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“Hey,” said Nadine.
“Your dad called me,” said Lily. “He thought I might know where to find you.”
Nadine shoved the book back in its place, but Lily sat down heavily on the floor and said, “Nadine Gordimer?”
“Don’t make fun of me,” said Nadine.
“I’m not,” said Lily. “It’s freezing.”
Nadine sighed. “Fucking Gwen,” she said.
“She’s all right,” said Lily.
“Please,” said Nadine. “Have you seen the holiday outfits?”
“She means well,” said Lily.
“I just don’t belong here,” said Nadine. “I never have.”
“I’m here, though,” said Lily.
Nadine put her head on Lily’s shoulder. When Lily reached for her hand, their fingers laced together. They sat in silence, watching Vineyard Sound.
Eight
Nadine spent a sleepless night on Lily’s couch. Dennis, flushed from cans of Budweiser, had sat with his giant hands covering his knees and told Nadine which septic systems in town his company had installed. “And underneath the coffee shop?” he said. “Wait till you hear this, Nadine.”
One baby or another screamed all night long. By morning, Nadine was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. In a bathroom covered with celebrity magazines and plastic bath toys, she combed her hair with her fingers and tried to make a plan. She had to get back to her quiet apartment in Mexico City. Bo burst in and screamed, “Nadine going peep in the potty!”
“I’m going to need some time by myself,” said Nadine. “Okay, honey?”
“Nadine going poop in the potty!” cried Bo, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Without thinking, Nadine tried to push the door closed, but Bo’s fingers were in the way. He looked at his hand, stunned, and then began to wail.
“Oh, shit,” said Nadine. “I’m really sorry, Bo. Can this be a secret?”
Lily came upstairs, carrying a basket of clean laundry. She looked at Nadine quizzically, then put down the laundry and gathered Bo in her arms. Bo sobbed, “Nadine go peep in the potty! Nadine hurt me!”
Nadine stood and pulled up her pants. “Time for me to head on out,” she said.
“Sorry,” said Hank, as Nadine sat on an examining table in a borrowed T-shirt and jeans. “Did I hear you correctly? You want money for a bus ticket?”
“I need to get to Logan,” said Nadine, “and they don’t take credit cards at the bus station.”
Hank crossed his arms and leaned back against a counter lined with glass bottles of tongue depressors and Q-tips.
“Anyone going to meet you at the airport?” he asked.
“Sure, yes. I don’t need to remind you, Hank, but I am an adult.”
“I don’t need to remind you, Nadine, but I don’t have to give you bus fare.”
“Fine,” said Nadine, sliding off the table. She turned and banged her left arm, sending pain shooting to her wrist. Nadine gritted her teeth.
“I have a house on Nantucket,” said Hank. “I’m headed there for the holidays. Why don’t you join me?”
“Thank you,” said Nadine. “That’s nice. I’m fine, though. I just need to get back to Mexico City.” She tried to catch her breath and ignore the dizziness, the dark patches at the edges of her vision.
“I love to cook,” said Hank, “and there’s a bar with good burgers downtown. I can push you there in my wheelbarrow.”
Nadine tried to smile, and shook her head.
“You won’t make it to Mexico City,” said Hank. “Nadine, you’re still on some strong painkillers, and your body has undergone a serious trauma. You’ll pass out at the bus station.”
“I have friends who can help me.” Nadine wasn’t sure this was true, and the room did look fuzzy. Oh hell, she thought. She envisioned the long security line at the airport. She thought about her empty apartment, the meaningless flirtations with the fact checker next door. She wanted so desperately to get back to work, but she couldn’t travel, not like this. She had to sit down, just for a little while.
“Okay,” said Hank. “Thought I’d give it a shot. It’s lonely out there. You take care, Nadine. Have a great holiday.”
“All right,” said Nadine. “All right, fine.”
“Let me help you to the door,” said Hank. “Do you want to take your records, or should we fax them to your doctor in Mexico?”
“I said fine,” said Nadine.
“What?”
“Let’s go,” said Nadine. “I don’t… I said, okay. Let’s go to Nantucket. But I’ll need… I need some clothes.”
“They have clothes on Nantucket,” said Hank.
“I shudder to think,” said Nadine.
“You’re my second-to-last appointment. I was planning on catching the four PM ferry.”
“I’ll be in your lobby,” said Nadine.
The receptionist did not appear to notice as Nadine sat down in an orange plastic chair and paged through the Cape Cod Times. She finished the paper, three old People magazines, and one Travel+Leisure before Hank appeared.
Nine
Sun shone on the water as the ferry moved out of Hyannis Harbor and past expensive gray homes. Next to Nadine and Hank, an old woman petted her dog. The dogs collar was printed with tiny lobsters.
“Look,” said Nadine, “a yacht.” She pointed. It was a lovely boat, its sails bound in blue cloth. “Or I guess you’d call that a sailboat.”
“Definitely a sailboat,” said Hank. “Didn’t you grow up here?”
“Sort of,” said Nadine.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t remember it much,” said Nadine. “My life started after I left.”
“Coffee?” said Hank.
“Great.”
Nadine watched his red T-shirt as he walked away. The shirt had an ice cream cone on the back. His jeans were faded, and his hiking boots looked well worn. Hank’s thick black curls needed a trim.
The ferry rocked slowly. Hank returned a few minutes later, balancing a cardboard tray of coffees in one hand. “Cream and sugar?” he said.
“Neither,” said Nadine.
“I figured,” said Hank, handing her a paper cup.
“At what point does a sailboat become a yacht?” said Nadine.
“Hm,” said Hank. “Fifteen feet? Twenty?”
“Oh,” said Nadine. “Well, you learn something every day.”
“Do you?”
Nadine sipped her coffee. “You know,” she said, “I do.”
“I envy you, then.”
“I love my job,” said Nadine.
“Yes,” said Hank, “you’ve said that.”
“Why do you sound as if you don’t believe me?”
“I used to work in an emergency room in Boston,” said Hank. “At first, it was great. You know, it was what I was trained to do. Someone ODs, or comes in with a broken leg, I know how to handle it. At work, I was happy. I guess it was somewhat like you said. I felt alive. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t switch it off. I mean, you walk out the door, you know, you walk outside, but those patients are still… you’re supposed to go on home, have a beer, relax. I’d take the T, twenty minutes, and then my wife would be opening the door, wanting to go see a movie or talk about new paint for the living room… it was strange. It got to me. I felt as if I couldn’t stop, not for a minute. I didn’t like who I turned into. I didn’t like who I was, outside the ER.”
“I could stop,” said Nadine.
“Okay,” said Hank.
A man began to spray bright yellow cleanser on the ferry window, wiping it afterward with a thin blade. He wore a jacket that read STEAMSHIP AUTHORITY. There were two patches on his jacket: an American flag, and his name, JEFF. Jeff was sweaty and had a pimple in the center of his forehead. He sprayed the cleanser and wiped it away.
“Gwen told me your wife, um,” said Nadine.
The old woman began patting her dog and talking to it. “We had a wonderful morning, didn’t we?” she said. “You saw your friend Austin, didn’t you?” The dog, like Hank, did not respond.
“Gwen told me your wife, well, went on a Carnival Cruise ship… this can’t be true…”
“No,” said Hank, “it is true. We went on the cruise together. It was a theme cruise.”
“I don’t want to ask,” said Nadine.
“ ‘Bring Back the Zing,’ “ said Hank, staring at Jeff, who sprayed and wiped.
“Pardon?” said Nadine. “The zing?”
“You heard me,” said Hank. “It was for couples. ‘Bring Back the Zing.’ It was my idea.”
“Oh, Hank,” said Nadine.
“I’d been working around the clock. I knew Maryjane was unhappy. I thought that maybe if I got far enough away, I could shut off. I could… talk about her, pay attention to her.” He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “I got us tickets on ‘Bring Back the Zing.’ We were supposed to make love from Miami to Bermuda.”
“But Gwen said… and again, this cannot be true–”
“Oh it’s true,” said Hank. “Hercules Kalapoulou.”
“Hercules?”
“You might ask yourself, as I did, why a divorced Greek businessman booked a room on ‘Bring Back the Zing.’ But Maryjane didn’t ask any questions. When the cruise was over, so was our marriage.”
“I don’t know what to say,” said Nadine.
“I went back to the ER for a year, and then decided I wanted a quieter life. A small community. I guess I wanted a home. Falmouth needed a generalist And that’s the story.”
Nadine shook her head. “Wow.”
Hank nodded. “I suppose I can see the humor in it now,” he said, one side of his mouth turning up. He continued to look out the window. Nadine couldn’t tell if he was seeing Jeff or the water beyond Jeff. The glass did not look any clearer.
“I’ve never been on a cruise,” said Nadine.
“So I sold my place in Falmouth after a year,” Hank said, forging ahead. “I rent a condo now. And I bought the house on Nantucket. It has a fireplace. I love it out here.”
“You love Nantucket, too, Mario,” said the woman next to them. She was talking to her dog again. “Don’t you, Mario? Don’t you love Nantucket?”
A man with red hair walked by. There was a comb in his back pocket. “Aren’t you a good boy?” said the woman, scratching her dog’s belly. “Aren’t you a good, good boy?”
“So that’s my saga,” said Hank. “What’s yours?”
“Oh, you know,” said Nadine.
“No,” said Hank. “I don’t.”
“Well,” said Nadine, “what have you heard?”
“Jim Morgan’s daughter,” said Hank, sitting back in his seat. “Difficult as a kid. Crazy in high school. Always looking for trouble. Ran away with a guy who came through town on a Harley-Davidson. Called her dad from Sturgis, wanting money to come home.”
Nadine smiled. She had met Sammy after the Senior Dinner Dance, which had been held on a spring Saturday night under a tent overlooking Old Silver Beach. Tiny white lights twinkled along the edge of the canvas fabric, and the temperature was a perfect seventy-five degrees. The strains of “Wonderful Tonight” played as Nadine’s date, Liam Baker, spun her too fast. Over his shoulder, Nadine saw a girl she barely knew crying by the punch bowl. She saw Lily dancing with Dennis, trying to look happy as Dennis, too drunk, staggered around the parquet floor.
“This is perfect,” whispered Liam in Nadine’s ear. Poor Liam, who thought they would get married and stay on Cape Cod forever. Suddenly Nadine couldn’t bear it: Liam’s overpowering cologne, the crying girl, Lily pretending so fiercely. The sun set, an orange orb, and the gap between the reality of imminent heartbreak all around her and the cheery illusion of a perfect summer night was too wide for Nadine to straddle. She twisted free of Liam’s embrace and ran. She ran until her legs wore out, and then she sat on the back porch of someone’s empty summer house and watched the stars. She fell asleep on a teak lounge chair.
