by Sarah Jio
“Good,” she said. “I’ll order you a drink.”
The Calumet, our favorite lunch spot, was four blocks from my apartment, and when I arrived ten minutes later, Annabelle greeted me with a hug.
“Are you hungry?” she asked after we sat down.
I sighed. “No.”
Annabelle frowned. “Carbs,” she said, passing me the bread basket. “You need carbs. Now, where are those papers? Let’s get this over with.”
I pulled the envelope out of my bag and set it on the table, staring at it with the sort of caution one might reserve for dynamite.
“You realize this is all your fault,” Annabelle said, half-smiling.
I gave her a dirty look. “What do you mean, my fault?”
“You don’t marry men named Joel,” she continued with that tsk-tsk sound in her voice. “Nobody marries Joels. You date Joels, you let them buy you drinks and pretty little things from Tiffany, but you don’t marry them.”
Annabelle was working on her PhD in social anthropology. In her two years of research, she had analyzed marriage and divorce data in an unconventional way. According to her findings, a marriage’s success rate can be accurately predicted by the man’s name.
Marry an Eli and you’re likely to enjoy wedded bliss for about 12.3 years. Brad? 6.4. Steves peter out after just four. And as far as Annabelle is concerned, don’t ever—ever—marry a Preston.
“So what does the data say about Joel again?”
“Seven point two years,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I nodded. We had been married for six years and two weeks.
“You need to find yourself a Trent,” she continued.
I made a displeased face. “I hate the name Trent.”
“OK, then an Edward or a Bill, or—no, a Bruce,” she said. “These are names with marital longevity.”
“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe you should take me husband-shopping at a retirement home.”
Annabelle is tall and thin and beautiful—Julia Roberts beautiful, with her long, wavy dark hair, porcelain skin, and intense dark eyes. At thirty-three she had never been married. The reason, she’d tell you, was jazz. She couldn’t find a man who liked Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock as much as she did.
She waved for the waiter. “We’ll take two more, please.” He whisked away my martini glass, leaving a water ring on the envelope.
“It’s time,” she said softly.
My hand trembled a little as I reached into the envelope and pulled out a stack of papers about a half-inch thick. My lawyer’s assistant had flagged three pages with hot pink “sign here” sticky notes.
I reached into my bag for a pen and felt a lump in my throat as I signed my name on the first page, and then the next, and then the next. Emily Wilson, with an elongated y and a pronounced n. It was the exact way I’d signed my name since the fifth grade. Then I scrawled out the date, February 28, 2005, the day our marriage was laid to rest.
“Good girl,” Annabelle said, inching a fresh martini closer to me. “So are you going to write about Joel?” Because I am a writer, Annabelle, like everyone else I knew, believed that writing about my relationship with Joel as a thinly veiled novel would be the best revenge.
“You could build a whole story around him, except change his name slightly,” she continued. “Maybe call him Joe, and make him look like a total jerk.” She took a bite and nearly choked on her food, laughing, before saying, “No, a jerk with erectile dysfunction.”
The only problem is that even if I had wanted to write a revenge novel about Joel, which I didn’t, it would have been a terrible book. Anything I got down on paper, if I could get anything down on paper, would have lacked imagination. I know this because I had woken up every day for the past eight years, sat at my desk, and stared at a blank screen. Sometimes I’d crank out a great line, or a few solid pages, but then I’d get stuck. And once I was frozen, there was no melting the ice.
My therapist, Bonnie, called it clinical (as in terminal) writer’s block. My muse had taken ill, and her prognosis didn’t look good.
Eight years ago I wrote a best-selling novel. Eight years ago I was on top of the world. I was skinny—not that I’m fat now (well, OK, so the thighs, yes, maybe a little)—and on the New York Times best seller list. And if there were such a thing as the New York Times best life list, I would have been on that, too.
After my book, Calling Ali Larson, was published, my agent encouraged me to write a follow-up. Readers wanted a sequel, she told me. And my publisher had already offered to double my advance for a second book. But as hard as I tried, I had nothing more to write, nothing more to say. And eventually, my agent stopped calling. Publishers stopped wondering. Readers stopped caring. The only evidence that my former life wasn’t just a figment was the royalty checks that came in the mail every so often and an occasional letter I received from a somewhat deranged reader by the name of Lester McCain, who believed he was in love with Ali, my book’s main character.
I still remember the rush I felt when Joel walked up to me at my book release party at the Madison Park Hotel. He was at some cocktail party in an adjoining room when he saw me standing in the doorway. I was wearing a Betsey Johnson dress, which in 1997 was the ultimate: a black strapless number that I’d spent an embarrassing amount of money on. But, oh yes, it was worth every penny. It was still in my closet, but I suddenly had the urge to go home and burn it.
“You look stunning,” he had said, rather boldly, before even introducing himself. I remember how I felt when I heard him utter those words. It could have been his trademark pick-up line, and let’s be real, it probably was. But it made me feel like a million bucks. It was so Joel.
A few months prior to that, GQ had done a big spread on the most eligible “regular-guy” bachelors in America—no, not the list that every two years always features George Clooney; the one that listed a surfer in San Diego, a dentist in Pennsylvania, a teacher in Detroit, and, yes, an attorney in New York, Joel. He had made the Top 10. And somehow, I had snagged him.
And lost him.
Annabelle was waving her hands in front of me. “Earth to Emily,” she said.
“Sorry,” I replied, shuddering a little. “No, I won’t be writing about Joel.” I shook my head and tucked the papers back into the envelope, then put it in my bag. “If I write anything again, it will be different than any story I’ve ever tried to write.”
Annabelle shot me a confused look. “What about the follow-up to your last book? Aren’t you going to finish that?”
“Not anymore,” I said, folding a paper napkin in half and then in half again.
“Why not?”
I sighed. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t force myself to churn out 85,000 mediocre words, even if it means a book deal. Even if it means thousands of readers with my book in their hands on beach vacations. No, if I ever write anything again—if I ever write again—it will be different.”
Annabelle looked as if she wanted to stand up and applaud. “Look at you,” she said, smiling. “You’re having a breakthrough.”
“No I’m not,” I said stubbornly.
“Sure you are,” she countered. “Let’s analyze this some more.” She clasped her hands together. “You said you want to write something different, but what I think you mean is that your heart wasn’t in your last book.”
“You could say that, yes,” I said, shrugging.
Annabelle retrieved an olive from her martini glass and popped it into her mouth. “Why don’t you write about something you actually care about?” she said a moment later. “Like a place, or a person that inspired you.”
I nodded. “Isn’t that what every writer tries to do?”
“Yeah,” she said, shooing away the waiter with a “we’re fine, and no we would not like the bill yet” look, then turning back to me with intense eyes. “But have you actually tried it? I mean, your book was fantastic—it really was, Em—but was there anything in it that was, well, y
ou?”
She was right. It was a fine story. It was a best seller, for crying out loud. So why couldn’t I feel proud of it? Why didn’t I feel connected to it?
“I’ve known you a long time,” she continued, “and I know that it wasn’t a story that grew out of your life, your experiences.”
It wasn’t. But what in my life could I draw from? I thought about my parents and grandparents, and then shook my head. “That’s the problem,” I said. “Other writers have plenty to mine from—bad mothers, abuse, adventurous childhoods. My life has been so vanilla. No deaths. No trauma. Not even a dead pet. Mom’s cat, Oscar, is twenty-two years old. There’s nothing there that warrants storytelling, believe me; I’ve thought about it.”
“I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit,” she said. “There must be something. Some spark.”
This time I permitted my mind to wander, and when it did, I immediately thought of my great-aunt Bee, my mother’s aunt, and her home on Bainbridge Island, in Washington State. I missed her as much as I missed the island. How had I let so many years pass since my last visit? Bee, who was eighty-five going on twenty-nine, had never had children, so my sister and I, by default, became her surrogate grandchildren. She sent us birthday cards with crisp fifty-dollar bills inside, Christmas gifts that were actually cool, and Valentine’s Day candy, and when we’d visit in the summers from our home in Portland, Oregon, she’d sneak chocolate under our pillows before our mother could scream, “No, they just brushed their teeth!”
Bee was unconventional, indeed. But there was also something a little off about her. The way she talked too much. Or talked too little. The way she was simultaneously welcoming and petulant, giving and selfish. And then there were her secrets. I loved her for having them.
My mother always said that when people live alone for the better part of their lives they become immune to their own quirks. I wasn’t sure if I bought into the theory or not, partly because I was worried about a lifetime of spinsterhood myself. I contented myself with watching for signs.
Bee. I could picture her immediately at her Bainbridge Island kitchen table. For every day I have known her, she has eaten the same breakfast: sourdough toast with butter and whipped honey. She slices the golden brown toasted bread into four small squares and places them on a paper towel she has folded in half. A generous smear of softened butter goes on each piece, as thick as frosting on a cupcake, and each is then topped by a good-size dollop of whipped honey. As a child, I watched her do this hundreds of times, and now, when I’m sick, sourdough toast with butter and honey is like medicine.
Bee isn’t a beautiful woman. She towers above most men, with a face that is somehow too wide, shoulders too large, teeth too big. Yet the black-and-white photos of her youth reveal a spark of something, a certain prettiness that all women have in their twenties.
I used to love a particular photo of her at just that age, which hung in a seashell-covered frame high on the wall in the hallway of my childhood home, hardly in a place of honor, as one had to stand on a step stool to see it clearly. The old, scalloped-edge photo depicted a Bee I’d never known. Seated with a group of friends on a beach blanket, she appeared carefree and was smiling seductively. Another woman leaned in close to her, whispering in her ear. A secret. Bee clutched a string of pearls dangling from her neck and gazed at the camera in a way I’d never witnessed her look at Uncle Bill. I wondered who stood behind the lens that day so many years ago.
“What did she say?” I asked my mother one day as a child, peering up at the photograph.
Mom didn’t look up from the laundry she was wrestling with in the hallway. “What did who say?”
I pointed to the woman next to Bee. “The pretty lady whispering in Aunt Bee’s ear.”
Mom immediately stood up and walked to my side. She reached up and wiped away the dust on the glass frame with the edge of her sweater. “We’ll never know,” she said, her regret palpable as she regarded the photo.
My mother’s late uncle, Bill, was a handsome World War II hero. Everybody said he had married Bee for her money, but it’s a theory that didn’t hold weight with me. I had seen the way he kissed her, the way he wrapped his arms around her waist during those summers of my childhood. He had loved her; there was no doubt of that.
Even so, I knew by the way my mother talked that she disapproved of their relationship, that she believed Bill could have done better for himself. Bee, in her mind, was too unconventional, too unladylike, too brash, too everything.
Yet we kept coming to visit Bee, summer after summer. Even after Uncle Bill died when I was nine. The place was kind of ethereal, with the seagulls flying overhead, the sprawling gardens, the smell of the Puget Sound, the big kitchen with its windows facing out onto the gray water, the haunting hum of the waves crashing on the shore. My sister and I loved it, and despite my mother’s feelings about Bee, I know she loved the place too. It had a tranquilizing effect on all of us.
Annabelle gave me a knowing look. “You do have a story in there, don’t you?”
I sighed. “Maybe,” I said noncommittally.
“Why don’t you take a trip?” she suggested. “You need to get away, to clear your head for a while.”
I scrunched up my nose at the idea. “Where would I go?”
“Somewhere far away from here.”
She was right. The Big Apple is a fair-weather friend. The city loves you when you’re flying high and kicks you when you’re down.
“Will you come with me?” I imagined the two of us on a tropical beach, with umbrella cocktails.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?” I felt like a puppy—a scared, lost puppy who just wanted someone to put her collar on and show her where to go, what to do, how to be.
“I can’t go with you because you need to do this on your own.” Her words jarred me. She looked me straight in the eye, as if I needed to absorb every drop of what she was about to say. “Em, your marriage has ended and, well, it’s just that you haven’t shed a single tear.”
On the walk back to my apartment I thought about what Annabelle had said, and my thoughts, once again, turned to my aunt Bee. How have I let so many years pass without visiting her?
I heard a shrill, shrieking sound above my head, the unmistakable sound of metal on metal, and looked up. A copper duck weather vane, weathered to a rich gray-green patina, stood at attention on the roof of a nearby café. It twirled noisily in the wind.
My heart pounded as I took in the familiar sight. Where had I seen it before? Then it hit me. The painting. Bee’s painting. Until that moment, I had forgotten about the five-by-seven canvas she’d given me when I was a child. She used to paint, and I remember the great sense of honor I felt when she chose me to be the caretaker of the artwork. I had called it a masterpiece, and my words made her smile.
I closed my eyes and could see the oil-painted seascape perfectly: the duck weather vane perched atop that old beach cottage, and the couple, hand in hand, on the shore.
I felt overcome with guilt. Where was the painting? I’d packed it away after Joel and I moved into the apartment—he didn’t think it matched our decor. Just like I’d distanced myself from the island I’d loved as a child, I had packed away the relics of my past in boxes. Why? For what?
I picked up my pace until it turned into a full-fledged jog. I thought of Years of Grace. Did the painting accidentally end up in a box of Joel’s things too? Or worse, did I mistakenly pack it in a box of books and clothes for the Goodwill pickup? I reached the door to the apartment and jammed my key into the lock, then sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom and flung open the closet door. There, on the top shelf, were two boxes. I pulled one down and rummaged through its contents: a few stuffed animals from childhood, a box of old Polaroids, and several notebooks’ worth of clippings from my two-year stint writing for the college newspaper. Still, no painting.
I reached for the second box, and looked inside to find a Raggedy Ann do
ll, a box of notes from junior high crushes, and my beloved Strawberry Shortcake diary from elementary school. That was it.
How could I have lost it? How could I have been so careless? I stood up, giving the closet a final once-over. A plastic bag shoved far into the back corner suddenly caught my eye. My heart raced with anticipation as I pulled it out into the light.
Inside the bag, wrapped in a turquoise and pink beach towel, was the painting. Something deep inside me ached as I clutched it in my hands. The weather vane. The beach. The old cottage. They were all as I remembered them. But not the couple. No, something was different. I had always imagined the subjects to be Bee and Uncle Bill. The woman was most certainly Bee, with her long legs and trademark baby blue capri pants. Her “summer pants,” she’d called them. But the man wasn’t Uncle Bill. No. How could I have missed this? Bill had light hair, sandy blond. But this man had thick, wavy dark hair. Who was he? And why did Bee paint herself with him?
I left the mess on the floor and walked, with the painting, downstairs to my address book. I punched the familiar numbers into the phone and took a long, deep breath, listening to the chime of the first ring and then the second.
“Hello?” Her voice was the same—deep and strong, with soft edges.
“Bee, it’s me, Emily,” I said, my voice cracking a little. “I’m sorry it’s been so long. It’s just that I—”
“Nonsense, dear,” she said. “No apologies necessary. Did you get my postcard?”
“Your postcard?”
“Yes, I sent it last week after I heard your news.”
“You heard?” I hadn’t told very many people about Joel. Not my parents in Portland—not yet, anyway. Not my sister in Los Angeles, with her perfect children, doting husband, and organic vegetable garden. Not even my therapist. Even so, I wasn’t surprised that the news had made its way to Bainbridge Island.
“Yes,” she said. “And I wondered if you’d come for a visit.” She paused. “This island is a marvelous place to heal.”
I ran my finger along the edge of the painting. I wanted to be there just then—on Bainbridge Island, in Bee’s big, warm kitchen.