Melanie moved to the island around the same time my marriage with Will was disintegrating into tiny pieces. I had first started noticing the pieces after an enormous fight, when he told me, “I can see now how someone could hate you.” Bam! It was like confetti shot out of a toy gun. The pieces started high in the air, spiraled around our eyes and lips and hands, and finally landed at our feet, covering the carpeting of our home. We would try so hard not to step on those pieces, but whenever I walked from the bedroom to the kitchen in the morning to make coffee and get myself out the door before he woke up, I’d step on something, like that time I got drunk in front of his mother at lunch and talked too loudly for a long time and ordered two desserts and ate half of each.
“You’re a spoiled child,” the piece of our marriage would squawk.
Will, too, would try to tread lightly, and he was better at it than I was, but sometimes the pieces got stuck on the bottom of his shoes and would make noise, like when he was driving and put his foot down on the gas when he thought it was safe for speeding, or hit the break hard, too hard, when he thought a cop might be coming up behind him.
“You’re reckless,” the little piece would intone. “And you’re a little dumb, to be quite honest.”
Eventually we were so afraid of stepping on our marriage, we began to tiptoe around all the time. It became perfectly silent in the house, which was good, but after a while the balls of my feet began to hurt, and then slowly every part of my body followed. It freaked me out at first, but then I remembered the nerve endings to your entire body end in your feet. The tiptoes were destroying me.
Melanie’s marriage fell apart for no good reason except for personalities that didn’t mix when things got rough. She had married Doug straight out of college, just like I had married Will. I was maid of honor at her wedding, and she was matron of honor at mine. When things went bad Melanie and I stuck together, and all our other friends left us behind. It’s like there’s this stink associated with the both of us, because we were too lazy or crazy or fat to make our marriages work. We did get a little fat, the both of us, sure, but that’s not why the marriages didn’t work. Only Melanie and I can understand this, and everyone else could kiss our asses. So our friendship strengthened as everything else crumbled. It was all we had left in the wreckage.
THE LAST TIME I saw Melanie before her divorce was when she packed the last of her possessions into Bitsy McSherman’s massive SUV. She was moving to Bitsy’s house on the island, a ferry ride away from her husband, her family, and me, her best friend. I came by to say good-bye, and to offer interference between her and Doug if necessary. When I pulled up, Bitsy was in the front seat of the SUV, her outline faint behind a tinted window. Melanie was shuffling boxes and suitcases around in the trunk, reconfiguring the layout a dozen times until everything fit, so she’d never have to return for anything left behind. Doug was standing in the living room, staring out the front window.
I walked over to the window. I didn’t think I could make him feel better—I’m not good at that sort of thing; celebrating the good times is more my cup of tea—I just wanted to see his face, to see what he was feeling. He was dressed like he needed to do his laundry, in a tie-dyed T-shirt with a Ben & Jerry’s logo on it, and baggy jeans. His neck and back were slouched, and his hands were shoved firmly in his front pockets, as if that were the only thing keeping him standing. I noticed for the first time he was going bald.
I waved at him through the window, and he waved back. A row of shrubs separated us, so we just stood there, on opposite sides of the window, and looked at each other. Melanie went back in for one more box, and then she said something to Doug. I couldn’t hear what she said, but I saw Doug’s mouth move in response, and I read his lips.
“Don’t bother,” he said.
Melanie came back outside, and I followed her down to the car. She opened the door to the backseat, and threw her last box in there. There was a small jade plant in the box, the baby stalk of which had just begun to burst with thumb-shaped leaves. I found this surprisingly optimistic. There were also some photo albums, a high school yearbook, and a tiny table lamp, the kind you get in college for late-night reading in bed, so you don’t wake up your roommate. Melanie slammed the door shut. Such vigor, I thought. She hadn’t had this much energy in a while. I guess she was fueled by desperation, though I hadn’t known it was that bad. Shows you what I know.
Melanie opened her arms to me, and I realized I was supposed to hug her, so I did. She made me promise to come visit, and I made her promise to come back soon.
“Don’t stay on the island too long,” I said. “We don’t want to lose you there.”
She got in the car, and I pulled my keys out of my pocket and started toward my own car. I clenched and unclenched the keys in my fist.
Melanie rolled down the windows.
“Jemma, come here.”
I walked back to the car and faced her.