Barefoot: A Novel

“Is Darvocet a narcotic?” Vicki asked.

“No, ma’am, it’s not.”

“But it is a painkil er?”

“Yes, indeed, it is, and it can be taken to greater effect with the Motrin.”

Greater effect. Vicki was mol ified.

Ted lobbied for another beach picnic. He wanted to use his fishing poles one more time, he wanted lobsters again. This time Vicki could organize, right?

Right, Vicki said weakly.

That afternoon, when Josh dropped off the boys, Ted thumped him on the back and said, “We’re going back out to Smith’s Point tomorrow night for dinner and some more fishing. Wil you join us?”

“I can’t,” Josh said. “I’m busy.”

“Busy?” Ted said.

Vicki looked at Josh’s face. She was in the kitchen with her sunglasses on and everyone looked shadowy and dim, like actors in an old black-and-white movie.

“Real y?” she said. “We’d love to have you. It’s the last . . .”

“Real y,” he said. “I’m busy.”

Later, after Josh left, Ted said, “We could invite Dr. Alcott to the picnic. He likes to fish.”

“No,” Vicki said. “No way.”

Numbed by Darvocet and Motrin (ramped up with the addition of three Advil and two Tylenol), Vicki pul ed the picnic together in a near-exact replica of the previous picnic. Except, no Josh.

“Who’s coming?” Melanie asked.

Vicki said, “Just us.”

As Ted drove west toward Madaket and Smith’s Point, Vicki felt the summer ending. It was closing, like a door. The sun hung low in the sky, barely hovering over the tops of the scrub pines of Ram Pasture; its last rays dripped onto the rooftops of the huge summer homes in Dionis. Or so it seemed to Vicki, through her sunglasses. The world was slowing down, the light was syrupy. Melanie sat up front next to Ted, and Brenda and Vicki sat in the Yukon’s middle section, where they could tend to the kids in the way-back. Blaine had his hand arched over his head because Ted had asked him to take care of those rods and Blaine thought that meant he had to hold them for the entire ride. Porter babbled, alternately sucking on his pacifier and popping it out, which made a hol ow noise he liked. Babble, suck, pop. The car smel ed like lobster. Vicki had accidental y ordered an extra dinner—for Josh, she realized, who wasn’t coming. The car felt empty without him. Was she the only person who felt this way? The kids missed him. Melanie, probably, too, though Vicki hadn’t felt wel or brave enough to talk to Melanie about Josh. Maybe later, down the road, after surgery and the baby, maybe when they more closely resembled the people they’d been before this summer. (A memory came to Vicki out of the blue: a dinner party at Melanie and Peter’s house, a catered party that featured black truffle in every course. Peter had bought the truffle from a

“truffle broker” in Paris after another failed round of in vitro; it was his idea to hire the caterer and throw the party. Vicki had appeared at the party with an ounce of outrageously expensive perfume from Henri Bendel as a gift for Melanie. Melanie had seemed delighted by the perfume. Vicki guarded the conversation at that dinner party like the gestapo; every time one of the other guests mentioned anything having to do with children, Vicki changed the subject.)

They would never go back to those former selves. They had changed; they would change again. As if reading Vicki’s thoughts, Brenda let out a big sigh. Vicki looked her way.

“What?”

“I have to talk to you,” Brenda said. She slid down in her seat, and Vicki, instinctively, did the same. They were like kids again, talking below their parents’ radar, where they wouldn’t be heard.

“About what?” Vicki said.

“About money,” Brenda said.

The car’s radio was on. Journey, singing “Wheels in the Sky.” Vicki thought, Wheels in the sky? What did that mean, exactly? Did that mean the plan that God was endlessly spinning for us? In the front seat, Ted was blathering on to Melanie about the fishing trip he and Blaine were going to take on Tuesday. Apparently, Harrison Ford would be on the boat, too, with his nephew. Did wheels in the sky refer to the wheels turning in Vicki’s mind, the gears that were supposed to move at lightning speed, shuttling thoughts in and out, but that now kept getting stuck and going in reverse, as though they needed oil? About money? Why would anyone want to talk about money? Did wheels in the sky mean the actual sky? Outside, the sky was dark already. How was that possible, when just moments before, the sun . . . babble, suck, pop. Ted said, They can pretty much guarantee you’ll catch a bluefish, but everyone wants stripers. The car smel ed like lobsters. Seven mothers died when a bus on a Los Angeles freeway flipped and caught fire. Only seven? Josh was busy. Really, he said. I’m busy. Greta Jenkins had started tel ing a story about her daughter, Avery, four years old, taking dance lessons and what a hassle it had been to find the right kind of tights. Tights without feet, Greta said. A look of loss and despair had flickered across Melanie’s face (but just for a second because she was, after al , the hostess of this dinner party, with its shavings of truffle over everything—like shavings from a lead pencil, Vicki thought). Vicki had changed the subject, saying, Did anyone read the Susan Orlean article in The New Yorker about pigeon fanciers? Babble, suck, pop. About money? Vicki missed Josh. He was busy. It was dark everywhere now.

“Ted!” The voice was Brenda’s serious voice, even more serious than when she said, I have to talk to you. It was her urgent voice. Signaling: Emergency! “Ted, pul over right now. She passed out or fainted or something. I’m cal ing nine-one-one.”