Madame Vanessa lived next door to Bitsy and Melanie. She was old and French and rich. Her son had bought her the house for retirement and as a weekend spot for their family a decade ago, where she had lived peacefully until Bitsy moved in next door. Suddenly there were problems with the property lines (Bitsy claimed—and won—an extra half acre), and most recently Bitsy disapproved of their disparate landscape designs at the front of their plots (a problem solved by Madame Vanessa’s subsequent hiring of Melanie who duplicated the look of Bitsy’s land).
And now, apparently, it was Madame Vanessa’s fence. It was chain link while Bitsy’s was white picket, and Bitsy couldn’t stand it.
“She’s done everything under the sun to change this woman’s mind. First she sent her clippings from a catalogue of a fence she preferred. Then she invited her over for tea so she could look out the window and see how awful the fences look next to each other. But of course this woman is perfectly happy with her fence!”
“Of course. Chain link is lovely,” I laughed.
“She has dogs, and they’re massive. She says they would just scratch up a nicer fence. Anyway, Bitsy just sits around coming up with plots to get her way. I think she’s losing her mind.”
“Are you all right there?”
“Yes, of course. I just work all the time, and Bitsy’s here only on the weekends. But still…”
“Lonely?”
“Yes. Will you come visit?”
I agreed to visit in a few weeks. I wanted the chance to suck in a bit of the energy Melanie seemed to be bursting with. I’ll admit I was afraid that, when I returned, Will would have moved out completely. But if he was going to go, he should just do it already. I just didn’t want to be the one responsible for kicking him out the door.
SARAH LEE CALLED me on it eventually. In a bathroom, in a bar, hands washed, bottles resting on the counter.
“You don’t like me,” she said. She wore a tight yellow T-shirt with a tractor on it. She had drawn swirling birds all around the tractor.
“Like” was said with a stutter.
I picked up my bottle and sipped it. I stared at her like I hated her. “I like you just fine,” I said.
“No you don’t,” she said. She was drunk. She could never say no to another, I had noticed, and someone was always offering to buy her one.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“I don’t like you, either,” she said, but I knew she was lying.
ON THE FERRY RIDE OVER, I sat in the truck, hands gripping and releasing the steering wheel. Most people get out and enjoy the view of the sound, the mountains to the west, and the tips of the other islands, or they wave good-bye to the city behind them. Not me, I just looked at the other cars. I was surrounded by them—two lines to the right, a line to the left, and cars in front and back, stretching the length of the boat. I simply sat there and waited in this frozen line. It was a pretty day, too, and the skies were clear. I held the steering wheel. Grip. Release. I hadn’t known how badly I had wanted to leave my house for the weekend until I had done just that.
Ask me why I took the truck and not the Cavalier. Go ahead, ask me. I took the truck and left Will with the Cavalier so that it wouldn’t be as easy to move his stuff. I had left before him in the morning, and I hadn’t even told him I was going the night before. I stuck a note in the oversized glass ashtray near the front door, where we stored our keys and spare change. Let him see what it feels like to be the last to know.
One of the ferry workers knocked on my window, and I pulled my head back in surprise and hit the seat.
“You all right, ma’am?”
My husband is leaving me, I wanted to say. He used to spend all his time trying to make me laugh, and I used to think he was funny. Now we can’t even smile at each other in the morning. I’m twenty-seven and I’ve already failed. I’m going to be alone. I’m going to have to date strangers. Someone is going to try to kiss me awkwardly after he buys me Chinese food and takes me to a Sandra Bullock romantic comedy. I’m going to have to start carrying gum in my purse. And lipstick. And I’m going to have to lose weight. Goddammit.
Instead I say: “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Well, you keep honking your horn.”
I looked down at my hands. I thought they were high up on the wheel at twelve o’clock, in anticipation of driving. Turns out they were dead center, in anticipation of disaster.
ON THE ISLAND, Melanie and I were drinking each other under the table and I didn’t care. I couldn’t believe how thirsty I was for the taste of beer. It was like we were back in college, when drinking was a sport. Then there were a million bars to go to, but out on the island, as Melanie told me, there are only three.
“The people who live in the trailers go to the pub on the other side of the island, and the place across the street”—she motioned with her eyes—“is for the family types.”
“So who’s left?” I said.