Barefoot (50 page)

“There was a note on her desk,” Mr. Patalka said. “Saying she owed you this.”

Josh tried to refuse the envelope, but Mr. Patalka insisted. Josh used some of the money to buy beer at Hatch’s; he was taking the beer to the house in Shimmo, where Zach was throwing the unofficial reception for “Didi’s real friends,” “the people who knew her best.”

Josh set the beer down on the passenger side of his Jeep, which he tried not to think of as Melanie’s seat. He took off his suit jacket and threw it into the back; even at four o’clock, it was too hot for it. He hadn’t called Melanie to tell her about Didi, not only because of his self-imposed ban on calling Melanie but because Melanie knew nothing about Didi, and how cumbersome would it be to explain that Josh had had this friend—not even a friend, really, but an ex-girlfriend, a person who defied easy categorization in his life—who had died? Melanie wouldn’t get it, but because she was Melanie, so incredibly kind, she would pretend to get it, and how could Josh find that anything but patronizing? Didi and Melanie were from separate parts of Josh’s life, they weren’t connected, and trying to connect them would require stretching something that might break and end up in a mess. Still, on his way out to Shimmo, with his tie off now as well as his jacket and the windows open, allowing the last of summer’s warm, fresh air to rush in, Josh fondled his phone. He scrolled through his calls received—there were the two calls from Rob Patalka, three calls from Zach, all to tell him the news, he now knew—until he found the call from Number Eleven Shell Street, from Ted, and he nearly hit the button that would dial the house, but then it was time for him to turn, which he did, abruptly, and the beer slid off Melanie’s seat and clunked to the floor, and while Josh was half bent over trying to upright the beer, he saw Tish Alexander’s car in front of him and the moment to call Melanie was lost.

It was another beautiful afternoon. If they hadn’t been attending a funeral, people might have come to the Shimmo house in bathing suits. They might have gone swimming right there in the harbor in front of the house. The water was very blue and calm; Josh had never seen water look more inviting. He stood for a minute in the driveway, gazing out across Nantucket Sound. He had been born and raised on this island; there was a sense that this view belonged to him and the others who grew up here. And if it belonged to them, then it belonged to Didi, too, but that fact hadn’t been enough to keep her on the straight and narrow, to keep her alive. Didi—and how many times had Josh uttered this sentence in his mind, hoping that it would start to make sense?—was dead.

Josh entered the house and took off his shoes. He tried to push away thoughts of his night here with Melanie. Strains of Bon Jovi floated down the stairs. Josh ascended, glad for the case of beer in his arms because it gave him something to hold. There were a few people in the living room, mostly girls, all of whom Josh had known forever, but whose names he could not, at that second, summon, crying on the sofa. Josh nodded at them. Everyone else was out on the deck. The guys, like Josh, had their jackets and ties off, their shirts unbuttoned; they were drinking beer, talking quietly, shaking their heads, gazing off into the distance.
Why?
Josh heard someone say. And someone else answered,
I don’t know, man.

Zach was in the kitchen, fussing like Martha Stewart. He was dumping bags of Doritos into fancy, hand-painted ceramic bowls, he was setting out cocktail napkins, he was sponging off the countertop. He saw Josh and said, “You got beer?”

“Yeah.”

“This fridge is full,” Zach said. “Can you put it in the fridge under the bar?”

“Sure.”

“They’re not smoking out there, are they?” Zach said. He craned his neck to spy on the activity on the deck. “There’s no smoking allowed anywhere on the property. Not even outside.”

“No one’s smoking,” Josh said. He carried the case of beer over to the bar, which brought him into close proximity with the girls who were crying. Their talk stopped when he approached. It became silence studded with sniffles.

“Hi, Josh.”

He turned. Eleanor Shelby, Didi’s best friend, sat between Annelise Carter and Penelope Ross; it was the queen of sorrow and her two handmaidens. Eleanor’s voice, even in its greeting, was accusatory. Josh realized this should come as no surprise—Didi obviously shared every last thing with Eleanor, and with Annelise and Penelope as well, probably—but he was unprepared for the blitz. He opened the door to the fridge under the bar and noted the slab of blue granite, the mirrors, the one hundred wineglasses hanging upside down. He pushed the six-packs into the fridge, he shoved them with some aggression because against his will he was thinking of Melanie and their night here, in this house. They had made love in a bed in the next room, they had showered together, they had stood on the deck in robes, and Josh, anyway, had allowed himself the five-minute fantasy that all this was his, or could be.

Behind him, Eleanor cleared her throat. “We haven’t seen you around much this summer, Josh,” she said. “Rumor had it you were babysitting out in ’Sconset.”

He smiled at Eleanor in the mirror, not because he was happy or trying to be nice, but because he was freshly surprised by the difference between girls and women.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s right.”

Penelope Ross, whom Josh had known literally all his life (they were born the same week at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, their mothers in adjoining rooms), said, “And there were other rumors.”

He glared at Penelope with as much disdain as he could muster. “I’m sure there were.”

“Like, you have a baby on the way.”

He scoffed. There was no point getting drawn into a discussion like this one, but the day had worn on him and he felt his fists itching. Part of him wanted a fight.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“But your girlfriend is pregnant, right?” Penelope said. “Didi told us your girlfriend is pregnant.”

“And older,” Eleanor said. “Like, our parents’ age.”

Josh shook his head. Didi, now that she was dead, had a new, irrefutable authority, and an air of celebrity that she would have relished had she been alive. Josh could have pulled out his ammunition against Didi—her money problems, her drinking problem, the prostitution—but what would that accomplish? Josh eyeballed the girls and said in a quiet, serious voice, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

This silenced them long enough for Josh to escape down the stairs and out into the driveway. He couldn’t stay. The party for “Didi’s real friends,” “for the people who knew her best,” was not for him. He backed out of the driveway, trying to control his breathing. He was very, very nervous. He headed out Shimmo Road toward Polpis. He waited until he had turned onto Polpis Road before he picked up his phone. He told himself he could always change his mind.

But then, as he knew he would, he dialed the number.

An unfamiliar voice answered the phone. A singsongy, Julie Andrews–type voice. “Hel-lo!”

Josh was caught unprepared. Had he dialed the wrong number?

“Uh . . . hi,” he said. “Is Melanie available, please?”

“Melanie,” the voice said. “Yes. Yes, indeed, Melanie is available. May I tell her who’s calling?”

“Josh.”

“Josh,” the voice repeated. There was a pause, then an intake of breath. “Oh! You must be the young man who helped out this summer.”

“Yes,” Josh said. He heard Penelope Ross’s reedy voice.
Didi told us . . .
“Yes, I am. Who’s this?”

“Oooh, I’m Ellen Lyndon. Vicki and Brenda’s mom. They just raved about you. Raved! So, I thank you and their father thanks you. We would have been here ourselves if we could, but I had some ambulatory issues, knee operation and all that. And Buzz, my husband, has work. We only came now because it was a real emergency . . .”

“Right,” Josh said. “Is Vicki okay?”

Another sharp intake of breath. And then it sounded like the woman was trying to hold herself together. “She’s okay. Which is to say, she still has cancer. But it’s just the regular old cancer and not any new cancer. We were all sure it was going to be new cancer, but no, the MRI was clear. She lost consciousness the other night in the car, and we all thought the cancer had gone to her brain. But the doctors said she had overmedicated, her blood was thinned, plus there was the heat and the stress. You know Vicki. She feels an enormous amount of pressure because of the surgery and whatnot.” Ellen Lyndon paused, and Josh heard her pluck a Kleenex from a box. “My daughter wants to live more than anyone I have ever known.”

She wants to live, Josh thought. Unlike Didi. Unlike my own mother.

“Because of the kids,” Ellen Lyndon said. “Because of everything.”

“Right,” Josh said. “I know.”

Ellen Lyndon’s voice brightened. “So, anyway! If you hold on one moment, I’ll get Melanie.”

“Okay,” Josh said. “Thanks.”

Y
ou should never underestimate the power of your mind,
Dr. Alcott said.
The cancer isn’t making you sick. You’re making yourself sick.

These words were delivered to Vicki, bedside, in the hospital. Coming from anyone else they would have sounded like an admonishment, but from Dr. Alcott—Mark—it just sounded like the truth, gently spoken.

“I’m going to release you,” he said. “But you have to promise me that, between now and the date of your surgery, you’ll relax. You’ll drink plenty of water and take the vitamins and eat right. You will not self-medicate. You’ll talk to someone when you feel anxious or upset. If you internalize your fear, it can turn around and destroy you.”

Vicki tried to speak, but found she couldn’t. She nodded, then choked out, “I know.”

“You say you know, but you don’t act like you know,” Dr. Alcott said. “You’re making the road harder for yourself than it needs to be. You took so many pills you nearly put yourself into a coma.”

She tried again to speak but got stuck. Something was wrong with her voice. “S——orry.” Her tone was not what she intended; she sounded like an automaton on a recording.

“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to yourself.”

“I’m sorry, s——elf,” Vicki said. She was only half joking.

Dr. Alcott smiled. “I want you to take it easy, do you hear me?”

She nodded.

“Okay,” Dr. Alcott said. He leaned in and kissed Vicki on the cheek. “This is good-bye. I won’t see you again this summer. But Dr. Garcia has promised to call me after your surgery. And”—here he squeezed Vicki’s hand—“I want you to come back and visit me and the rest of the team next summer. Promise?”

She couldn’t speak! Something was wrong with her voice, or maybe she’d damaged her brain. She nodded.

“Good. Those are the visits we like the best.” He held her gaze. “Because next summer you’re going to be healthy.”

Vicki’s eyes swam with tears. It wasn’t as easy as Dr. Alcott was making it seem. She was petrified; anxiety held her by the shoulders. She couldn’t just click her heels like Dorothy and make that go away. She could not
relax;
she was incapable of
taking it easy.
She was standing on a ledge, fifty stories off the ground; she couldn’t pretend that she was safe, or that everything was going to be okay. She couldn’t even speak properly; something had been lost, or altered, while she was unconscious. Maybe she’d had a stroke. Maybe the drugs had ravaged her central controls. Vicki let a few tears drop. What she wanted more than anything was to be out of this hospital for good and back home with her family at Number Eleven Shell Street.

“Thank you,” she mumbled.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

At home, she still had trouble speaking. She had a stutter. The words and sentences were fluid in her mind, but in delivering them, she hit the same frustrating stumbling block again and again, even with Ted and the kids, even saying phrases she had said thousands of times.
Magic words. Hold on. Be careful. I love you.
Vicki was concerned about this but she was incapable of articulating her concern, and no one in the cottage seemed to notice her speech impediment, or the fact that, in order to hide the impediment (she would not be able to tolerate another trip to the hospital or any more drugs), she said next to nothing. The announcement of no metastases had put everyone’s mind at ease; the implication that Vicki’s “incident” had come at her own hands (overdoing it with the painkillers) or that it was all in her mind made her feel like a malingerer. If she complained now of something else, no one would believe her. They would think she was making it up. At times she thought perhaps she
was
making it up. She whispered to herself in the shower,
I’m making it up.
She got stuck on the
m
and stopped trying.

Ted, in an attempt to wring every bit of fun out of what remained of the summer, cajoled Vicki into joining him and Blaine on the fishing trip. He arranged for Ellen to stay home and watch Porter. It would be good for Blaine to have Vicki there as well as Ted; it would be good for the three of them to spend the day together. It would be good for Vicki to be out on the water; in years past, Ted had chartered a sailboat, and Vicki had loved it.
Remember, Vick, how you loved it?
Vicki couldn’t protest. She nodded. Ohhhhh——kay.

It was just the three of them—plus the captain and first mate—because Harrison Ford cancelled. Ted was disappointed, but only for a minute, and Vicki found it nicer without any other people. It was like they had their own boat. Blaine was over the moon to be on a real fishing boat, with a fight chair and special holders for his pole and his very own can of Coke. He bounded from one side of the boat to the other, bundled in his brand-new orange life jacket. He had both his parents to himself for the first time in a long time, and Vicki could see that while he was feeling very adult to be on this excursion, he was also relishing his role as the only child of his two parents. He let Ted hold him up high as they motored out of the harbor, past the jetty and around the tip of Great Point.

It was a stunning day. With the drone of the engine making conversation unnecessary, Vicki was set free for long periods of time. She basked in the sun, she sat up to feel the spray of the waves and to see Nantucket as just a sliver of pale sand in the distance. She watched the business of catching a fish as though it were a movie. Ted was doing most of the fishing while Blaine sat in the fight chair, a captive audience through one, two, three bluefish. With the fourth fish, Blaine said, “Another blue.” His voice was weary and disappointed beyond his years. With a wink between Ted and Pete, the captain, it became clear that the mission was to now catch a striped bass. Pete motored all the way to the other side of the island; if they set up right between Smith’s Point and Tuckernuck, he said, they would have better luck. The first mate, a kid named Andre, sat next to Vicki. He reminded her of Josh; he was on Nantucket for the summer, working. The following week he would head back to the College of Charleston.