my hair lacing the drain, but I felt better. And I never cried again about Lon. Not consciously. Some mornings, I woke up with my cheek pressed against a damp pillow, but I couldn't connect the tears to Lon because the dream had already vanished.

That's why I was so surprised when after I said good-bye to Kimberly Kline I collapsed back into the flimsy plastic woven beach chair, stared at my toes, their blue polish peeling, and, with a long gasp to get me going, began to sob.

By the time Margo called that night, I could talk about it without those jagged hiccups you get post-hysterics. Besides, I rationalized, it was sufficiently shocking to sidetrack her desire to dissect my date with Scott.

She opened with, “Just checking in. Everything okay?”

And I said, “Actually, no. I've been fired. Correction, let go. Vintage canceled my contract with both residences. As of this morning, they said adios, au revoir, sayonara.”

“No! The bastards.
Said
it? Oh my God, they canned you on the phone? How cold is that!”

I wasn't going to tell her I'd been given fair warning face-to-face but had ridiculously hoped against unrealistic hope that I'd beat out the pottery therapist, an attractive young guy with one earring who helped the residents make vases and other gifts for their adult kids. The odds had been stacked against me from the start. I also neglected to add that I'd held off telling her because I didn't want to deal with the drama prematurely.

“It's a business, Margo. They don't play by Miss Manners' rules. And they made it clear it wasn't personal. They were forced to make cutbacks because of the economy. A profit-making company with shareholders can't afford to be sentimental. Whatever, there goes one huge chunk of my life. And my income.”

“Oh, baby, I am so sorry.” I closed my eyes and could imagine her putting on her game face. Not the player's—the cheerleader's. She didn't disappoint. “Nora,” she cooed, “you're wonderful at what you do. You'll find something.”

“Maybe, but not contractual in this economy. Everyone's cutting back on nonessentials. If I land something, it will be full-time, probably base salaried, and year-round. To keep Jack at Duke and a roof over my head in Baltimore, it's good-bye, Tuckahoe. Good-bye, summers.”

“Never,” Margo said. “You can sell the Calvert Street house and take that money and . . . oh shit, you're still renting, right?”

We had been for decades, from Mr. Lieber, the same sweet man who'd drawn up the lease for Lon when he started to teach at Hopkins. The rent was still absurdly low.

We'd looked to buy once, but Lon's purchase of the beach house had taken the largest chunk of his royalties on the first book and the advance on the second and we were helping to support his mom in California. Money was tight.

Then Lon went to part-time at the university so he could write more and we were living mostly on what I brought in. When the taxes and upkeep on the aging Tuckahoe house skyrocketed, we'd abandoned the notion of buying a place in Baltimore.