The Castaways

PHOEBE

H er days grew happier and happier. She woke up and brewed an espresso. She had renewed her membership at the gym; she ran on the treadmill and lifted weights three times a week and attended Pilates twice a week. On Saturdays and Sundays she tried to get Addison to walk with her to the beach, but he usually said no, he didn’t feel like it, he was too tired, too hungover, too lazy. So Phoebe went alone.

She was secretly taking herself off her drugs. Back in 2001, after Reed died, she had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and then, in short order, depression. She took all the drugs prescribed to her and then some, twice as often as she was supposed to, and in this way the pain had subsided. But along with the pain went everything else. Along with the pain went her personhood. Goodbye, Phoebe.

In coming off the drugs, the whole thing was working in reverse. She could think, she could feel. She had appetites. This, she thought, was a basket of raspberries. Yum! This was an egg salad sandwich with arugula on wheat bread. She wanted to eat it, in alternating bites, with crisp, salty gourmet potato chips, the juicy berries, and sips of iced tea with mint. Eating lunch, for the first time in years, gave her joy. Her pathological fear of calories was gone, too. She had desires. On a sunny day she liked to sit for an hour or two by the pool. She liked the warm sun; she liked the cool water. While on the drugs, she had barely been able to tell the difference between the two.

She called Delilah. She wanted to hang out with the kids.

You’re kidding, Delilah said.

Phoebe wanted to go to the beach, ride a boogie board to the shore on a monster wave, and eat a faceful of sand. She wanted to pick a Popsicle out of the cooler and let it drip down her hands. The colors of the water and the sand and the eelgrass in the dunes and even of the Popsicle startled her. Such deep, vibrant color! She could see it, she could appreciate it. It was as if she had been blind and only now was her sight restored. The pink of the raspberries, the deep brown of her espresso, the turquoise of the swimming pool. Amazing!

The sound of the boys, Drew and Barney, laughing. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The hum of airplanes making a landing. The James Taylor song on the boom box three towels down. She used to love that song; she still did.

“I can’t believe how wonderful I feel,” Phoebe said.

“That makes one of you,” Delilah said.

It was wrong, all wrong. It was backward. Addison was a shell, a husk. He was miserable and toadish. He was an abuser of alcohol. His lover had died and he was undergoing the predictable decline. Delilah, too, was suffering from nuclear fallout. Her hair was wild and haglike; she admitted she could muster the energy to get in the shower only once a week. Once a week! She was getting dreadlocks. She had put on weight. Delilah had a very sexy, curvy figure, but she stuffed her face mindlessly with the Doritos and Chips Ahoy that she took to the beach for the kids, which went right to her ass. She complained about her ass and her dimpled thighs, she had a harder time getting out of her beach chair, she waddled to the water line, but she kept on snarfing down the snacks. Phoebe invited her to go for walks to the beach, or to Pilates class when the kids were in camp, but Delilah turned her down. I don’t have it in me, Phoebe. And she had quit her job. She couldn’t work at the Begonia anymore, now that Greg was gone. Thom and Faith had replaced Greg with an Irish trio; Delilah had gone in to work one shift to see if she could do it, but when the girl started crooning in her Gaelic accent, Delilah ran out of the bar in tears. She went through her closet and took all her hostessing dresses to the hospital thrift shop.

“But why?” Phoebe said. “They were so pretty.”

“Because,” Delilah said, “I’m never going to wear them again.”

She was declaring her life over, and her sense of fun—which had always been her guiding principle—defeated. All she wanted to talk about was how much she hated Andrea and whether Greg had been screwing April Peck, neither of which interested Phoebe in the slightest. This was how people acted when two of their best friends died tragically—they suffered, they retreated, they regressed. Phoebe was the oddball. She did not want to dwell on Greg and April Peck or Addison and Tess falling in love in the Quaise cottage, or about her visit to Greg and Tess’s house the night before their sail, or about the drowning.

She wanted to move on!

But it looked like she was going alone.

Phoebe wanted something to do. She had agreed to cochair the cocktail party for Island Conservation on August 15. With ten phone calls, the whole event was organized—tent, tables and chairs, caterer, donated beer and wine from Cisco Brewery, swing band, invites. Wheeler Realty was going to be a major underwriter, though Phoebe had cleared this only with Florabel, the receptionist. Addison did not have the attention span to take in the details.

That accomplished, she was ready for the next thing. What was the next thing? She had nearly eight years of energy stored up. Should she resurrect her business? Arrange group cruises through the Mediterranean for the over-sixty-fives? Perhaps join them on the cruise, jump off the ship at the Amalficoast, and take a young Italian lover?

Phoebe ran across the twins by accident. They were in Nantucket Bookworks, standing quietly shoulder to shoulder in front of the chapter books. Phoebe had been adrift in paperback fiction. She thought maybe what her soul was craving was an education. There were so many books she hadn’t read. Madame Bovary, Deliverance, A Room with a View, The Ice Storm, The Corrections, A Handmaid’s Tale, A Thousand Acres, Bastard Out of Carolina, The Emperor’s Children, Bel Canto – God, the list was endless. She picked a pile to start with: I Cannot Get You Close Enough, Prep, The Brambles, Beautiful Children, all from the staff-favorites shelf. Someday in the near future, Phoebe would have her own shelf of favorites. It was a goal. She was all about goals. She wanted to add Catcher in the Rye to the pile, because that had been Reed’s favorite book. Phoebe had read it—it had been required their sophomore year of high school—but she could not remember one single thing about it except for the boy in Holden’s class who would shout “Digression!” whenever the teacher got off the topic. (But Phoebe thought she might even have been remembering that wrong.)

She could not find Catcher in the Rye on the shelf with the other Salinger novels. The woman behind the counter told her it was in the young adult section because it was on so many summer reading lists—and that was how Phoebe discovered the twins. Side by side, dark head buzz cut (Finn) next to dark head bob (Chloe), both in stripy T-shirts and shorts. Phoebe nearly cried out at how darling they were, how quiet and serious. Finn was looking at something called Captain Underpants and Chloe was flipping through A to Z Mysteries . There was something about their silence and composure that made them seem like little adults, a husband and wife, selecting books for a week of evening reading. Because they were twins, Phoebe had an incredibly tender spot in her heart for them. She felt connected to them in a way that she did not feel connected to Drew and Barney. Chloe and Finn were like Phoebe and Reed: a pair, a couple, connected at the hip. At the funeral, Phoebe had said to them, You still have each other. And they had nodded in their composed, adult way. They didn’t need her to tell them what they already knew.

Phoebe did not speak to the twins in the bookstore, or make herself known. They were too perfect. Phoebe wanted to gobble them up; she wanted to vaporize herself and inhabit their flawless bodies.

They were so sad. They were babies abandoned in a basket. Tears welled in Phoebe’s eyes. Could anyone help? Could Phoebe help? Was this it—the thing she was seeking? Was it the twins?

She paid for her stack of books and scanned the store. Where was Andrea? Or… the Chief?

Later, Phoebe called Delilah on the phone and said, “I saw the twins at Bookworks by themselves. As in all alone. Does this seem right to you?”

Delilah said, “It seems negligent. Andrea is unfit. Finn told Barney that Andrea smashed Greg’s guitar against the kitchen counter, right in front of the kids.”

“You’re kidding,” Phoebe said.

“They should be living with us,” Delilah said. “I should have fought for them.”

Fought for them, Phoebe thought.

Phoebe saw the twins again a few days later, out in Sconset. They were eating ice-cream cones on a bench in the pocket park adjacent to the Sconset Market. Phoebe was in her car; she had just enjoyed the world’s most elegant lunch of lobster and mango salad, creme caramel, and a crisp Sancerre with her cochair, Jennifer. Phoebe was a little high from the wine; she wasn’t certain at first that the two children on the bench were the twins. Out of the corner of her eye… yes, she thought so. She looped around, enjoying Sconset. It was adorable, this little town, with its rose-covered cottages and the cafes and the tennis club, and the magnificent summer homes on the bluff, which ended with the candy-striped lighthouse and the rolling green acreage of Sankaty Head golf course. Phoebe only came to Sconset on special occasions, and there hadn’t been many special occasions in the past eight years.

The second time she passed the park, she saw the twins clearly. Again sitting in silence, alone with their ice cream, staring straight ahead, licking. Phoebe slowed down. She looked for Andrea’s car—or the Chief’s?—because what would the twins be doing all the way out here on their own? Phoebe parked in front of the market. It felt like her heart had a zipper that was being pulled up—and down. Up—and down. She did not see Andrea’s car. Nor the Chief’s. So maybe the kids had come on their bikes. All the way to Sconset? Was Andrea negligent?

The twins did not see Phoebe. They did not appear to see anything except their ice cream. Phoebe was overcome with the desire to make them smile. To make them happy. Could she do it? If she approached them, would they acknowledge her? Of course they would—she had known them their entire lives, she had spent countless Sundays in their presence. But how did they think of her? They called her Phoebe, not Auntie Phoebe, even though Delilah was Auntie Dee and Andrea was simply Auntie. So Phoebe was not Auntie Phoebe, that was okay, she wasn’t their aunt like Andrea was, nor was she the mother of their dearest friends like Delilah was. She was just some strange childless woman who hung out with their parents and who spent most of her time checked into the Dope Motel.

She was different now. Would they be able to tell?

Should she offer to take them to her house and let them swim in the pool? Up—and down. The twins! The thought thrilled her.

A girl walked out of the Sconset Market swigging from a bottle of Diet Pepsi, and the kids stood up and threw away their soiled napkins and the nubs of their cones. The girl was… Andrea. No. It was Kacy. Phoebe’s heart whistled. She let out a soft Sancerre burp. She was relieved that there was a responsible person out here with the twins. But she was deflated, too. The twins were darling and wholesome. They were Hansel and Gretel, and she, Phoebe, was some kind of witch.

Kacy and the twins extracted their bikes from the rack. The twins mounted their bikes and the bikes wobbled, like fawns standing on new legs. Then they balanced themselves, they pedaled and gained speed. They were steady and confident, and Phoebe smiled as she watched them go.

She wanted something, but it was not the twins.

It was like a bad dream. It was the middle of the night, pitch-black. Now that Phoebe was off the Ambien, she needed the shades drawn and the air-conditioning on full blast in order to sleep. But the storm woke her up. Lightning flashed around the edges of the shades and the thunder sounded like someone on the second floor was picking up large pieces of furniture and then letting them drop. That wasn’t the scary part, however. The scary part was Addison sitting up, eyes wide open, watching her. He was not wearing his glasses, and for a second, she didn’t recognize him.

“Jesus, Add!” she said. She liked even this, however: the ability to be startled, to be frightened.

He said, “The present.”

She said, “What?” Though she knew, right away.

“What was the anniversary present?” he said. “That you gave Tess?”

She looked at her husband. He was staring at her, but could he see her? She had an urge to… what? Jump out of bed and run into the storm? Run down to the basement and hide in her cedar closet?

“It’s none of your business,” Phoebe said. “Is it?” This last little bit was a dare on her part. If Tess is your business, tell me why. Tell me she was your lover. Tell me you were in love with her. But Phoebe didn’t want to hear him confess. She knew what she knew, but he didn’t know what she knew, and that meant it wasn’t real. Phoebe realized in that instant that with or without the drugs, she had always chosen to live in a fantasy world, and she wanted to keep it that way.

She touched Addison’s shoulder. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and his flannel pajama pants; the AC was set at something like fifty degrees. It was so cold he claimed he could see his breath. He did not respond to her touch, even though it had become some kind of crazy rule (established, she knew, by crazy Phoebe) that they did not touch in bed. Her medication had not only sapped her sex drive, it had made her irrationally afraid of sex. Or she was afraid of sex because in recent years Addison had only pursued her when very drunk, when he was rough and he hurt her. They had had a lovely, tender sex life years and years ago, back when they were both different people. Now, along with everything else, Phoebe found herself interested in sex again. Her body resumed its humming rhythm; she had actually gotten a period, and even the blood and the cramping had seemed, if not wonderful, then at least natural and right. A return to life. She was a woman again.

It had occurred to her that what she wanted was a sex life, a sensual life. Hours with Addison where they touched and teased, kissed and stroked, gave each other massages and took candlelit baths. She wanted to climax under his finger, or with him pumping inside her. Would it be difficult to get something like this under way? Addison had tried everything both holistic and black-market to get Phoebe interested in sex again—porn videos, vibrators, scented oils, Barry White CDs, Anais Nin—and nothing had worked. Would it be the same now, only in reverse?

She stroked his arm with what she meant to be a suggestive up-and-down motion. Again her heart did its zippering and unzippering. Up—and down. She was pulsing between the legs.

“Do you want to make love?” she asked.

He looked at her. Again the empty, blind-man gaze. “I want you to tell me about the present.”

Thunder. A crack like a very big bone breaking, and then the rumble.

“I won’t.”

He fell onto his side as if shot. Phoebe would not accept this. She crossed the invisible boundary into Addison territory (he had the western half of the bed, she the eastern) and slid her hand beneath the drawstring waistband of his pajama pants. She touched him, hoping. But he was shriveled, flaccid. She retracted her hand and thought of apologizing.

And then Addison started to sob.

Still, she thought, she wanted something. If that something was Addison, she could wait it out; she could be as patient as he had been. She could fix their relationship—sew the head back onto the doll, rescue the fallen souffle.

She found the poem—or it found her—on the hottest day of the summer. Addison came home from the office at four and said he wanted to stay in the pool until nightfall.

“Okay,” Phoebe said. “Just as long as you keep your head above water.” This was said lightly, though Phoebe worried that Addison would pour himself four or five bourbons, lie on his inflatable raft, fall asleep, and inadvertently slip to the bottom of the pool without her noticing. Another drowning.

He couldn’t get into his swim trunks fast enough. Addison, who was always fastidious, very sloppily emptied his pockets all over the granite countertops too close to where Phoebe was attempting both to brew iced tea and to shred a rotisserie chicken for chicken salad. Phoebe had never been much of a cook, but she had watched Delilah make chicken salad a hundred times (watched her through someone else’s prescription eyeglasses, it seemed now). It was easy. Shredded chicken, celery, chives, mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and the secret ingredient, straight out of Mary Poppins—a spoonful of sugar. Tonight, Phoebe thought triumphantly, they would eat a dinner she’d prepared herself.

When Addison opened the door to go out to the pool (full Jack-over-ice in hand), the hot wind lifted the poem off the pile of debris evacuated from his pockets—the money, the change, the business cards, the single piece of root-beer-flavored hard candy, a couple of pieces of pilled red felt—and it wafted into the melee of ingredients that was to become the chicken salad.

Phoebe lifted the poem with her nails; her fingers were coated with chicken grease.

A poem! Ripped from somewhere.

She read the poem, keen to understand it. Literature was her friend now; she had finished Catcher in the Rye and was halfway through the Ellen Gilchrist. The poem was straightforward; she got it, but not really. A birthday party in a restaurant, the men’s room, someone pissing Asti Spumante. Macho! Then Phoebe came to the underlined verses. My life with you has been beyond beyond/And there’s nothing beyond it I’m seeking/I wouldn’t mind being dead/If I could still be with you.

Phoebe set the poem back down on the pile of Addison’s things and weighted it with his keys.

She had seen the poem before. She had seen it at Tess’s house. Tess had handed it to her. She’d said, Look at this. Phoebe had pretended to read it, but of course the words had been little more than ants on sugar.

It’s beautiful, she had told Tess.

Tess had sniffled a little bit. Everything made that woman cry.

Phoebe scooped mayonnaise into the bowl with abandon. Addison could not be saved. She would have to find something else to want.