The Best of Us

by Sarah Pekkanen

  He was praying, Pauline realized. She wished she could hear him.

  Carlos opened his eyes again and reached down to adjust Therese’s blanket, the gesture as natural as if he’d done it dozens of times before. He probably had, Pauline realized with a start.

  Then Carlos lifted Therese’s right hand and held it between his own. Her eyes stayed closed, and her hand was limp in his much bigger one.

  “Would you mind if I sang to her?” he asked.

  “Sang?” Pauline’s mother asked. “No, I don’t mind . . . of course not.”

  Carlos nodded.

  “ ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,’ ” he began. His voice was off-key, but deep and gentle. “ ‘You make me happy, when skies are gray . . .’ ”

  Pauline didn’t realize she was crying until a tear splashed onto her lap.

  Carlos finished the song. “It’s one of her favorites,” he said. “This and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.’ ”

  Pauline stared at him. “It is?” she whispered. “She has a favorite song? How do you know?”

  “She always looks happy when I sing it,” Carlos said simply. “She smiles sometimes.”

  Pauline stood up and fumbled to put her purse’s strap over her shoulder. “I’ll—I’ll be right back,” she said.

  “Pauline?” her mother called.

  But Pauline was already running down the hallway. She tore down three flights of stairs and kept running, past the blond woman at the coffee kiosk in the lobby, through the automatic sliding doors, and down the sidewalk toward the parking garage where she’d left her car just hours ago. A lifetime ago.

  * * *

  Savannah was in the middle of a delicious fantasy about the crewman from the catamaran when her iPhone rang. She sighed and began to roll over in her lounge chair, thinking that maybe a buyer had finally made an offer on the house with the ugly family photos and peeling wallpaper. She’d try to keep her voice professional, even though she was hot, horny, and half-asleep.

  Then she recognized the ring tone: Carrie Underwood singing, “I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seat . . . Maybe next time he’ll think before he cheats.”

  She stared at the phone for a second before answering with a terse “Yes?”

  “Savannah?”

  She inhaled quickly, feeling her body tense. She hadn’t heard his voice in months.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to talk.”

  How typically Gary. No apology, no chitchat—just a simple, declarative sentence. She used to love his directness.

  “Really?” She purred, stretching out the word even as her heart began to pound. “And what exactly would you like to talk about, Gary?”

  “Savannah, I know I screwed up.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d wanted to hear those words so desperately in the weeks after he left. But now? She was too numb to feel vindicated.

  “Actually, you screwed your way down,” she said. “I know what your girlfriend looks like.”

  Maybe she shouldn’t have given away that particular detail. Gary didn’t need to know that she’d lurked by the elevator in the hospital’s employee parking lot, waiting to see The Nurse exit after her shift one evening. This, of course, after she’d called the hospital to verify that The Nurse was working (speaking her name aloud was so awful that Savannah had vowed never to do it again). Of course, Savannah had also Googled her and found a few photos on Facebook to confirm she’d be viewing the right woman. She was proud of her investigative prowess, actually.

  She could hear Gary sigh. “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  “Really?” Savannah said. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  She couldn’t believe how cool she was playing it. Thank God they were talking on the phone and not in person—she knew the expression on her face didn’t match her casual tone.

  “Please. Can I see you?” he asked. “Just to talk.”

  “Well, that might be a little difficult,” she said. “Since I’m in Jamaica.”

  “Jamaica?” Gary asked. He paused, and she could almost see him tapping his chin with his index finger as he formulated a Plan B. Gary always could come up with a Plan B, whether they’d gotten lost on the way to a party or been overcharged by a repairman. “Okay, when will you be back? I can come over then.”

  No. She wasn’t going to let him control things. He’d given up that right the day he walked out.

  “You really want to talk?” she asked. “Okay, then. I’m available tonight at ten o’clock. I’m afraid that’s the only opening I have in my schedule for the foreseeable future.”

  “Sure,” Gary said, sounding puzzled. “I wanted to do it in person, but I guess I could call you back.”

  “Nope,” Savannah said. This was actually fun. Gary had gutted her emotionally, and now she relished the chance to torture him a bit. “If you truly want to talk, you’ll be here at ten o’clock.”

  “In Jamaica?”

  “We’re at a private villa in Negril. It’s called Summer Escape.”

  “But . . . that’s in seven hours. I can’t get there in seven hours.”

  “Technically you can,” Savannah said. “Unless it’s not important enough to you.”

  “Savannah, look—” Gary began, but she pressed a button to cut off the call.

  She lay there for a moment, not believing what had just happened. Then she glanced to her left, where Tina and Allie were sitting bolt upright on their lounge chairs, staring at her.

  “No way did you just do that,” Tina said.

  “Yup,” Savannah said.

  “You told Gary to come here? Tonight?”

  “It appears so,” Savannah said. She gave a little laugh.

  She couldn’t believe how good she felt. When Gary left, her confidence had been deeply shaken. She knew he was the one with the character flaw, but she couldn’t help questioning whether she was smart enough, interesting enough, knowledgeable enough. Gary was brilliant—he could converse about national politics as easily as he could about chemistry or the stock market. But while Savannah had always been savvy and quick, she’d never been a particularly good student. She’d barely squeaked into UVa, and she knew it was only because admissions officials went easier on students who lived in state. Even so, she’d been wait-listed at first. She hated reading the newspaper, other than the gossip columns, and she’d once been deeply embarrassed while playing some silly game at a party when she couldn’t point to Ohio on the U.S. map.

  But now she was the one with power. Gary wanted her back.

  “Savannah, what are you going to do?” Allie asked.

  “I haven’t exactly figured that part out yet,” Savannah said.

  She was meeting the crewman at ten o’clock, which was probably why she’d blurted out that precise time. She had no idea if Gary would show up or not—he’d have to scramble to get coverage at work, plus find a flight and locate the villa—but she certainly wasn’t going to wait around to see if he managed it.

  “Um, Savannah?” Tina was saying. “Do you really think Gary’s going to come here?”

  Savannah smiled and put on her sunglasses. Tina and Allie were freaking out, but for some reason she felt calmer than she’d been in a long time. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  * * *

  Allie stood outside Pauline’s room, debating what to do.

  The door was cracked, but she couldn’t hear any noise from inside. She started to turn away, then Pauline called out, “Is someone there?”

  “It’s just me. Allie.”

  “Come in,” Pauline said.

  Allie pushed open the door, but she didn’t step inside.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m sorry to bother you. Savannah went down to the beach to tell the guys, but I thought you should know, too, since you’re our hostess. There’s a chance her husband, Gary, might join us here after
all.”

  Pauline was sitting all the way across the expansive room, in a chair by the open doors to the balcony. She stared at Allie, not responding, and Allie grew so nervous she began to ramble. “It’s kind of unclear. He might come tonight . . . but he might not show up, too. I know that sounds sort of nutty . . . Anyway, that’s all I wanted to tell you . . .”

  Pauline still didn’t say anything, and Allie was suddenly seized by an awful thought: She knows Dwight kissed me.

  Finally, Pauline said, “Okay.”

  Relief washed over Allie, and she turned to go, but then Pauline called out her name.

  “Can you come in for a minute?” Pauline asked. “And close the door behind you.”

  Uh-oh, Allie thought, but she obeyed. She felt as if she was walking a plank as she took slow steps from the door to the chair opposite Pauline’s. Her feet were bare, and the wood underneath them felt cold and unforgiving. She tried to think of an excuse to exit the room, but her mind seemed frozen.

  “How’s your mom doing?” she blurted, trying to steer the conversation into a safe direction, but Pauline ignored her.

  “Can I ask you something?” Pauline said in a voice that was close to a whisper. “Have you ever kept something from your husband? Something big?”

  Allie’s knees buckled, and she dropped into the matching chair opposite Pauline’s. Her mouth was dry.

  Luckily, Pauline didn’t wait for an answer. “I have.” She inhaled and glanced out toward the water. “It’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  Allie nodded. She was completely confused, but here, at last, was a question she could answer. “It is. It’s really beautiful.”

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Pauline said. “But you seem . . . kindhearted. And you’re a social worker. So people must tell you their problems all the time.”

  “They do,” Allie said carefully. “But usually they’re clients, and there’s a kind of structure to it . . . I try to link them with other resources to help them. I’m not like a psychiatrist.”

  She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so intensely uncomfortable. She didn’t want to hear Pauline’s secret. She didn’t even want to be alone with Dwight’s wife!

  “Still,” Pauline said. “You know that everyone is flawed. And that sometimes we do things that hurt others, even if we don’t mean to.”

  “That’s true,” Allie said quickly. “Most of the time we don’t mean to.”

  “So I think you’d understand,” Pauline said.

  Allie braced herself—oh, the irony if Pauline confessed an infidelity to her!—but Pauline just asked another of her cryptic questions. “Do you think most people are forgiving?”

  “Yes,” Allie said. Maybe it was the optimist in her, but she believed that most personal grudges were born out of hurt, not innate hatred, and that many could be resolved.

  “I do, too,” Pauline said. “At least, I hope so.”

  Pauline looked older than she had a few days ago, Allie thought suddenly. She’d changed—or something had changed her. She was such a small woman. Her bones were fine and her shoulders were narrow. For a woman with presence, she took up so little physical space.

  “I had an abortion,” Pauline said. “I was twenty years old. It was during my junior year in college.”

  Allie nodded and kept her face neutral, even though abortion conjured strong feelings in her. She believed in the importance of allowing women a choice—and yet, she wouldn’t exist if her birth mother had listened to the advice of everyone around her. Allie supported a woman’s right to choose on a philosophical and legal level, but not on a raw, emotional one.

  “Does Dwight know?” she asked.

  “No,” Pauline said. “I never told him.”

  They’re having trouble getting pregnant, Allie thought suddenly. But Dwight didn’t know that Pauline could get pregnant—was that why she hadn’t brought up going to a fertility specialist? Allie couldn’t reveal she knew that highly personal fact, of course. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

  “Do you think I should tell him?” Pauline said.

  “You’re the only person who can decide that,” Allie said. No way was she getting in the middle of this.

  “It’s . . . weighing on me,” Pauline said. “The secrets we keep from each other. We all have them, you know. Do your best friends know everything about you? Does your husband? I think sometimes we even keep our deepest secrets from ourselves.”

  She glanced at Allie, and something changed in her eyes. It was almost as if she was surprised to see Allie sitting there. Allie had experienced that before with clients—sometimes, they seemed to feel she was a blank slate to project their thoughts and feelings onto. They didn’t always see her as a person.

  “I’m sorry,” Pauline said. “I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. This is your vacation, after all.” She tried to laugh, but the sound was weak and forced.

  “Allie?” Tina’s voice floated through the hallway, sounding slightly muffled from traveling through the closed door. She must have been checking Allie and Ryan’s room next door. “Are you up here?”

  “Right here,” Allie called loudly. “I’m with Pauline in her room.”

  Thank God, she thought when she heard a knock a moment later.

  “Oh, hi!” Tina said, poking in her head. “Sorry to interrupt . . . I just wanted to let you know the guys are back from the beach and everyone’s having happy hour on the patio.”

  “That sounds great,” Allie said as she stood up. She wiped her damp palms on her shorts. “Pauline? Will you come with us?”

  Disappointment flitted across Pauline’s face, but it disappeared quickly. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute. Go on ahead.”

  A tiny part of Allie felt guilty as she hurried out of the room. Pauline was clearly yearning for a heart-to-heart—a chance to spill her secrets and feel the absolution that a confession carried. Allie usually didn’t mind the fact that people with problems seemed drawn to her, but right now, she couldn’t spare the compassion.

  For the first time in her life, she was tired of helping others.

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  The Attack

  MEN WERE IDIOTS, TINA thought as she watched Dwight and Gio slam into each other.

  They could be relaxing in the hot tub, sipping Kahlúa-spiked mudslides and feeling strong jets untangle the knots that always seemed to form between shoulder blades. But instead, they were grunting and sweating and cursing as they tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to throw a ball through a hoop.

  “Barbarians,” Savannah said, and Tina grinned.

  Ever since their fight, Savannah had been casually friendly with Gio, but she hadn’t crossed the line into flirting. That must’ve been a challenge for Savannah, who could flirt with a rock, Tina mused. And Gio was being extra solicitous, too, keeping his hand on Tina’s knee during lunch and bringing her a mudslide while she sat in the hot tub. He’d barely even looked at Savannah. They were forgiven, both of them, Tina decided. Just as long as nothing like it ever happened again.

  But the incident had made Tina realize how long it had been since she’d had a harmless little crush on anyone. When she and Gio were first married and she was working at Children’s Hospital, there was a physical therapist named Steven whom Tina loved talking to—he was funny and energetic and kept her spirits high whenever she bumped into him during a rough shift. They’d eat lunch together every few weeks, and Steven would talk about the various women he was dating. The tingle of attraction was never mentioned—until the holiday party when Steven had too much to drink.

  “No!” she’d said, putting a hand on his chest to push him away when he tried to kiss her.

  Tina didn’t want to make out with him—she just enjoyed knowing someone other than her husband found her attractive. Oh, how she missed that sensation! But these days, the only males she came into contact with were pimply teenage baggers at the grocery sto
re who committed the ultimate offense of calling her “ma’am.” Even her UPS delivery person was a woman, which seemed completely unfair, considering the TV ads that all but promised hot guys with good legs.

  She took another sip of her mudslide and sighed as she sank deeper into the bubbling water, feeling the last bit of tension seep out of her limbs. The doctor had diagnosed Sammy with a minor stomach flu, and Allie’s mom reported that after a lime Popsicle and a few viewings of Sesame Street, he seemed to be rallying. Everything was fine. Better than fine.

  Except . . . her eyes flitted toward the basketball court again, and she frowned. Gio was bumping Dwight repeatedly with his chest, harder than seemed necessary. Dwight’s body rocked backward with each blow. But Dwight was about six inches taller than Gio, and he managed to shoot the ball through the air, just out of reach of Gio’s straining fingertips.

  “Damn!” Gio said as the ball swished through the hoop.

  “What’s the score? Eight–four?” Dwight asked.

  “Rub it in,” Gio said.

  “Your macho man doesn’t like to lose,” Savannah observed.

  “Tell me about it,” Tina said, keeping her voice light. But the conversation she’d had with Allie came back to her: Was Gio resentful that Dwight could afford trips like this one, while Gio could barely manage to take his family to a cheap motel at the shore every summer?

  She took another sip of her drink and kept her eyes on the basketball court. Ryan had left his shirt down on the beach and had gone to get it. He seemed to be taking a really long time. She wished he’d get back and join the game.

  “That makes eleven,” Dwight said as he shot another basket.

  “Ten!” Gio argued. “You were nowhere near the three-point line!”

  “Yes I was!” Dwight said.

  “Whatever,” Gio said. “You want to play that way? Fine.”

  Tina set down her drink on the hot tub’s ledge and sat up straighter.