“So what prompted you to come down here by yourself, Martha Danvers? You haven’t registered yet. They’re expecting you.”
“No. I haven’t.” She wondered if the tall gangly woman, Cindy, had gone running to tell them Martha had disappeared into the woods. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay.”
“Why not?” He turned to her in amazement, and she saw that his eyes were gray and dark-lashed, and very beautiful.
Too beautiful for a man.
“I don’t belong here.”
He smiled, but sadly, and she saw the faint lines in his forehead now. Mid-thirties. “Everyone belongs here if they’ve lost someone. You lost someone. Why would you think you didn’t belong?”
She wasn’t going to tell him about the beautiful stylish women or the hope she hadn’t lost the promise of Eldon. He had no right to that part of her. Instead she shrugged.
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“Give it a chance.” He was leaning closer now, and she registered that he smelled like some kind of wood, or grass, something natural and fragrant. “You don’t take any risks, you’ll never end up anywhere but dead and forgotten.”
She inhaled sharply and struggled to her feet, nearly overbalancing on the uneven surface. “I’m not a risk-taker. I don’t like to—”
“Hey, whoa.” He rose and put a strong hand on her arm as if to keep her from toppling down the rock face, though she’d already regained her balance. “No one’s going to push you to do anything if you don’t want to. There are a lot of really good classes and resources, but if you want to sit here and meditate for two weeks, you can do that too.”
“I can do that at home.”
“Not like this.” He gestured out at the view, islands glowing yellow-green in the sun just starting to lose its brilliance to the late afternoon. “And you’d be cheating the rest of the women.”
“How do you figure that?” She spoke more sharply than she meant to.
His hand was still on her arm, and standing close to him like this she could see he was quite tall, taller than Eldon, well over six feet. “You can call me crazy, but I’m really good at reading people.”
She leaned away. He had a magnetic intensity about him, and this close it was nearly unbearable. “I should—”
“I can see something special inside you, Martha Danvers.”
He was nearly whispering, and it made his words way too intimate for her comfort. A flush rose in her cheeks. “Even standing up on the shore, watching you sitting here alone, 46 Isabel
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off in your own world. You have a light inside you, a spiritual guiding light. Don’t keep that to yourself. There are women here who can benefit from what you have to offer.”
She snorted to shake off the stupid part of her that such utter crap appealed to. “I’m a private person. I like to be alone.”
“Sure. Okay. That’s fine. But you can still give them something they really need.” His thumb moved against the skin of her wrist; she couldn’t tell if he knew he was doing it. “I guess I’m asking you to give them a chance at your healing power.”
This was absolutely too much. She turned an incredulous stare on him, and was surprised to find his face open, completely sincere. Either he was a really good liar or he absolutely believed what he was saying. A surprise flash of pleasure lit inside her. “I . . . I don’t—”
“Come up with me. I’ll take you to registration. You can meet Betsy, who is like the Earth Mother of camp. I think you’ll really hit it off with her. In fact, I can see you someday as her assistant here, when you come through the other side of your pain. Most of the Kinsonu staff were once campers.
I can see you being just that type of person the women here will need.”
“Yeah. Um. Yeah, okay.” She let him guide her up the path, his hand at her back until the way was too narrow for them side by side.
What just happened? She thought Eldon was a smooth talker, but this guy should run for God. She’d never met anyone who could spout so much tempting bullshit with such seductive sincerity. Not that she met too many people outside her job at the DOT. No one, really.
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* * *
Betsy welcomed her to Camp Kinsonu in the plain plank lodge with a long hug, as if they’d been best friends their whole lives and Betsy had lived every second of Martha’s pain with her. Martha wasn’t wild about strangers touching her, and in the last ten minutes she’d had two to deal with.
“Welcome. We are
so
glad to have you with us.” She was younger than Martha expected an Earth Mother to be, probably forty, slender, lovely, with flawless skin and teeth, a short mannish blond haircut and a direct blue stare that went on a little too long when she was speaking. She was dressed in a plain white shirt and baggy khaki shorts, and radiated solid, sincere warmth. “You’re in Cabin Four. Here’s a folder with your choices for electives this session, plus your assigned class, the scheduled group and support activities, and information on your cabin’s trip the last day. You are welcome to change the electives, but we do ask that you give us twenty-four hours notice, and that if you skip a session, you let the instructor or someone know where you are. We don’t want to intrude on privacy, at the same time, we are morally if not legally liable for the health and happiness of our guests.”
Martha nodded dumbly. Mild panic started crawling up her spine. She couldn’t do this. “I’m not sure I’ll be . . . I don’t think I can—”
“You’re going to do fine.”
“I can’t stay here.” She forgot to monitor her breath, and if flew up into her chest and heaved there like a bird fighting a net.
“Martha.” Betsy laid a firm hand on her shoulder, which told her in no uncertain terms that she was, in fact, going 48 Isabel
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to stay. If that wasn’t enough, the light in Betsy’s blue eyes shone with utter faith. “If you can find the strength to keep going after your loss, you can certainly handle Camp Kinsonu.”
Martha nodded, fighting for control and calm. She’d stay. Not for Betsy, not for Patrick, but because she couldn’t bring herself to disappoint Eldon.
Chapter 5
Ann stepped onto Cabin Four’s screened-in porch and greedily inhaled the soft night air. She would have loved to say she’d come out to become one with the natural world, but she was actually escaping. Behind her in the common area, she could still hear Dinah prattling. If anyone could make jingly-shawl woman and horsey-cheerful woman bearable, it was Dinah. Blond, mid-fifties, barely over five feet, and stacked like a stripper, verbiage exited her mouth with such speed and relentless constancy that Ann was nearly as impressed as she was irritated. Or would have been if Dinah had anything of the slightest interest to say. She’d be the perfect power-saving option in households that kept the TV
on all day for noise.
The joke made her think of Paul, and how much he’d have loved it, how much he’d have enjoyed poking fun at this place with her, and that made her throat ache and the familiar panic of disconnect start up again. Why had she thought 50 Isabel
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coming to this place was a good idea? Exchanging the stress and misery of her life for the stress and misery of dozens of other women’s lives thrown on top for good measure? She wasn’t a team player. One of the reasons her marriage to Paul worked so well was that they were both loners. Both re-viled the kind of rah-rah let’s-go emotion that bonded other people so artificially. She suspected she’d been fired partly for her lack of that attitude. If a challenge or opportunity arose, she went for a solution or score by herself. Who else could she trust?
Paul. She laughed sickeningly.
Oh, yes, please, someone
turn up the irony, we’re all getting too cozy here.
A self-pitying tear tried to enter her eye, and she scowled until it retreated. She was tired. The drive up had been hell, temperatures murderously near ninety in Massachusetts and traffic up the wazoo on I-95. She’d cranked up the A/C in the Mercedes, blasted Cindy Lauper’s
She’s
So Unusual
, the Beatle’s
Rubber Soul
, and Joni Mitchell’s
Blue
albums, singing along in her ragged voice, which made valiant leaps toward pitches rather than landing on them.
Needless to say, she’d done a lot of stage managing when it came to high school and college musicals.
But she’d made it, with only one stop in New Hampshire for lunch at a mom and pop restaurant that should have been awarded a spot in the Food Hall of Shame.
And by the way, if she’d known there wasn’t going to be booze here at Camp Kitchy-koo, she would also have stopped at the New Hampshire state liquor store and stocked up.
What kind of cocktail social was held without cocktails?
Calling club soda with lime a cocktail was like calling chop suey Chinese food. Her chicken divan at dinner had sat up As Good As It Got
51
and begged to be washed down with a glass or two or three of sauvignon blanc or pinot noir.
But no.
One thing about this place, though . . . one thing . . .
She’d stepped reluctantly out of her climate controlled car on arrival, expecting another oven blast of summer. And ohhh, the air. Nothing she’d ever remembered breathing had seemed so clear and sweet and pure. Her tight lungs practically jumped out of her body to get enough of it down.
Maybe nothing else would come from her sentence here, but at least she’d finally remembered how to breathe.
A few female bodies exited cabins around her, then a few more, heading for the shore, some somber and silent, some chatting, only one laughing. Fish schools, lemmings, a she-wolf pack, hooooooowl! Bonfire tonight, with inspirational speakers and sing-along. Girly Girl Scout heaven. Maybe later they could play truth or dare. No, try on makeup. No, share sad stories and cry.
Okay. She was being snarky, and should take the time to feel ashamed, but she’d rather get in her car and find the nearest bar. A shot of whiskey for penance, followed by a second, then, as expected numerically, a third. Or a couple of martinis, to take the edge off this damn tension she was never quite without. Unfortunately, in this part of the world the nearest watering hole was probably an hour away and closed up for the night at eight.
Behind her, the noise that was Dinah preceded Martha and Ann out of the cabin. The Amazing Babbler was still talking about every stick of furniture in her houses, from what seemed like dozens of marriages, what it looked like, where it stood, where it had come from, and how much it 52 Isabel
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cost. Even Cindy looked haggard. Martha seemed to have the ability to tune shit like that out. Maybe she could teach Ann the technique, to save her from being jailed for Dinahcide.
“You coming with us, Ann?” Cindy interrupted the chatter, anxiously peering at Ann’s face in the growing darkness.
Some women naturally assumed the role of mother hen; Cindy was one of those. But Ann didn’t need a mother. She had one back home in Framingham. A mother who had a big hand in persuading her daughter into this mess in the first place. You could grow up and become as rich and powerful as the Queen of England—or J. K. Rowling—but when your mother was around, you were still just a kid.
“Sure. I’ll come.” What the hell else was there to do? She wasn’t going to sit in that depressingly cute cabin by herself and boohoo how she felt so cut off from everything familiar and secure. “But if they sing ‘Kumbayah,’ I’m outta here.”
Martha smirked along with Cindy’s giggle, but the comment launched Dinah off on a tale about her summer camp experience and how she’d been chosen to sing the solo on parents’ day in front of the whole camp, and how she’d been stung by a bee minutes before this incredible honor was to have taken place, and how . . .
This fascinating tale took them down the narrow bumpy path to the wooden steps to the small sandy cove where a bonfire already blazed. Around it sat roughly thirty women, all ages and shapes and sizes, all in emotional agony.
No, she’d been wrong. Not “Kumbayah.” “We Shall Over-come.” She felt it in her bones.
The mismatched quartet from Cabin Four picked a spot on the ocean side of the fire, and sat waiting for the program to begin while Dinah entertained them into stupor with her As Good As It Got
53
views on the best way to clean beach tar from one’s feet and how many of the oceanside plants were edible if you knew where to look, which of course she did.
Breezes mixed the scent of burning wood with the already wonderful fragrance of tide and pine. If she closed her eyes, Ann could imagine her and Paul here, sharing a bottle of something-or-other, watching the stars, maybe making love on the sand in the firelight.
Except they wouldn’t. Bugs, sand, and sticks would stop them. They were creatures of comfort in all things, now that she thought about it. And definitely bed people when it came to sex.
She sighed. Too soon now, but she’d like to think she’d be able to have decent sex again one day. No, good sex. No, great sex. Paul had withdrawn from her physically in the last few years as well.
Betsy stood and held up both her hands, palms facing, elbows at ninety degrees. She had barely aged since Ann last saw her at their tenth high school reunion, but she’d changed nonetheless. Gotten stronger somehow, exchanged the ditz for a more centered presence, though obviously she’d re-tained her cheerleading instincts. She’d hugged Ann for so long at the registration table that Ann nearly had to shove her away before she had an anxiety attack. Yes, okay, she was grieving, could everyone please keep emotional triggers far, far away?
The get-to-know-you chatter dissipated and died, replaced by an expectant silence that went on until Ann rolled her eyes. Was this the evening’s program, “Staring at Betsy”?
Were they supposed to guess what she was? Frozen orchestra conductor? Woman holding invisible yarn for winding?
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Betsy inhaled suddenly and began clapping, a slow, powerful, rhythmic clap. After a dozen or so seconds someone else joined, then another, then another, and then everyone was clap-clap-clapping along. Everyone except Ann, who clearly had missed the point; unless it was summoning some demon god of coastal Maine. Or the Grateful Dead, late for their performance.