The Girls of Tonsil Lake (3 page)

I’ve never taken anyone else—it was Mark’s and my private getaway—but I wouldn’t mind if it was Andie who was there. Or Jean and even Suzanne. Andie and I could work on her book. Jean could cook and keep house since she’s so crazy about doing that, and maybe even spin out one of her romances placed on an island. And Suzanne could...do our hair or something.

We would all be together as we are that single night every year when we drive to the lake and pretend we’re facing down our ghosts. I am a little afraid that the day will come that we’ll have to face them down for real.

Well, shit. I wonder if they’d come.

Chapter Two

Andie

Vin has asked me to spend a month with her on an island off the coast of Maine. It sounds like a setting straight out of one of Jean’s books. All we need is a gorgeous heroine and a guy who doesn’t want to fall in love. Vin says it’s nice there, and quiet, and not nearly as hot and humid as it gets here.

At first I thought maybe I was dying and no one wanted to tell me. Vin’s never been one to invite company before—just that week last fall when I was sick as a goddamned horse and she was still reeling from Mark’s death. I don’t remember if she invited me then or if I just went to prove I was still alive and could do things like book flights and wear real clothes instead of the sweats I wear around the house. I puked all the way to New York, but I never told anyone that.

Vin reminded me we need to work on that book, and I put dying out of my mind again. I feel stupid saying “my book,” since I never meant for it to be one, so I just call it
that book
without even any capital letters. I think the title she gave it sounds way too...oh, poor little me, I guess, but she swears it’s good.

I was just starting to like the idea of a month on her island when she told me she invited Jean and Suzanne, too. “What were you thinking?” I bellowed into the phone—it’s good to have my bellow back. “Jean would be fine. She’ll cook for us rather than entrust her palate to anything we might conjure up. But Suzanne? She’ll be holding us down for makeovers every morning and giving us pedicures after our showers.
Pedicures
, for Christ’s sake.”

Vin was laughing, which was good to hear—she doesn’t laugh near enough. “Oh, stop being such a bitch, Andie. They won’t come anyway, except maybe for a weekend.”

I have undoubtedly been called a bitch more in the past month than I have in all my life before. At least to my face. I’ve never been much for name-calling, since we heard more than our share of it growing up on Tonsil Lake. But it’s different when it’s Jean or Vin doing it. It’s like they’re saying “we’re there for you” in tongues or something.

My daughter Miranda, who’s a schoolteacher married to another schoolteacher, was over here this morning before her kids got up. “Mom,” she said, “why didn’t you ever get married again?” She looked down at her hands and her face got red. “Was it because us kids were terrible to every guy you ever dated?”

I was surprised at her perception and bothered by her guilt. “I made my own choices,” I said.

But I spent the rest of the morning thinking of Paul Lindquist. We had met at the all-night pharmacy when Miranda had an ear infection and Paul’s wife was dying. We talked as we waited—me in my flannel pajamas and my older-than-God car coat and him in butt-hugging jeans and a faded blue shirt that pulled tight over his shoulders when he moved.

I remembered there had been a little three-corner tear in the sleeve of that shirt I’d wanted to mend. That should have told me something right there, since I’ve never purposefully mended a goddamned thing.

Though he’d lived in Lewis Point most of his life, I had never seen him before. But after that night I saw him every time I turned around. He coached young Jake’s Little League team, drove in Miranda’s carpool, and, that Labor Day weekend, held out his firefighter’s boot to collect money for the muscular dystrophy telethon. I put in a ten-dollar bill I couldn’t afford.

When his wife died, I sent a card. And every time I saw him after that, my heart would do weird things and I’d get so damned horny it felt like a hot flash.

A year later, when he asked me for a date, I said no.

Because I knew I would love Paul Lindquist, and I wasn’t going to do that again. Ever.

And I never did.

But every couple of weeks while I was sick, he sent me a card—never anything sentimental or familiar, just funny or mildly obscene. The first ones, he’d signed “Take care, Paul Lindquist,” but by the time the cards slowed to a stop, he was scrawling, “Best, Paul,” across the bottom. I’d missed those cards when I got better.

All this retrospection makes me restless. I called Jean to invite her to lunch, and she said no, sounding frazzled.

“I have to send this book in by Monday and I’ve still got fifty pages to write. I always make my deadlines, and I don’t want that to change because every other forny thing in my life has.”

“Okay, go back to work. I won’t bother you.”

I hung up quickly, but then I got to thinking about all the time Jean had spent with me over the past year. I was probably the reason she only had three days to write fifty pages. Oh, Christ, more guilt. I don’t like guilt in the first place, and Miranda had already given me my dose for the day. Even though it was hers instead of mine, I’d felt it.

At noon, I went through a drive-through and got two burgers, two orders of fries, and two vanilla shakes and drove out to Jean’s house in Willow Wood Estates.

She was in her dining room at her computer, wearing a nightshirt. She hadn’t put on her makeup or combed her hair and she looked like shit. It was like seeing the American flag lying on the ground, incongruous and probably illegal. Jean was always neat. She didn’t wear a lot of makeup, but she wore it right, and her soft brown hair was always in this smooth curve with the sides tucked behind her ears.

One of the things I love about her is that she’s always the same. She doesn’t look as young as Suzanne or as elegant as Vin, though she could still pass for an attractive forty-five. But today she looked every minute of her fifty-one—even her gray roots were showing. I’d never seen this before. Root concealment is like a religion with her and Suzanne.

“Shut it down,” I said. I thought about bellowing it, since I’d rediscovered my bellow, but Jean looked too fragile to be yelled at.

I thought for a minute she was going to cry, but she didn’t. She stuck her chin out and got up. “I’m sorry for the mess.”

There wasn’t a thing out of place in her house—there never was—and no dust mote had dared to land on any of the shining surfaces. The only mess was her. God, I hated that.

When we were sitting at the bar in the kitchen sucking down sloppy, artery-clogging cheeseburgers and fries, I said, “Call your editor. Ask for an extension,” just like I knew what I was talking about.

“You don’t understand. My editor’s about twelve years old. She inherited me. She’d much rather develop her own stable of writers than nurse along an over-the-hill veteran.”

“Then tell her to forny off. Ask for a new editor, one that is at least of legal drinking age.”

“I can’t do that.”

As soon as we’d finished eating, she threw me out. “I have to work.”

“All right, but tell David I need someone to take me out to supper. He’s a good guy. He’ll volunteer.”

For a minute there, she smiled, so I did, too. But I wasn’t happy when I went away. Not happy at all.

Jean

When I sold my first book, I got flowers from David, and also from every one of the other Tonsil Lake girls. My kids hung a banner from the roof over the front porch proclaiming their mother to be a published author. I spent an entire afternoon on the phone with other members of my writers’ group saying, “Yes, it’s really true. Can you believe it?”

Then I made the beds, dusted the living room, did three loads of laundry, and cooked a dinner that included all the major food groups. David was surprised.

“I thought we’d go out,” he said, coming up behind me in the kitchen and sticking his hands in the back pockets of my jeans. “You know, celebrate your success.”

I looked back over my shoulder at him, the carving knife stopping halfway through the roast. “You didn’t say.”

“I’m sorry.” He nuzzled my neck. “I thought you’d know.”

When I sold the second book, David sent me flowers, the Tonsil Lake girls sent me enough locally made and sinfully delicious chocolates to give me a week-long sugar high, and the kids wanted to know what I would buy them when I got my advance check.

I had just stepped out of the shower when David came into the bathroom, taking off his tie. He leered at me, then said, “What’s for supper? I’m beat.”

“I thought we’d go out,” I said, wrapping my towel around myself because the only other alternative would have been smothering him with it.

He looked nonplused. “Oh. Well, we can, I guess.”

“Never mind.” I gave him my best June Cleaver smile. “We’ll have BLTs and we’ll eat in the living room. The kids are spending the night at Suzanne’s.”

“Oh, well.” He leered again, and pulled the towel away. “Just a little preview,” he said, tipping my face up to kiss me.

But he was asleep in front of the television by the time the dishes were done. I covered him with a quilt and went to bed alone.

And I thought,
If my advances were bigger, I just might get a divorce.

When the third book sold, Vin was in town, so we all went out to Tonsil Lake and got drunk. Andie stood on a table and told all six of the other tavern customers that I had just sold my third book and it was going to be a bestseller.

Vin held up her glass and said solemnly, “And to the republic, for which it stands.”

Suzanne cried.

I told David about the sale when he came to pick us up. He didn’t say much, but stopped in the middle of the parking lot and put his arms around me and held me for a long time. “I’m proud of you,” he said, “but it really doesn’t have a damned thing to do with how many books you sell.”

I would have liked to know what he was proud of me for, but Andie chose that moment to say, “Oh, shit,” and throw up all over her shoes. They were new Birkenstocks, too, and she bitched all the way home. Then we all got to laughing and David said he’d better not find any wet spots on the seats of his new car, which made us laugh all the harder.

But now I’m finishing my eleventh book, and no one seems to think it’s a big deal anymore at all. I have two days left to write twenty-some pages, so I’m not in too bad a shape. But my stomach hurts again and I’m tired. I’m so tired.

Andie saved my life when she brought over lunch today. Then David brought home Chinese and set it all out for supper. He even cut some flowers and put them in a vase in the middle of the table, which made me want to cry. Or maybe it was the combination of grease-laden cheeseburger and Chinese that twisted my stomach into knots that made me want to cry.

Vin called and asked me to spend a month in Maine. I don’t know what she was thinking of. I can’t leave David or the house for that long.

And I’m Carrie’s backup babysitter, too. She’s even pickier about her kids than I used to be. I thought she and her husband were going to break up when she wanted to go back to work and neither his mother nor I could watch the children fulltime. Tim told Carrie they could put them in daycare or she could stay home; the choice was hers. She was angry with him for forcing her to make that choice, and even angrier with me because I wouldn’t take the children.

It’s funny that I’ve always liked being needed, but at the same time I envy Vin and Andie and Suzanne because they’re not. That sounded ugly, didn’t it? I don’t mean it that way, I really don’t. I would just like the chance to be myself for a while.

Whoever that is.

Suzanne

My regional director’s secretary called me last week and asked me to come to division headquarters in Chicago. I was surprised, even though I knew it was time for my annual evaluation. Amanda—my director—usually comes to Lewis Point for it. We have dinner and drinks, then she tells me what kind of year I’ve had and what kind of raise I’m getting. She also gives me my mid-year bonus check. I’ve always done very well, and there haven’t been many complaints from either side of the evaluation table.

Even though Amanda’s secretary didn’t give anything away, I was certain I was in line for a promotion. Sales have increased in this area to the point that division has talked about adding a new regional director. Though I’m really not crazy about tooting my own horn, I know the sales increase is largely due to my efforts and my presence in the stores.

I bought a new suit to wear to the meeting with Amanda and had my hair colored a week early because it wouldn’t do to go to headquarters with mouse-brown roots showing. I got a manicure and pedicure while I was at it, even though I usually do my own. I was packing when Vin called.

“Hey,” she said, sounding friendlier than usual, “why don’t you come to Maine for a month? Andie and I will be there, and we want to talk Jean into it, too. Do you have any vacation time saved up?”

I have plenty of vacation time, but I couldn’t think about a month in the back of the beyond right then, so I probably got a little pissy with Vin. She turned cool in the blink of an eye, which usually gets me flustered, but not this time.

“Look,” I said, “I’m getting ready for a very important business trip. I’ll be back tomorrow night and I’ll give you a call then. Just have Attila the Housekeeper put me through to you, okay?”

I heard a strangled sound from the other end of the phone that if it hadn’t been Vin I would have thought was a laugh. Then she said, “Fine. Take care,” and hung up.

I caught a puddle-jumper flight out of Lewis Point’s little airport and spent the night in Chicago so I’d be fresh for the ten-o’clock meeting. I dialed Jake Logan’s number when I got to my hotel room that evening. I hate eating on my own.

He wasn’t in, so I left a message on his machine, thinking if he didn’t call back in time, I’d just order room service. I had a paperback that Jean had recommended in my suitcase. I love to read, which always surprises everyone. It’s like, “Duh, you mean Suzanne can read?”