Good Karma

by Christina Kelly

  And then Fred thought he heard Tommy say: “No he doesn’t.”

  Tell him you do.

  “Tommy!” Fred shouted. “Can you hear me?”

  Danielle came back on the line. “Dad, he’s in the backseat, not Siberia.”

  Fred took a deep breath. “Yes, Tommy! I want to hear all about your goal! Your big, big goal!”

  Silence filled the phone line and Danielle replied, “Sorry. He just put his earphones on. He’s watching The Hobbit.”

  “Oh.” Again, Fred caught himself. He might have mentioned that a car ride could be a good time to read a book or even look out a window. Fred and his siblings used to count cows that resided in the wide meadows of Berkshire County. It might be an appropriate opportunity for Danielle to speak to her son about school or even teach him a song, something Lissa had done for Danielle.

  “He thinks you don’t care.”

  Fred was suddenly very tired, as if he hadn’t slept in months.

  Just try, Fred. Humor her.

  Fred remembered Tommy had a girlfriend. “How’s Tiffany?”

  “Brittany, Dad. Her name is Brittany. Nice try.”

  Fred fell silent.

  “Mom used to send him a dollar for every goal he made.”

  “Oh?” And then the lawyer in him perked up. He wanted to help the way he knew best. “And what does Mr. Chicago do? How is he figuring into all this?”

  “Please don’t start another fight. We are just fine without him.”

  Sequoia lifted her head and listened to an invisible squirrel outside the window. “Just so you know, I’m going through some boxes of your mother’s. I’ve been trying to clear the attic.”

  “You’re throwing out things? Without me?”

  “Letters mostly.” Correspondence, he might have said. Something people used to do. Thank you for the Lego set. Thank you for the skateboard. I appreciate the donation for my class trip. I’m sorry we couldn’t come visit over Christmas.

  “Letters?”

  “Nothing of value.” Mail. The United States Postal Service. It was a way people used to communicate important things. Something people once did as a kindness. Get well soon. We’re sorry for your loss. We will miss her greatly. Thank you for giving me Mom’s gold necklace. We wish we could make you feel better.

  “Nothing that you think I’d want?” Danielle asked, her voice rising.

  Patience and compassion, he heard.

  “Like you can just throw out Mom’s whole life?”

  Fred didn’t know exactly where his daughter’s hostility came from, since he and Lissa were reasonable and forgiving, to a fault, perhaps. As a child she’d been so agreeable, but as a teenager she’d gotten and stayed angry with him. He remembered it coincided with his brief separation from Lissa, but when he returned to the house it was never really the same. “We’ve got so much stuff here. I’ve got my own letters that you shouldn’t have to be burdened with when it’s my time to go.”

  “Oh, and now you’re planning on leaving me too?”

  Like he had a choice in the matter. Like it was a play in which he could decide whether to stay front and center or exit stage left.

  Don’t engage her. She’s just like you. You two need to work this out since I can’t do it anymore.

  No, you can’t, he thought sadly.

  “Listen, we just pulled into the parking lot at the field so we’ll chat next week, shall we?”

  Before he could say something smart—something like, “Sure, just butt-dial me”—the call disconnected. He placed the phone back on the charger and took a deep breath.

  After a few moments, he instinctively reached for Lissa’s eyeglasses. He held them lightly in his palm as if holding an irreplaceable glass figurine. He stroked his fingertips across the lenses, which were streaked with a light film of oil. He held them as he had every day since his wife had died, but now saw something he hadn’t noticed: a long brown eyelash that was caught in a tiny screw. An eyelash that had once belonged to his wife and framed how she had seen the world. With great deliberateness, he took his thumb and index finger and carefully picked it from where it had been trapped. A whisper of his wife. All that was left. He held it carefully in front of him, between the tips of his fingers, kissed it gently, made a wish, and then blew it toward the open window.

  chapter 12

  Catherine brought the cordless phone and a cup of coffee out to her back deck. At the property line she saw her neighbor, Old Man Callahan, with his rosy cheeks and serious potbelly, like a character actor in a waggish sitcom. He poked at something with his cane. No doubt he was checking for broken sprinkler heads, trying to find egregious errors they’d made to report to security. Putting their garbage out too early, not sorting their recycling, hanging a clothesline.

  As she settled into the cushioned wicker chair, she felt the cool wind against her face, coming fast and low from the southeast. Even the heavy bird feeder by the kitchen window swayed back and forth, a hypnotist’s watch.

  As the whitecaps formed in the shallow reeds of the marsh, Catherine, alarmed by the weather, felt panic rise in her throat and wondered if she and Ralph had made the right decision in moving to Savannah. Perhaps they had been too critical with their first impressions of other, possibly safer, places they’d visited—the nasally twang of Nashville, the three-pointed hats of Williamsburg, the aging hippies of Asheville. Once they’d even discussed retiring to a sailboat in the calm Caribbean, but then they saw The Perfect Storm. If George Clooney couldn’t make it out alive, neither would they. And if she were being perfectly honest, she’d just wanted a sailboat so she could give it a fanciful name: Cirrhosis of the River or Freudian Sloop.

  They’d discussed the possibility of storms, but the issue hadn’t been a deal breaker, as they’d assumed Atlantic hurricanes that moved up the seaboard would skirt the coast, preferring the easterly areas: Myrtle Beach, Charleston, the Outer Banks. Savannah was directly under Cleveland, after all. During their sales presentation, Audrey Cunningham had mentioned it might be difficult to get a tee time on Saturday mornings, but not that their living room could fill with sea turtles.

  And then there was the threat of Tropical Storm Audrey disrupting their lives. Catherine wondered if Ralph had considered a dalliance with her. An affair, she thought. Call it what it is. God knows she’d seen him flirting with Audrey, but men did that. It was to be expected. And maybe Catherine would do a little flirting herself if she had the opportunity, if she ever met someone new who didn’t remind her of Ernest Borgnine.

  She sipped her coffee and thought of her science CDs explaining the laws at play in the universe, fission and fusion and centripetal and centrifugal forces. Lately she’d felt like she was living in zero gravity, trying to keep things from floating away from her. Her car keys. Her cell phone. Ralph. In New Jersey, she’d thought a garage, a retirement plan, even a dog, would hold them in place. But things had changed. And if she didn’t have Ralph, what did she have? Who was she?

  As she watched the roiling water, she knew it was time to call Martha. Even though none of her sister’s three marriages had stuck, she had experience in matters of the heart. At least her sister knew how to make a decision. In the eighties, when Martha decided to get pregnant, she followed the old wives’ tale that eating garlic would bring about conception, so for a year she walked around smelling like an Italian restaurant. Coincidentally, her grown son now owned a successful pizzeria in Seattle.

  The phone rang five times, but much to Catherine’s relief Martha finally answered. She was always so busy at the Villages—she’d joined a dragon boat group, a platform tennis league, even the Red Hat Society—so Catherine cut right to the chase.

  “Something’s going on with Ralph.”

  “Ralph.” Martha said his name slowly. There’d always been a quiet resentment between them.

  “We’re just not getting along. Seeing eye to eye. He’s got this whole new life here and I’m just . . . floundering.”

&n
bsp; “Details, please.” Martha didn’t like to beat around the bush.

  “You know, he joined a New Neighbors golf group and that led to a regular poker game. There’s a whole fraternity of senior men here who won’t sit still. After he retired and we were in New Jersey I couldn’t get rid of him. Now I don’t know where he is.”

  “Sounds like the perfect husband.”

  “No, really. He’ll leave in his golf cart and be gone all day.”

  “Ah, the old Chinese proverb: Give a man a five iron and he golfs for a day. Teach a man to golf and you’ll get rid of him for the weekend.”

  “And I don’t trust our Realtor. I saw Ralph’s Porsche parked next to her black Mercedes at the clubhouse last week.” Rearview mirrors almost touching, she remembered.

  “Doesn’t, like, everyone there have a black Mercedes?”

  Martha was right. Catherine hadn’t been sure it was hers, but still. “We like Seven Oaks, and downtown, from what I’ve seen of it, is beautiful, but I’m just not connecting.” I’m floundering, Catherine thought again, and imagined a dull gray fish thrashing in the bilge of a Boston Whaler.

  “You could take up golf. Didn’t you try a nine-and-dine a few years ago?”

  “You know Ralph isn’t what you’d call patient.” Catherine remembered nine endless holes of Ralph instructing her to keep her head down and hit through the ball. “And besides, our sex life fell off the back of the car as we drove down I-95.”

  “Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “I mean, until just a few years ago we were”—she wanted the right word—“amorous.”

  In the background Catherine heard laughter. “Where are you?”

  “The pool.”

  Catherine pictured Martha on a wicker ottoman, a wide-brimmed straw hat tilted jauntily to one side of her head to protect her button nose from burning. “Are they bobbing for apples in the hot tub again?” It sounded more sarcastic than she meant it.

  “Don’t be rude.”

  “I’m not.”

  “We’re playing Marco Polo.”

  “As in Mar-co? Po-lo,” Catherine warbled.

  “It’s an icebreaker event for the Bocce Club.”

  An icebreaker is for third graders, Catherine thought. She heard more laughter and a splash, then shuffling in the background.

  Then Martha whispered, “I’ve been seeing a new guy from Ohio. And can I tell you something about Midwestern men? During sex, there’s a reason women shout out Holy Toledo!”

  “Holy Toledo,” Catherine echoed, trying to find some enthusiasm. In some small place inside, Catherine wished she were more like Martha. Outgoing. Brave. Game to join a wingsuit club and jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon on a moment’s notice. She breathed deeply and felt a salty heaviness to the air.

  “Okay so what do you want?” Martha asked.

  “I want to matter.” Then she added: “I’m going to the gym. Maybe losing a little weight will spark Ralph’s interest.”

  “Okay, and try Kegels.”

  “Kegels or kugels?”

  “Seriously?” Martha asked. “K-e-g-e-l-s. Rhymes with bagels. Or pole dancing,” Martha added. “That’s what I do on Wednesdays. It’s fun and it’ll firm your core.”

  “You have pole dancing classes at the Villages?”

  “We have everything at the Villages. Trust me. And if you don’t start working out, you’ll wake up one day as an ostrich, with a bird neck and winged flaps where your triceps were. You’ll never be able to fly away.”

  CATHERINE PULLED INTO the Seven Oaks fitness center and found a place to park between a BMW coupe and a new convertible. It felt good to take action, although she felt intimidated, as even the cars outside the building looked athletic. In her frenzy of setting up the house—painting rooms, arranging furniture, displaying artwork—she’d successfully avoided the gym since they’d moved. Finding a local car wash or lighting store might occupy an entire morning and leave her exhausted.

  Before going in, she rolled up the windows and turned off the radio. In the passenger seat she saw two flyers she’d found the previous afternoon after shopping at Piggly Wiggly. Whenever she parked there, marketing elves deposited messages under her windshield wipers. One advertised an upcoming lecture about storm surges, the other hawked pet psychic services. 10 minute Session! FREE Consultation! Call NOW!

  Catherine didn’t believe in chakra alignments or exorcisms, Ouija boards or séances. But she and Ralph had chosen Savannah. She couldn’t deny that she was intrigued by the ghost tours around downtown’s historic squares and stories of the local Gullahs and their magical powers. Even when she’d taken Karma to Bonaventure Cemetery she’d felt an otherworldliness and the crush of past generations. While standing at Johnny Mercer’s grave beside a husband-wife duo humming “Moon River” and slapping away sand gnats, she noted the spanish moss overhead, draped like memorial bunting at a funeral. And although she knew there was no such thing as ghosts, she could see how an area or even a person living in it might have advanced intuition. It wasn’t a stretch to think that someone with psychic powers in Savannah might have an edge over a psychic in, say, Short Hills.

  So as she sat in her car and wondered why psychics didn’t get serious jobs at the National Weather Service, she felt her rising panic again and glimpsed a vision that one day, if she didn’t do anything, her thirty-eight-year marriage would be found stranded in a tree.

  Catherine grabbed Ralph’s gym bag from the trunk. She had repossessed the old duffel after he’d bought a new one—a sleek Nike model that smelled vaguely of cologne and had wide exterior zip pockets.

  The fitness center’s front glass doors opened to a wide atrium that offered couches and a do-it-yourself coffee bar. There were a half-dozen conversation nooks where a whole community might chat, read newspapers, and let blood pressure return to normal. Yet they were empty. The lobby had the feel of a regional airport. People waved to each other as they passed, but everyone seemed on a tight deadline, holding yoga mats instead of carry-ons, rushing to make group fitness classes as if late to boarding gates.

  She’d been here once before, when Audrey had taken them on an introductory tour, but she hadn’t remembered the details of the building—the Astroturf-style carpeting and dry-erase boards filled with class listings.

  “Hello!” The young woman behind the counter gave her a toothy grin. “Welcome!”

  Catherine smiled, feeling the woman was far too enthusiastic for whatever hourly wage she was earning.

  “Is this your first time?!”

  “Yes. How did you—”

  “It’s my job!” The woman looked as if she’d just gotten off a treadmill herself. Her ponytail swayed back and forth as she spoke. “Please sign in, just till we get to know you!”

  And so Catherine wrote down her name and club number. Behind her, body-hugging merchandise hung on shiny clothing racks. Several toned women walked by in tight nylon tops with built-in bras and clingy capri workout pants. Catherine felt suddenly self-conscious in her shorts and T-shirt.

  She grabbed a towel, strode to the far side of the lobby, and took a right down a glass-sided hallway. To the left was the free-weight area and a wall with hooks to hang towels and car keys and cubbies to stow gym bags and magazines. It reminded her of a kindergarten classroom. Catherine turned right into the cardio area. Stairmasters and ellipticals and rowing machines filled the cavernous room. Most of the machines were taken and everyone looked vaguely similar, as if they could all star in the same Zumba infomercial. All the activity made her think of a spoof on “The Twelve Days of Christmas”—five bikers biking, four rowers rowing, three runners running—and it seemed sad to Catherine that everyone ended up exactly where they started. Wherever you go, there you are. Why had she thought her relationship with Ralph would be better just because they’d moved?

  She wandered over to one of the empty treadmills, deciding that that machine had the least potential for sudden death, and that’s when sh
e saw the woman on the Exercycle, her long brown hair secured in a tight fishtail braid. She knew immediately who it was. The woman had earphones on, so Catherine strode over to her and just mouthed the word. “Amity?”

  The woman slowed but continued pedaling.

  “A-mi-ty?” Catherine whispered, exaggerating each syllable as if teaching at a school for the deaf.

  The woman sat up, unhooked one side of her earphones, and smiled halfheartedly, as if to say, “Do I know you?”

  “You are Amity, right?” It was more a statement than a question. Catherine would have identified her in a police lineup. She remembered Amity’s thin frame and clear complexion. The woman nodded. Before Catherine could lose her nerve she said, “One Happy Rabbit Lane. The closet.”

  Amity’s face went ashen. “Yes. But what—”

  “We need to talk.” Catherine said it as if she’d never been afraid of anyone or anything in her whole life. “As soon as you’re done, we are having coffee.”

  It’s time to fly, Catherine thought.

  chapter 13

  The way Amity figured it, she had three choices. First, she could cut her losses and run—explain to the woman in the gym that she must be mistaking her for someone else. Deny, deny, deny. Politicians did it. Professional athletes did it. Husbands did it. And maybe by withholding the truth, she could even reshape history. Maybe fate had intervened to help her realize that skulking around this gated community wasn’t an effective coping mechanism. Time to get on with her own goddamn life.

  The second option was to confess. Yes, it was me. Yes, I have a little obsessive problem. But she could explain she had decided to quit. It was simply the last episode in a bad habit that had gotten out of hand. Habits can be kicked, right? Look at alcoholics and junkies. Maybe there was a twelve-step program for slinkers. But realistically, she wasn’t ready for that. Just stopping would be unfathomable, as if she could just stop breathing. It was her passion. It’s what gave her a sense of belonging in the world. In the same way other people save whales or recycle soda cans, she explored living rooms and broom closets. She flipped through photo albums and listened to CD collections. She wore strangers’ hats and sat on wide settees that faced the sunset.