“It’s not over.” The words are sweet in Jorie’s mouth, they taste like apples as she speaks. “It will never be over between me and you.”
As the sky deepens and the clouds begin to blush with mauve shadows, Jorie goes to fetch a pitcher of warm water and some shampoo. When she comes back, she washes Charlotte’s hair there on the patio, beneath the pink sky, while dozens of sparrows gratefully wind bits of red hair into their nests. Afterward, Jorie gets them dinner, which she brings outside so they can picnic on the grass. There’s the roast chicken she’s brought today, along with some eggplant casserole Trisha Derry delivered earlier in the week. Once the chemo treatments begin, Charlotte won’t be able to keep anything down other than bread and butter and apple-sauce, but at the moment, she’s ravenous. She eats until she feels she will burst. There is no one to try to impress anymore, not even herself. She has already decided she will not look at her own reflection, at least not for a while. If she’s alive and well next summer, then she’ll buy a full-length mirror to hang in the hallway She’ll stare at herself night and day.
“What do you know.” Jorie grins as she peers at the street where a car has come to park. They’re finishing supper, which is delicious, and drinking tall glasses of lemonade sweetened with cherry juice, exactly the way they used to like it when they were girls. “Is that Barney Stark?”
Sure enough, it’s Barney’s Lexus, with all the windows rolled down and Barney himself behind the wheel, staring into the hot, glassy air.
“I heard he’s moved out of his house. He’s living in his office on Front Street.”
“What is wrong with that man?” Charlotte asks. “Every time I turn around, there he is.”
Jorie laughs. “Did you ever think he might be interested in you?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Take a look at me. On second thought, don’t.” Charlotte gets up and heads for the gate. “Hey. Barney.” She waves. “Don’t just sit there. Come on over and have some supper.”
Sitting in his parked car, Barney looks startled. For a moment it seems as though he may bolt, turn the key in the ignition and drive out of Hillcrest as fast as he can, back to the safety of his office and the haze of indecision he’s been living in these past years. Instead, he gets out of his car and comes around the path.
“I didn’t want to interrupt you if you had company,” he says as he hands Charlotte the box he has with him, a pink bakery box she instantly recognizes as one of her own. “I guess this is like carrying coals to Newcastle.”
“Isn’t that nice, to be compared to a hill of coal,” Charlotte counters. All the same, she’s oddly moved. Since she owns the bakery, no one has ever thought to bring her dessert before. “Ah,” she says upon opening the box. “Chocolate confession cake. My favorite.”
Charlotte goes inside to fix a plate of chicken and vegetables for Barney, leaving Jorie and Barney together,
“Tell her some good news,” Charlotte calls to Barney as she goes inside. “She could use it.”
Barney sits down in the grass. He’s sweating too much, so he takes off his jacket, then loosens his tie. He’s somewhat embarrassed in Jorie’s presence, for there’s a part of him that feels he’s let the Fords down by not handling Ethan’s case personally. In order to tell her anything even slightly resembling good news, he’d have to lie to her, and that’s not within Barney’s capabilities.
“Fred Hart seems to be doing a great job,” he says instead, hoping this opinion will comfort Jorie. “He thinks he can prove Ethan is a changed man, and he’s got half the town willing to vouch for him. They’ve already raised close to fifty thousand dollars, and that’s certainly a vote of confidence.”
“You never would have taken the case.” Jorie seems quite certain of this. “You couldn’t defend a guilty man.”
When Charlotte comes back with a plate piled high with chicken and eggplant, along with some dessert dishes and silver-ware, Jorie takes the opportunity to say her good-byes. She tells them she’s tired, she jokes that since she’s moved back home, her mother has taken to staying up, waiting by the window until Jorie is safely through the front door, but they both know she’s exhausted from keeping up a facade of good cheer. Cover up grief and it grinds away at you, from the inside out. It makes you run for dark corners and empty rooms, heartsick and mute, despising your own company
“She doesn’t know what to do,” Charlotte says after Jorie has left. “She doesn’t even know what to think.”
“She knows, all right. That’s the whole problem.”
It’s time for dessert, so Barney takes the serving knife Charlotte’s brought him and cuts two large slices of cake. People say this rich concoction can force a person to admit almost anything, if he eats enough of it. Well, Barney’s never been afraid of the truth. Truth is his business, he’s not going to turn away from it now, no matter how high the price. Dana was not especially surprised when he told her he was moving out; if anything, she seemed relieved, particularly when Barney assured her that she and the girls wouldn’t have to change their lifestyle even though he would no longer be living in the house on Evergreen. Since then, he’s been keeping up with the girls, spending as much time with them as he can. He’s come for dinner the last two nights, much more pleasant events than what they’d all come to expect, and he knows exactly where his daughters are this evening. Kelly is out with Rosarie Williams, at one of those damned fund-raisers for Ethan, held in Hamilton this time. Josie is at her dance class, and Sophie, his dearest, his baby, is up in her room, writing in her journal, trying her best to deal with how angry she is.
And so Barney thinks about the truth, now that he has the time and opportunity to do so. He is glad to be in Charlotte Kite’s backyard, that is the truth. Glad to be watching the dusk settle in between the twisted apple trees on the hillside behind her house, to be here eating chocolate cake with the scent of strong coffee and honeysuckle in the air.
And what does Charlotte make of this large, quiet man in her backyard? When he gazes at her, she can tell he hasn’t noticed that her hair is different. He is looking at something else entirely He’s looking inside her. That’s when Charlotte realizes what’s going on here. Jorie was right. Charlotte is surprised it’s taken her so long to figure out why Barney Stark is always around.
“I’m not in the market for a boyfriend if that’s why you’ve been following me,” she says matter-of-factly, between bites of cake. In two weeks, chocolate will make her queasy, but right now she can’t get enough of it. People say that eating chocolate can bring on a rush much like falling in love. It makes a heart beat too fast and stimulates far-fetched ideas. “And even if I was interested, I have cancer, you know.”
“So I hear.” In point of fact, Barney knows quite a bit about her medical status. He called the hospital so often when Charlotte was there for her surgery that the nurse on duty came to recognize his voice.
“Let’s be honest,” Charlotte says, which makes him admire her all the more. The shape of her head seems perfectly defined to him tonight, even more beautiful than usual. “I could be dying.”
“Well, we’re all dying of something, aren’t we?” Barney responds, cheerfully
“That’s true, Barney, but some of us may be doing it sooner than others.”
Barney cuts himself another piece of cake. In his line of business, he has learned that there were no guaranteed outcomes and no certainties, good, bad, or indifferent, that a man could depend upon. At seventeen, he never would have been able to imagine having chocolate cake with Charlotte Kite in her backyard. He wouldn’t have dared to dream such a thing. Now he puts his feet up on a chair and gazes up at the sky.
“There’s Pegasus,” he says.
Charlotte gazes up as well. She can feel pinpricks of starlight in her eyes. She shakes her head and blinks, then gives her attention back to her half-eaten slice of chocolate cake because what seems to be occurring is too crazy for her to contemplate. “Does your wife know where you are?” she asks
.
“We’re not living together, so why should she? Anyway, she doesn’t even know who I am.”
They both laugh at what is clearly not a joke, and then, awkward with the sudden intimacy between them, fall silent.
“I don’t think Dana much cares where I am.” Barney narrows his eyes, and the stars above are circled with halos. “She’s a good person, don’t get me wrong. She just doesn’t happen to be the one I want.”
“You would have to be out of your mind to do what I think you’re doing,” Charlotte says.
“And what’s that?” Barney looks young in the dark.
“Asking me out. Or whatever they call it now-adays.”
“That’s what I’m doing. Although we don’t have to actually go out. We can just sit here.”
Charlotte laughs; that makes twice in one evening, something of a record for her of late. “Is this because I never would have gone out with you in high school?”
“If you’re asking if I always felt this way, the answer’s yes.”
Barney hadn’t intended to be so forward, so maybe that chocolate confession cake has indeed done its work. Every once in a while, a man realizes what he wants more than anything, and that’s what’s happened to Barney Maybe the lies that were the foundation of Ethan Ford’s marriage have shone a light on Barney’s own duplicity in pretending he could be happy with any woman other than Charlotte. At any rate, if he’s going to act, he’d better not put it off Barney Stark stops gazing at stars. He believes Charlotte Kite to be the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, with or without her hair, and that is why at this ridiculous and terrifying point in their lives, he finally tells her so.
As it turns out, Barney is the one who picks up Charlotte Kite and drives her to her first chemotherapy appointment. Once they’re inside the hospital in Hamilton, Charlotte turns to him and says, “Thanks for the ride. You can go home now,” but Barney acts as though she hasn’t spoken. He seems to have the ability to see inside her, and he tells her what she probably already knows-he’s not going anywhere. He waits in the hall while she checks in, then accompanies her into the oncology unit, where she’s settled into a comfortable chair. Once the IV is slipped into Charlotte’s vein, Barney checks to make certain she’ll be given the right cocktail of drugs, comparing the label on the IV bags to the medications written down in her chart.
“Husband?” the nurse says to him.
Barney and Charlotte exchange a look.
“I can always tell,” the nurse informs them. “You work here long enough, you can figure out what people are to each other.”
“No person in their right mind is going to hang around here,” Charlotte insists once she’s been given her antinausea medicine and the drip is begun in earnest. She has a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, a combination of nausea and fear. “Run,” she tells Barney. “Run for your life.”
But Barney Stark has already pulled up a chair. He has his briefcase with him, which he opens in order to bring forth a magazine.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Charlotte’s face is chalky. her dark eyes shut against the sheer reality of the room around them. Barney Stark, who has the ability to read almost anyone, can certainly see the terror there. But he acts as though it’s not the least bit unusual to be making his intentions clear while poison is filling Charlotte’s veins. He acts as though they had all the time in the world.
“I thought I’d read to you.”
Charlotte’s eyes have been closed tight: when she hears his voice she peers over at what he’s brought along. “Sports Illustrated?” She laughs, and Barney believes it is the most wonderful sound he’s ever heard. Up and down the room, people are hidden behind drawn curtains, each with their own particular illness, their own agony, and here they are falling in love.
The nurse brings ginger ale and crackers, which Charlotte gratefully accepts. She notices the way Barney is watching her. She has no idea what on earth she’s done to deserve a man like this, especially at this time in her life, when it is absurd to think such things are possible. Barney smiles at her and in that smile Charlotte sees everything he thinks and feels; Barney’s deepest self opens to her, his past and his future and this instant in time. All her life, Charlotte has been chasing after things that were beyond her reach. In spite of everything she’s already lost, and everything she has yet to lose, she’s here today, in a sunny room, on an August afternoon, sick to her stomach and afraid for her life, but wanting, perhaps for the very first time, to be exactly where she is.
“Go on, then.” Charlotte closes her eyes the way a diver might when leaping from the highest ledge. At last she knows how it feels to take a chance when everything in the world is at stake, breathless and heedless and desperate for more. “Read to me,” she says.
The Jester
PEOPLE CAME FROM ALL OVER MASSAchusetts to see him in that week before he was transferred to Maryland, and when they weren’t allowed into the county court building, they settled outside, in the grass and on the road, perching like the warblers traveling south through the Commonwealth at this time of year. It was the last week of the blooming lilies, and the thin, green stems flutter each time a car passes by, the petals falling like leaves. Twice in the past few days, eggs have been thrown at the courthouse, and a bomb threat has been phoned in from a long-distance exchange, but the crowd that has gathered has come to support Ethan Ford, and sitting alone in his cell he can hear people call out his name, and he finds comfort there, where he least would expect to encounter it, in the voices of those who believe in him.
Rosarie Williams is at the top of that list. She has personally sent out thirty thousand fliers, folding paper until her fingers are bleeding, licking stamps until everything she eats tastes like glue. Mark Derry fashioned the task force room right where his dining room used to be, and that’s where the faithful congregate, quick to reassure one another that the world they know is not as perilous as some might have them conclude. Good deeds prevail among these people. A fax machine has been donated by the friends of the town council, and the volunteers at the firehouse have presented the task force with a Xerox copier. On most days, Mark has a crew of five or more staff members working away, raising both money and awareness, but Rosarie Williams is his right-hand girl, running back and forth to the jail, making herself useful in the dining room office, donating her time and energy even on Saturday nights, when most girls her age are out looking for a good time.
Mark Derry has grown so fond of Rosarie that he sincerely regrets the fact that she broke up with his son; she might have been a cherished daughter-in-law if circumstances had worked out differently, present at holiday dinners and birthdays. But of course it’s clear to Mark that Rosarie is far too mature for a boy like Brendan. She doesn’t even glance at him whenever Brendan glumly edges past to go into the kitchen to fix himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich. On evenings when Brendan comes home from his job at the Pizza Barn, with free pizzas for everyone, Rosarie doesn’t blink an eye. She’s too busy thinking about the way Ethan looked at her when she last went to visit him at the jail, how he’d drawn her close and told her he’d be lost without her, how he would have given up long ago if not for those who had faith in him.
As for Brendan Derry; he pouts at first, tormented by how close Rosarie is, and still, how far away, but soon enough he takes to avoiding his own house. Seeing Rosarie makes him feel wretched deep down inside. He feels the way people do when they start to go bad, a wizening of the spirit, a desire to take foolhardy-chances just for the hell of it. He’s stopped showing up for work on most evenings, and he’s started driving fast in an aimless loop around town, looking to self-destruct, and tempting fate every time he walks out his front door. He might have done himself in completely, crashing into those big rocks down at the tricky intersection on the way to Lantern Lake, if Barney Stark’s Lexus hadn’t been broken down by the side of the road one pearly evening.
The blinking lights cause Brendan Derry to slow down, and w
hen he does, he glimpses a scene that causes him to step on his brakes. Kelly Stark and her sisters are inside the car, all of them shaking and pale, afraid they’ve ruined their father’s most prized possession. The three girls are crying about how their father has left them, moved out for no reason to live in his office; they’re certain he’ll hate them if his beloved Lexus is ruined. But the trouble is only a flat tire, caused by broken glass on the road, easy enough to fix. In fact, Sophie and Josie Stark are given the job of working the jack, which allows Brendan and Kelly to stand together on the side of the road in the dark, listening to the call of the frogs in the lake and finding each other much more interesting than they’d ever imagined they might.
After this encounter, Kelly does her best to avoid Rosarie Williams. She’s heard firsthand from Brendan how cruel Rosarie can be, and besides, Kelly has begun to have serious doubts about working for Ethan Ford. According to Brendan, Ethan is nothing but a reprehensible murderer, slithering his way into their lives. Now whenever Rosarie phones, Kelly tells her sisters to say she isn’t home. She’s repulsed by the way Rosarie has been acting, practically throwing herself at a man in jail. She’s begun to think Ethan Ford’s wife has a right to know the real story and is tempted to reveal what goes on when Rosarie goes to visit Ethan. There is such intense flirting that the guards are said to be aroused at the mention of Rosarie’s name. They grow feverish the minute they see her, drinking so much icy water from the cooler that the bill for spring water at the jail has doubled this month.
Kelly’s father is representing Jorie in the sale of her house, and one afternoon Kelly meets up with Jorie in the hall outside his office. Standing there, making polite conversation, Kelly is about to whisper, watch out for Rosarie, but then she makes the mistake of really looking at Jorie. The anguish she observes forces her to take a step backward, so that she lurches into the wall. The idea of causing more harm raises gooseflesh on Kelly’s arms, and so she keeps silent, merely watching as Jorie rushes to the realtor with the papers Barney Stark has prepared for her in hand.