by Claire Cook
“Hmm, I never thought of it that way. Do you want another Tab?”
I shook my head. Minot’s Light, the locally famous light that blinked 1–4–3 to signify “I love you,” a number standing for the number of letters in each word, was directly in front of us, way out in the ocean.
“I forgot all about Minot’s Light,” I said.
“Do you think it was a siren thing?” B.J. asked. “You know, blink I love you, and the sailors got all flustered and crashed into the rocks?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “At least that’s not the story the historical society puts out there.”
“Well,” B.J. said. “You know how those hysterical types are. I mean, historical.”
I sighed.
B.J. sighed.
I sighed again.
“Shit,” B.J. said. “I think we’ve passed it by. The last wild thing that’s ever going to happen to us was that disgusting trucker wiggling his pitiful butt at us. That’s it. That’s as good as it’s going to get. When we’re ninety-nine and a half, that’s the story we’re going to be telling each other as we sit in our wheelchairs in the solarium of the nursing home doing shots of prune juice.”
CHAPTER 25
A mint-green-and-white car was parked in Jan’s driveway.
“Wow,” I said. “What is that? The color is gorgeous.”
“Big deal,” B.J. said. “So it’s a vintage Jaguar. I completely forgot how competitive Jan is. And I’d much rather have Mustang Sally any day.”
“Maybe she rented it for the week,” I said. “Maybe her profile says she’s independently wealthy after a series of savvy investments and has a fourteen-car garage to house her collection of vintage cars. But the truth is she shops at Marshalls like the rest of us and still drives a mini van.”
“Thank you,” B.J. said. “You’re a good friend, Thelma.”
“Why aren’t there more cars here?” I asked. “Do you think the partying got so wild last night that everyone went home for a nap?”
B.J. tilted her head to get a better look. “Maybe. I hope the cops didn’t have to come and break things up. It would be a total bummer if we missed that, too.”
I unbuckled my seat belt and twisted around to take the pressure off my tattoo. It didn’t burn as much anymore, but my skin was starting to feel itchy and tight. “You don’t think they all took off and went to another party, do you? Maybe someone left their Jaguar here where it would be safe.”
B.J. untied her scarf and shook out her hair. “They’d better not have. I will kill Jan when I get my hands on her if she didn’t at least leave us a note telling us where they all went.”
I untied my scarf, too, and tossed my short hair like a salad. “Does my hair look okay?”
B.J. looked. “Of course it does. You look about twelve. Well, except for around the eyes. And the jawline.”
“So, are we going to go inside or are we just going to sit out here while you insult me?”
“Okay, let me find a safe place to park in case it turns into a mob scene. If any of our classmates so much as scratches my Sally, I will take them out.”
B.J. finished pulling Sally off the road and onto the edge of Jan’s lawn. Then she leaned her head back and drained her Tab.
I picked up my water bottle from the console and took a long gulp, as if I were hydrating before a marathon.
B.J. let out a soft Tab burp. “Okay, just promise me that if somebody obnoxious gets my ear, you’ll come rescue me.”
“Sure,” I said, “but how will I know if somebody I think is obnoxious isn’t somebody you’re crazy about?”
B.J. reached for her lip gloss. “That’s a really good point. Okay, we need a signal. How about if I need you to rescue me, I’ll roll my eyes.”
I rolled my eyes. “Perfect. They’ll be so insulted you’re rolling your eyes at them that you won’t even need me to rescue you. And by the way, if we’re going to do it, this rescue thing needs to work both ways. I can’t spend my whole night saving you.”
“Okay, how about whoever needs to be rescued points their index finger at their tattoo and then taps it up and down on their shoulder three times?”
“Right, let’s just call attention to our scabbing broken hearts.”
“Okay, fine. You pick the signal.”
“How about I just give you a look like I’m going to kill you if you don’t rescue me?”
“Genius,” B.J. said. “Now let’s get in there while there’s still room. Should I bring a six-pack of Tab in with us now, or should we wait and make sure the party’s Tab-worthy?”
Jan opened the door on the first knock. “Come in! Come in!” She looked so different from the Jan I semi-remembered from high school that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to pick her out in a police lineup. Her hair was platinum blond and her eyes were an odd emerald green, like a cat’s. I searched her face for a single wrinkle and came up empty.
“You two haven’t changed a bit,” she said.
“You haven’t changed a bit, either,” B.J. said. “You’ve changed completely.”
“You look great,” I said. It wasn’t quite true, but you could look at it like the hostess gift we’d forgotten to bring. When I smiled at her, the corners of her mouth may have lifted in return. It was hard to be sure.
B.J. and I stepped into a foyer with high beadboard wainscoting and a perfectly refinished old hardwood floor with a compass rose inlaid in the center. I wanted the house, the floor, the compass rose. I wanted to move right in and stay.
“Sorry we’re a day late,” B.J. said. “We got a little bit sidetracked.”
Jan gave B.J. a hug. B.J. kept her tattooed shoulder angled back, just out of reach.
When it was my turn, I did the same thing. “Sorry to hear about you and Kurt,” Jan whispered. “You were always too good for him.”
I tried to give B.J. a dirty look for apparently informing the entire world about the breakup of my marriage, but she was too busy checking out the house. “Cool place,” she said.
“It’s my mother-in-law’s,” Jan said. “And I should probably tell you that she’s not supposed to be—”
A tiny woman with a cane walked into the foyer. She was wearing a pink Chanel suit and a matching pink pillbox hat. I couldn’t see from where I was standing but I just knew her stockings had seams running up the back. Her black orthopedic shoes were freshly polished and she had two little pink circles of rouge on her papery cheeks.
The rings on her gnarled fingers twinkled with jewels the size of small countries.
She lifted her cane high in the air and pointed it at B.J. and me.
“Whose thieving bastard children are you?” she roared.
“Put your money in real estate,” Jan’s mother-in-law said. She owned all of Marvin Gardens already and was plunking houses down as fast as she could buy them up.
“Well, sure,” B.J. said, “if the location will hold its value. But what about all those poor people whose mortgages went upside down?”
Jan’s mother-in-law adjusted her row of little yellow houses until they were all lined up neatly on the curb. “Apple,” she said.
B.J. leaned forward. “Do you mean put your money in the computer or in the fruit?”
I reached for the dice. “I forgot how much fun Monopoly is,” I lied politely. “It was one of my sons’ favorite games when they were growing up.”
Jan’s mother-in-law reached for her cane, which was hooked over the back of her chair. “Whose thieving bastard children are you?”
“Mom,” Jan said. She leaned across the kitchen table and put her hand on her mother-in-law’s forearm. “Remember? B.J. and Melanie, my two friends from high school?”
Her mother-in-law yanked her arm away. “Whose thieving bastard child are you?”
Jan made a tiny movement with her lips that was like a mini frown.
B.J. rolled her eyes at me. Then she pointed to her tattoo and tapped her finger on her shoulder three times
. Then she glared, long and hard.
I ignored her and took my move. I drew a card. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Apparently even Monopoly couldn’t cut me a break. Maybe Kurt had shut off my Monopoly credit, too. I buried the card at the bottom of the pile and hoped we wouldn’t still be here by the time it rose to the top again.
Jan’s mother-in-law pushed herself up and hobbled over to the sink. She opened a drawer. She looked over her shoulder at us and moved to block our view.
B.J. rolled the dice and counted seven spaces. “Woo-hoo. Free parking.” She held out her hand. “Okay, cough it up, everybody. I forget, how much do you all have to give me?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just free parking.”
“I think Melanie’s right,” Jan said.
“Great,” B.J. said. “We’ve been playing the longest game in the world for, like, two centuries, and now you two are going to start cheating.”
“Do you want me to Google the rules?” I said.
B.J. glared at me. “No, I don’t want you to Google the rules. I want you to play by them.”
Jan’s mother-in-law came back and sat down again. Next to her houses on Marvin Gardens she placed a candle, a pencil, and a tampon. She picked up the tampon and pointed it at the little television on the kitchen counter and made a clicking sound.
She put the tampon back down next to the pencil and adjusted her pink hat. Then she picked up the dice. “Whose thieving bastard children are you?” she asked them.
B.J. and I sat on the front steps, pretending we were taking a cigarette break.
“Isn’t Jan going to not smell the smoke?” I asked.
B.J. shrugged. “Whatever. One more minute in there and I was going to start trying to turn on the TV with a tampon, too.”
I sighed. “That poor thing.”
B.J. lit the candle. She held it like a cigarette and pretended to take a drag.
I shook my head. “I hope Jan’s mother-in-law doesn’t notice her candle is missing.”
“She’ll just think those thieving bastard dice took it.”
“Can you imagine ending up like that?”
B.J. blew some imaginary smoke rings. “Like Jan? I think her face will be fine once it loosens up a little.”
“I meant her mother-in-law.”
“We’ve both been there. It sucks. I’ve already told my kids to just take me out and shoot me when my quality of life starts to slip.”
“But what if you don’t realize your quality of life has started to slip? I mean, did you see how happy Jan’s mother-in-law was when she rolled those double sixes?”
B.J. started crisscrossing her candle in front of her like a sparkler, and I looked up at the stars twinkling away in the sky on this crisp summer night. Sitting there on the rough wooden steps, leaning back on my elbows, I had a moment of clarity about my own life. Sure, Kurt had left me, but I had so many more choices than either Veronica or Jan did, sandwiched as they were between two needier generations. For the first time in a long time, I felt almost lucky.
B.J. sighed. “I’m just so glad we didn’t waste any Tab on this night. How much longer do you think we have to stay?”
I sighed, too. “Weren’t we supposed to stay here the whole time? And we’re already a day late. And where else would we stay anyway?” I thought it through while I took a deep, candle-scented breath. “Another hour?”
B.J. took one more drag and then blew out her candle. “Forty-five minutes tops. And I don’t care if we have to sleep on the beach.”
CHAPTER 26
“The sunrise would have been worth the sore muscles,” B.J. said, “and the mosquito bites. And those awful midgies, or no-see-ums, or whatever it is they’re called.”
“Right,” I said, “until the cops came.”
“I didn’t even think of that. We should have done it just for the cops. It would have been a great story to tell at the reunion. Bummer, we definitely should have slept on the beach.”
“Right,” I said, “and then our tattoos would have gotten sandy and then they would have become infected and then we would have had to go to the doctor, who would’ve had to give you a—”
B.J. threw her pillow at me. “Highway, highway, highway.”
I threw mine back.
“Oh, grow up,” we said at the same time.
“Jinx,” we both yelled.
“I’m glad we stayed last night,” I said. “Well, not glad-glad, but happy-we-did-the-right-thing glad.”
“It’s tragic. An entire generation has gone from hovering over their kids to hovering over their parents and grandchildren without any time off for good behavior. It’s our civic duty to have some fun for Veronica and Jan and all the rest of the shut-ins in our class who can’t get out to do it on their own. You and I are the last wild girls standing, Thelma.”
I yawned. When I stretched the full length of my bed, the old springs creaked and my feet hit the iron posts of the footboard.
B.J. sat up and gave her bed a bounce. “These beds are right out of the asylum scenes in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. One more night in them and we’d both be stark raving nuts. Good thing I was still able to get us a hotel room for tonight. I think it’s probably for the best anyway. I mean, if it gets really wild at the reunion, it might be safer to stay within crawling distance.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but we’ll have to break it to Jan gently. And I promise I’ll pay you back for everything as soon as I straighten things out with Kurt.”
There was a knock on the door. “Good morning,” Jan said. She came in holding a tray loaded with coffee and scones.
“Wow,” B.J. said. “You could almost talk me into staying another night with that.”
“Smooth, Beej.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position.
Jan put the tray on the foot of B.J.’s bed and then opened the tiny closet. She pulled out a luggage rack and settled the tray on top of it. She handed us each a folded cloth napkin and a mug. She reached for the coffeepot.
B.J. and I jumped up before she could start serving us our scones and cutting them into bite-size pieces.
“Wow,” I said. “You didn’t have to do all that.”
Jan leaned back against the wall. “And you didn’t have to stay last night. Thank you. It meant a lot.”
B.J. grabbed a scone. “Where is she now?”
“Downstairs arranging her Cheerios on the kitchen table side by side with every round thing she can find in the house. I think it’s her way of trying to order a world that no longer makes sense.”
“Oh, that’s so sad,” I said. “How long have you, uh, had her?”
Jan shrugged. “I shouldn’t have her at all. She walked right out of her first nursing home and hit a nurse with her cane at the second one.”
B.J. opened her mouth to make a crack and then shut it again.
“So,” Jan continued, “we hired a companion to live with her in her year-round house, then we hired another companion after she ran away from that companion. And that companion just quit two days ago.”
“Where’s your husband?” B.J. asked. “I mean, after all, isn’t it his mother?”
Jan shrugged. “On a business trip—what else is new. I’ll tell you, if he doesn’t find a way to get his butt back in time for me to make it to the reunion—”
“Can you get some kind of respite care?” I said. “You know, just for the night?”
Jan tried to get her mouth to smile. “I’ve got some calls in.”
B.J. and I nodded encouragingly.
“And if that doesn’t work, I might just have to take her with me. You have no idea what I went through to get myself ready for this reunion.”
While B.J. took the first shower, I stripped the beds in Jan’s guest room and then took a walk on the beach, hoping to get enough cell service to check my email.
To: Melanie
From: Finn Miller
Subject: Re: Re: playlist
Whoa, baby. I’ll be
the first one in the door.
To: Finn Miller
From: Melanie
Subject: Re: Re: playlist
You knew groin was a typo, right?
Remember my friend B.J.? Well, I’m staying with herd and she’s on the committee, so I’ll be there early, too. I can’t believe it’s almost here. I have this crazy feeling, as if this, as if we were meant to pee.
I’ve been listening to your playlist over and over again. Today’s favorite song: “You Are Ho Beautiful.”
The tide was out. A long expanse of sand stretched before me, like a life filled with possibility. I stepped over the jumble of pebbles and seaweed at the high-tide line and then turned back. A perfect piece of sea glass I’d almost missed sparkled up at me.
I reached down to pick it up. I turned it over in my hand a few times, and then I called Ted Brody.
He answered his phone on the second ring. “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise. Unless you accidentally called the wrong number and you’re about to yell at me.”
I laughed. “Nope, I just thought it was my turn to call you.”
“I’m glad you did. So, what’s up?”
“I have an idea for the cement walkway that leads up to your restaurant.”
“And to think I wasn’t even aware that ideas for cement walkways were a possibility.”
“Okay, picture this. We mix up a batch of cement and spread just a thin coat on top of the existing walkway. We sprinkle some sea glass over it, and smooth it down with a board. And once it’s dry, Sprout has a sparkling, beckoning entrance that’s not only unique and beautiful, but impossible to resist. Customers will be lined up out to the street.”
“I like the sound of that.”
I bent down and picked up another piece of sea glass. “They’ve done it down by the waterfront here, and it’s spectacular. I’ll take some pictures for you.”
“Sounds great. But in case you’ve forgotten, Atlanta isn’t on the ocean, so finding sea glass here can be surprisingly tricky.”