Chess stood up and brushed herself off. She went over to the girl, who must have been thirteen or fourteen.
“Are you okay?”
The girl had a scrape on her knee the size of a quarter that was dusty and bleeding, and her palms were skinned. She tried to get up, and Chess helped her lift her bicycle. The girl sniffed up her tears. “I’m okay,” she said. She inspected her knee, wiped her hands on her jeans shorts, and gave Chess a weak smile. “Life is good,” she said. She mounted her bicycle.
“Life is good,” Chess said.
The next morning, Chess felt Tate rise from bed for her run, but Chess couldn’t open her eyes. Tate had spent the night before last with Barrett on Nantucket and had come home in a fractious state of mind—something was going on. Last night, Chess had asked Tate if she was going to Nantucket overnight, and Tate had said no. She said, “Barrett has a big decision to make and I’m going to let him make it in peace.” Chess was tempted to ask what the big decision was, but it was unfair of her to ask when she still hadn’t disclosed anything about her own life, and so she didn’t ask and Tate didn’t tell. Chess murmured something like,
Have a good run,
but her mouth wouldn’t move to form the words properly. She was covered in a blanket of sleep.
She woke at some point later. She
was
awake, she was fully conscious, but she couldn’t open her eyes. She raised her hands to her face. Something was wrong with her face. It was rough and bumpy. She pried her eyes open and the dark room was visible through a milky film. Chess started to panic. What was going
on
here? She scratched the back of her hand, and at that instant, her whole body exploded in itch. Itch! Chess scratched at her arms, her neck, her face. She slid out of bed and stumbled for the door. She scrambled down the stairs and burst into the bathroom. What was wrong with her? She looked in the tarnished mirror and saw her monstrous face—covered with a landscape of rash. Her eyes were swollen to slits, but she could see well enough to know things were bad.
Poison ivy.
The inside of her ear itched. She imagined the canal to her ear coated with the sap she was so violently allergic to. She wanted to stick a toothbrush in her ear and scratch, scratch, scratch. She imagined her brain blooming with pink lumps. There was poison ivy on her brain. How could she scratch?
She clawed at her face. She wanted to rip it off. She was crying. Poison freaking ivy. The devil’s scourge. She scratched her face until it bled, even though she knew this was the worst thing she could do. It was all over her—her face, her ears, her chest, her neck, her arms. It was between her fingers.
She crashed down the stairs to the kitchen. “Mom!” she said. “Mommy!”
Birdie turned and her eyes grew wide. “Oh, no, darling!”
“I fell yesterday. A bike was coming from the other direction and I jumped out of the way and I fell in the brush.”
Birdie said, “What can I do? Get calamine?”
“Calamine?” Chess said. Calamine wasn’t going to help, unless they were planning on pouring calamine in a vat and dipping Chess like a Salem witch. She needed to bathe in calamine. The half bottle of chalky pink they had upstairs wouldn’t begin to address the problem. And what about her eyes? And what about her ears? And her brain? What about her brain?
“I need help, Mom,” Chess said. “I need serious help.”
“Barrett is still here,” Birdie said. “He just left, I’m going to run, I’m going to catch him.” She raced out the door shouting, “Barrett! Wait!”
Chess didn’t particularly want Barrett to see her in this hideous state, but she had little choice. She grabbed her grandfather’s floppy white fishing hat, which would cover her face better than the blue crocheted cap. She was wearing a nightgown. If she was going anywhere, she needed clothes, yet she couldn’t make it back upstairs. She could barely see. She sat on the sofa shivering, even though she wasn’t cold. She was hot and itchy. Just when things were starting to get better… what a mess! She scratched, then clenched her hands together to keep from scratching. She cursed. She cursed again, more profanely and at the top of her lungs. The homeowners’ association would fine her if they heard.
She felt a hand on her back. Birdie.
“Barrett’s here,” she said. “He’ll take you to the hospital.”
“Okay,” Chess said. She turned to face him.
Barrett said, “Holy shit.”
She kept her head down for the boat ride. She had slipped on underwear and her army-surplus shorts under her nightgown. With her grandfather’s fishing hat and the leprosy creeping across her face, she was a goblin. She would scare children. She tried not to scratch, but she couldn’t stop; she would fixate on one area—the back of her neck, the undersides of her arms—and scratch until the pustules wept. This would only serve to spread the poison, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted to gouge out her eyes.
She didn’t raise her face to Barrett. She couldn’t see anything anyway. She felt the boat slow down and stop; she heard Barrett anchor. He said, “Okay, follow me.” And he led her by the hand to the side of the boat. She would have to jump down into the dinghy. Barrett was holding her hand gingerly, and Chess worried about spreading her poison. Was Barrett allergic? When she gained the ability to speak again, she would tell him to wash his hands thoroughly with soap and water. She thought of the moment she fell, right into the evil, twisting, venomous plants.
Life is good,
the girl had said through her tears.
Chess made it into the dinghy. Her scalp itched. She wanted to ask Barrett to douse her with gasoline and set her on fire.
She was wretched.
It took them twenty minutes to get to the hospital, twenty excruciating minutes where Chess did two things: scratched and tried not to scratch. Once she was inside the rarefied, air-conditioned, sterile air of Nantucket Cottage Hospital, once she was in a place where people could
help
her, things came into perspective: She had not fallen a hundred feet and broken her spine or crushed her skull. She had poison ivy.
Barrett directed her to admitting, where she dictated her information to a woman who wore a name tag that said
Patsy.
Chess’s fingers were swollen and itchy, and Patsy didn’t seem eager to hand over her pen, and Chess couldn’t blame her. She and Barrett were then told to wait, and wait they did, as Chess resumed her manic scratching. Barrett’s phone rang.
She said, “Do you have to take that?”
“No,” he said, and he quieted his phone.
Chess said, “So how are things going with you?”
He said, “I can’t begin to explain.”
Amen,
she thought.
She said, “Do you remember coming to see me in Vermont?”
He said, “Do I
remember?
Of course I remember.”
“I was horribly rude.”
“
I
was horribly rude,” Barrett said. “I sprang myself on you without any warning. I should have called you to tell you I was coming.”
“The least I could have done was have lunch with you,” Chess said. “I’ve always felt bad about that.”
“I think the reason I didn’t call in advance was that I was afraid you’d tell me not to come,” Barrett said. “I figured my chances were better if I just showed up.”
“They weren’t better,” Chess said.
“No,” Barrett said. “They weren’t. You broke my heart.”
“I didn’t break your heart,” Chess said. “We barely knew each other. We went on that one date where I
puked
…”
“I was glad when you puked,” Barrett said. “Because in my mind you were this goddess, a year older than me, going to college, reading all those thick books. When you threw up, I was relieved. You were a normal person, just like me.”
“It was gross,” Chess said. “And I noticed you didn’t try to kiss me.”
“True,” Barrett said.
They both laughed.
Barrett said, “But I did kiss you in Vermont. By my car, remember?”
“I remember.”
“It fulfilled some kind of mission for me,” Barrett said. “I drove away happy.”
Chess filled with warmth. She and Barrett were resolving something here.
A nurse appeared and said, “Mary Cousins?”
“That’s me,” Chess said, standing up.
The nurse caught sight of Barrett, and a look of surprise rippled across her face. “Hey, Barrett.”
Barrett said, “Hey, Alison.” They looked at each other for a moment. Alison was dark haired, and very tall and thin and angular, like a runway model. She was in her early forties, too old to be an ex-girlfriend. But maybe not.
Alison said, “Okay, Mary, follow me, please.”
Barrett said, “I’ll be right here.”
Alison the nurse gave Chess a shot of prednisone, which she promised would dramatically reduce Chess’s discomfort. She didn’t like to give the shot, because it tended to have nasty side effects—increase in blood sugar, increase in appetite, moodiness, psychosis—but Chess’s case of poison ivy was so severe that Alison deemed prednisone necessary. Chess was grateful. What would a little more psychosis matter anyway? The needle didn’t even hurt going in; it was delivering her salvation. She exhaled. She said, “How long will that last?”
“Twenty-four hours,” Alison said.
“Can I come back tomorrow?” Chess said.
Alison laughed. Chess assumed that meant no. Alison said, “And I have ointment for you.”
Chess said, “I need a barrel.”
Alison said, “It’s very potent.” She whipped out a tube and squeezed some clear ointment on her finger and dabbed it gently across Chess’s face. Chess closed her eyes and pretended it was a spa treatment. It seemed amazing to her that she had ever been relaxed, happy, and normal enough to receive spa treatments, but Michael had enjoyed giving her gift certificates for facials and massages. He would leave them on her pillow at night, or pretend to find them among the Chinese take-out menus. Michael had been a prince. Now he was dead, in a mahogany box.
Alison said, “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened to your hair? Are you undergoing treatment?”
Chess flushed. “No,” she said. “I cut it off. It was a decision made at a time of extreme mental instability.”
Alison seemed unfazed by this blunt declaration of the truth. She was a professional. “Ah,” she said, as though she had seen it many times before.
There was silence except for the sticky whispering of Alison applying the ointment. Chess thought,
New subject!
She said, “How do you know Barrett?”
“I worked with his wife,” Alison said. “Stephanie. She was a nurse in labor and delivery. She was one of the coolest people I have ever known. How do
you
know Barrett?”
“We’re staying on Tuckernuck,” Chess said. “He’s our caretaker.”
“Aha!” Alison said. “Well, he’s a great guy. And a wonderful father.”
“Yes,” Chess said. She raised her chin so Alison could apply the ointment to her neck. The ointment was making her skin tingle and buzz, and she felt the prednisone coursing through her veins like rocket fuel. She was lulled and comforted. Alison applied the ointment to her forearms.
“I thought maybe you were his girlfriend,” Alison said.
“Oh,” Chess said. Her eyes twitched, but they were heavy and gummed with ointment. “No.”
Alison walked Chess back out to the waiting room and presented her to Barrett. She had a tube of ointment in a white paper bag, as well as a prescription for more.
“She’s going to live,” Alison said.
“That’s good,” Barrett said. “How’s everything going with you?”
“Oh, you know,” Alison said. “It’s summer. I’ve seen my share of moped accidents and acute sunburn. And poison ivy.”
“I’m sorry,” Chess murmured. She felt like a garden-variety tourist. She was grotesque in her nightgown, shorts, and ridiculous hat. Her skin was not only diseased but now slick and greasy. She wanted to get out of there.
“There’s no reason to be sorry,” Alison said. “It’s my job.” To Barrett, she said, “So how are you? How are the kids?”
“I’m fine,” Barrett said unconvincingly. “The kids are fine. Swimming lessons, the dentist. Cameron will be old enough to go to the Boys and Girls Club in the fall.”
“I think about Steph all the time,” Alison said.
Barrett nodded. Chess had an incredible urge to drag her nails through the ointment.
Alison patted Barrett on the shoulder. To Chess she said, “You should be feeling better soon.”
Barrett drove to Dan’s Pharmacy and filled Chess’s prescription. When he got back into the car, his phone rang. He checked the display and said, “I’m going to ignore that for a little while longer.” He smiled at Chess. “Would you like to go to lunch?”
“
Lunch?
” she said.
“Yes, I think we determined that you owe me a lunch.”
“Oh, God, Barrett. I can’t be seen in public.”
“Sure, you can.”
“No, I can’t. People will look at me and lose their appetite.”
“Okay,” Barrett said. “I’ll tell you what. We’ll get sandwiches from Something Natural and eat them at the beach.”
“I probably shouldn’t be in the sun,” Chess said.
“I have an umbrella,” Barrett said. “Any other excuse you want to try out?”
“No,” Chess said. It was nearly one o’clock and she hadn’t eaten anything. And all of a sudden, what Alison the nurse had said about prednisone causing an increase in appetite became crystal clear. Chess was suddenly
starving!
“Okay, then,” Barrett said.
She ordered a turkey BLT with avocado and swiss and extra mayo on pumpernickel bread. It was a sandwich the size of a dictionary, and still, Chess judged, it wouldn’t be enough. Barrett had also bought her a bag of potato chips, an iced tea, and a chocolate chip cookie. Chess held her lunch in her lap, fighting the urge to dig in, as Barrett drove them out Eel Point Road. It was nice to be out in the wider world; it was voyeuristic—watching other cars and the summer homes pass. Once they pulled onto the beach, there were other people—mothers and their children, and a gang of college kids with a hibachi and a boom box. So many people! Barrett shifted his truck into four-wheel drive and drove to a deserted part of the beach. He put up the umbrella and set two chairs under it; then he came around and opened Chess’s door.