Barefoot: A Novel

Melanie came in to read to Vicki every evening after dinner. Melanie was reading from Bridget Jones’s Diary because it was light and fun, and both Vicki and Melanie wanted to spend time in a place where the only things that mattered were boyfriends, calories, and designer shoes. Vicki was embarrassed, being read to like a child, but she enjoyed the time with Melanie. They had been living under the same roof but they had lost each other. Now Melanie was coming back into focus, and she seemed different. Certainly she looked different—her body was simultaneously swol en and tight, she was tan, her hair was growing lighter from the sun. She was beautiful.

“You’re beautiful,” Vicki said one night as Melanie took the seat beside her bed. “You look fabulous. You’re glowing. You should be in a magazine.”

Melanie blushed, smiled, and tried to busy herself with finding the correct page in the book. “Stop it.”

“I’m serious,” Vicki said. “You look happy. Are you happy? ” She hoped her voice conveyed that although she herself was dying, she could stil celebrate the good news of others.

Melanie seemed afraid to speak, but the answer was obvious. And to Vicki, this change in Melanie seemed like the biggest thing of al that she had missed. Melanie was happy! Here on Nantucket!

Vicki resumed chemo. She returned to her lucky chair, the pearl-gray wal s, the sports news, Mamie, Ben, Amelia, Dr. Alcott. She was happy to hear they were stil undefeated in softbal . Vicki gasped when Mamie inserted the needle into her port—the skin there was as tender as it had been in the beginning—but she was determined to think of the chemo as medicine. Positive attitude!

“Your sister seems very busy over there,” Mamie commented. “She’s writing something?”

“A screenplay,” Vicki said. For the first time, this didn’t sound completely ridiculous. “She’s almost half done.”

Vicki had one good day fol owed by another. The lighter chemo regimen took less of a tol on her body. She was able to cook dinner—gril ed salmon, barbecued chicken, corn and early tomatoes from the farm—and she was able to eat. After dinner, she devoured ice cream cones from the market. She gained two pounds, then three, and she joked that the weight went right to her ass. The weekend came, which meant Ted, and she felt so much better and looked so much better that sex came easily and natural y between the two of them. Sex! She might have lain in bed afterward savoring the first postcoital glow she’d enjoyed in nearly two months, but she didn’t want to lie in bed when she could be up, when she could be outside.

“Let’s go!” she said. She felt wild and carefree; she felt like Bridget Jones.

She went to the beach with Ted and the kids, though it was stil too far for Vicki to walk, so they drove the Yukon. Vicki was the palest person on the beach and grotesquely skinny, and because of the port, she wore a nylon surf shirt over her bathing suit—but these things went immediately onto her List of Things That No Longer Matter. A few yards down the beach Vicki spied a familiar figure in a matronly black one-piece bathing suit.

It was Caroline Knox with her family. If Vicki wasn’t mistaken, Caroline was looking her way but trying not to be caught looking. She turned to say something to a bald man in a webbed chair next to her. Probably: There’s Vicki Stowe, lung cancer, poor woman. Just look at her, a skeleton. She used to be so pretty. . . .

Vicki didn’t care. She waded into the water with Blaine, and then she swam out a few yards by herself. The water felt incredible. It cradled her.

She floated on her back and closed her eyes against the sun; she flipped over and floated on her stomach and opened her eyes to the green, silent world below. The waves washed over her, she was suspended, weightless, buoyant. How long did she stay out there? One minute, five minutes, twenty? She lost time the way she used to as she lay in bed, only now it was liberating. She was alive, living, out in the world, floating in the ocean.

When she raised her head and looked back toward shore, she saw Ted standing at the edge of the water with Porter in his arms and Blaine standing beside him. They were searching for her. Could they not see her? She waved to them. Hi! I’m right here! For a second, she panicked. This was what it would be like once she was gone. She would be able to see them but they wouldn’t be able to see her. Vicki raised her arms a little higher; she cal ed out. Hey! Hello! And then Ted saw her; he pointed. There she is! Hi, Mom! They waved back.

First Vicki felt good, then she felt great. She cal ed her mother and, for the first time al summer, put the woman’s mind at ease. You sound wonderful, darling! You sound like your old self! Vicki felt like her old self—even breathing came easier. She imagined the tumor in her lungs shrinking to the size of a marble, she imagined the cancer cel s giving up and dropping dead. It was easy to keep a positive attitude when she felt this good.

On Monday, when Josh took the kids to the beach, Vicki persuaded Brenda and Melanie to go shopping with her in town. The day was dazzling, and Main Street was a hive of activity. Vicki stood for nearly twenty minutes at the Bartlett’s Farm truck picking out a rainbow of gladiola, six perfect tomatoes for sandwiches and salad, ten ears of sugar-butter corn, the perfect head of red leaf lettuce, and cucumbers that she would marinate in fresh dil , tarragon, and vinegar. Vicki carried this bounty herself—though Brenda strongly suggested putting it in the car—because Vicki liked being healthy enough to carry two shopping bags of vegetables, and she liked the way the stems of the gladiola brushed against her face.

Brenda wanted to go to the bookstore, and so they lingered in Mitchel ’s for a while, where Vicki paged through cookbooks. Melanie bought the sequel to Bridget Jones. Vicki dashed up to the bank for cash and she picked up lol ipops for the kids. When she got back to the bookstore, Melanie was standing outside, waiting for her. Brenda had gone to the Even Keel Cafe for a coffee. They proceeded down Main Street to Erica Wilson. Melanie wanted some new clothes. She tried on a long embroidered skirt with an elastic waist, and a tunic that she could wear over her bathing suit. Each time she came out of the curtained dressing room to model for Brenda and Vicki, she twirled. Her face barely concealed her delight.

Vicki was about to mention Melanie’s unprecedented ecstasy to Brenda, but Brenda beat her to it. “What is up with her?” Brenda said. “She’s been Suzy Sunshine lately.”

“I know,” Vicki said. “She’s happy.”

“But why?” Brenda said.

“Does there have to be a reason?” Vicki said.

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” Brenda said.

“Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones,” Vicki said. “Or maybe she just loves it here with us.”