Barefoot (26 page)

It was only when Brenda swung back by to pick her up—Brenda getting out of the car to hold Vicki’s arm and help her into the passenger seat because this was what Vicki normally required—that the guilt set in.

“How was it?” Brenda asked. “How are you feeling?”

These were the standard questions, but Vicki was at a loss for how to respond. What to say? What did she normally say?

She shrugged.

“The team had a game last night, right?” Brenda asked. “Did they win or lose?”

Again, Vicki shrugged. Did a shrug count as a lie?

On the way back to ’Sconset, Vicki opened her window and hung her elbow out; she tried to absorb the sunshine and the summer air. The bike path was crowded with people walking and cycling, people with dogs and children in strollers.
I skipped chemo,
Vicki thought. Suddenly, she felt monstrous. She recalled Dr. Garcia’s words about the value of neoadjuvant chemo, hitting the cells hard, in succession. Kill them, clean them out of there, make it that much harder for the cells to metastasize. The tumor was impinging on her chest wall; it had to recede in order for the surgeons to operate. Chemo was a cumulative process. The most important thing was consistency. So . . . what was going on here? Did she not want to get better? Could she not endure the pain, the hair loss, and the confusion for the sake of her
children?

And what about Dr. Alcott? How had she managed to fly in the face of his reaction? He would be all ready with his usual pep talk—
How do you feel? Are you hanging in there? You’re a trouper, a star patient. . . .
He would wonder where Vicki was, he would call the house himself, maybe, and what if Melanie was home, what if she rushed in from the garden to answer the phone?
She went to chemo,
Melanie would say.
I saw her leave.
There would be no reason for any further pep talks because Vicki was
not
a trouper. She was not a star patient at all.

By the time they reached Shell Street, Vicki’s guilt was paralyzing. She could barely breathe—but maybe this was a result of the missed chemo, maybe the cancer cells were strengthening, multiplying. She was no better than Josh’s mother, hanging herself while Josh was at school. Vicki was committing her own murder.

Now, there was a knock on the front door, and Vicki sat bolt upright. She fingered the wig on her nightstand. It rested on a Styrofoam head that Blaine had named Daphne after the character in
Scooby-Doo
. Blaine had gone so far as to draw Daphne a face with his markers—two blue circles for eyes, two black dots meant to be nostrils, and a crooked red mouth. The Styrofoam head made Ted uncomfortable—last weekend he’d said he couldn’t make love while the head was on the nightstand because he felt like someone was watching them—and the wig, as badly as she needed it, made Vicki shiver. She had tried to put both the wig and the head on the top shelf of the bedroom closet, out of sight, but Blaine had cried over this.
Daphne!
So on the nightstand Daphne now sat, like some twisted excuse for a pet. The wig was made from real hair. Vicki had gotten it from a shop in the city that Dr. Garcia recommended, a place that made wigs solely for cancer patients. The wig was blond, approximately the same color as Vicki’s own hair. It didn’t look bad on, but it gave Vicki the willies—another person’s hair on her head. She was reminded of her sixth-grade science teacher, Mr. Upjohn, and his toupee. And so when the knock came at the door—meaning Josh had arrived—Vicki called out for Brenda. Brenda came right away, holding Porter, who was dressed in a diaper and bathing trunks.

Don’t forget sweatshirts for the kids!
Vicki almost said—but no, there wasn’t time for that, she could remind Brenda later.

“Scarf!” she barked.

“Right,” Brenda said. “Sorry.” She set Porter down and plucked a scarf out of Vicki’s top dresser drawer. Red, gold, gauzy: a very chic Louis Vuitton scarf that Ellen Lyndon had given Vicki for Christmas two years earlier. Brenda wound it deftly around Vicki’s half-bald head until it was tied tight with two tails flowing down Vicki’s back.

“Thank you,” Vicki said. She climbed out of bed and peeked into the living room. She didn’t give a hoot about the picnic but she was anxious about the moment that Josh met Ted. She wanted Josh to like Ted, to admire him; she wanted Josh to think that she, Vicki, had chosen well.

Because Vicki and Brenda were in the bedroom dealing with the scarf, however, Melanie had been left to do the introduction. Melanie knew Vicki was nervous about it.
It will be fine,
Melanie assured her.
Who wouldn’t like Josh?

It’s not Josh I’m worried about,
Vicki said.

Oh,
Melanie said.
Well, who wouldn’t like Ted? Ted is a great guy.

He can be,
Vicki said.

Now Melanie sounded as perky and confident as a talk show host on amphetamines.

“Hi, Josh! How are you? Come in, come in!
Ted,
this is the kids’ babysitter, Josh Flynn. Josh, this is
Vicki’s husband,
Ted Stowe.”

Blaine locked his arms around Josh’s legs in a way that seemed more possessive than usual. Ted would notice this, Vicki thought, and not like it.

Josh extended an arm as far as he could and gave Ted one of his gorgeous smiles. “Hey, Mr. Stowe. It’s nice to meet . . . heard a lot about . . . yeah.”

Ted regarded Josh’s outstretched hand and took a prolonged swill of his Stella. Vicki could almost hear Josh thinking,
Rude bastard, Wall Street asshole.
Vicki watched her husband’s face. Josh was clearly not a pedophile, that would be a relief to Ted; Josh was not so different from the kid that Ted had been fifteen years ago, when he played lacrosse at Dartmouth. But Ted might also be thinking Josh was too much like Ted himself at that age—and what would Ted have done, working all week for three beautiful women who lived alone? He would have tried to . . . He would have done his best to . . .

Oh, come on!
Vicki thought. The scarf tickled the back of her neck. It seemed like Josh’s hand was just
hanging
there; Ted was torturing him. But then Ted set his beer down with a definitive
thunk
and he stepped forward and shook Josh’s hand with such force that Josh rattled.

“Same here, buddy,” Ted said. “Same here. This guy especially”—Ted pointed to Blaine—“has nothing but great things to say about you. And my wife! Well, I really appreciate the way you’ve stepped in for me in my absence.”

Ted’s voice straddled the line of sarcasm. Was he being sincere? Vicki was suddenly glad that she’d skipped chemo; she felt stronger now than she had in weeks. She marched into the living room.

“That’s right,” Vicki said. “We’d be lost without Josh.”

“I got lost,” Blaine said. “At the beach, remember?”

Vicki glanced at Melanie, who reddened and looked at the ground. “Right,” Vicki said. She was alarmed to see that Ted was still scrutinizing Josh. “Did anyone remember sweatshirts for the kids?”

Twenty minutes later, squished in the third row of seating between Porter and Blaine in their respective car seats and feeling distinctly like one of the children, Josh chastised himself for not asking to be paid. This was, most definitely,
work
—as in not something he would ever have chosen to do on his own, for fun. And it was weird, too, driving out to Madaket and then stopping by the ranger station at the entrance of Smith’s Point in the Stowes’ car. The kid working the ranger station had graduated from high school a year behind Josh—his name was Aaron Henry—and under other circumstances Josh would have said hello, asked how Aaron liked the job, and teased him about his uniform. But tonight Josh was grateful for the tinted windows in the back of the Yukon; he didn’t want Aaron to see him, because how would he ever explain who these people were or what he was doing with them?

Ted and Vicki sat up front. Ted Stowe came across as the type of guy who could be charming as hell when he wanted to be, but that depended on whom he was talking to and whether or not he was getting his way. Josh far preferred the kind of man his father was—Tom Flynn wasn’t easy by any means, but at least you always knew what to expect.

In the middle seat, Brenda stared out the window while Melanie sat sideways so that she could chitchat with Josh. Melanie’s breasts had swelled, and she had taken to wearing halter tops that cupped her breasts and flowed loosely over her stomach, which was still flat as a pancake.

“Since you grew up here,” Melanie was now saying, “you must do this kind of thing all the time. Eat lobster on the beach.”

“Not really,” Josh said. Tom Flynn wasn’t much for beach picnics. Josh did, however, have memories of Sunday afternoons at the beach when he was younger. His parents and a whole group of their friends congregated each week out at Eel Point. There were twenty or thirty kids, Wiffle ball games, charcoal barbecues with hamburgers and hot dogs. His mother, in particular, had seemed to enjoy these Sundays—she sat in her chair with her face raised to the sun, she swam twenty lengths of the beach, she helped Josh and the other kids collect horseshoe crabs, and she even pitched a few innings of Wiffle ball. At five o’clock she pulled a bottle of white wine from the depths of their icy cooler and poured herself some in a plastic cup. Every week, she insisted they stay until sunset.

We have to enjoy it now,
she’d say.
Before winter comes.

“Do you know how to drive on the beach?” Melanie said. “I’d get stuck.”

“I can drive on the beach,” Josh said. He kept his tire pressure low and put his Jeep in four-wheel drive; most of the time, it was as easy as that. “Years of beach parties.”

“Sounds like fun,” Melanie said. She smiled at him in a way that seemed to mean something. Josh felt his face growing warm and he looked at the kids. Porter was asleep already and drooling, and Blaine was getting that zoned-out look that came right before sleep. They weren’t going to make one minute of the beach picnic.

Josh was relieved when Melanie turned her head away. Ted gunned the motor and sailed up over the big, bumpy dune. The car lurched and rocked; everyone pitched forward, and at one point, Josh was bounced right out of his seat. Melanie grabbed on to the back of Vicki’s seat with one hand and clenched her midsection with the other.

“Hold on!” Ted called out, and he whooped like a cowboy.

Josh shook his head.
Tourists,
he thought.
Summer people.
It would serve Ted right if he got stuck in the soft sand, if he had to call on Josh to save his ass. But then Josh remembered that the picnic was supposed to be for Vicki’s sake, and when he checked, Vicki was smiling. Ted careened down the smooth backside of the dune onto the beach, where he wisely placed the Yukon in the existing tracks. Melanie turned around and grinned at Josh.

“Look at the water,” she said. “I can’t wait to swim. Will you come in with me?”

“Oh,” Josh said. “Well, I didn’t bring my suit.”

“Who needs a suit?” Melanie said, and she laughed.

“Right,” Josh said. He glanced at Brenda, but she was still mooning out the window. It began to feel suspiciously as if he’d been asked along this evening as Melanie’s date. Was that what Ted thought? Did that explain the cold reception? Melanie was stuck to Josh like gum on his shoe; he was a sitting duck, wedged in the back between the kids.

Melanie must have sensed his discomfort because she said, “I’m sorry. I’m bugging you.” Her face got the same sort of crumpled expression that she had when Josh first saw her coming off the airplane. The expression addled Josh. It reminded him that she’d been abandoned, somehow, by her husband, even though she was pregnant. It made him want to help her, cheer her up. She was a nice woman and very pretty, but he didn’t want anyone to think . . .

“You’re not bugging me,” Josh said. “I’m just hungry.”

“Oh, me, too,” Melanie said. “The smell of the lobsters is driving me crazy.”

“I want a marshmallow,” Blaine said.

Vicki piped up from the front. “After your hot dog.”

Blaine rested his head against Josh’s shoulder.

“He’s going to sleep,” Melanie said. “Vicki, do you want Blaine to sleep?”

Vicki turned around. Her eyes softened, and if Josh wasn’t mistaken, they were shining with tears.

“Look at my beautiful boys,” she said.

Instinctively, Josh mouthed,
Don’t cry.

That was all it took: Tears dripped down Vicki’s face. Josh checked on Porter, who was mercilessly working his pacifier. Josh felt the bristle of Blaine’s hair under his chin and relished the warm, heavy weight of Blaine’s head on his shoulder.
Look at my beautiful boys.
Then he realized Vicki meant the three of them. She was gazing at them mournfully, and Josh wondered if his mother had looked at him in such a way in the weeks before she killed herself. He wondered if she had ever looked at him and questioned her decision to leave him. Just thinking this bugged him. He wasn’t used to thinking about his mother at all, but being around Vicki, he couldn’t help it. She looked like a foreigner in her scarf; her face was so thin, her eyes bulged.
She’s vanishing,
Josh had written in his journal the night before.
By the end of summer, she’ll be gone.

Melanie took Vicki’s hand. Brenda stared out the window at the waves breaking, the plovers and oystercatchers pecking at the sand. She was either oblivious, Josh thought, or purposefully trying to distance herself from the melancholy nature of this beach picnic. Josh was relieved when Ted banked a hard right and backed the Yukon up to a perfect stretch of beach.

“Here we are!” Ted boomed.

An hour later, Josh felt better, not least of all because Ted, maybe in an attempt to foster male bonding, or maybe as part of an evil plan Josh had yet to figure out, had offered Josh three ice-cold bottles of Stella, all of which Josh accepted, and drank, happily. They were drinking and fishing. Ted was fascinated by the bells and whistles of the new fancy-schmancy fishing rods he’d brought from New York and he wanted to show them off to Josh. Blaine had revived enough to ask Ted, five hundred times in ten minutes, when he was going to catch a fish. “Catch a fish, Dad. I want to see you catch a fish.”