A stark contrast to Tracy’s story. Peg glanced at the curvy brunette. Tracy seemed to be distracted by a tree root on the trail. Gloria went on. “I’ll tell you about Brandon. He was the most recent. Brandon worked for my father, and Daddy insisted I date him. We did the circuit together. A charity ball in the Temple of Dendur, dinners at Daniel, bungalows at the Ocean Club. He bought me a diamond necklace, and sent a dozen white roses every day for a month.”
“What a bastard,” said Tracy.
“He never talked to me,” said Gloria. “He’d sit next to me, or across from me, look into my eyes and stroke my forearm. And then he’d take a cell phone call for an hour. He was after me because I’m the boss’s daughter. My parents didn’t believe me, even after I told Mom that Brandon never tried to kiss me. He didn’t seem attracted to me at all. Mom refused to listen. She said he was a gentleman. But I knew the truth. One night, I insisted Brandon come to my bedroom with me. I put on a nightie and pranced around. He sat on my bed, frozen. I had to grab his dick before he’d admit he was gay. He ran out. I felt bad for him, but relieved. My parents didn’t believe me when I told them what happened. They must have had their hearts set on him for me. I had to get out. I made the arrangements to come here in secret. I left a note at home saying I was going to Canyon Ranch for a month.”
Tracy said, “What was your last name again?”
“Martin,” said Gloria.
“I knew it. You’re the heiress to the Martin Pharmacy chain. I’ve seen your picture in gossip columns. You’re worth millions! Your mother is Anastacia Martin, former supermodel. And your father is Trevor Martin, megamogul. He’s bigger than Trump.”
“He’s much shorter, actually,” Gloria said, “I’d appreciate your discretion.”
“Of course, you have it,” said Wilma, giving Tracy and Peg a warning.
The women climbed on. Peg stole glances at Gloria. One could be born to every advantage, and still struggle with the most elemental human need. Peg felt sorry for the heiress. But she didn’t know what to do with her pity, or what to say to her, and found herself slowing down so she wouldn’t walk next to her.
Wilma kept up with Gloria, though, and the two women spoke quietly to each other. Peg and Tracy were a few paces behind. Tracy was breathing too heavily to speak, and Peg was glad not to have to talk anyway. With each step, her thoughts traveled away from her romantic plight, and into her body. Peg hadn’t done much hiking before. But she decided she liked it, especially the sense that she was moving closer to the sky.
Tracy groaned suddenly, “For God’s sake. We’ve been hiking for over an hour. Are we there yet?”
Wilma said, “Just another few minutes.”
True to her word, Wilma led the small group over one last tricky patch, and they were at the top.
The surface at the summit was rocky, a flat granite slab with sparse grass poking between cracks. The sun was hotter, brighter, the trees gone. Peg was blinded for an instant, and when her eyes adjusted, she could see for miles. Hills, meadows, the river below. Everywhere lush and green. Wilma pointed out a red house with a silver roof in the river valley below.
“That’s the Federal,” she said. “Look how far we’ve come.”
The Inward Bound mansion was the size of a Monopoly hotel. Seeing it, how tiny and abstract it was (she could line it up to sit on her fingertip), filled Peg with a warm glow. Even Tracy smiled at the idea, the measurable accomplishment of hauling one’s ass from point A to point B.
Wilma invited them to sit down, to pull up a rock, any rock. She unzipped her backpack and took out three small round mirrors.
She said, “When you look in the mirror, it’s usually to fix your hair or put on makeup. To examine your body, searching for problem areas. We look at ourselves to see the flaws, not beauty. And we look at predictable times. In the morning, after using the bathroom, before bed. We hardly ever see ourselves when we aren’t prepared for inspection. But only when you’re unprepared can you see your true self, your true beauty.” Wilma handed a mirror to each woman. Peg held it in her palm, the sun reflecting on the surface, making a plate of light.
“Hold it up. Look at your faces,” Wilma said.
Peg did as she was told. Her skin was red. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead and the sides of her face. In the direct sunlight, she could see every wrinkle, every pore. The landmarks—eyes, nose, mouth—were in their usual places. But something about the whole face, her expression, maybe, looked completely different. Peg was surprised by the image. She gazed at the floating foreign face in the mirror. It was her, but not her.
Tracy and Gloria seemed as transfixed by the strangers in their mirrors. Wilma said, “The light does funny things on top of a mountain.”
“Are these trick mirrors?” asked Tracy.
“Do you like what you see?” asked Wilma.
Peg blinked, testing the image. Objectively, she should be horrified by the bumps and lines. But she wasn’t. Her face was stripped down, no protective smirk or practiced seductive stare. She smiled at herself, liking the way her lips and eyes moved, the shadows on her cheeks. The image was clear and honest, her expression empty. She wasn’t quite sure this was the standard definition of beauty. But Peg liked the woman looking back at her.
Placing the mirror in her lap, Peg said, “Is this Lesson One?”
“What do you mean?” asked Wilma.
“Being honest and natural is sexy.”
Wilma shrugged and said, “We’ll take a short breather and then head back. Don’t worry. It’s all downhill from here.”
Chapter 11
“Dinner in an hour,” Wilma announced before leaving the women in their suite to shower and change after their hike.
“Black tie?” asked Peg.
“Hardly,” said Wilma, already halfway down the steps.
Peg suspected that there hadn’t been a black tie event in Manshire in this century—or any. The official Vermont dress code could be Casual Everyday, or A Fleece for All Seasons.
Freshly showered and powdered, Peg milked her lighter-than-a-marshmallow mood. She chose her red sundress, acutely aware that in minutes she’d see Ray Quick. And he would see her. Red was the only color for the situation. Plus, she wanted to show off her legs. Unlike every other female in the state, Peg’s thighs were as smooth and hairless as plastic. Tonight, she would forgo her usual three concealers and gloss. After what she’d seen in the mirror on the mountaintop, she decided she didn’t need it.
Tracy and Gloria, also in sundresses, were in the bathroom, fighting for mirror space. Peg watched them apply copious foundation, blush, lipstick and eye shadow. She said, “You two completely missed the point on the mountaintop.”
“I got the point,” said Tracy. “I’m just not brave enough to take it.”
Gloria added, “If I don’t wear makeup, I’m transparent. You can see right through me.”
The blonde was a paler shade of white. Peg asked, “Have you met the male Inward Bounders yet?”
“We have,” said Tracy. “Wine and cheese meet-and-greet yesterday, orientation day. About an hour, but most of it was taken up listening to Wilma go over the course schedule. After that, Linus gave the men a tour of the basement. We hardly got to talk to the guys. Nonetheless,” she said, lips smacking, “I have one scoped out.”
Had to be Ray. “What’s his name?” asked Peg, nonchalantly.
Gloria said, “Has to be Luke.”
Tracy laughed. “Was I that obvious?”
“He has a certain mysterious, smoldering appeal,” said Gloria.
“What about the others?” asked Peg.
Tracy shrugged. “Ben is short, balding, fortyish. An insurance wonk from Hartford. Not the kind of guy who grabs you by the libido. There’s a guy named Ray, also from Hartford. He’s great-looking—sublime body—but he seems shiftless. I don’t trust him.”
“We’re not here to hit on men,” said Gloria. “I’m not anyway. You two can do what you want.�
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Peg felt herself relax. Her fellow female In-mates weren’t after Ray. Was he shiftless? She hadn’t thought so. He seemed sweet, passionate, searching to answer life’s grander questions. Peg leaned on one foot, and then the other. Both bore blisters (she would have to buy a pair of proper hiking boots). But she didn’t mind the pain. Not when the prospect of rubbing, bumping and pressing against Ray loomed. If he was receptive (and why wouldn’t he be?), they could arrange a late-night rendezvous. The thought of sneaking around with him in the dark made her nipples hard as cherry pits. Good, she thought. She hoped they’d stay that way.
Gloria said, “Are you okay, Peg? You’re smirking.”
“I’m fine.”
Tracy said, “Actually, you know who was surprisingly hot?” She snapped her compact closed.
“Who?” Peg asked, hoping she wasn’t changing her tune about Ray.
“The director. Linus Bester,” said Tracy. “If you like the scruffy intellectual type. But I hate scruffy.”
“I hate intellectual,” said Gloria.
“Shall we go?” asked Peg, who didn’t want to hear about Linus Bester when she had her heart (and nipples) trained on Ray Quick.
Tracy and Gloria appraised their mirror faces one last time, and the three women headed for the stairs. As they walked, Peg felt a degree of camaraderie with them. She probably wouldn’t have sought out either woman for friendship in the real world. But, then again, her new reality was under construction. She’d be wise to take all comers. Tracy was affable, if whiney. Gloria was fragile and remote, but refreshingly caustic. The two of them had already formed a friendship. Despite their differences in demeanor and background, Tracy and Gloria shared elemental problems and desires, and that was enough—more than enough—for a friendship. Peg liked the idea of being the odd woman out, the third wheel. She felt more comfortable on the near outside.
The men were standing in a tight circle by the bookcases in the living room. They smiled at the women as they descended the last flight of stairs. Peg spotted Ray immediately. He looked steamy in jeans and a navy blue shirt, bare feet. She watched his eyes travel from one woman to the next, pausing too long on leggy Gloria (forgivable—no man could help that), before landing on Peg. He smiled blandly at her, the way a stranger would. And then the out-of-context recognition clicked in. He let out a gasp, and rushed to her side, taking her hands in his and leaning down for a kiss. On the cheek. They were in a roomful of people.
“Peg!” he whispered excitedly. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I might get some work done,” she said.
“You know, in some circles, that’s a euphemism for plastic surgery,” he said, grinning.
“I’m getting an emotional lift,” she said. “A bad-pattern tuck.” He laughed. She relished the sound. She asked quietly, “Have you been thinking about the train?”
“Nothing else,” said Ray. “I can’t believe you’re here! This is so fucking fantastic! I have to get you alone. When? Tonight.”
“Fraternization between campers is strictly forbidden,” Peg said.
“Meet me on the back porch at midnight,” he whispered.
“My thoughts exactly,” Peg whispered back.
“Excuse me, Peg Silver?”
She turned to the man who’d stepped up. He was around forty, tall, his long brown hair had a touch of gray. His eyes were intensely blue, thickly blue, like anti-freeze. His shorts and T-shirt were a size too big. Clean-shaven, tan cheeks. He wore Birkenstock sandals. A string of leather with a red bead was tied around his ankle. He looked like a preppy hippie.
“I’m Linus Bester,” he said. “Your host.”
He smiled at her, creasing those tanned cheeks. Tracy nailed it when she said he was a scruffy intellectual type. Peg smiled and shook his hand. Ray excused himself with a secret wink, and went to chat with the others, leaving her alone with Linus.
“Wilma tells me you had a positive experience on top of Sacatosh Mountain,” said Linus.
“I had a blazing epiphany,” she said. “And I’ve got the sunburn to prove it.”
Linus, grin never fading, said, “Wilma also mentioned that you have a bad habit of sarcasm. We’re going to have to beat that out of you. With a stick. It may hurt.”
“No pain, no gain,” she said.
“You are a runner?” he asked.
“Does it show?” she asked. He was one, too. She could tell. The runner’s equivalent of gaydar. Rundar?
Linus pointed at her legs. “Your overly developed calf muscles,” he said. “I noticed them from across the room.”
They weren’t that big. She said, “Now I’ll be overly self-conscious about them.”
“Be proud of them,” he said. “I’m sure you are. I run down the logging road to a mountain lake and back every morning. Four miles round-trip. Care to join me?”
“I’m slow,” she said.
“I thought New Yorkers did everything fast.” Was it her imagination, or did he glance at Ray?
Peg said, “What time?”
“Five-thirty.”
“In the morning?”
“Sunrise on the lake,” he said.
“We run in the dark?” she asked.
Linus said, “Only at first. On the way back, everything is beautifully illuminated.”
Did Wilma and Linus talk in metaphors on purpose? Did they realize? Or was this just Peg’s New York hangover of searching constantly for hidden meanings? She would take him at face value, as pledged.
“Okay, Linus,” she said. “I’ll plod slowly through the darkness of confusion, until we come to the baptismal purity of the lake, at which point, the light of truth will shine into a new dawn.”
Linus said, “That’s a lot to ask of a morning jog.”
From across the room, Wilma announced, “Dinner is served.”
The group filed into the country kitchen (sink basin, butcher-block countertop, baker’s racks with plates and cook-ware), and sat around a big farm table. Conversation seemed intentionally steered toward soft subjects, like the weather, the food (vegetarian chili on cracked brown rice), the house (built in 1789), Linus’s background (earned his Ph.D. in psychology at Dartmouth three years ago), Wilma’s credentials (she was in Dartmouth’s psychology program currently, had finished her course work, but hadn’t completed her dissertation; Linus had been her mentor/advisor until they hooked up last year).
Gloria said, “I heard about your program from one of your first clients, from two summers ago. She was my private ski instructor at Killington this March. She couldn’t have recommended you more highly, Linus.”
“Claudia McKinney?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Gloria. “She’s married now. To a man she met almost immediately after she left here.”
Peg let the others carry the conversation, choosing instead to observe her fellow programmees. She knew first impressions were superficial and probably inaccurate, but one had to start somewhere.
Ben, insurance executive from Hartford, Connecticut, was, as reported, balding, about 5'8'', wearing black socks with Nikes, in his early forties. He seemed nervous, self-conscious. He stole glances at Gloria as if she were a luscious morsel of some outlandish foreign delicacy—mouthwatering and scary at the same time. Peg sat across from Ben, and once tried to engage him. He said, “Yes, insurance is a growth industry. But if you’ll excuse me, Gloria was just saying something fascinating about river silt.”
Luke, pro golfer from Providence, did smolder mysteriously. But Peg couldn’t imagine feeling attracted to him. True, he was fit, neat (too neat: pressed khakis and white shirt, mink brown hair cut short). Around thirty, Peg estimated. But his expression was impenetrable, like a rock. He chewed without cracking that stone face. When he smiled (hardly ever), only his lips moved. Peg theorized that he’d be as exciting in the throws of passion as he was currently, in the throes of eating.
Ray, meanwhile, was even more sparkling and gorgeous than Peg remembered. He
sat between Luke and Wilma. Peg between Tracy and Linus. She enjoyed watching Ray from across the table, taking in the way he held his fork, the length of his eyelashes, his careful table manners. Ray’s shirt was un-buttoned enough to show a peek of sun-kissed chest. His sleeves were rolled up to show nearly hairless and well-muscled arms with the long, graceful fingers of a pianist. His neck! Ropy, but not too thick, eminently suckable. She’d have to get a grip on herself if she was to make it through the meal without sliding off her chair.
After dessert (fresh fruit and nuts), Linus stood and said, “It’ll be an early morning. I suggest we go to our rooms for private meditation and reflection.”
Tracy said, “It’s eight-thirty.”
Wilma said, “Most of us are used to getting by on just six hours of sleep. I can show you a dozen studies that reveal the long-term hazards of REM deficiency. Linus and I recommend nine or ten hours a night.”
Peg and Ray locked eyes. Ray said, “You are absolutely right, Wilma. I can’t remember the last time I got a decent night’s sleep.”
Grumbled acknowledgment—yes, they were all in profound need of unconsciousness—led to tablewide chair scraping and a chorus of “good nights.”
Wilma called after Peg and gave her a booklet. On the cover, Peg read, “The Big Five Personality Test.” There was a separate answer sheet with bubbles to be filled in, like the SATs. Peg flipped through the booklet. “This questionnaire is fifty pages long,” she said.
“It’s thorough,” said Wilma, handing her a number 2 pencil. Tracy, Gloria and Peg wandered back upstairs. The men followed in a group behind them. Wilma and Linus remained in the kitchen to clean up.
As soon as they’d reached their suite, Tracy said, “I don’t know about you, but there is no way I could possibly go to sleep now.”
The Girlfriend Curse Page 8