Beach Plum Island (31 page)

Not that she didn’t deserve the whole thing now, Jesus, Elaine thought as she searched for a parking space. As if that free-for-all with Ava the other day wasn’t enough, this morning Ava had called her even before Elaine left for spin class, saying she planned to go on some wild-goose chase at a school for the blind in Boston to ask questions about Peter.

“I wanted you to know, just in case you want to change your mind and come with me,” Ava had said. Her voice sounded stiff, formal.

Elaine was proud of herself for not flying off the handle, considering she hadn’t yet had her coffee and her sister was springing this on her. “That’s considerate of you, but I meant what I said before. Even if I could take time out of the office—which I can’t, we’ve got a slew of tight deadlines at the moment—I don’t have the energy to do this. Or the interest. Sorry. Good luck. Let me know how it turns out.”

She’d sounded mature. Thoughtful. And then Elaine had thrown the phone across the room after pressing the button to end the call. Fortunately, her iPhone bounced off the wall and landed on the white carpet, unharmed.

Elaine fielded seven calls during her two-hour shift. Only one was bad. It came from a woman who told Elaine she was standing on the Tobin Bridge, staring down at the water and thinking about jumping. From the sound of traffic on the woman’s cell phone, Elaine knew the caller was probably telling the truth. She wrote a note and passed it to the supervisor, who dialed 911 to report the potential jumper to the police.

Keep them talking
: that was Rule #1. If a suicidal person was talking to you, she couldn’t be killing herself. Elaine asked the woman’s name—Liza—and what had brought her to the bridge, why this bridge and not somewhere else, and was there anyone she could call to be with her right now.

“That’s the whole point,” Liza wailed. “I’ve got nobody since my boyfriend left me. That bastard even took my
dog
!”

That did seem pretty low, Elaine had to agree, if only to herself. Then she had a sudden inspiration. “What if he wanted to give the dog back?” she said, repeating her question so Liza could hear her over the traffic.

“What do you mean? He’s not going to want to do that. He’s a lying sick bastard!”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Elaine said soothingly. “But let’s say your boyfriend suddenly changed his mind about the dog and wanted to give it back. Where would the dog live, if you weren’t around to take care of it?”

“He’d probably shoot it,” Liza muttered.

“Maybe he would,” Elaine said, trying to sound positive. “On the other hand, if you were there, he might give the dog back. That would be less hassle for him than finding another home for it or killing it or whatever, so it would be better if you were around, right? Just in case that happened?”

“That’s never going to happen.”

“Maybe not. On the other hand, he sounds lazy.”

“You got that right,” Liza said.

“And think about your dog,” Elaine said. “You still love that dog, right?”

Liza had to admit she did, then said, “Gotta go. I have another call.”

Elaine replaced the receiver with a sigh.

“You did good on that one,” Marcia said. Marcia’s husband had committed suicide by shutting himself in the garage with the engine running in the family’s SUV.

“I don’t know,” Elaine said. “It might not have been enough.”

“We never know if it’s enough,” Marcia reminded her. “All we can do is give them a few minutes of connection. You’re not going to cure anybody in one phone call. They’ve got to do that themselves. We’ll just hope the patrol car gets to the bridge on time. Now put it out of your head.”

After finishing her shift, Elaine sat in her car and refilled the steel water bottle with vodka and cranberry. There was still a little salad left, but the lettuce was now limp with dressing. Elaine put the take-out container on the backseat and sat there, sipping her warm cocktail and wondering what to do. She hadn’t brought any clothes for a club, but maybe there was a place she could go for a nightcap where it wouldn’t matter how she looked. She didn’t want a hookup anyway, just one drink with other people so she didn’t feel like such a social pariah.

She pulled cautiously away from the curb, the bottle in one hand, making sure to use her turn signal and driving slowly up one street and down another. She couldn’t risk having a cop stop her with booze. Even if he didn’t give her a ticket—which a Boston cop sure as shit would—she’d never live down the humiliation of Tony finding out. Or the Angel Gabriel. Man, the look on Gabe’s face when she’d jumped out of the subway car in Harvard Square was priceless!

She hadn’t heard from Gabe since. Well, it was his own stupid fault. They’d had a fun time and then he’d climbed on his soapbox. Still, she was sorry. If nothing else, she’d miss that cat of his.

The alcohol was making her fuzzy-headed and maudlin. Vodka did that to her. She should have stuck with wine. Or gin. A gin martini was the right thing to set you on your feet.

Elaine spotted a club that looked better than most, a decent-looking Irish pub. She thought of the little Irish salesman she’d danced with the night she was mugged and smiled for a minute, remembering how thrilled he’d looked while she was dancing with him, as if somebody had finally given him that pony he wanted for Christmas.

Then she remembered how Gabe had rescued her and the smile faded. Gabe the judge. Gabe the
judgmental
, ha! Like that guy with his broken cat was any role model for living happily ever after. He wouldn’t even date her sister!

You didn’t want him to date Ava,
Elaine reminded herself. She’d been aware of this before, but for the first time, she was expressing this thought in a cogent way.

Well, almost cogent. She’d drunk the entire bottle of vodka by now. That, combined with having only salad for lunch and more salad for dinner, left her definitely feeling too out of it to drive. She’d have one martini and then switch to coffee. Irish coffee! The hair of the dog, then home for a good night’s sleep, so she could hit the gym earlier for a double workout, undo the calories she drank tonight.

Elaine pulled over to park across the street from the pub and was nearly sideswiped. She must have forgotten her turn signal. Well, screw ’em if they couldn’t take a joke. This was Boston. There was a hydrant there, but so what, with city budgets so tight these days, no cops would be out ticketing.

She carefully locked her purse inside the car, taking only her driver’s license and a twenty-dollar bill. That would limit any chance of buying more than two martinis and eliminate the possibility of a mugger taking more than whatever few dollars she had left after visiting this friendly neighborhood pub for a nightcap.

The pub was underground. Elaine held on to the metal railing, surprisingly cold, and wobbled down the cement steps in her red heels. Inside, the place was done up to look more Irish than the Blarney Stone, with a low ceiling, thick wooden beams, and white stucco walls decorated with Irish sports teams’ flags and haying implements. At least she supposed that’s what those big rusty tools were.

The place was packed, this being a Friday night in Boston. Elaine managed to squeeze herself over to a barstool between a pair of guys in leather jackets and, Jesus God, those tweed caps they must wear in Ireland to look like characters in a Danny Boyle film. “Heya,” one of the guys said with a nod. “Looks like this stool’s got your name on it, sweetheart.” His accent was thick, South Boston:
sweethot
.
He doffed his cap and gestured for her to sit.

The guy was forty if he was a day, but he had a kind red face and friendly blue eyes, so Elaine hauled herself up onto the wooden stool, leaving her poor red shoes behind because it was too hard to climb like a monkey in heels and a tight skirt, both. One of them had to go, and she wasn’t planning on losing her skirt. Not yet. She nearly giggled but managed a straight face as she ordered a dry martini, straight up.

Right away, the guys started chatting her up. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Too late, Elaine realized she was the only woman at the bar, other than some blowsy redhead practically giving her boy toy a blow job on his ear at the other end of the bar. How did a woman like that get a guy so hot? If Elaine hadn’t already downed a bottle of vodka, she might have been inclined to give that girl some competition, but tonight she was going to be sensible. One martini, then out of here.

The only problem was that the twins in tweed caps had other ideas. They really were twins, they said, and she had to believe them because they had identical faces, except one was a little puffier than the other’s.

“I’m seeing double,” she complained, making them laugh like they’d never heard
that
one before.

Her new friends kept magically making the martinis appear, and the drinks were so crisp, so cold, that she kept downing them. This kind of low-key social evening was just what she needed to forget about today, about this string of wretched weeks since Dad died.

The guys told her jokes, mostly bawdy ones she imagined were told in every pub in Boston, and they talked sports until her ears were throbbing like she was too deep underwater. Suddenly one of them said something about the Red Sox, and there it was, the day she’d gone to a Red Sox game with Dad. Only her, because Ava was off with Mark someplace. How thrilled Elaine had been to sit there in the bleachers with her father when she was maybe eleven years old. They’d done the seventh-inning stretch and eaten hot dogs together and cheered themselves hoarse.

At the end of the game, a fight erupted—not surprising; they were playing the Yankees—and Dad had scooped her up in his arms like Elaine weighed nothing. He carried her right out of Fenway Park, singing “Walk Like an Egyptian.” Singing to her, and making her laugh when he set her down by doing the dance, too.

“You okay?” Dad said once they’d danced their way down the sidewalk and were far from the noise and crowds. “Not scared?”

She took his hand. “I’m never scared with you, Daddy.”

“So right, too,” he said with a nod. “That’s what families do, darlin’. We look out for each other. Never forget that and you’ll have a happy life.” He stopped suddenly and got on one knee, looked her in the eye. “Honey, I mean what I say. Don’t forget your family. I did that once, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.” Then he stood up again and started singing, urging her to keep dancing with him all the way to the car.

He had tried to tell her. Elaine stared into her martini and wished she could dive into the drink, forget that memory and everything else that had brought her here to this lousy pub, this low point in her life.

Her father had told her, but she had turned her back on him. On her family.

Elaine understood, finally, that phrase “drowning my sorrows.” If she stayed here, she might do just that and never go home again. But what, then, would have been the point of her father protecting her, singing to her, loving her? What would have been the point of taking care of Mom, if she was not going to take care of herself? And what was her life when she and Ava were on the outs, with nothing in it but herself?

Her life would be nothing.
She
would be nothing.

“Hey, you okay, girlie?” one of the tweed caps asked, his voice suddenly fatherly, his blue eyes still watering with drink but kind, very kind.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

She left her shoes at the bar but made it to the ladies’ room, where she shut herself in one of the cubicles and threw up, retching until there was nothing more. Then she passed out for a bit, kneeling on the bathroom floor, her head cradled in her arms above the toilet seat.

When she came to, Elaine washed her face with cold water and stared at her own pale crooked reflection in the mirror. Above it there was a bumper sticker: “Need help? Call 1-800-Alcohol.” What a joke. She knew how those help lines worked, didn’t she? What kinds of pathetic slobs doled out nonsense platitudes to desperate people?

Then her vision began clouding up and she was retching again, this time into the sink. When she’d finished, she dialed the number just before she blacked out again.

•   •   •

On Monday morning, Gigi worked with Ava, cleaning the studio and wedging clay as Ava furiously produced cup after cup, bowl after bowl, and stacks of plates on the wheel. She was obviously upset. Finally Gigi worked up the courage to ask why.

“Everything is changing,” Ava said.

Gigi blinked. “Everything always changes,” she said.

Ava gave a weak laugh. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. You found that out too early when Dad died. I’m sorry. I’m just in an odd mood.”

“I can see that,” Gigi said. “But why?” For some reason, even though Ava was older than her own mother, it seemed okay to ask Ava questions like that because she was her sister.

“Elaine called yesterday,” Ava said, and right there Gigi’s stomach dropped. Nothing related to Elaine was ever good.

Ava must have seen this thought on Gigi’s face, because she smiled. “No, it’s actually a good thing, something I’ve hoped for,” she said.

“What is it?”

Gigi could tell by Ava’s expression that she was wondering whether Gigi was old enough to hear whatever it was she was about to say. Finally, Ava gave a little nod. “This isn’t something you can repeat to anyone else,” she said. “Not to your mother or the boys.”

“Okay.”

“Elaine has a drinking problem.”

“The boys already know that,” Gigi said. “My mom probably does, too.”

Ava tightened her mouth and stood up from the wheel, swiped clay off her face with the back of one arm. “That obvious, huh? Well, anyway, Elaine called to say she was taken to a hospital on Friday night for alcohol poisoning and a concussion. Now she’s decided to get sober.”

“Wow.” Gigi remembered a party she’d been to last year where an ambulance had to come get a girl with alcohol poisoning; that girl had practically been in a coma and vomited all over herself. Not a pretty sight. “Who took her to the hospital?”

“I have no idea. She didn’t want to talk much on the phone. She just apologized and said I was right about a lot of things, and she wanted to say she loved me.” Ava’s voice caught and she brushed her arm against her face again, though there was no clay on her cheeks.