The Hot Flash Club Chills Out (23 page)

34

O
vernight, something clicked in nature’s thermostat, and when New England residents woke on that July morning, the outside world was one giant sauna. The temperature climbed into the high nineties, and the humidity was in the nineties, too. Air-conditioning units chugged laboriously and still couldn’t make the interiors of houses and apartments really comfortable.

The heat made Alice lethargic. Unfortunately, it made Aly irritable. Or perhaps the tension between Alan and Jennifer was effecting the baby. The experts said that babies and children picked up on things adults weren’t aware of. Even Alice couldn’t miss the clipped words and abrupt looks passing between her son and his wife as they went about their daily business in the bakery. Fans were set up all over, and there was central air conditioning, but with all the ovens going, the heat ruled. Probably trying to cool the place was a simple waste of money, yet it was just so miserably hot and humid they craved even the smallest alleviation.

With the humid heat and the hostility between Alan and Jennifer, Alice found the atmosphere almost unbearable, so she took the baby up to The Haven for a change of scenery. Often the new faces and rooms proved a diversion for Aly. Certainly they cheered Alice. She walked up the long white gravel driveway with the baby safely tucked into a clever backpack. Aly was grizzling again, cranky from the heat and her teeth. By accident, she found Alice’s shoulder and began to gnaw on it, finding comfort as her gums touched the bare skin, and it felt so funny Alice laughed aloud, her mood lifting in spite of the heat.

The inside of The Haven was cool and dry—bliss. Alice decided to drop in on Shirley. She didn’t do this very often—she knew Shirley had a lot to prepare for the board meeting—but perhaps she might be up for a break, a glass of iced tea. Alice stopped at the secretary’s desk to chat a moment with Wendy, then tapped on the door and stepped into Shirley’s office.

Shirley was bent over a yellow legal pad, scribbling numbers on it. When she saw Alice, she actually jumped, and she looked oddly
guilty.

“Hi, Shirley. Sorry to bother you. Just thought we’d stop by to say hi.”

“Hi!” Shirley said brightly. She pulled a pile of papers on top of the yellow legal pad.

Alice felt as if she were
invading
Shirley’s space, an unusual and uncomfortable feeling. “Actually,” Alice tried to sound jokey, “I just wanted to show you that even in this wretched heat I’m exercising. I walked all the way here with this little weight on my back.”

Shirley came around the desk to kiss the baby on her nose. “Hello, dolly.” Stepping back, she looked Alice over. “How’s your heart?”

“Fine. It’s fine!”

“Well, Alice, don’t get all crabby. You really have to remember, you’ve got high blood pressure and a wonky heart. This terrible humidity will make you retain water. Are you taking diuretics?”

Alice snorted. “You bet I am. I pee like Niagara Falls. In fact, now that you mention it—want to hold Aly for a moment?”

Alice bent down so Shirley could lift the baby out of the backpack. Alice went out to the restroom. When she returned, Shirley was waiting for her in the corridor.

“Let’s go down to the lounge. It’s cooler there.”

Alice gave Shirley a look. “Are you hiding something from me, girl?”

“Me?”
Shirley’s eyebrows were always a dead giveaway. When she lied, they shot up to her red hair like a pair of caterpillars squirming for cover. Quickly, she changed the subject. “How’s Alan?”

Lifting fussy Aly into her arms, Alice sighed. “Low. I’m worried about him. He really needs to get back on an antidepressant.”

“Did you give him the Saint-John’s-wort and the ginseng?” Shirley held the door open and they went into the lounge, which was blissfully cool.

“Of course.” Alice sank into the sofa. She lay Aly next to her, and for a few moments the baby was distracted by the new light and colors around her. “Whether he’s taking it, I couldn’t say. But he was like this when he was divorced from his first wife, and it was really a prescription antidepressant that brought him out of it. It doesn’t help that Jennifer is so unsympathetic, but she’s whipped herself.”

Shirley sat on the other side of Aly, lightly stroking her fine baby hair. Shirley studied her friend. “Alice, you look
so
tired.”

Alice opened her mouth to argue, then slumped. “I
am
tired. And you don’t need to remind me, Shirley, I know I’ve gained back the weight I lost when I was on the island, and I know I’m not exercising as much as I should, but when I get home after taking care of Aly, I’m just too beat to move.”

“Why don’t you step back?”

“Because Alan and Jennifer—not to mention my granddaughter—rely on me. I don’t know what they’d do if I didn’t help them!”

Leaning over, Shirley put her hand on Alice’s arm. “What would happen if you couldn’t help them
ever
again?” That got Alice’s attention. “If you don’t take care of yourself, Alice, you’re going to have another heart attack, and you know it.”

To her enormous embarrassment, tears sprang into Alice’s eyes. Quickly she closed her eyes before Shirley could spot them. She leaned her head back against the sofa, and for a moment she thought she could fall asleep right there. “All right. I’ll think about it.”

35

B
arefoot, Shirley idled along the beach, stopping to toss a rock into the water or inhale the fresh salt air. Mentally, she felt like those sandpipers, running back and forth frantically at the water’s edge.

What were they looking for? Clams? Worms?

Shirley was looking for Harry.

She had awakened this Friday morning, depressed and absolutely
weary,
wondering how she was going to survive another date with Stan. She took an extra dose of omega-three capsules and ginseng, but her spirits wouldn’t lift. Then she phoned Nantucket to see how Polly and Faye were doing, and Polly told her she was coming back to Boston to deal with some necessary errands. Well! It seemed just logical for Shirley to hurry down to Nantucket so Faye wouldn’t be alone in that big old house. After all, it was because of Shirley that Faye was there. Although Faye insisted she felt safe by herself. And since Polly and Faye had put out the photos of Nora’s objects, the thefts had stopped. Still, it just seemed companionable, to go down to stay with Faye. She knew Marilyn couldn’t go—Marilyn’s fiancé and his best friend’s widow Fiona were arriving today from Scotland. Alice was all tied up with her granddaughter. Shirley had some paperwork to catch up on, but that could wait. She’d worked her ass off this week, and she deserved a little break.

She packed a bag, left a message on Stan’s machine, grabbed a bus down to Hyannis, and jumped on the first plane she could get to the island. She took a cab to the house, arriving in time to chat with Faye, who was dressing for an evening cruising all the openings at the various art galleries. She invited Shirley to join her, and Shirley said perhaps she’d catch up with her later, but first she needed to go to the beach. She didn’t tell Faye why she was so eager to get there. Probably the less her Hot Flash friends knew about her romantic dreams, the better.

She’d been on the beach for about an hour now, and no sign of Harry. Downhearted, she collapsed in the sand, crossing her legs yoga-style, trying to center her thoughts. It was idiotic to expect Harry to show up on the beach just because Shirley was here. He could be anywhere on the island! He could be on the moors. Or at his house. Or at another woman’s house! She hadn’t told him she’d be here this evening. They hadn’t made any plans to see each other again—although he had said he wanted to show her ’Sconset. So she wouldn’t feel too shy to phone him—but how could she phone him? She didn’t have his phone number! She didn’t even know his last name!

A burst of laughter sailed over the harbor from one of the larger sloops anchored there. Bright summer light illuminated all the people relaxing on their yachts and sailboats, drinking, talking, laughing, enjoying this golden evening. Everyone was part of a group.

Shirley slumped. She knew she was the most romantic and least realistic of the Hot Flash friends. Alice often told Shirley her thought processes were bizarre, the triumph of optimism over experience. But Shirley had found that Fate often left unexpected little presents on the pillow of her life, and after all, life itself was a gift.

So she sat on the sand, and then she walked up and down the beach until the summer sun finally began to sink toward the horizon.

The next morning, Shirley rented a bike and pedaled her way out to the moors. This time she’d packed a lunch and two bottles of water, plus a handsome little book about the wildflowers of Nantucket. Her knowledge of plants was pretty minimal, which was odd, really, since she knew so much about the various herbal remedies and supplements which came from plants. Faye sometimes called plants flora, a Latin name, an
intellectual
name. Shirley was going to try to become familiar enough with the flora that she could casually drop the word into one of her cocktail party conversations. She’d often felt less cultured than her Hot Flash friends, and it was never too late to change.

She didn’t hurry as she spun along the bike path. It was too hot to push herself, plus she wanted to remain near the road as long as possible, to increase the chances of seeing Harry’s red truck. But she’d biked for what seemed like hours without a sighting, and her trembling legs begged for mercy, so when she came to a dirt road leading into the moors, she got off the bike, took a big swig of water, and walked it in.

It was damned hard work! The bike did all right when the dirt was hard-packed, but occasionally she hit a patch of soft sand, and then she could barely move it. She gave up, locked the bike to the trunk of a sapling, and hiked on into the interior of the moors. The land rose and fell in a sweeping vista of greens as far as she could see. Here and there brown ribbons of road curled up and across, and she knew from a map that somewhere around here were some ponds, where she’d love to dip her exhausted feet.

It was very quiet. Occasionally a bird called or a bush rustled—she jumped, wondering if there were mice out here. But mostly the land lay still and hot under the summer sun. No trucks rumbled over the roads. Not even another biker was in sight. Every sensible person was at the beach, Shirley decided, with a rueful laugh at herself.

For a while she turned her attention to getting to know the plants. The flora. The mealy plum bearberry was easy to spot because there was so much of it. She liked the pasture thistle, standing tall and independent, with its little purple bristle like a flag. She spotted the blue-eyed grass Harry had told her about.

But she didn’t spot Harry.

Soon she felt too tired to continue, so she found a rock protruding from a carpet of velvety moss and settled on it to eat her lunch. Refreshed, she wandered up and down a hill, keeping an eye out for a pond. She felt very proud of herself, rather brave, to be out here alone like this. She had always been a city girl. Now she felt that she had some stuff to tell Marilyn that scientific Marilyn might actually find interesting.

The sun rose higher. The greenery seemed to steam. She hadn’t worn her watch, so she didn’t know what time it was when she finally decided that enough was enough. It was too hot to stay out here, and she hadn’t seen another person, and she wanted to go home to take a cool shower and a nap.

So she turned around to retrace her steps.

And realized she was lost.

She seemed to be at the bottom of a bowl. Dirt roads coiled uphill in all directions—but which one led back to her bike?

Figure it out, Shirley, she told herself. What would Marilyn do?

She’d follow her own footprints in the sand! Just like Hansel and Gretel following a trail of breadcrumbs! Relieved, Shirley began walking.

But when she came to a crossroads, she found one of those sandy patches, too deep to hold footprints, and when she inspected each path leading away from the intersection, she discovered that they
all
had footprints,
lots
of footprints.

“Damn!” Shirley stomped her foot, put her hands on her hips, and glared around. What was she going to do? Was she going to die out here, dehydrated and starved, her body turned into a weathered piece of driftwood? Why had she ever come out here alone? She was a
moron
! She was no Girl Scout, she’d never
been
a Girl Scout! She was just an idiotic recovering alcoholic with brains fried by the sun. She was just
silly.
She thought she’d find the one attractive man she’d met in the past year by wandering around this big empty island with her head up her ass! She should have stayed with Stan, she
deserved
Stan, Stan was what Fate had put on her pillow, not some gorgeous sexy outdoor guy from this island paradise. What if she couldn’t find her way out? Could she really
die
here? Was she the stupidest sixty-two-year-old on the planet? Yes, definitely!

Angry tears spilled down her cheeks. She’d seen enough survivor shows on television to realize she would only hasten the dehydration process by crying, so she sucked back her sobs, took another big gulp of water, which helped calm her down, and made a plan. She would climb to the top of the highest hill, which would be easy, because the hills were really tame. From there, she’d be able to spot the two main roads bordering the moors. She’d head for the Polpis Road, but just in case she was turned around, which most likely she was because she was such a dunce, she’d be glad to be on any paved road. She could find her way back to town, and when Faye came back from painting, they could drive out to pick up her rented bike, which Shirley never wanted to ride again as long as she lived.

She had to pee.

Oh, good, she was going to die of dehydration, and she still had to pee. Briefly she entertained the notion of saving her pee in a cup—didn’t some survivor do that in order to have some liquid to drink to keep from dying? She decided she couldn’t go to that extreme. Behind her in a little basin was a thick cluster of evergreen shrubs. Shrubs were everywhere, actually, but Shirley eased her way through the scratchy branches until she felt she’d achieved some modicum of privacy. She eased off her gorgeous spandex biking pants, snorting at herself as she did for buying them, dreaming of becoming a jock. She squatted. A branch from a shrub scraped her bare bum.

“Ouch!” Angrily, she snapped the branch in two, then hated herself for destroying the poor plant that was just being there where it belonged.

It felt weird to have her bum exposed out here in the middle of nowhere, but it was such a relief to pee!

Something in the distance grumbled and roared. Shirley nearly leaped out of her skin. Were there coyotes on the moors? Bears? Of course not, she knew that! The noise came nearer—oh, it was a car or a truck, a vehicle driven by a human being! Shirley wanted to run out and flag it down, but she couldn’t stop peeing! She clenched her muscles, but the flow continued. What if the person drove by without seeing her? For that matter, what if the person drove by and
saw
her! How embarrassing would
that
be?

Finally, she was able to pull up her tight pants. She crashed her way out of the brush, knowing she was getting cuts and scrapes on her legs and not caring. She burst out onto the road just as the vehicle came over the hill and down toward the intersection.

It was a red pickup truck.