Beach Trip (57 page)

It was a stupid example. Annie didn’t know why she’d used it. She could see that they weren’t impressed. “I was wearing leopard-print pajamas and I got into a car accident and had to stand along the side of the road while everyone I knew drove slowly past. It was humiliating. It was the first and only time I ever wore leopard-print pajamas. Mitchell gave them to me for Christmas.”

“Now that’s funny,” Mel said.

Annie didn’t tell them that she was hit from behind by a guy in an old van hand-painted with strange quotes that read like Bible verses. It looked like a hippie van from the ’60s, only instead of peace signs there were crude drawings of what appeared to be the devil, loading people into hell on the prongs of a pitchfork. The driver of the van was tall and thin with matted hair and a long beard. He wore a purple jumpsuit with “Save Jesus” emblazoned across the back. Not “Jesus Saves,” but “Save Jesus.” That should have been a tip-off to his mental state, Annie realized later. “Jesus
Saves” was comforting, whereas “Save Jesus” implied a bound and gagged Savior with a gun to his temple. Annie found the image disturbing.

What was more disturbing was the way the crazy guy looked at her as if he knew her. He stood there beside the strange van while she checked her car for damage. He lifted a crooked finger and pointed at her while behind his head a line of utility poles stood against the sky like crucifixes on Golgotha. “Blessed are those whose sins the Lord will never count against them,” he said in a nasal, high-pitched voice.

Annie had stared at him uneasily, then shivered and climbed back into her car. Later, she tried not to take the whole incident as an omen. Moses at the burning bush. Saul on the road to Damascus.

“So you were spontaneous once and it didn’t work out,” Mel said. “You shouldn’t give up. Wild and crazy didn’t work the first time, so try it again.”

Annie gave her a sullen look. “What do you have in mind?”

“Let’s dye your hair.”

Annie sighed. “Fine,” she said.

Mel paused for a moment, as if she hadn’t heard her clearly. Then she leaned forward and slapped the table. “Now you’re talking.”

“Are you sure?” Sara asked doubtfully.

“And I’ll do your makeup,” Lola said, clapping her hands in excitement.

Mel said, “When we’re through with you, even your own mother won’t recognize you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Annie said.

“Hey, Lola, where’d you bury that box?”

Lola got up and walked around to the deck. While she was gone, Mel said, “So it’s settled then? We’ll stay in tonight, get drunk, and give Annie a makeover. Well, maybe not in that order.”

“Definitely not in that order,” Annie said.

When Lola came back a few minutes later she was carrying the box in her hands. It was covered in damp sand, and as she opened the lid, the little strips of paper fluttered gaily in the breeze. She picked one up and read it.

“This one says
Do something I’ve never done before.
Okay, we know who wrote that. This one says
Renew our friendship.”
They looked at one another and grinned. Lola smiled shyly and held a strip above her head. “This one says
Smoke some weed.”

They all looked at Mel.

“I did not write that,” she said.

“I did,” Lola said.

Annie’s eyes widened above her porn-star lips. Mel wagged one finger back and forth. “You’re a very naughty girl, Luscious Lola.”

“You’re kidding,” Sara said. “Right?”

“I never did it in college,” Lola said, “and I always wanted to. At least once.”

“I’m not doing something illegal just so you can relive the youth you never had,” Sara said.

“That’s not very generous of you,” Mel said.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Where would we even get some? How do you go about getting it these days?”

Sara said, “Like I said, I’m not doing anything illegal.”

“How about if we do it offshore? How about if we take the boat out into international waters?”

“I’m not boating two hundred miles out to sea to smoke a doobie.”

“I’ll take my chances with maritime law. It’s bound to be less stringent.”

Sara hooted. “Oh, so you’re a lawyer now?”

“Stop being so paranoid. No one’s going to catch us.”

“I’ll bet the Coast Guard hears that a lot.”

The fact that Sara was so against it made it irresistible to Mel. She turned her head and looked at Lola. “Seriously, Lo, where can we get some?”

Lola tapped her nose with one finger. “Leave that to me,” she said. She smiled mysteriously and picked up the last slip of paper. “This one says
Fuck Captain Mike.”

“I wonder who wrote that.”

Mel giggled.

Sara said flatly, “We all know that’s not going to happen.”

“Hey,” Mel said. “A girl can dream.”

Sara went with Mel to the store to pick up the Miss Clairol and on the way back they drove through the maritime forest. Sunlight filtered through the overhanging trees. Exotic birds sang in the greenery. From time to time they passed another cart, ambling along from the opposite direction, and Mel raised her hand and waved. Sara sat quietly beside her, looking out at the landscape.

“You’re quiet this morning,” Mel said. “Hungover?”

“I should be, after this week. But I’m not.”

“Everything all right at home?”

Sara didn’t want to talk about home. At least not with Mel. “Sure. Everything’s fine.” She stared at the distant marsh, flat and shimmering beneath the wide blue sky.

Mel picked up the box of Miss Clairol lying on the seat between them and said, “I wonder what got into Annie.”

“Us probably. We always were a bad influence.” Sara looked at her and grinned slowly, and Mel grinned back.

“I’d like to see her get a little outside herself,” Mel said. “She’s grown so rigid over the years.”

“She was always rigid,” Sara said.

“Was she? I don’t remember.”

“Well, maybe not so bad as now.”

Tom had called while they were in the store buying the Miss Clairol and Sara had gone outside to take the call. He sounded tired. “Only two more days,” he’d said, “and then you’ll be home. We miss you.” Something in the way he said
we
alerted her and she said quickly, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Something’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”

“We don’t have to talk about it now. Enjoy the rest of your vacation. We’ll talk about it when you get home.”

Sometimes a marriage, even a good one, reaches a stalemate. They had been married for seventeen years, long enough to have accepted each other’s faults, long enough for their relationship to have deepened into something else. She had always felt that her life with Tom was a series of stages; one ended and the next began on its heels. But then why suddenly did it feel as if they had stopped moving forward? Why did it feel sometimes as if they were treading the same dark water?

“I won’t hang up until you tell me.”

He sighed. “It’s no big deal. Really.”

“You let me be the judge of that.” She dragged it out of him like she always did. Because she’d grown into a chronic worrier and no matter how small the problem she could turn it into something large and dismal.
His words.
He told her in a strained, clipped voice. Nicky had been stood up by her new boyfriend, who was already seeing another girl, and she was in mourning, refusing to eat. Adam had had a fit at school when he couldn’t get the lid back on his glue bottle and Tom had been called in for a conference.
Listening to his weary voice, she’d felt a chill fall over the sunny landscape. The sky seemed less brilliant now, marred by a series of distant clouds. No matter how many good things happened in her own life, it would never be enough. She would never be free from worrying about her children, not even when they were grown and she was an old, old woman.

“Let’s make one stop,” Mel said. They passed the lighthouse and without warning, she braked and swung into the narrow road leading to the museum. In the distance, through the screen of live oaks, they could see the glistening marsh. The post office, museum, and nondenominational church looked deserted. In the grassy clearing between the buildings, a mother sat watching her two children twirl in circles. At the edge of the marsh, the old lighthouse towered against the wide sky.

Mel pulled into the sandy parking area and parked.

“What are we doing here?” Sara asked, looking around the deserted square. The museum door opened and a young man walked out, studying a map. The children cried, “Daddy!” and ran to him.

Mel took the key out of the ignition. “It’s our next to the last day on the island.”

“So?”

“In another couple of days we’ll be flying back to our real lives.”

Sara rolled her shoulders and regarded Mel warily. “I’m not going up in that lighthouse,” she said stiffly.

Mel shrugged. “I’m not asking you to.” She leaned over and checked herself in the rearview mirror, smoothing her hair with her hands.

“You know I’m afraid of heights.”

“You can tour the museum. I won’t be long. It won’t take me a minute to get to the top.”

“That thing was built in 1802. It probably hasn’t been repaired in two hundred years. It’s stupid to go up there.”

Mel grinned like an imbecile. “Stupid is as stupid does,” she said.

“Forrest Gump wouldn’t climb those stairs.”

“He might.”

“Well, he had an IQ of seventy-five, so go ahead, knock yourself out.”

“You didn’t used to be such a chickenshit.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’ve always been a chickenshit.”

“You used to be fearless. But that’s okay. People change as they get older.”

“That’s right. They get smarter.”

“Okay, I’m going.” Mel stood up and walked off.

“Don’t let go of the rail!” Sara shouted gaily. “Don’t fall fifty feet to your death!” She watched as Mel pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The young couple gathered their children and climbed back into their golf cart. High above the marsh a hawk circled endlessly. Sara sighed and looked at her feet.

After a minute, she got up and followed Mel.

Inside the lighthouse it was cool and damp. A faint odor of smoke and rotted wood hung in the air, and the stone floor smelled of wet earth. Mel sat on the stairs, waiting for her. She looked up and grinned when she saw Sara. “I knew you’d come,” she said. Light slanted through the high windows and fell in wide swaths around her.

“If I fall, I blame you.”

“Just remember, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”

“Shut up and move so I can grab the rail.”

The stairs were narrow and made of tabby. They seemed sturdy but the rickety wooden railing seemed less so. Sara found that by flattening her back against the wall as she climbed, she could see very little of the floor beneath her. Round and round they went, climbing slowly, Mel in front and Sara behind. She tried not to look down. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. Why had she let Mel talk her into this? Why, after all these years, was she still letting Mel push her into doing things she didn’t want to do?

The brick wall, covered in whitewashed plaster, was cold against her back. The stairs were worn in the middle from the measured treads of ancient feet. Of long-dead climbers. She wondered what the children and Tom would say if they could see her now. They wouldn’t believe it. Mom, the worrier, the one who saw danger in every situation, who warned constantly of broken bones, cavities, head injuries, and E. coli. Whose favorite refrain was,
Don’t do that, don’t touch that, don’t eat that.

When they got to the top, Mel laughed and said, “Doesn’t this place remind you of that Hitchcock movie,
Vertigo?”
She stood at a narrow window, looking out.

Sara clung to the wall, trying not to look down. Once she’d been fearless and unafraid of life. What had happened to her? “
Vertigo,”
she said. “Is that about the woman who assumes another woman’s identity after she’s killed by her husband?”

“That’s right.” Mel was standing above her, leaning precariously against the railing and peering down into the shadowy depths. “You know, I could throw you down this staircase and say it was an accident.”

“Then you could assume my life.”

Mel looked at her. She shook the railing slightly. “What makes you think I want your life?”

Sara shrank down on the steps, her back against the wall, her white-knuckled fingers clasping the railing. She tried to imagine Mel faithful to the same man for seventeen years, saddled with two children whose lives would always overshadow her own, but she couldn’t. She tried to imagine herself living the life of a bohemian artist, unencumbered by loyalty and responsibility, but she couldn’t. She and Mel had made their own choices. It was too late to start second-guessing it all now.

Mel gave her a curious look and stopped shaking the railing. She came slowly down the stairs, and, stepping over Sara, she stopped a couple of steps below her. “Here,” she said. “Hold onto the wall with one hand and my shoulder with the other. I’ll lead you down.”

“I can’t let go,” Sara said.

“Yes, you can. Here.” She pried Sara’s hands gently off the railing, putting one against the wall and the other on her shoulder. “Face the wall. Look at the wall as we climb down.”

“Go slowly.”

“I will.”

Mel led her carefully back down the staircase. It seemed to take an eternity, their footsteps echoing in the murky darkness. Bands of sunlight striped the plaster walls. When they reached the bottom, Sara sank down onto the steps, her head resting on her knees. She felt weak with relief, sweaty and light-headed, and curiously detached from her body.

Mel said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you do something like that.”

Sara sat with her head on her knees, still fighting a feeling of dizziness. She was reminded suddenly of a long-ago trip she had taken with her family. It was not long after Adam’s diagnosis and they were driving from Atlanta to North Carolina to visit Tom’s parents. It was a gray and rainy day, approaching dusk. Outside the sky was dark and rain-swept but inside the car was cozy and dimly lit. The children were in the backseat, sleeping. Sara turned around to look at them. In sleep, Adam looked perfect, beautiful, a mirror image of Tom. She turned again to face the road, her mind caught up in its usual endless loop: Would Adam ever have a normal life?
Would he ever have a girlfriend, go to college, know the joys of fatherhood? All the little things we take for granted in our bustling, hurried lives. Overcome by a deep feeling of sadness, her eyes fixed on the yellow lines of the highway, she experienced a sudden profound shift in perception. It was like falling abruptly, like slipping between drops of rain. It was as if her emotions, attached to her thoughts, had suddenly let go. She was alone, floating free in a moment of perfect stillness. She thought,
This is what it feels like to die.