Between Husbands and Friends (22 page)

“Yeah, like I would go without you!”

“I’m sorry, Lucy, but the thought of being in the room with a bunch of clueless drunks just doesn’t appeal to me anymore.”

I considered. “Well, then, why don’t you and I go out to dinner some night. The Chanticleer. I’ll treat.”

Kate shifted on the sofa, stretching her beautiful long legs. She studied her brilliant red toenails. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m so lazy these days, Lucy. I’m perfectly content. Abby’s being such a good baby and the M&Ms are being such a help.”

“You’ve changed.”

“I know. I’ve lost that old craving for something new and exciting. But that’s all right. It’s probably natural. We all change as we grow older.”

I considered saying, “Yeah, but, Kate, what about me? I need someone to play with. I need my friend.”

But it would be demeaning to say that. I didn’t want to beg for her company.

So I spent two more lonely weeks in my Aunt Grace’s house watching my daughter and Matthew hover around Kate and her baby as if held there by some kind of magnetic force. Chip arrived on Thursday night; he spent Friday swimming with Matthew. Margaret opted to stay with Kate and baby Abby. I spent the day by myself, at another part of the beach, reading the bloodiest paperback mystery I could find. Or, rather, I spent the day staring at the book, where the words ran together on the page into a blurry pattern no less incomprehensible than my life. When no one else was around, I let myself give in to great heaving soundless sobs. Before I went back to the house, I immersed myself in the water, so that my wet suit and dripping hair would provide a reason for my red-rimmed eyes.

Then, on Saturday, Chip asked, “Anyone want to go sailing?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Kate said.

I said, “I’ll go.”

It was the third weekend in August, and very hot and muggy. Kate reclined on a chaise on the porch, reading; Abby drowsed nearby in a wicker cradle; Matthew and Margaret were in the backyard, running through the sprinkler.

“Want to go to Tuckernuck?” He named a small island to the west of Nantucket.

“Sure. I’ll pack a lunch.”

I filled a hamper with all kinds of grown-up delicacies, and organized a carryall with towels and sunblock. I pulled Margaret from the rainbow arcs of the sprinkler water to tell her I’d be gone most of the day. She was dripping wet and giggling at Matthew who slid and fell on the slippery grass, and she pecked a kiss in the direction of my cheek before racing back into her game. I told Kate good-bye; she told me, without looking up from her book, to have fun.

Humidity lay like a white veil over the island, but out on the sound the sky rose above us in a dazzlingly clear halcyon blue. A lazy breeze sent us tacking over tranquil waters. The boat sheared along, tossing up bubbles, like iridescent confetti, as we went. I leaned back to feel the sun on my face while Chip navigated the shoals and shallow waters between the islands and veered toward the northern side of Tuckernuck. We didn’t talk. Chip was intent on the sail. I relaxed into the warm day.

Tuckernuck was a small, wild island with no electricity, one telephone, and only a scattering of houses belonging to the few peculiar families who took refuge here when their need for solitude and serenity won over their need for civilization. Near a grove of trees we spotted a cluster of bright color, people walking on the island, and a few sails winked on the horizon, but chiefly we saw sand, sea, sky. Most people liked to picnic on the long bar of sand called Whale Island, but Chip sailed us to the north and around to the west, into the perfect shelter of Outer North Pond. No one else was here, on land or water.

He maneuvered the boat just to the edge of a shelf of sand, dropped the sail, secured the lines of the boat, and jumped into the shallow water.

I handed him the picnic hamper and towels, then climbed out and waded to shore. The water was as warm as it would ever get, but it was still a shock as it lapped around my skin. It took my breath away.

The sand crunched as we walked to the center of the cove and spread out our towels. On the left, beach plum and wild rosebushes, tangled with vines and speared through with beach grass, provided a low wall to screen us from the water. On the right, a sandy cliff rose perhaps fifteen feet, twisted cedar trees clawing for purchase in the treacherous soil. The sand was warm,
the light thick and honey-colored. The wind rustled the natural barrier of bushes but did not so much as flutter the tips of the towels we spread on the sand and anchored with the picnic basket and cooler. I unzipped my fluorescent yellow life vest and dropped it on the turquoise towel, then began to set out lunch.

Chip settled next to me on a lime green towel, his big feet sticking out into the sand. He was taller than Max, bigger than anyone I’d been around recently. Thick hair on his legs and arms glinted like spun gold in the sunlight and I found myself wondering how much more calcium he would need than anyone else, just to fortify the bones in those long legs. His toes were ridiculously long and crooked and white, like exposed secrets.

“Turkey and brie?” I asked him. “Or chutney and cheddar.” I sat cross-legged, aware of the little ball of belly rising from my bikini.

“One of each.”

“How about a nice cold beer?”

“Great.”

I reached into the cooler and brought out a can, beads of ice slithering down its slick sides. My fingers touched Chip’s as I handed it to him, his skin hot, a contrast to the cold can.

We sat side by side, munching, scanning the distance. A gust of wind tickled the hairs along the back of my neck. The sun lay steadily on our bare shoulders.

I asked, “Is that a heron? Over on the other side of the pond?”

He looked. “I think so. Your eyesight’s better than mine.”

“But you can see well enough to sail.” I wasn’t really worried.

“Probably,” he teased.

“How reassuring.”

“Know anyone who has a house here?”

“I do. A woman who lives year-round on Nantucket. Cindy Harvey. Her parents have a summer place here. I stayed here a few times when I was a teenager. They had a generator, lots of houses do, but there are no electric streetlights, well, there are no streets. It gets so dark here you wouldn’t believe it.” I reached into the bag. “Cookies? Grapes?”

“I’ll take some grapes.” He leaned back on his elbows and lifted his face to the sun.

I twisted a clump of seedless red grapes from the cluster and twisted another clump for myself. Perhaps we’d go for a walk, I thought. I could show him where Cindy’s house was.

Then, “So how are you doing, Lucy?” Chip asked.

I blinked. “All right.” I wasn’t sure what he meant. Of the four of us, Chip was the one
person who hated introspection and soul-searching. Occasionally he’d enter a debate with Max about politics or some other town issue, but he grew impatient when Kate and I talked about personal matters. Once when the four of us were confined to a car together, riding in to see a play in Boston, Kate and Max and I got into a heated discussion about the nature of God. Suddenly Kate burst into laughter and nodded her head toward Chip, who was gazing out the window in the backseat, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Elvis has left the building,” she’d said, shaking her head at her husband’s inattention.

Chip said, “I was afraid it might be too hard on you. Living with Kate and Abby. After losing Maxwell.”

Emotions flooded my body. For a moment I couldn’t speak.

“And I can bet Max isn’t a whole lot of help,” Chip continued.

I swallowed. “Why do you say that?”

“Hey, I’ve known the guy for years now. Losing that little boy hit him hard.”

“Max has talked to you about this?”

“Not really. Not much. But I don’t need a neon sign to read him.”

“It’s a pretty difficult time for us,” I admitted.

“It’s a fucking bitch,” Chip said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It is a fucking bitch.” And all at once a cataract of tears swept through me, and I folded my arms over my knees and buried my face and wept helplessly.

Chip sat next to me in silence. After a while he put his hand on my back and patted me, a few slow solid masculine thumps. His large hand, firm and warm, was the kindest sensation I’d experienced in weeks.

“Oh, Chip,” I sobbed. “Max says he doesn’t know if he loves me anymore. I’m so sad. I’m so lonely. I don’t know how I’m going to go on.”

Chip pulled me toward him. I turned and rested my face against his shoulder. There was something in his size, his largeness, that made me feel young again, like a child being comforted by her father, and in those moments I surrendered to every anguish in my body, feeling that somehow this larger man could keep me safe, as if he were really holding my body together, so that it wouldn’t break apart with sorrow. It was an amazing, unexpected, singular feeling, landed on that unfamiliar shore, far from other people, surrounded by sand and sea and sky, naked except for my bikini; I was purely vulnerable, honestly exposed, my elemental self, curled up like a baby, like a shell, in that clear world. My daughter couldn’t hear the desperate sounds wrenched from my throat, my husband did not have to bear witness one more time to the
disfigurement of my grief. I could let go.

“Lucy, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Chip stroked my hair.

His caress was infinitely soothing. His shoulder was broad, his arm strong. I pulled away and wiped my tears with my fists. I looked up at Chip, this man I had known for years, and saw such mercy in his face that my breath caught in my chest.

“Chip,” I said.

And as if it were in all the world the only right thing to do, Chip bent and kissed me. His lips were soft, his breath smelled of beer and mustard. He held me firmly, cradling the back of my head in his hand. I had probably never looked more terrible, with my hair tangled from the salt breeze and my face streaked with tears and my belly just three months away from a full-term pregnancy. His touch on my skin was forgiving, and giving. He moved his hand over me as if molding me, and wherever he touched, it seemed my body sprang to life. His touch was like rain after a drought, making seeds stir deep in the dust of my senses.

I wrapped my arms around him. Now the palms of my own hands were aroused and eager, and I touched what I’d marveled at for so long; the curves and knobs of Chip’s shoulders and elbows and knees, the adamant length and width of his back, the tender buttons of his nipples, the swelling heat beneath his swimming trunks.

He untied the knot at the back of my suit, and my breasts fell free into the sunlight; their skin was as white as the inside of a shell, the nipples hard and orange-pink, like rose hips. Chip laid me down on my side on the towel, and lay on his side next to me. The sand yielded beneath us as if the earth itself were giving us permission. He brought his mouth to my breast, and gently tugged at my nipple. My breast stung. It was as if a dam stretched beneath my nipples, and Chip tugged again, and the dam broke open, and sensation flooded my body. Overwhelmed, I closed my eyes, nearly swooning into the sand.

I kept my eyes closed while he untied the sides of my bikini bottom. The sand shifted and sifted as he took off his trunks. I felt first of all the blot of cool shadow as he lifted himself above me, blocking out the sun, and then I felt the hot hard shaft of his penis enter me. I shuddered with relief and pleasure. This was real. This was now. I was a naked woman on a solitary beach indulging in the world’s oldest form of consolation. I hugged Chip against me, loving the feel of a man’s body on me, in me, loving the weight of his chest and the stir of his breath and the moist pressure of his mouth and the deep expanse of his cock inside my body. This moment was as authentically mine as anything in my life. I was grateful with all my being. The pleasure was intense. I didn’t want it to end. It built, wave upon wave, carrying me with it in a tide of
sensation deep into a whirlpool of bliss. Tears spurted from my eyes and shook my body. Dimly I felt Chip reach his own climax. He rolled over, next to me, and sighed, and reaching out, he took my hand in his. My cheeks were gritty with sand and tears.

We lay side by side, naked, holding hands, the sun beating down on us. Eyes closed, I savored the satisfaction of the body after sex.

“You’re a beautiful woman,” Chip said.

I smiled. “You’re sweet.”

“I mean it. Don’t you know I mean it?” He turned to face me. He ran his fingers along the line of my cheek, down my throat, around my breast. “You’re beautiful in many ways.”

“I only know that right now I feel happy,” I said, yawning. The sun’s warmth on my skin, the gentle lapping of the water on the shore, the cries of the gulls overhead, the sense that
now
was eternity lulled me. I slept.