Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing) (3 page)

I’ve not seen Colin in what? Thirty-four years? Longer?

I used to think about him. A lot. Mostly because I loved him to bits, but also because I never knew what happened to him. None of us did. Not even Sophie’s brother.

Wiping the sweat off my face, I climbed down the ladder to begin my next project, which is where I am now—wedged inside the cabinet beneath my kitchen sink, trying to undo the trap and trying, mightily, not to think about Colin.

I tug at the wrench. Metal scrapes against metal. Nothing moves except rust. Grit adds more freckles to my face. I rub it off and try again. No dice. This sucker isn’t planning to move any time soon. At least, not for me. The sink will have to stay stopped up till Monday when I’ll call in a plumber.

If my bank account can handle it.

The fax phone in my office rings and startles me. I jerk my head.

Ouch!

Bad move. I grab my tools and wriggle out from under the sink. Who’d be faxing my office on a Saturday? Elaine Burke? Please, not her. It’s bad enough putting up with her during the week. I don’t want her invading my weekends as well. I’ll ignore the fax. For now. Elaine can wait till I’ve mowed the lawn, had a shower, and washed my hair.

It’s almost seven by the time I remember to check my office. The fax is lying on the floor. Mangled as usual. One of these days I’ll treat myself to a machine that doesn’t mutilate paper. I bend to pick it up and wince. My back’s on fire. And no wonder. I forgot to wear sunscreen this morning.

The fax isn’t from Elaine, thank God, and I’m about to toss it in the trash when I recognize the writing.

I stare at the end of the page where Sophie’s last sentence breaks off. I turn it over. There’s nothing on the back. Duh—this is a fax. Maybe there’s a second page. Sinking to my knees, I check my fax machine’s preferred drop zones—behind the file cabinet, between my desk and the bookcase, in the waste bin—but find nothing except dustballs the size of small sheep and enough rusty paperclips to build a pocket battleship.

I read Colin’s name again and get a lump in my throat.

Three decades dissolve like ice in hot water. Memories bubble up. That picnic at Roddy Slade’s in the pouring rain when we danced on the lawn with bare feet. The time we met in London for a Led Zeppelin concert and I missed the last train home. Keith’s nineteenth birthday party when Colin and I went to the tree fort by ourselves.

Now I don’t believe in clairvoyance or precognition or whatever they call it, but right now I’d believe in almost anything. I mean, what are the chances of my conjuring up Colin on the roof and then having him roll out of my fax machine a couple of hours later?

Zachary sidles into my office and leaps on the laser printer—his favorite spot in the house—and washes his paws.

“Out of bounds!” I shove him off. I’ve just spent a fortune having my printer repaired and all because one of his hairs got stuck inside the drum and fouled up the optical system. He lands with a thud and stalks off with his tail in the air.

I check the time. Almost midnight—in London. Will Sophie be at work or in bed? Hard to know. Her catering jobs take place at all hours, especially on weekends. I punch in her number and wait. Nobody answers, not even Sophie’s machine which she has, no doubt, forgotten to turn on.

I sit down—my legs have gone wobbly—and read the fax again.

Colin Carpenter.

Where the hell have you been for the past thirty-five years?

My best friend, Lizzie McKenna, shows up at noon the next day with an armload of hydrangeas that match her eyes. Not the oversized purple and pink jobs from the supermarket’s flower shop but those amazingly sky-blue blossoms that grow like weeds along the shoreline.

She pokes her head around my kitchen door. “May I come in or are you still grumpy?”

“Of course not.” I grit my teeth and pull hard on my wrench. I’m back under the sink, having another go at the pipes.

“Does that mean ‘Of course I’m not pissed off,’ or ‘Of course you can’t come in’?”

This sounds way too complicated for me to sort out. “Lizzie, I’ll be done in a minute.”

“Why don’t you call Mike, or is he on your hit list as well?”

I grimace and twist the wrench again. Twice. Extra hard. Once for Mike the plumber and once for me. We’d dated a few times, a long time ago, then he met a girl half my age and married her.

Lizzie bends to my level and a wedge of gray-blond hair falls in front of her face. She pushes it to one side and grins at me. “Well?”

I grin back because we both know what she’s talking about.

Two nights ago, Friday, we’d had wine and pizza on the beach. It’s a weekly ritual in the summer. Just the two of us. No kids, no men. Just Lizzie and me. She provides the pizza, we take turns buying cheap wine, and I provide the beach.

For once, it was blissfully quiet. We had the place to ourselves—even the sand flies were busy elsewhere—until a couple strolled by and wrecked my peace of mind. Complete strangers. Tourists, probably. They definitely weren’t locals.

“That really frosts me,” I said.

“What does?”

I pointed. “Those two. Valley Girl and Viagra.”

Lizzie squinted at the couple. “It’s just a guy out with his daughter.”

“Yeah, right.”

The man was at least sixty, bald, wearing bicycle shorts, gold chains, and a Rolex. The girl—long legs, cutoffs, and a crop top—clung to his arm like a cheap dress. Not the sort of clinging done by a daughter. He kissed the back of her neck. Definitely not the sort of kissing done by a father. She giggled and I looked closer. They both wore diamond-encrusted wedding bands.

“Okay,” Lizzie said, helping herself to more wine. “So what? He’s just another middle-aged stud with a trophy wife.”

“The minute she turns thirty, he’ll replace her.”

“Like Richard did?”

“And keeps on doing,” I said. My ex-husband was on wife number three. “They get younger and younger. His next will be in diapers. It’s demeaning.”

“The diapers?”

“No. Men who choose girls instead of women their own age.”

“Here,” Lizzie said, handing me a slice of pizza. “Have the last piece. You need it to keep up your strength.”

“What for?”

“Staying mad at a whole generation of middle-aged men.”

Turning over, I back out of the cupboard, taking care not to scrape my sore shoulders on the frame.

Lizzie dumps her flowers in the sink. It’s full of dishes and dirty water. “I take it the pipes are blocked up again?” she says.

“Third time this month.” I nod toward the flowers. “They’re lovely”—I hug her—“and so are you.”

“I figured you could use a treat. You were spitting nails on Friday.”

“I spat a few more yesterday. I finally fixed the roof.”

“In your bathing suit?” Lizzie eyes the burn on my shoulders. “Jill, for God’s sake get help. You’ve no business romping around the roof at your age.”

“The guy who fixed your roof last year is older than me.” I hand her two apples and a bag of corn chips. “I’m thinking of asking him for a job.”

Lizzie sighs. “One of these days you’ll fall off that ladder and break your damn neck.”

We’ve had this discussion before. Lizzie, who calls an electrician to change a light bulb, doesn’t understand my do-it-yourself approach or the acute lack of funds that makes it necessary. She also has no idea what it’s like to run your own business. She works in a community college where students turn up on an annual basis, paychecks are deposited directly into her bank account, and a whole department of financial wizards takes care of paying the bills. Computers are fixed, the water cooler is filled, and her printer is never ruined by stray cat hairs.

“Here,” I say, handing her a jug of lemonade. “Take this lot to the beach and I’ll be out in five minutes. I’ve got a phone call to make.”

“Hot date with a new plumber?”

I flash my best Mona Lisa smile, knowing it’ll drive her nuts.

“You gonna cough up or make me guess?” she says.

“I’ll tell you later—on the beach.” I push my friend toward the door. “Hurry, or you’ll miss the best of the sun.” This’ll get her moving. Lizzie’s a born-again sunbather. But, unlike me, she never forgets to use sunscreen.

Wearing a loose dress that flatters her fullness, Lizzie sails out of my kitchen, through the living room, and onto the back porch where she fights for control of a floppy straw hat Zachary frequently uses as a cat bed. I think the hat suits him far better than it suits Lizzie.

We met sixteen years ago at McDonald’s amid French fries and ketchup and small, exuberant children. After swapping phone numbers and marital details—I was newly divorced and she was still married to Fergus—we invited ourselves to each other’s houses. Our kids grew up in the best of both worlds: rocks and trees at Lizzie’s old house in the woods; shells and crabs at my place on the beach. The last time he was home, my elder son, Jordan, asked what Lizzie and I found to talk about after all this time. I said, “Oh, we grumble about menopause and lower back pain and how we can’t remember much of anything, and the next day she’ll say, ‘Did I tell you about my hot flashes?’ and I’ll say, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ and we’ll discuss them all over again.”

I find a vase for Lizzie’s flowers, dump Drano in the sink, and try Sophie’s number again. This time, her machine picks up. I leave a message, change into a swimsuit, and set off to join Lizzie. On my way through the porch I see Zachary has won the battle of the bonnet. He’s curled up inside it like a dollop of butterscotch pudding.

The flagstones I laid last summer scorch my bare feet. Why the hell didn’t I think to wear sandals? I race across my patio and head for the path between the dunes that separate my back yard from the beach. The tide’s coming in. I jump a line of seaweed and shells and plunge into the waves. The cold takes my breath away. Ducking under, I swim a few strokes, then tread water and watch windsurfers bounce like butterflies across the metallic blue chop. In the distance, a freighter ploughs its way toward New York, and just beyond the lighthouse a small fishing boat chugs into the harbor.

I’ve lived on the beach for sixteen years and this view still gives me goosebumps. It validates my life. It keeps me from knuckling under when cranky clients, clogged sinks, and leaky roofs gang up on me at the same time.

Lizzie’s beach bag, the chips, and an apple core are strewn across her tartan blanket like the remains of a Scottish picnic. She’s sitting in a sand chair, arms folded across her ample stomach. I flop down beside her.

“Come on,” she says. “Spill the beans.”

I tell her about the fax, and she asks, “Who’s Colin Carpenter?”

“He was my first love.”

“Aah.” Lizzie’s face softens. “Did he fall in love with you, too?”

Did he? Did Colin love me the way I loved him? I have no idea. He never said. Boys didn’t put their feelings into words back then. Mostly we hung about with the others. Sometimes, we’d go to the cinema by ourselves and cuddle in the back row, then fumble about afterward in his dad’s car. Except for that last night in the tree fort, we never went much beyond snogging. Me, because I was scared of what my mum would say if she knew a boy had his hand inside my knickers; Colin, because, well, he was that kind of boy. He didn’t push. He always asked if what he was doing was okay.

It always was, and I always wanted more, but never said so.

The week Sophie and I celebrated the end of our school days by stuffing our uniforms in the Aga, the Carpenters moved. Overnight. Nobody saw them leave. Two days later, newspaper headlines told us why. Colin’s father had been arrested for embezzling. Colin idolized his dad and it must’ve destroyed him. He was an only child and his mother, from what little I knew, was considered neurotic. Rumor had it she took Colin with her to live in Scotland, or maybe it was Ireland. Keith and Hugh figured Colin was too ashamed to get in touch with his old friends and that’s why none of us heard from him again. We were hurt and confused. Me most of all.

“Jill?” Lizzie nudges me with her foot. “Did he love you?”

“Probably not. It was a teenage girl thing. You know how choked up we get over the first boy who makes us go weak at the knees.” I grimace. “I bet he’s bald and fat and nods off in front of the television.”

“With a child bride on his lap?”

I toss a corn chip at her. “Probably.”

“So, what did he look like?”

“Burt Lancaster.”

“Jeez,” she says. “No wonder you had the hots for him.”

“Remember that scene in
From Here to Eternity
?”

Lizzie thinks for a minute. “The one on the beach in Hawaii with Deborah Kerr?”

“Yeah, that one.”

Sighing, Lizzie says, “And now, after all these years, Colin shows up and Sophie leaves you dangling.”

“That’s about it.”

“Would you like to see him again?”

“Of course I would, but I can’t afford to go back. Besides, he’s probably married.” I glance at Lizzie. “All the good ones are, except Trevor, of course.”

“Hmmm.”

“Why won’t you marry him?” I say. Trevor’s fifty-two, eight years younger than Lizzie—a toyboy, almost—and he’s been begging her to marry him ever since they met six years ago at a conference in Chicago.

“Trevor lives in Detroit,” Lizzie says. “My life is here. Neither of us is willing to move, so we’ll just go on having a nice little long-distance fling until he grows up and finds someone more suitable than me.”

“But—”

“Trevor’s blissful in bed,” Lizzie says, stroking her thighs, “and if I’d met him years ago instead of Fergus, then—”

“Your ex-husband,” I say, before she can stop me, “is still in love with you.”