Sight Reading (13 page)

“I'll keep that in mind.” She didn't mean to sound brisk. Really she was filled with relief: if Gary could show this gentlemanly side, then it proved she wasn't always right about things, that the craziness, the glimpses, could be wrong, too.

“ ‘To sleep, perchance to dream . . .' ” Nicholas was back. “She was out even before I put her back on the bed.”

Hazel found herself smiling at him, at the tenderness he showed their daughter. While they were swimming together in Walden Pond, she had been conscious of not knowing at all what he was thinking, yet she felt his energy all around her, in every splash of water. With Jessie they had held hands and done a sort of dance, ring around the rosey there in the shallow part. It was one of those perfect moments, like that vision she used to have, approaching the front steps of the beautiful house with Nicholas and their two children, the boy and girl, just ahead of them.

Swimming, Nicholas had sprung back in his happy backstroke, released, free, and after that let Jessie hang on to his shoulders, and Hazel had watched with pure joy before doing her own breaststroke after them. She had swallowed water just when she was about to reach them. One second she was smiling at how perfect everything was, and then she was gulping water, coughing, spitting it out. Moments like that always amazed her, how something could be so good and then so bad a mere second later. All it took was a split second. Once when she was a teenager she had laughed so hard that she threw back her head and hit the wall behind her with such force, she gave herself a mild concussion. Ever since then she had noted with awe the mere seconds that might separate pleasure from pain. There were so many degrees of this. A glass suddenly shattering, or a car hopping the median. A joke too honest. Wine on your Persian carpet.

Gary said, “I should get going. The cockroaches will be wondering what's happened to me.”

Nicholas frowned, as if he didn't want Gary to go.

Stretching his arms, Gary stood, cracked his knuckles, and sighed loudly. “Thank you for the delicious cake and the magnificent company.”

They walked him to the door. “Thanks for stopping by,” Nicholas said, draping his arm around Hazel. She let herself relax.

“Good night,” Gary said, stepping out into the hall.

“Good night, Gary.”

Nicholas closed the door slowly, and Hazel went to clear the coffee table. She would have to stop questioning everything, analyzing everything. It wasn't healthy.

Nicholas said, “Thanks for the cake.”

“You're most welcome.” After all, it had been a perfectly nice evening. She carried their muddied coffee cups—the pattern she had picked out for their wedding—into the kitchen. That she had successfully trusted Gary with her best china felt like an accomplishment itself. Nicholas followed her into the kitchen, carrying the coffeepot and the trivet. He put them on the counter and, when she turned around, had a serious look on his face.

“What is it?”

He opened his eyes wide, as if suddenly caught. “Nothing.” But it didn't sound that way.

Hazel waited a moment, sure that he would say something more. She knew better than to press him.

When he began to rinse out the coffeepot, she went back to fetch the cake plates and saucers.
Nothing
. There it was again, the feeling: her mind unraveling. Her world unraveling.

“Hazel.” His voice came from the kitchen and sounded almost panicked. Now he was at the door, facing the living room. He cleared his throat and said, “I need to talk to you.”

Her heart lunged, and she saw that her hands, holding the china plates, had begun to shake. But she walked carefully back to the kitchen and made sure none of the plates fell.

Part Two

Clairvoyance

Chapter 1

H
azel gripped her lashes in the frieze of a metal curler and counted to three. On the bathroom counter were small tubes of corrective cream, two types of tweezers, a jumble of lipsticks, and brushes and sponges of various shapes and sizes. At times the sight of so many tools oppressed her, but mostly she was grateful. She always made an effort; no one could take that away from her.

She released the curler, placed it back in the tray. Now she coaxed mascara onto her lashes with a tiny brush—though deep down she suspected all this effort was for naught. She almost shook her head at the thought, except that she had to be careful with the mascara. There. She blinked at her reflection and turned to the full-length mirror on the door. How odd that this reverse version of her face, of her body, should be the sole way she saw herself. Front view only, curvy waist, broad hips, bust propped cheerfully in an underwire bra. Yes, her makeup was fine. It took expertise to look natural and still hide the white patches.

As satisfied as she could expect to be, Hazel left the bathroom and officially began to wait. Hugh was coming to fetch her, and she couldn't help being a bit nervous. This was their first real date, and he was the only person in a long while to appeal to her. Handsome
and
a widower, not many of those around. Twinkly eyes flecked with green. A square, neatly shaven chin. The dignity of small lines framing the corners of his mouth. Kind, intelligent, polite. He was the communications director for a biotech company in Cambridge, which meant that while knowledgeable about science, he was easier to talk to than an actual scientist. Best of all, he was Hazel's age, early forties, not one of those paunchy older men her friends sometimes set her up with, the pear-shaped ones who wore those enormous plastic sunshades over their glasses.

She had met him that summer at a swim meet; his son Luke was a year ahead of Jessie and swam a slightly flailing butterfly. Hazel had been clocking the lane next to Hugh's when they began to chat; detecting the Carolina tinge to her accent (light as it was after a decade in Boston), Hugh asked where she hailed from. It turned out he had southern roots, had grown up in Macon before moving north. He still had family in Georgia, though he hadn't been back since taking Luke to see the Olympics in Atlanta last year. Even after their initial talk subsided, Hugh continued to address Hazel in an easy manner, as if they were already friends.

And so the summer had become an enjoyable one. For the first time, Hazel honestly looked forward to those hours at the public swimming pool, a place she had spent much of the past decade dreading, as it entailed uncovering herself and her mottled arms while Jessie ran blithely around with her friends, their eyes red from chlorine, their plastic swim tags fading from the sun. The water slippery with tanning oil, the retarded boy always lolling on the steps, sucking on a shoelace . . . At least the swim meets gave Hazel something to do—and Hugh had made everything more pleasant.

Then, just this week, she had met him by chance in the parking lot of the middle school when she was waiting to pick up Jessie from the first day of seventh grade. Hugh, too, had stepped out of his car, a shiny gray Civic, to catch some September sunshine. Hazel called to him. It was just as the children began to stream out of the school's doors that he asked if she might like to go to a movie with him.

As much as she had spent all summer hoping for just such an invitation, his offer surprised her. There were other single women to choose from, and though Hazel didn't think all that much of most of them, the fact was, you never knew what a man might find attractive. And, in her case, there were the white splotches. Although she could hide the two small ones on her face—one where her chin met her jaw and one below her right temple—they were still visible on her hands for anyone to see.

Ten years ago the first one had appeared, right when Nicholas moved out, when everything fell apart. The way Hazel understood it, just as some people's hair turned white from shock, she herself had blanched—but gradually, visibly, a living negative tattoo. “I really do wear my heart on my sleeve,” she had joked to a doctor, holding out her arm to reveal a white splotch. The doctor, a humorless man with photographs of his basset hound displayed on all four walls, insisted it had nothing to do with her heart or with shock but rather with loss of melanin. “I can see how this would be troubling,” he had told her, “but it's not a health concern. It's just something that happens.” He seemed to think this a helpful thing to say.

Those were the days when Hazel wanted one thing more than anything else: for Remy and Nicholas to be as hurt and humiliated as she had been. Because there had to be some kind of retribution. In order to keep believing in God (for why would He punish honest, clean-living Hazel, who, as frustrated as she had been with Nicholas's constant travel and general thoughtlessness, had never, ever, cheated on him? What had she done to deserve the disgrace of being that most unpleasant of things, a divorced woman?), Hazel still clung to a belief that everything happened for a reason and that those who suffered would eventually be rewarded, and vice versa. She retained this belief even when the white splotches appeared, on her knees, her calves, her forearms.

Hazel had tried everything to even out her skin: the tonic that smelled of lye, tubes of cream the consistency of wet sand. She had even gone to an acupuncturist recommended by one of Remy's friends. That was a few years after the divorce, when the biweekly trading of Jessie back and forth had become second nature—though Hazel still dreaded having to glimpse Remy in the process. That day was the first time Hazel had been able to view Remy in a generous light.

“Mommy, what's that?”

Hazel had reached out to take Jessie's hand in hers, to lead her away from that happy, sloppy household whose contented disarray revealed a fullness of life Hazel couldn't help envying. And now Jessie was pointing at a big white splotch on the back of Hazel's hand. “Mommy, what's that?”

She was five years old. Only a reasonable, logical answer would do.

“It's loss of melanin.” Hazel tried not to allow even a hint of resentment that so obvious a cruelty—the fabric of a wounded soul—had been thrust upon her. “Melanin is what makes our skin dark. It makes us tan when the sun activates it. People with dark skin have more melanin, and fair people have less.”

“But why is it missing there?”

Hazel gave a little laugh. “Who knows?” She had wanted to sound lighthearted but instead sounded frantic.

Remy was still at the door, waiting to hand Jessie the purple backpack with the reflective stickers. “You know,” she had said, timidly, “a friend of mine was having skin problems, and she went to an acupuncturist. It wasn't the same thing you have, but if you want to . . . I mean, if you're interested . . .” Remy let her voice trail off, as if already knowing there was no way to reverse the process that had overtaken Hazel's body.

But back then Hazel still believed she might halt the inevitable. She met with the acupuncturist, who also prescribed various herbal teas and, after a few months, when there was no change except in the opposite direction (more splotches of white on her thighs and arms), dared to suggest Hazel stop bemoaning what was happening and accept that she was changing. “You'd be amazed how much better you can feel when you accept change, rather than fight it. You have to embrace it.”

Embrace this! Hazel wanted to say, and clock her, that petite woman with unblemished skin and a ponytail down her back. But instead she had just held her hands together and nodded stiffly.

The ironic thing was that after that, the white patches had slowed. Though each year one or two more emerged, mainly on her arms, it wasn't at all at the rate of those first two years. And though soon enough, probably, a good 50 percent of her skin would have bleached away, at least the splotches had stayed away from her face. As for the one that came up to her chin, and the one by her temple, she took time to blend her makeup so that no one would notice.

She wondered if Hugh had. She made a habit of wearing pants and long sleeves at the pool, as if sensitive to the sun. Well, if he were a real man, a good man, her skin wouldn't matter. So far he had proved to be the real thing, and gallant, too. Even tonight, instead of simply meeting her at the movies, he had suggested he fetch her at home. Hazel found that polite. At the same time, she couldn't help preparing herself for disappointment; it was what she was used to.

She glanced at the clock in the kitchen. As was her habit, she began to tidy up. She had read in one of those women's magazines that cleaning for just fifteen minutes a day was better than doing longer, less frequent cleanups; apparently people who waited too long to scrub the toilet bowl or dust the bookshelf spent a certain number of hours per month cleaning, whereas people who tidied daily never had to invest large blocks of time in the same activities. The truth was, Hazel had done the math, using the figures mentioned in the article, and it added up to the same amount of cleaning whether you did it daily, weekly, or monthly. But she had still followed the suggestion ever since.

With a sponge Hazel began to wipe down the kitchen counter. This room always pleased her, with its farmer's market bounty, the net sack heavy with speckled apples hanging from a peg above the counter, and the little clay bowl heaped with fresh bulbs of garlic. Heirloom tomatoes, skin spidery as if dipped in ink, lay in a woven sweetgrass basket, while firm shiny peppers, green tinged with purple, sat on a Shaker tray. Along the windowsill were miniature gourds whose contortions and warts, white and orange and green stained with brown, managed to look beautiful rather than deformed.

To Hazel these objects had the power of found art, reminders of what sort of shapes a miracle might take. With each year that passed, the importance of such things—beautiful things—became clearer to her. Domestic beauty, the subtle power of unassuming objects . . . Now she swiped the sponge lightly along the edge of the countertop, giving an extra scrub to the small stain near the corner; although it seemed to be permanent, Hazel always gave it another try. She sprayed a generous spritz of cleanser, guiltily wondering if some of the fumes might float over to the nearby terrarium to be inhaled by Freddie, Jessie's long-neglected pet frog. Hazel wiped away the cleanser and gave an encouraging glance toward poor, depressed Freddie. He seemed to want nothing more than to be put out of his misery.

“Oh!” Hazel hadn't expected the doorbell so soon. She walked briskly to the door to see Hugh on the front step. Twinkly eyes like Bill Clinton's. But there was a sadness there, too, a seriousness, in the lines of his face.

“Hi, there!” Hazel opened the screen door for him. “Would you like to come in for a minute? Or shall I just get my purse?”

“Actually,” Hugh said, stepping into the foyer, “I double-checked the movie times, and it's a half hour later than the paper listed it. So we have some time to kill, if that's all right.”

“Sure, come on in.” Hazel closed the door behind him. They were going to see
L.A. Confidential
. She would have preferred to see
The Full Monty
but thought it might seem silly, so she hadn't suggested it. “Would you like a drink? I have some wine open. Or a beer, if you'd like.”

“I wouldn't mind a beer.” He followed her into the kitchen, the faint smell of cologne, something sporty. Hazel opened the refrigerator, pleased to have thought ahead and purchased a six-pack of Sam Adams. Hugh said, “Nice frog you've got there.”

“Want him?” Hazel closed the refrigerator door and reached for the bottle opener. “Please, take him!” She pried off the cap and handed the bottle to Hugh.

“You two not getting along?” He eased into a seat at the table.

Hazel had thought they could sit in the living room, where the light was less harsh. But she, too, took a seat. “Minnie van der Veer bought one for her son Brian, and she swore to me it lived all of two months. We've had this one for two years!”

Hugh laughed, and Hazel gave a little shrug. “I got him when Jessie was in fifth grade and Mrs. Klinman had the students write a poem about their pet. Jessie said how can I do the assignment when I don't have a pet? In science they had just done a whole unit on reptiles, and Jessie really wanted a snake, but I couldn't stand the thought of a snake in the house. And then I remembered Brian van der Veer's frog. Minnie said it just keeled over one day. Which I thought would be perfect, because you know Jessie: her attention span is almost nonexistent.”

Hugh was laughing harder now, and Hazel said, “Maybe I'll have a beer, too.”

This just made Hugh laugh again. Hazel took another bottle from the fridge and flipped the cap off with a sense of power, as if she were suddenly alluringly comic and not just a beleaguered single mother—one who had even gone on to research the average life span of that particular species of frog. The book had said at most two years.
At most
. For all Hazel knew, hers was some sort of mutant that would live forever. To Hugh she said, “What she really wants, of course, is a puppy.”