by Mary Carter
“Aunt Olivia. Your aunt Olivia.”
“My aunt Olivia.”
“And she never told you?”
“I mean, I’d seen a deck of cards about her place, but she would never even have a game with me.”
“I wonder why.”
“I think she wanted to keep up a role-model image of herself. You know. To make up for Mom.”
“Wow.” Bailey was ashamed of herself for judging Olivia. Maybe if Bailey had been a little nicer, Olivia would have liked her. She would have invited her to play poker. Why hadn’t the old broad ever taken them for a spin in the Jag? They could’ve been the best of pals.
And why didn’t she spend her winnings while she was alive? Because she was from the Rainy Day Generation. Bailey couldn’t remember Olivia ever giving them a single gift. She sent cards instead, filled with bookmarks with pictures of kittens, and chimpanzees, and once an overweight possum “Hanging in there.” How much money did she have? So far Brad hadn’t exactly spilled all the dirty details. Bailey wanted to drive, but Brad was finally in a better mood and she wasn’t going to push it.
Sitting in this sexy car, Bailey began to get a few ideas. They hadn’t made love since the accident. Brad hadn’t seemed in the mood, and Bailey respected that. But sitting here, as her husband accelerated their new Jag, Bailey started feeling amorous. They used to love having sex in the backseat of cars. The cramped space, the sweat, the rush, the fear of being caught. Some of the best sex of their lives had been in the backseat of a Chevy Nova. What would it be like in this Jag?
Brad must have been thinking the same thing. He too was looking in the backseat. But unlike Bailey, he appeared to be talking to it.
“You ready?” he said.
“For a quickie in the backseat?” Bailey put her hand on Brad’s knee and squeezed.
“What?” Brad sounded appalled. “No.”
“Oh,” Bailey said.
“I’m sorry,” Brad said. He glanced in the rearview mirror. “It’s just that I was . . . talking to . . . Aunt Olivia.”
Bailey whipped her head around to the backseat. There, with its seat belt fastened around it, sat Aunt Olivia’s urn. All thoughts of having sex in the backseat evaporated from Bailey’s thoughts.
“Have you finally decided?” she asked tentatively. She’d been waiting for him to decide where to scatter the ashes. Maybe once he let go of them, he’d let go of all this near-death stuff.
“Decided?”
“Where to sprinkle her ashes.”
“Oh,” Brad said. “No.”
No, Bailey repeated to herself. No. She tried to keep her voice light, and not at all worried about his sanity. “Okay. Then why is her urn in the backseat?”
“We’re taking her for a little drive.” Brad broke into a boyish grin.
“Come again?”
“I thought she’d like to drive around the city.”
“Pull over,” Bailey demanded. “Right now.”
“We’re in the middle of Fifth Avenue.”
“Find a place and pull over. Please, Brad.” Brad swung the wheel to the right like a petulant child, and the Jaguar smoothly cut across two lanes and maneuvered along the curb. God, Bailey loved this car. It momentarily distracted her from the backseat.
“What?” Brad said.
“Why are you driving Olivia’s urn around?” Bailey asked.
“I just thought it would be nice.”
“Okay,” Bailey said. “But it’s kind of weird too. Don’t you think?” Please say yes. Please, please, say yes.
Brad sighed, glanced in the backseat again. “She wanted to drive around that day,” Brad said. “And we barely went anywhere.”
Bailey pressed the unlock button for her door and threw it open. Fifth Avenue smelled like rain and long-forgotten hot dogs.
“Where are you going?” Brad said.
“I just need a little air,” Bailey said.
“Why don’t you just roll down the window?”
“I thought I might take a little walk.”
“Now?”
“I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through a lot. I just—it’s been really stressful for me too, you know. And I don’t want to say anything hurtful or anything I’ll regret. So I think while you’re driving Auntie around, I’ll just walk home, get a little fresh air.”
“A half a million dollars!”
“What?”
“Aunt Olivia left us a little over a half a mill,” Brad said. Bailey shut the door. She stared at Brad for a long time. Cars swished past them. Central Park horses and carriages headed home for the night. Lights twinkled down the length of Fifth Avenue. Slowly, Bailey turned and stared at Olivia’s urn. She felt a sudden fondness for the old gal. It was as if in death, Olivia Jordan had finally come to life.
“Let’s take her over the Brooklyn Bridge, and then to the Bronx Zoo,” Bailey said.
Sudden wealth. They needed time to breathe and comprehend. Half millionaires. Bailey had been called a lot of things in her lifetime, but an “almost millionaire” was not one of them. And surely, with the right investments, they could lose the “almost” and become true millionaires.
Bailey rolled the word around on her tongue, trying to get used to it. They were lying in bed, having made love for the first time since the accident. One of the benefits of Brad coming back to life was that he had decided to appreciate everything, love everything like it was the first time. And it paid off in bed. Brad seemed to adore every inch of her. And even though he still insisted on wearing a condom, Bailey knew it was just a matter of time before they started trying. After all, they had the money now—Brad would be out of excuses. She snuggled next to him, caressed his head, fuzzy with the hair just starting to come back in. Except for Olivia’s urn looming over them from the dresser, everything seemed just a little bit perfect.
Brad took Bailey’s hand. “I think you’re absolutely right,” he said. “Relive is much more romantic than remember. Because it emphasizes living.”
“Uh-huh,” Bailey said. She hoped the baby had Brad’s dimples and her love of spicy food.
“I think we should learn from this. I think we should start living before it’s too late.”
“What?” She recognized his tone of voice. It was the tone Brad used before starting every one of his failed business ventures. She sat up in bed. “We do live,” she said. “We are living.”
“Are we?” Brad said. “Or are we just going through the motions?”
“We’re not going through the motions. We’re in motion. Motion is good.”
“We have choices to make,” Brad said. “With money comes great responsibility.”
“Exactly,” Bailey said. “Wait here.” She jumped off the bed and opened the top drawer of her dresser. It was still dark, but she rattled it anyway.
“What’s that noise?”
“Hold out your hand.” Bailey joined Brad on the bed again and placed the rattle in his hand. “Open.” He opened his eyes and stared at it. “A baby,” Bailey said when he didn’t speak. “We should really start trying.” Brad still didn’t respond. “What do you think?”
“I’d say we already got our practice in for the day.” Brad shook the rattle.
“You used a condom,” Bailey said.
“I said practice.”
“Well, next time let’s practice without a condom, shall we?”
“Are you sure we’re ready for that?”
“I can’t think of a better time. Can you?”
“I’ve got a few things I want to do first,” Brad said. “My bucket list.” He tossed the rattle aside like it was part of a practical joke. Bailey picked it up. You already kicked the bucket, Bailey thought. Isn’t it too late to make a list?
“Like what?” She sounded harsh. She didn’t mean to, but her resentment spilled out of her. Brad rolled away from her. Silence stretched and then loomed. “It’s not like we have to decide anything tonight,” Bailey said. She reached out and touched Brad�
��s back. He rolled over and faced her again. She smiled at him and gently traced his lips with the tip of her finger. He kissed her finger, then took her hand.
“You’re right, you’re right. Nothing has to be said tonight,” Brad said. “But I have some ideas.” Bailey nodded, rolled out of his grip, off the bed, and wandered over to the window. If you laid your stomach on the windowsill, stuck your body out far enough, and looked to the left, you could see the Hudson River.
He had some ideas? Brad Jordan and his ideas. The surf shop was the first one. They were so young then. Tan, and happy, and looking good in their swimsuits. They had just moved to sunny California and life was easy. Every head on the beach used to turn when Brad Jordan walked by. But he was looking at the surfboards. He didn’t even surf, but he didn’t like the design of the boards or the attitudes of the “dudes in the shops.”
One day while they were body surfing, catching waves and waiting to see whose swimsuit the rush of water would take down, Brad grabbed her.
“A surf shop!” he said. “B and B Boards!”
Bailey didn’t even hesitate. “Oh my God,” she said. “I love it.” What she really loved was the idea of their initials forever etched into a sign, hanging for all to see on Santa Monica Boulevard.
“Brilliant, right?” Brad said.
“Right!” B&B Boards lasted five months. They were new to all aspects of running a business, and the more experienced shops in town were determined to crush them. It didn’t take long before Brad wanted out.
“We’re not Californians,” he said. “We’re intellectuals. We love to read, to debate, to climb mountains.”
“We do?” Bailey said. She couldn’t remember them ever climbing a mountain.
“We will,” he said. “Seattle! Mount Rainier! Coffee shops! Literary types! Sweaters!”
“Sweaters?”
“It’s always raining in Seattle. People are chilly all year round. What do all those coffee commercials show?”
“People in bulky sweaters.” It was true. All coffee commercials she could remember featured people cocooned in wool, standing outside with steaming mugs of java, mountains towering in the background. That one lasted less than a year. Bailey couldn’t stop sneezing, and it was turning off customers.
The Coffee Clutch in Colorado was next. The most depressing failure of all since Bailey actually loved running the place. They made it just shy of five years before they were forced to close the books on that one. Each “idea” had driven them deeper in debt, and Brad deeper into depression. It was a vicious cycle. Get your hopes up; pour yourself into it mind, body, and soul; spend every penny you have; get crushed. She should pounce on him, chase out whatever ideas he had in his head. But she knew better. She had to be calm and rational. If she hated the ideas off the bat, he would be that more passionate about them, it’s just how he worked. But if she pretended to consider the ideas, then calmly, slowly, and logically pointed out their many, many flaws, she might be able to talk him down.
Besides, did she really care what he did with the money? As long as he kept his promise that they would stay in New York and agreed to put at least half down on the condo, or into stocks, or something (baby fund, baby fund, baby fund!), then he could be free to pursue whatever he was dreaming up next. She would be mature and drop it for the evening. Seriously, whatever ideas he had could wait until morning. After several cups of coffee. Absolutely no good would come from discussing ideas this evening. She pulled her body out of the window, turned, and faced her husband.
“What ideas?” she asked.
Chapter 7
Who wouldn’t want to live in a lighthouse? Bailey. Bailey wouldn’t want to live in a lighthouse. She didn’t even like night-lights when she was a kid. Brad followed Bailey around as she began to pace through the apartment, trying to see if she could physically shake her mounting feelings of dread and déjà vu.
“We’ll turn it into a bed-and-breakfast,” Brad said. “Isn’t that brilliant?”
No. She certainly didn’t want to make the beds of total strangers, or clean multiple sinks and toilets, or call them “our lovely guests,” or cook breakfast for them at all hours of the morning, or come running like a pair of Pavlovian dogs whenever someone rang the little bell on the counter. No freaking way.
Perhaps she should have taken note of the fact that the love of her life didn’t say, who wouldn’t want to run a B&B? To him, the glory of living in a lighthouse overshadowed the business side of his latest endeavor. He wanted to live in a lighthouse first, and incidentally invite total strangers to spend every night with them to fund it second. Bailey did her best to humor him.
“Don’t you ever watch MSNBC Investigates? We’d be stuck on an island, in a lighthouse with potential lunatics. If our lives are in danger, are we supposed to swim for help?”
“There are lights,” he said. “And horns. We could have the Coast Guard there in minutes.”
“An axe murderer only needs seconds. Seconds.”
“You’ll love it,” he said next, as if he didn’t hear her. “We have to do this. We’re never going to have another shot like this.”
The irony was, being named Bailey and Brad, their close friends had always called them B&B. Was that what this was all about? Had years of auditory conditioning hypnotized her husband into thinking they were destined to operate a B&B?
“I’ve been doing research,” he said. “On the ‘inns’ and outs of running a B&B. Get it?”
But she didn’t get it, she didn’t get it at all.
It was a joke. Inns and outs. As in i-n-n-s. He spelled it in the air with his fingers.
It still wasn’t funny.
“Can you picture it? Bailey, baby, can you see it calling to us?”
“Drawing us in so we’ll crash on the rocks?”
He smiled, but he didn’t think she was funny either. His face took on a quiet, serious stillness. “Don’t you see it? Don’t you want it?”
It had all transpired in less than five minutes. Five minutes in which Bailey could already see the life she thought they were going to live crumbling before her very eyes. Bailey pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. It was a calming technique she’d learned in order to distract herself from smashing objects against the wall. But this time, it wasn’t the wall she wanted to hurl something at, it was Brad. It was just stress. And fatigue. This is why you never, ever talked about serious subjects before bed. Bailey flopped on the couch in their cozy living room. All chances of getting a wink of sleep had flown out the window. Brad remained standing, hovering actually, which wasn’t hard to do given the square footage of their apartment.
“Does this have something to do with your near-death experience?” Bailey said. She had to ask. Brad didn’t answer. Bailey continued. “Because buying a lighthouse won’t help Olivia find that other light—which I’m sure she already did—”
“It’s not that—but it’s a wonderful metaphor, don’t you think? Our guests will be drawn to the light! I’ll be a keeper of the light.”
“Brad.”
“A lighthouse. We’re actually going to live in a lighthouse. It’s a dream come true, it’s a dream.”
“It’s not a dream. It’s a total nightmare. Wait. Did you say?”
“Did I say what?” Bailey looked at her husband’s face. He was trying to look innocent. He had that little-boy expression. But he’d said it all right. Like her, Brad liked language. He knew the nuances. And even as she asked it, Bailey already knew the answer.
“Tell me you didn’t already buy a lighthouse!”
He’d gone to an auction. Just to pass time, he insisted, just to pass time. A lighthouse went up for bid. It was quite common these days; GPS systems were making lighthouses obsolete. The Coast Guard was off-loading them as fast as they could. An actual lighthouse with a keeper’s house and everything. It was a sign. He had been led to this auction, this was the answer he’d been seeking. A lighthouse B&B. He bid. Others bid. It made him sw
eat. It made him mad. He bid. Others bid. He bid higher. And of course he won. Brad insisted he won because he was astute and aggressive. Bailey thought he won because no one in his or her right mind wanted a lighthouse on the Hudson River. Bailey didn’t even know there were lighthouses on the Hudson River. Back in the day, Brad told her, there were as many as fourteen. Now there were nine.
Perhaps she could have forgiven him if it had been New England. She would have warmed to the idea of a second home in Maine, or Rhode Island. California even. As long as somebody else was running the bed-and-breakfast year-round and they were the rich lazy couple who visited when they wanted to get away from the city. But no. Brad wanted them to move. He wanted their lives to change a hundred and eighty degrees.
“It’s perfect. It’s upstate,” Brad said. “Until you get used to the idea, you can commute.”
“I can commute?”
“I’m going to start calling you parrot if you keep doing that.”
“You said it’s two hours from Manhattan. Do you expect me to commute four hours a day?”
“You could come on the weekends.”
Bailey could not believe her husband had just said that to her, could not believe he wanted nothing more than a weekend wife. He didn’t even seem to notice how much it hurt her. For a man who’d experienced such a strong spiritual transformation, he was more out of touch than ever. “I see. And how much did you spend on this overblown man cave?”
“Overblown man cave?” He sounded angry. She was using all of her energy to be patient and he was snapping at her at the drop of a hat. It was time to get a little tougher with him.
“See? Sometimes repetition is a necessary evil. It allows your brain to process the incomprehensible.”
“Just look at the pictures, Bails.” Bailey was back to pacing, but forced herself to remain in the living room since she was dying to get her hands on Olivia’s urn and hurl it out the window. Brad handed her a folder. Inside was a sales contract and photocopied pictures of a white stone house with an attached lighthouse rising behind it. Surrounded by water.
“I don’t see any roads,” Bailey said. “Where are the roads?”