The appearance on Oprah had been the final humiliation. Miranda was defeated at last, and she was exhausted. So perhaps what happened to her was inevitable, especially while she was living in the same house with her sister and mother, eating her mother's cooking, listening to her sister's indolent scolding. Or was it obligatory for someone about to turn fifty? Maybe it was a simple case of pent-up energy--she was not someone who liked to stand still, even if that meant spinning in circles. Whatever the reason, Miranda found herself embracing a new, a second, a rediscovered adolescence. Because her first adolescence, the stormy drama of which she had rather enjoyed, had been marked by a resolution to, whenever possible, examine her soul, Miranda decided in this new iteration to reexamine her soul. It was possible that this time, at least, she might get results.
Miranda determined that the best place to reexamine her soul was on the beach at dawn. It was unfortunate that Compo Beach was so small, perhaps a half mile from end to end. She found that just as she thought she might be getting somewhere, striding along on her reexamination, she would reach the jetty and have to turn back. Then she would be distracted by the sky, turning from purple darkness to its milky violet morning wash, then bursting into bright pink streaks. Each day the sky was a little different, and therefore that much more distracting. Some days she would see an unlikely flock of green parrots in the parking lot, a convocation so odd and busy and noisy that any examination, or even recognition, of the soul was rendered temporarily impossible. And then, just as she was passing the playground, her feet in the cool sand, the salty air in her lungs, gaining just a little ground on her elusive soul, Miranda's cousin's big Cadillac Escalade would pull up and Cousin Lou would roll down the window and holler hello, frantically waving a pink palm, he was just on his way out and wondering if she would like a lift anywhere.
"No," she would say. "Thanks so much, but I'm just taking a walk." As you see. As we discussed yesterday morning, when you stopped to ask me the same question.
"Walking!" Cousin Lou would exclaim. "Such good exercise." And he and his big black car would purr off into the dawn.
Miranda tried to avoid Cousin Lou as much as possible. It was not that she disliked him. It was not possible to dislike Cousin Lou. He lived to be likable. But he was not introspective, and Miranda was engaged in a course of introspection that required not only her own attempt to examine her soul but an assumption, typical of her, that, therefore, everyone must of course be examining, if not their own souls, then at least hers. Cousin Lou, however, was not interested in her soul any more than he was in his own. As he explained to Miranda, "If Mrs. H. had wanted immigrant children to examine their souls, she would have withheld the funds required for them to do so."
After a week or so of these aborted soul-searching walks, Miranda hit on a new idea. Walking on a suburban beach was insufficiently lonely. There were far too many interruptions. She must go out to sea to be truly contemplative. As she realized this, she was watching a yellow kayak slide across the horizon. That was the answer, of course. In a kayak she could be alone, undisturbed. A sea kayak could take her all along the shore. She could explore the tidal areas at Old Mill, at Burying Hill beach, all along the Gold Coast to Southport, where one of her writers, the radio talk-show host who had been fired two months ago for referring to a female African American Cabinet member as Little Black Bimbo, had once lived.
On Craigslist, Miranda found kayaks for sale from the sailing school at Longshore, Westport's public country club, for $395.
"Is that a bargain?" Betty asked. "I'm sure it must be."
"On the other hand, hand-me-downs never fit well, do they? Perhaps a new one would be safer."
"Shouldn't you rent a boat first?" Annie asked. "Take lessons? You've never been in a kayak in your life."
"I thought you wanted to save money! Lessons are expensive."
"Lessons! It's not as if your sister's training for the Olympics, Annie."
But Betty could see Annie was upset, and at the first opportunity she took her aside and placed her hand firmly on Annie's arm, as she had always done when the girls squabbled as children.
"Miranda needs to search her soul," Betty then gently explained. "Now, sweetheart, how is she supposed to do that without a nice new kayak?"
What Betty didn't explain was that she would have paid almost any sum of money, whether she had it or not, to get Miranda out of the cramped bungalow for at least part of the day. It was true that she was happy to spend time with Miranda. It had been a lifetime, it seemed, since she had been able to say good morning to her daughters and to say good night, too. And Miranda was good company. It was a miracle at this age to have her talented, interesting, grown-up daughter there, every day, in the house, to share a pot of coffee, a salad for lunch, a pot of tea in the afternoon. On the other hand, Betty had noticed that it was invariably she who made the coffee, the salad, and the tea. Miranda, once so capable and busy in her life in New York, still so energetic about her soulful walks, was limp and helpless around the house.