I nodded.
“Here, ugh.” She put her sunglasses back on. “All the street signs look the same, don’t they? Because the Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters. I can’t pronounce anything. Thank God for GPS or I would be lost all the time. And I spend so much time alone here. I’m not used to it.”
I remembered how Marcy had described her journey down the Pig Trail. “And you’re all alone in the forest,” she had said. I may have brought it up so she would know that I did, in fact, pay attention to her sometimes. “Like when you went on the Pig Trail,” I said.
She shivered at the mention, braced herself like she was really cold. “I still haven’t been back there.”
“Well,” I said, “it must be an adjustment, too, with your daughter at college now. And Brad working so much. This is a big transition, being here. It’s scary. But you’ll be okay.” When I said that, I realized I was speaking to both of us. This is a big transition, Nancy, but you’ll be okay. Nancy, Nance, Nan, you will be okay.
“I don’t even know who I am here. I think I’m having a midlife crisis.”
“I know how you feel,” I told her. “But really, you will be okay.”
When the waiter brought the check, Marcy pulled up the calculator on her phone to figure out who owed what. Two months ago, this is exactly what I would have done. “Let’s just split it down the middle,” I suggested, and slapped my credit card on the black booklet with ease.
Marcy spent a few beats considering this new approach. Then she shrugged and said, “Okay, I guess that’s easier.”
And then, feeling high—I was showing someone a better way to live, even if it was only in this small way—I added, in my least condescending tone, “You know, Marcy, if you can own your solitude, you might start to feel stronger.”
Marcy frowned. And then I frowned. Because again, I knew I was speaking to both of us. The thought that I was not above Marcy killed my high and sank me fast. I couldn’t even look at her.
So I looked down instead.
The black booklet, the white check. The two identical blue Amex cards, and I couldn’t tell which one was mine.
14
I don’t feel lonely here, I thought, as I marched deeper into the forest. I don’t feel scared here, I thought, when I heard something living brush through the leaves and quickened my pace. They’re just shoes, I thought, when the path turned to mud. It’s just silence, I thought, when I stopped to tie my muddy shoe and heard no cars and no dogs and no people and no sound in the world beyond the ringing of crickets. When I got to the end, there was a gate. I touched the metal—a tangible “you made it.” And then I hurried back down the path—the way back is always faster, the way back is always faster. When I reached the opening—finally, the opening out of the dense leaves—I looked past the white car and thought, Where’s the van? And then I laughed. I had to laugh at myself. A silly mistake, it meant nothing. Nancy! The van is gone. This is your white car. Your white convertible Sharkie. When I got in—ah, it felt so good to sit down and ah, these leather seats—I breathed in deeply and felt proud. I had done it. I had walked the Pig Trail alone. As I drove home, I reminded myself to fully enjoy the recently unwrapped mango scent that permeated my brand-new used car. It was intoxicatingly fresh.
15
I abandoned the watercress stir-fry. I didn’t feel like dealing with a recipe. I cooked the easiest, fastest thing, which was a box of five-minute rosemary quinoa and some broccoli steamed in the microwave. I knew Chuck and the boys would want more than that, so I also zapped some Poppers.
“Boys, please set the table!” I called. They were watching TV with their long legs all over the place. When they didn’t answer, I said it again—“Bo-oys!”—and walked over to them, annoyed that they were forcing me to be so annoying. They heard me coming and put their feet on the floor. “Hello! TV? Don’t you have homework?”
“We did it already,” Cam said. He was blinking a lot. So was Jed. Bloodshot eyes. Was that the chlorine or—they did look a little dumb. Their limbs were heavy on the couch. Heavier than usual? Were they stoned? I wasn’t in the mood to ask. Terrible that sometimes, as a parent, the easiest thing to do is to ignore the problem. I would make up for this later by searching their rooms.
“Mom, you’re blocking the TV,” Jed said, straining his neck.
“Please come set the table.” I pushed the Off button on the imaginary remote in my hand.
Cam obligingly pushed the real Off button, and Jed said, “Oh man! He was about to do a triple flip!”
“Well,” I said, “if he can do it once, he can do it again.” God, I sounded like such a mother. Or a grandmother. Suddenly my back hurt again.
Chuck had called to say he’d be late. Paperwork. I let the boys eat while I took a quick shower. I still had mud all over my legs. Washing it off reminded me of my accomplishment. I had walked the Pig Trail alone.
I lathered myself with double the usual amount of soap. Paperwork, he had said. And yes, my mind had gone immediately to Shelly. But not the real Shelly—a new version of Shelly here in Hawaii who loved to help the boss with paperwork. Maybe she was even Hawaiian. No, more likely that she’d be blond again. Chuck had a thing for blondes—he was always pointing out the “perfectly symmetrical bone structure” of Sharon Stone or Charlize Theron or some other blond actress. Five years ago, when we’d begun to drift, I got blond highlights, which made me look like a teenybopper, and which didn’t fix things. I scrubbed my legs harder with the loofah and reminded myself to get a grip. Be present, Nance. And get a grip. Things are going well with Chuck. He’s not going to cheat on you again. At least tonight, he’s not. It’s too soon.
By the time Chuck got home—“Honey, I’m home!” he Ricky Ricardo’d—the boys had finished everything but the broccoli (I’d overcooked it), and I was eating the overcooked broccoli anyway at the computer, reading my blog. (“Maple-Adobo Tostadas = 2 Die 4 x 15!”)
I got up to kiss him, and really to hunt for traces of perfume on his person. I detected none. “How was paperwork?”
“Good,” he said in a believable tone, and then he went on to explain the glitch with the payroll system at Costco and how he planned to remedy it, which sounded real. And anyway, I could tell when Chuck was lying, and he wasn’t lying now.
The boys were back at the TV, rapt by a snowboarder cutting through a half tube of ice.
Chuck plucked a limp piece of broccoli from Cam’s plate. He looked at my plate by the computer. “Looks like everyone’s doing their own thing tonight.”