Mostly Melanie talked about Bitsy, her benefactor. They had met outside the Asian Art Museum—Bitsy had noticed her sketching the sunset through Volunteer Park—and Melanie was obviously fascinated with her. It was always: Bitsy bought a new couch, Bitsy is decorating a diplomat’s house, Bitsy knows everyone on the island.
She owned a lot of land, and had used her home there as a weekend getaway for years. Up and down the West Coast she was a famous interior designer, that’s what Melanie told me. But Bitsy said she liked how she was just island folk whenever she was there on the weekend. She liked walking around what passed for a downtown in her Wellies, and waving hello across the aisle in the grocery store, and reading the Sunday Seattle Times at the café near the ferry landing.
“They call her ‘Ditsy Bitsy’ around the island,” Melanie said. Her voice didn’t change when she talked about Bitsy, so I could never tell how she actually felt about her. She was like a newscaster reporting the facts, not allowed to express an opinion. News about Bitsy at eleven. I guess she was afraid to feel anything. Bitsy had given her a home, after all.
I wanted to believe she had a smile on her face, though.
So I would get the weekly report from Melanie on Sunday mornings. She would call from the main house while Bitsy was at church. (“She’s not religious,” Melanie explained. “She’s just community-oriented.”) That’s when I would get the full breakdown of Bitsy-related activity, mostly revolving around her social life. Some of the time Melanie would talk about her work on the island, and that’s when her voice would be at its most animated.
“They’re doing such cool things here, Jemma.” And she’d go on and on about solar power and public gardens and even the compost pile. Twenty minutes she’d spend talking about a compost pile, like she had never seen one before, like she hadn’t grown up with one in her backyard, like she hadn’t written a dozen papers on them in college, like she hadn’t volunteered at the composting center all of her senior year. But I suppose the air is a little fresher out on the island, away from the big buildings and all the cars. Melanie always wanted more from her environment.
She never talked about Doug, and I didn’t bring him up. Between the two of us there was a silent agreement to talk only about things that moved us forward. We never could find any sense in holding on to the past. Melanie had jumped ship after just four years of marriage.
“When it isn’t going to work, you just know it. And I’m not in the mood to get my hands dirty fixing it.” That’s what she told me when she called me the first time from Bitsy’s place, and I let it go after that. I was sure her family and his family were giving her enough grief. I didn’t want to add to the mix, and anyway I had my own problems. It made no sense to take her down with me.
WHENEVER SARAH LEE stuttered, I talked over her. At first I was just finishing her sentences, and I don’t think I fully realized what I was doing. But then her increased presence in our lives required direct action. I started replying before she was finished with her sentence, not even knowing what the question was, or even if she was asking a question in the first place. Sometimes I would change the subject, or I would laugh even if it wasn’t funny. I just didn’t want anyone to hear what she had to say.
I knew what I was doing. I knew what I was saying, how I was making her feel. I knew I was being cruel. I just didn’t care. She’d survive without Melanie, she’d move on to someone new. She’d find twenty new best friends in the next year. I was the one who had nowhere else to go. I had already found my home.
AFTER A FEW months at Bitsy’s, right around when spring started to kick in and the land all around us turned to bloom and the sun started burning off the clouds early in the day, killing the fresh rain of the mornings, Melanie called me for our Sunday-morning chat with the latest news. I had really started to look forward to her calls, especially since Will and I had mostly checked out on each other. He had moved some stuff out—I guess to his folks’ place—but hadn’t bothered to tell me. Half of his closet was empty, a dozen dress shirts gone one morning, and he thought I wouldn’t notice? Or maybe he just didn’t care.
“Bitsy’s at war!” Melanie said before I’d even finished “Hello.”
“Ooh, with who?” I put my feet up on the kitchen table, leaned my head against the wall. I could see the neighbor’s dog sniffing in our backyard.
“With Madame Vanessa.”
“No! Why can’t she just leave that little old lady alone?” I said.