“Good.” The pudgy heel of Martha’s hand pushed the dough; she gathered it expertly, folded, pushed again, earth mother, pioneer woman, salt of the earth. “Are you liking yours?”
“Oh yes. They’re all terrific.” Cindy laughed and gave her 172 Isabel
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cold, unresponsive dough a good whack. “Well, baking isn’t my thing, I guess you noticed that.”
“No one is good at everything.”
“Of course not.” It’s just that most people were good at
something
. “My husband says the same thing all the time.”
“Have you heard from him yet?”
Cindy sent her a sharp glance in case Martha was making fun, but she didn’t seem to be, just stood there placidly, at one with her perfect bread dough. “Not yet. I guess he’ll take a while longer to get this latest one out of his system.”
“Right.”
Cindy’s fingers dug into her failure. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“Not at all.” Martha’s slightly bulging blue-green eyes actually met Cindy’s; she shrugged her large shoulders, for once free of the striped shawl so the movement didn’t make her jingle. “You love him.”
“Yes.” Cindy’s response was automatic, while she thought how much wider and prettier Martha’s eyes would look if she curled her eyelashes, which grew down quite sharply, like a camel’s.
“Then I understand.”
“Really?” And a softer hairstyle. That spiky hairdo served only to point out that she was too old to be wearing a spiky hairdo.
“When you’ve invested your whole life in loving someone who truly completes you, when you’ve achieved that deep and total intimacy to the point where you can read each other’s thoughts and finish each other’s sentences . . . who can ever give that up?”
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Cindy blinked. Excess acid started trickling into her stomach. “Um. Exactly.”
“You hang onto something that rare. Not many couples have it. And if it means you have to share him, then that’s your cross to bear, but in the end he’s worth it.
Your love
is worth it.”
Cindy was feeling more and more bewildered by the second, and getting strangely angry. First of all, after nearly a week of silence, it was disconcerting that this odd woman should spout all this at Cindy, when Cindy had just been trying to be politely friendly. And second of all, what this woman was saying sounded as if it had come straight out of a romance novel. Cindy didn’t know any couples like that.
After the wedding, most women quickly found out they’d been sold an absolute crock. Their wedding might be the happiest day of their lives, but only because it was all down-hill after that.
“Of course. Our love is worth it. That’s exactly it.” She picked up a knife and hacked her dead dough into pieces, while Martha formed hers into soft factory-perfect rolls. “I can’t imagine my life without him.”
That much was true, but not the way Martha would take it. It was true because since her teen years, she hadn’t
had
a life without him. Kevin or Kevin’s money defined her current existence, which meant Cindy minus Kevin equaled pretty close to a big fat nothing.
That depressing thought carried her through dinner, where her cookies were conspicuously absent from the dessert lineup, ditto any sign of the dense masses that were supposed to be her rolls, then through the after-dinner kara-174 Isabel
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oke activity, which she barely paid attention to, though she smiled and laughed and clapped along with everyone else, and then it accompanied her to bed and another night of agonizing wakefulness.
Three A.M. and she’d only managed to doze for an hour before she bolted awake again and started to obsess over what Martha had said about love. What kind of perfect man had Martha met and how did someone get that lucky? Forget Wal-Mart, there should be a store called Wed-Mart, where you could pick out husbands and return or exchange them if they didn’t work out, without the pain and shame and stigma of divorce.
Why didn’t married couples tell you the truth when you were on your way to the altar? All they said was, “Marriage is a lot of work.” The
Titanic
wouldn’t even have been scratched by the tiny tip of that iceberg. A couple of times she’d imagined being with other men, but even imagining it made her feel angry and guilty. Patrick was the closest she’d come, the first time another man had touched her that intimately. How did big weird Martha find something that rare and special?
Maybe now that Martha had said more than four words, Cindy could ask her. Maybe Cindy would, tomorrow. Make that today, it now being three minutes after three A.M.
She gave in and turned on the lamp next to her bed. If she squinted at one of the assortments of knots on her pine ceiling, the arrangement looked very much like the eyes, ears, and muzzle of Max. She’d taken to talking to this Max at night, which probably meant her sleep deprivation was making her lose it, but in many ways he’d been her best and only friend, so sue her. Right now she and Max were going to discuss whether she should stay in bed, where she was As Good As It Got
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becoming increasingly frustrated and upset, or whether she should get up and take a walk. She loved the woods at night.
The stars had been out earlier and the moon should be rising soon, which meant that wonderful sparkling path on the water that looked like an invitation to dance on it.
Max agreed that a little walk would probably do Cindy good, so Cindy got up and slipped into her bathrobe, then into her jacket and her sneakers, which were perfectly named tonight since she needed to sneak.
Outside, the air was chillier than she expected, a crisp nearly fall-like feel. If fall started in August, winter up here would go on forever, probably even longer than it did in Milwaukee, which was even longer than it did in New Jersey, which was plenty long enough for her. She headed away from Cabin Four, her flashlight illuminating a dark dot within a small bright circle, within a larger, dimmer circle, like a woman’s breast made of light.
Okay, she was cracking up or something, that had to be the weirdest thought she’d ever had.
She headed toward the shore and the inviting moon path on the sea, intending to sit on the beach, listen to the waves, feel the breeze on her cheeks. Maybe that would put her to sleep. Something had to, didn’t it? How long could a person stay caught between two natural states, never tired enough to sleep deeply, never alert enough to be constructively awake? She would probably find out. With luck, before she was institutionalized.
A rustle in a stand of immature evergreens made her jump and, she was embarrassed to say, give a little shriek. Probably a mole or something.
Honestly, Cindy
. She shone the flashlight toward the noise at the same time she took a few hur-176 Isabel
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ried steps away, which turned out to be a mistake because she tripped over a root and couldn’t help another little yell of surprise on her way down. Ouch. She hadn’t really hurt herself, but it felt like it from the blow to her pride, if not her tailbone.
Guess what? She couldn’t even take a stroll in the moonlight without screwing up.
Clumsily back on her feet, she brushed herself off, even though she couldn’t see anything to brush with her flashlight dropped and gone out. Tomorrow her bathrobe would probably be full of pine needles and twigs and people would think she’d been rolling in the woods.
More sounds in the brush to her left, this time made by something much larger than a mole. She groped for her flashlight, really hoping it was a person. She wasn’t in the mood to tackle a moose.
“Who’s there?” Patrick’s voice.
“Oh.” She breathed in a gasp and breathed out a nervous giggle, found the flashlight but didn’t turn it on. “It’s Cindy.
Matterson.”
“Cindy.” She saw him in the faint glow from the half-moon, walking comfortably through the dark woods without any other light to guide him, which struck her as mysterious and alluring. “What are you doing out here?”
“I’m . . . I’m . . . walking.”
“Yeah?”
“I was heading for the shore.”
“Sounds chilly.”
“Oh.” She frowned at the bay, black but for the moon’s dance floor. “I thought it sounded lovely.”
“Lonely.” He laid his hand on her shoulder. She could feel As Good As It Got
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its warmth through her jacket, bathrobe, and nightgown, all the way down to her bare skin.
Patrick and Cindy, alone on a moonlit night when she was having dim thoughts of marriage and tortured dreams of ideal love.
Damn the whole gay thing.
“Come on over to my cabin, Cindy. We’ll see if we can get you sleepy.”
She twisted again toward the beach, spread silent and empty, and now that she thought about it, it did look chilly and lonely. “That sounds even nicer.”
“Come on, then.” His hand traveled down her arm; he interlocked his fingers with hers and led her back the way he’d come, supporting her effortlessly with his considerable strength when she stumbled, which made her ridiculously weak in the knees, which made her stumble more.
She wasn’t quite sure that being with Patrick was going to make her sleepy, even if he curled up on her tummy like Max. Her heart seemed to be beating pretty fast right now.
Gay thing aside, going to a man’s cabin in the middle of the night would be about the most adventurous thing she’d ever done. Wouldn’t Kevin be surprised? He, who was always trying to get her to be more sexually adventurous, wanting to do it where they could be discovered, which instead of exciting her, only made her obsess about being put in jail.
Naturally, Kevin had stopped asking—at least he stopped asking her. She supposed his other women had no problem getting it on in public bathrooms and parked cars and empty classrooms and quiet graveyards.
Did Martha’s soulmate ask her to do things she didn’t want to?
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A few more stumbles through the trees, into a tiny clearing, up wooden steps and into Patrick’s cabin, which fit him just right, like Goldilocks’s bed. Plain and comfortable, his mystical side on display with the pretty little altar on the east wall. Cindy loved Buddha looking so happy. Who wouldn’t want to pray to someone who seemed to be having so much fun all the time? That was a concept of God she could really get behind. Too much of western religion depended on the negative.
Behind her she heard the
thunk
of a bottle on a counter and the rattle of ice into glasses. She turned and found Patrick pouring out scotch.
“Are we allowed to? I mean . . . ” She laughed awkwardly, cursing herself for sounding like Ms. Goody Two-Shoes.
They were both old enough to drink, for heaven’s sake.
Though she thought she remembered Patrick talking about an alcohol problem that night of the first bonfire, or some addiction, hadn’t he?
“Medicinal purposes.” He crossed the room and handed her the glass. “It will help you sleep.”
“Oh. Right.” Medicinal only. That explained it. The first sip of scotch startled her with its strength. The second went down a little easier. She took a third to be polite and a fourth because he was examining her with his beautiful gray eyes and making her antsy when she desperately wanted to be calm.
“What do you think, should we stay in here or sit together on the porch? I have a blanket we can throw over us.”
Cindy tried to picture both. Outside would be intimate, the two of them snuggled up under a blanket. Maybe a little too intimate. He might be gay, but she wasn’t, and with her fifth and sixth nervous sips of scotch already ancient his-As Good As It Got
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tory, she was terribly afraid she’d get sloppy and do something embarrassing. “I think I’d rather stay in here. It’s so nice and warm.”
“As you wish, milady. Maybe some music?”
“Yes, please!”
“What are you in the mood for?” His voice was low and sexy, his shoulders high and broad, his earring pirateworthy.
What if she said,
You?
Not that she ever would. “Something soft, easy.”
“Yeah, I don’t think head-banging rock would do much to help you sleep.” He rummaged through CDs on a shelf at the back of the room and selected one. “Mellow jazz?”
“Perfect.” She smiled, feeling like a girl on her first date, even knowing that Patrick was— She stopped herself. Gay.
Right. Gay. She wasn’t going to think about that anymore.
She was just going to enjoy herself, and if that meant pretending in her foolish romantic head that he was straight and that relationships like Martha’s really were possible, then fine. She would. No one could stop her anyway.
The music swelled, replacing her nervousness with a slow, steady beat. Patrick smiled, moved across the room with a graceful two-step and turned out the lights. The slight glow of moonlight entered through the three sea-facing windows.
Green lights glowed on the CD player; red ones streamed and receded with changes in volume. Otherwise darkness. A woman began to sing, deep and sultry, crooning about love as if she’d done it all and planned to do it all again.
“Dance with me.” Patrick approached, one arm up, one reaching for her waist.
“No, no.” Cindy shook her head, feeling instantly sick. “I’m a terrible dancer.”
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“No, you’re not.” He took away her scotch, put the glass on the altar to Buddha, and took her into his arms.
“I
am
. The worst.” Oh gosh. The last thing she wanted was to ruin this beautiful night by bumping into him and trampling all over his toes. “Forget two left feet. I have at least four.”
“Shh. Give yourself over to me, Cindy.”
And didn’t that sentence, whispered into her hair, send thrills all the way down to where it shouldn’t. He was moving already, urging her into his rhythm, swaying with her, letting her know what he wanted with subtle touches and gentle pushes. Stiff at first, she found herself responding, slowly understanding where she was to go and when.
Give yourself
over to me, Cindy.
Oh, she was, she would, she had. She relaxed further, let her body go, let herself fall into the music and into him.