Prime-Time American uniform: thin. But it's harder on the women because they must not only be thin, they must be fashion model-gaunt. Television commercials, like certain poisons, have to have a cumulative effect. So Janet was one of the ones who battled daily in an attempt to match the images they saw in the mirror with the images pressed upon them by the television screen.
As she picked at her Caesar salad, she said things like, 'If I just had more willpower . . . exercise till I drop, and things still don't seem to change much . . . have you heard of that new powder diet?'
I said things such as 'Genetic coding . . . the effective storage system of wandering Nordic tribes . . . think in terms of fitness, not fat.'
When we were finished, I walked her outside toward my old Chevy pickup truck. I'd had the engine overhauled recently, the brake pads and brake lines replaced, then had the truck painted a very handsome—I
believed—shade of navy gray. I liked the pearlike shape of the cab, and the fact that its six-cylinder engine was so simple that even I could work on it. The color seemed to match the functionality of the truck.
That was what I was explaining to her—why I maintained an old truck rather than buy a new one—when, as I reached for the passenger's-side door handle, Janet suddenly took me by the elbow and said, 'Let's walk.' She used her chin to motion toward the beach across the road.
So we walked. It was a good night for it: blustery January sea wind pushing surf onto the beach, making a surging, waterfall roar. Black night with a new moon drifting down the western sky; winter stars gauging the velocity of scudding clouds. Tropical Mexico and the jungles of Yucatan were somewhere out there, beyond the far range of horizon. But here, on Sanibel, a Canadian wind culled sand from the beach and stung us.
We were walking south, away from Blind Pass. Probably walked five minutes or so before she pulled my arm tight to her—an attempt to conceal herself, I sensed, rather than a gesture of affection—and she said in a steady, controlled voice, 'I want to tell you about what happened. It would be good for me to talk about it, they . . . That's what I've been told. But it's not easy, and I want you to understand that I'm getting better. I don't want you to think I'm the kind who goes around whining about poor me me me. But there are things—I know this now—there are things that you can't keep bottled up inside.'
I said, 'Then you probably need to talk about it.'
She sighed. I could feel her body shudder involuntarily. 'Okay, what happened was, the reason I left Ohio was ... I had what you would call a nervous breakdown. Those words—nervous breakdown—you hear them all the time, so they don't seem like much. You know, so-and-so had a nervous breakdown? But when you go through it . . . it's not so simple. I was convinced that I really had gone . . . gone completely insane. Only I hadn't. The doctors, it took them a long time to convince me. I spent nearly a year under their care, and it was several months before I finally began to believe that I wasn't really crazy, I was just reacting to . . . what I'd been through. I was suffering severe depression and what they called anxiety attacks. These things, the attacks, would seem to just descend on me—in the classroom, at the store, anyplace. Like poison gas almost, and it was the most terrifying experience. . . .'
She paused, trying to wrestle her emotions into control. I said, 'You don't have to go on with this. You became ill. Human beings are susceptible to illness—there are emotional viruses just as there are physical viruses. So now you're in Florida recuperating, and things are going better—'
She tapped my arm, hushing me. 'That's not it,' she said. 'I'm avoiding it again. I started to tell you what happened, and that's what I'm going to do.' She cleared her throat. . . made a brave attempt to continue, then completely broke down. I patted her, I made little clucking noises. She told me what she could in little spurts. Over the next hour and several miles of beach, the whole story came out. She kept saying, 'I know
Sadly, it was true. But not much worse.
As early as grade school, Janet had known that she was not, and would never be, drop-dead attractive. But she grew up with enough good people, and enough self-esteem, that it didn't matter much. At one point she said, 'You've seen those women—women who are smart and talented but, because of the way they look, they end up with men no one else would have? I wasn't going to let that happen to me.'
She didn't. She dated occasionally, but not much. What she did was wait . . . and wait . . . and wait until just the right man came along. Four years ago, he finally did. His name was Roger Mueller. Roger worked for some state agency, and he was assigned to the northwest section of Ohio. Roger was good at his work. He also played bluegrass music—even made his own instruments—and had personal interests that were far-ranging. He liked to read. He liked to laugh. True, he was no screen idol. What he was was an average-looking but very kind and decent man. Janet fell madly in love with Roger; he fell madly in love with her.
'From the moment we met, it was like we were meant to be together,' she told me. 'Roger felt the same way. All those years, he'd been waiting for just the right person to come along too. Then, to finally find each other . . .'
They married. They bought a small farmhouse north of town, which they completely remodeled. Did all the work themselves after dinner, on weekends. Because they both wanted to start a family, part of the remodeling included a nursery just off the master bedroom. The first year it didn't happen, but the second year it did. Janet was pregnant. 'Up to that point, I'd had a good life,' she said. 'Pretty well-adjusted and happy. Then to find Roger and get pregnant, too. . . . I'd never imagined that kind of happiness.'
And that's when the big hammer fell.
Roger was driving home late after work one snowy night. On the same road, coming from the opposite direction, was a woman who had no license because of her long history of alcohol abuse.
All that Janet could remember from that night, and the week that followed, was a highway patrolman coming to the door . . . then a nurse crying with her, at her bedside, because of the miscarriage.
Janet tried to resume her teaching duties, but couldn't function in the classroom. She took sick leave, but couldn't function at home. Finally, she ended up in a hospital, then a mental health facility.
'Learning how to deal with the panic attacks,' she said, 'was the thing that finally convinced me I wasn't completely crazy. When I'd feel one coming I'd keep reminding myself what the doctors told me: The attacks were unpleasant as hell, but they were harmless. All that fear was being manufactured by my own brain. I didn't have to control it. All I had to do was learn to wait it out, and it would leave. That's when the attacks began to go away, and I began to get better.'
We were walking north now, quartering into wind. Janet had cried herself dry. Her voice was weary, but solid; it had an even timbre that I liked. The woman was a survivor. She would be okay.
'I came to Florida because they suggested I have a complete change of scenery,' she said. 'They said I was well enough for it. I'd had enough solid weeks in a row. Buying the houseboat ... I don't know—living on a boat was something I'd wanted to do since I was a girl. I had the money from the insurance, so . . .' She shrugged. 'It still isn't easy. I feel myself getting scared sometimes, all the old fears coming back. But I've learned to ignore it, and it doesn't last. I'm glad I ended up in Dinkin's Bay. The people there are . . . such a funny little group.' She chuckled. 'I think the other night— at Perbcot?—was the first time I'd really laughed in a long, long time. But the best thing . . . the best I've felt since it all happened, was taking notes on your tarpon today. It was all so . . . focused, watching those tarpon ... so analytical that I didn't have time to feel any emotion. You know? Those tarpon, the way they behave. Every movement is so strong and sure. Perfectly alive, no regrets, no fears. Right there in the tank, living and so damn . . . pure.
We had been walking side by side. Now she laced her arm through mine. 'What happened to Roger and our . . . our family . . . was a terrible, senseless, tragic thing. I know that, yet there's nothing in the world I can do to change it. But Roger was no quitter, and neither am I.'
I said, 'I think you're going to be fine, Janet.'
'Maybe. No, I
We walked on in silence. For some reason, I started thinking of this looney old uncle of mine, Tucker Gatrell,
