Die Before I Wake

My options ran the gamut from A to B. A, I could stay home, tell Tom that I couldn’t drive a standard shift, and see what happened. Or, B, I could teach myself to drive the car, no matter how humiliating it might be.

I thought about my determination not to let life defeat me. Thought about my dad, who had. Thought about how I’d survived the death of my newborn, and the subsequent death of my marriage. I was a strong woman. An intelligent woman. A determined woman. I’d survived the loss of everyone I loved, then moved on and started life over with Tom. I’d moved three thousand miles away from home to be with him. If I could do all that, I could drive this damn car.

I took a breath, pressed the clutch to the floor, and turned the key. The engine roared to life. So far, so good. I locked the seat belt into place, made sure the shifter was in first gear, then slowly, smoothly, eased up on the clutch with my left foot while stepping on the accelerator with the right.

The car lurched forward and came to a rocking, shuddering halt.

A trickle of sweat ran down my spine. I started the engine again. Concentrating hard, again I eased up on the clutch. This time, I gave it a little more gas than I had the first time. When I felt the car begin to roll, I stepped down hard on the gas pedal and let up on the clutch. The engine roared, and I actually managed to move forward a couple of feet before coming to a stop so abrupt that if I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt, the windshield and I would have experienced a close personal encounter.

I was not having fun. I wiped sweat from my eyes and bit down on my lower lip. Concentrate, I told myself silently. Just concentrate. You can DO this. I let up on the clutch and pressed the gas, and the car jerked and shuddered so hard my teeth clacked together.

“Fuck,” I said, thumping the palms of my hands against the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Having a little trouble?”

I flushed crimson when I saw Riley standing there. “Go away,” I said. “I really don’t need a witness to my mortification.”

“You’re thinking too hard. You don’t drive a car by thinking. You drive by feel.”

Slumped over the steering wheel like a beach ball with a puncture wound, I said, “Then I believe my feeling apparatus is faulty.”

“No, it isn’t. Slide over.”

“I thought you had work to do.”

“It’ll still be there when I get back. Go ahead. Scoot over.”

I climbed awkwardly over the gearshift and plunked down hard on the passenger seat. Riley slid in behind the wheel, started the car, and together we listened to the purr of the engine.

“You can’t think your way through it,” he said. “You have to turn off your brain and tune into the vehicle. Become one with the car. Feel what it’s feeling.”

“How new age-y. Will we be hearing Yanni playing in the background anytime soon?”

“It has nothing to do with any new age bullshit. Close your eyes.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer. Just do it.”

“You know, your family might be a little unusual…but you certainly aren’t boring people.” I closed my eyes and waited for what would happen next.

“Instead of thinking,” he said, “I want you to use your other senses. Hear the sound of the engine. Feel the vibrations. Let the car tell you what it wants.”

“Whatever you say, Yoda.”

“Stop being a wiseass and pay attention. We’re going to take a little spin around the block, and you’re going to feel how I drive the car. Without filtering it through your left brain thinking mechanism. No talking. Just feel.”

Eyes squeezed tightly shut, I gamely settled back against the passenger seat. This little experiment was doomed to failure, but I was a good sport, and it wasn’t as though I had anything to do that wouldn’t wait.

But a funny thing happened on the way to failure. As we cruised the suburban streets of Newmarket, Maine, population 8,931, I began to get a sense of what he’d been trying to tell me. Experiencing the motions of the car, listening to the up-and-down hum of the rpm’s, I thought I understood. Just a little.

Until he pulled over. “Your turn,” he said.

He left the shifter in neutral and the parking brake on, and we swapped places. “Remember what I said,” he told me. “Don’t think. Just feel.”

“Do I get to keep my eyes closed while I drive?”

He reached around behind him, found the seat belt, locked and tightened it. “No.”

“I sort of figured you’d say that.”

I made a couple of false starts. “When you feel it start to catch,” he instructed, “synchronize your left and right foot. Don’t think about it. Feel it catch, feel the car start to move, feel how much gas it needs, and follow through.”

Right. Like that was going to happen. But this time, I actually got the car moving. No shuddering, no jerking. Just a smooth ride down the street. I shifted at the proper time, with a minimum of disturbance, and Riley nodded.

“You’re a good student,” he said.

“I do all right once I’m moving. It’s the stopping and starting that bother me the most. Where to?”

“Keep going straight.” Apparently without fear of imminent death, he slumped comfortably on his tailbone and stretched out his legs. “I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“All righty then.” I upshifted until I reached cruising speed, then sneaked a glance at him from the corner of my eye. “So,” I said. “What’s the story with you and Tom?”

I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept mine on the road. “What story?” he said.

“Don’t be oblique. It’s obvious to anybody who isn’t deaf, dumb and blind that there’s some kind of bad blood between the two of you.”

“Maybe you should be asking Tom.”

“Tom’s not here,” I said brightly. “So I’m asking you.”

Riley casually pressed the button for the car window. A little too casually, I thought. The window lowered with a soft hiss and he turned his face to the fresh air. “There’s no bad blood,” he said, scrutinizing the passing scenery. “We just don’t always see eye to eye. Maybe you’ve noticed that we don’t have a lot in common.”

Looking at him, with his torn T-shirt, wrinkled jeans and shaggy hair, I thought of my husband. Thought of his buttoned-down neatness, his trim haircut, his meticulously clean fingernails with the cuticles pushed back to reveal the white half-moons. Thought of his closet, the clothes hung with such precision that he could have measured the distance between them with a ruler. “Yes,” I agreed, “I think it’s safe to say that your styles don’t quite mesh.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“What’s another way?”

He thrust his arm out the window and held it there, his palm open to deflect the wind as we drove. “Tom,” he said, waggling his fingers, “was always the golden boy. Star quarterback, class president, head of the debate club. National Honor Society. Prom king. Everybody loved him. Everybody knew he’d go far. He played basketball. Soccer. Golf, for Christ’s sake.”

“Golf?” I said skeptically.

“Stupidest game ever invented.”

“And what did you play?”

“The Doors and Kurt Cobain, for the most part.”

It explained a lot. “So you were one of those anti-establishment types.”

Riley drew his arm back into the car. “I was a loser. That was my assigned role in the family. While Tom was out running touchdowns and winning awards and getting laid by every blue-eyed blond cheerleader in sight, I was sitting in my room with the curtains closed, smoking weed, contemplating my teenage angst, and plucking minor chords on my Gibson.”

“It must’ve been hard,” I said, “growing up in his shadow.”

“It was torture. Everyone thought he was God. That he could do no wrong. I was always being compared to him, and always falling short. I wasn’t perfect like he was. I was actually capable of making mistakes. I wasn’t interested in the same things Tom was. Athletics bored me to tears. I was into music. I wasn’t a clone of my brother, and it made people uncomfortable. They didn’t understand me. Because I wasn’t like Tom, I must be defective in some way.” His voice held no bitterness; he was simply stating facts. “It never occurred to anybody that there was nothing wrong with me, that I just needed to be me.”

“So you rebelled.”

“I smoked and drank and raised hell. I totaled a couple of cars, got into fights, got kicked out of school two or three times. I didn’t go looking for trouble, it just seemed to follow me around. Which, of course, made my faultless older brother look even better. If they’d only known.” When he smiled, his eyes crinkled the way Tom’s did. “Tommy wasn’t anywhere near as perfect as Mom wanted to believe.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t a bad kid. Just a normal one. He did his share of wild and crazy things, only he was smarter than me. He never got caught. But everybody—the entire town—had him on a pedestal. It wasn’t any easier on Tommy, growing up here, than it was on me. That’s the big drawback to living in a small town. Everybody knows you, or at least they think they do. You get a certain reputation, a label, and it sticks. The perfect kid. The troublemaker. In a small town like Newmarket, those labels are the kiss of death, because people wear blinders. They see exactly what they expect to see, and nothing more. Most of them wouldn’t know the truth if it hit ’em upside the head.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why should you be? You had nothing to do with it. It all happened a long time ago.”

“Maybe so. But a lousy childhood sucks, no matter who or where you are. How did Tom deal with it?”

“He played the game, the same as I did. Except that it was a different game he played. After Dad died, as far as Mom was concerned, it was Tommy who’d be our savior. He was the good son, the one who always did exactly what was expected of him. It was actually easier on me, because I was the invisible one. Everybody’s attention was so focused on Tom that most of the time, they forgot I was even there. I did pretty much whatever I wanted. Tom was the one who toed the line. He graduated with honors, went to college on a full athletic scholarship. Continued on to medical school. Married Elizabeth, started his own practice, and started raising a family. He’s almost forty years old, and he’s still doing what Mom wants him to do.”

“Not necessarily,” I pointed out. “He did marry me.”

“His one act of rebellion. I have to admit I was impressed when I heard what he’d done. It was so out of character. Turn left at the next intersection.”

Following his directions, I lost speed during the turn. The car shuddered and nearly stalled, but I feathered the accelerator and pulled out of it. Riley nodded approvingly.

“And you,” I said, once I’d upshifted again, “it looks as though you’re still playing your assigned role, too. Bad boy. Prodigal son.”

“We humans are most comfortable with the roles we find most familiar.”

“There’s another little ditty I’ve heard: Familiarity breeds contempt.”

“I manage to sleep quite nicely at night, thank you, in spite of being the black sheep of the family.”

“Good for you,” I said, not sure I really meant it. Riley was the classic underachiever, and I identified with him more closely than I wanted to admit. It wasn’t necessarily an admirable trait. “Can I ask you something else?”

“I doubt I could stop you if I wanted to.”

“Tell me about Elizabeth.”

Silence. It stretched out for an endless five seconds before he said, “Why?” There was something in his voice, something that hadn’t been there before, but I couldn’t identify it. “Shouldn’t that be Tom’s job?”

It was too embarrassing to admit that my husband had told me virtually nothing about his first wife. Instead, I left Tom out of the equation. “I want to hear what you have to say about her. For starters, why aren’t there any pictures of her in the house?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask. I don’t even live there anymore. I have my own apartment, upstairs over the carriage house.”

“It just seems odd. If only for the sake of the girls, there should be something. But it’s as though she never lived there.”

“The Lord and my family both move in mysterious ways. I gave up years ago trying to figure either of them out.”

“Then tell me about her. What was she like?”

“She was the ideal life partner for my brother, so much like him it was nauseating.”

“In what ways?”

“She was perfect. Maybe a little too perfect. Smart, pretty. Not in a glamorous way. More a Katie Couric than a Sharon Stone. Elizabeth was the quintessential freckle-faced girl-next-door. She was a cheerleader in high school, one of those girls you love to hate, except that in her case, it was impossible. Nobody could hate Beth. She was sweet, in a genuine way that softened the heart of even the hardest cynic.”

“So you liked her.”

“Everybody liked her. Just like Tom, she was universally loved, and placed on a pedestal by the good citizens of our fair city.”

Wondering how I could possibly measure up to this paragon of virtue, I took a deep breath and tightened my fingers on the steering wheel. “Did she and Tom have a good marriage?”

I could feel his eyes on me again. “Julie,” he said, “you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I can’t answer that question. Nobody knows what goes on inside somebody else’s marriage.”

“Of course not. But you must have an opinion, based on what you witnessed. Did they seem happy together?”

Riley shifted position and stared out the window. “I’m probably not the person most qualified to judge.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I guess you could call it a conflict of interest.” He turned away from the window, and when his eyes met mine, I saw something in them that looked an awful lot like resentment. “You see, before my brother stole her away, Beth was engaged to me.”

Three

The accounts manager at the First National Bank of Newmarket was friendly and efficient. Millicent Waterhouse had gone to school with Tom, and she had nothing but good things to say about Newmarket’s dashing young obstetrician. “You’re a lucky woman,” she told me as I filled out paperwork. “As far as I’m concerned, Tom Larkin is the best thing that ever happened to this town. I was thrilled when he came back here to start his practice. He could’ve made more money just about anywhere else, but he chose to come home instead, and nobody around here has forgotten that.”

I glanced up from my clipboard and gave her a bland smile. “Is that so?”

“You’d better believe it. When Tom came back, old Doc Thompson was getting ready to retire. Nobody was sorry to see him go. He was a cranky old curmudgeon, and he usually smelled like a stinky old cigar butt that’s been sitting in a dirty ashtray for three days.” Millie’s eyes twinkled. “But Tom’s nothing like Doc Thompson. He’s patient and kind, he always smells nice, and he just puts you at ease. He delivered both of my youngest kids, and when my sister started going through early menopause, he explained everything to her and helped her decide whether or not to take hormone replacement therapy.”

This was the Tom I knew, the charming, kindhearted patron saint of mothers-to-be, menopausal sisters, and bent-but-not-broken thirty-year-old women in need of rescuing. Not the Tom that Riley had described, the man who’d come back from college, medical degree in hand, and proceeded to steal his brother’s fiancée. There had to be more to it than that. Tom was a good man, a man with strong ethics. I couldn’t imagine him crossing that fraternal boundary.

Finally managing to escape from the loquacious Millicent, I crossed the street to the federal building and took care of my business at the social security office. The DMV, thirty miles away in Portland, would have to wait for another day. Maybe, if Tom could get a few hours free, we could combine that with car shopping, as I suspected the selection would be greater in a larger city. Wandering up and down Newmarket’s block-long main street, I inspected the window displays and played tourist. A teenage girl feeding coins into a parking meter smiled at me. An elderly man with a buff-colored Pomeranian on a leash sat on a bench outside the barber shop. I passed an old-fashioned apothecary shop with a soda fountain. Two doors down, showcased in the window of The Bridal Emporium, was an elegant ivory satin-and-lace vintage wedding dress that shot a pang of longing straight through me.

Of their own volition, my feet slowed and then stopped. I stood before that plate-glass window, admiring the dress, for a long time. This was my one regret. I’d been married twice, yet I’d never had a wedding gown. Like most adolescent girls, I’d spent endless hours imagining what my wedding would be like when I finally met my prince. Whenever I’d pictured it, I was wearing a dress like this one. But fate had other plans in mind for me. Jeffrey, ever the romantic, had dragged me off to city hall to get married on our lunch hour. I should have known right then and there that the marriage was doomed. On the other hand, my wedding to Tom, on that beach in the Bahamas, had contained nearly all the elements of my teenage dream: the breathless bride, the handsome groom, the heartfelt and intensely personal vows. It was exotic, romantic, almost perfect. The only thing missing was the dress.

When I’d looked my fill, I moved on, to Lannaman’s bakery. If I’d previously doubted the existence of God, the smells emanating through the screen door were enough to make me reconsider. I went inside and bought a half-dozen assorted doughnuts and two chocolate éclairs. The doughnuts were for the girls, a blatant attempt at bribery. The éclairs were for Tom. They were his favorite dessert, and I intended to save them for later, during a private moment together, as I had a few dessert ideas of my own.

Carrying a cardboard bakery box tied with string, I was about to cross the street to my car when I noticed the bead boutique. I’d missed it on the first go-round, although I wasn’t sure how I had overlooked the mouthwatering window display of Chinese turquoise. I’d never been able to resist turquoise. The shop entrance was around the corner, tucked into an alcove. When I opened the door, a bell tinkled overhead. The woman behind the counter was unpacking boxes of merchandise. She glanced up, said, “Good morning,” and returned to her work.

As a bead shop pro, I didn’t need a road map to find my way around. The shop was organized by material and by color. I went directly to the turquoise gemstones that were hung on nylon strings along a side wall. I lifted a string of round beads, weighed its heft in my hand, rubbed my fingers against the cool, polished stone. No two natural stones are ever identical, and there are often subtle variations in color, shape and smoothness. Sometimes consistency is important in a piece. At other times, a little diversity makes life more interesting.

“They’re on sale right now,” the proprietor said, without looking up from her work. “Thirty percent off all gemstones.”

I checked the tag. The price was reasonable for a small shop in an equally small town. I was mentally calculating the thirty-percent discount when a voice from beside me said, “I like the turquoise, but with your coloring, have you considered the leopard jasper? I think it would be smashing.”

I glanced up. The woman who’d spoken had a narrow face, with green eyes and dark auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. “I’m partial to jasper,” she explained, then held out her hand. “Claudia Lavoie.”

“Julie Larkin.”

Her handshake was firm. “Yes,” she said. “I know who you are. I saw you get out of the car and I followed you in here. I recognized the Land Rover. You’re Tom’s new wife.”

A little nonplussed, I said, “That would be me.”

“Nice to meet you. I hear you had a little excitement over there last night.”

“Excitement? Oh, the tree. Wow. News travels quickly around here.”

“The chain saw was a pretty big clue. Riley filled in the rest for me. I’m your next-door neighbor. I live in terror that one of these days, that entire tree will fall—in my direction.”

“Your worrying days are over, then, because Tom told me last night he’s having it cut down.”

“That’s a relief. If it went through my greenhouse and murdered my babies, I’d have to kill him.” She smiled to show me she was just kidding. “You should stop in sometime. I’m always home. Except when I’m not.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m serious, you know. People always say these things to be polite. I’m happy to report that I’ve never been polite. Or, for that matter, politically correct. If I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t make the offer. Please come. Dylan—my four-year-old—has spent the last few days with his dad. I’m used to having him home with me, and my afternoons have been long and boring. Besides, I make a mean margarita.”

“In that case,” I said, “I’ll be sure to stop by.”

“Drop in anytime. If the car’s in the driveway and I don’t answer the door, come around the back. I’m probably in the greenhouse.”

I watched her leave, the bell over the door jangling cheerfully as she exited the store. I’d have to ask Tom about her. Unless he told me she was some kind of psycho, I’d probably take her up on her offer. She seemed a nice enough person, and I had a sneaking suspicion that Team Julie would need a cheerleader or two in order to balance things out.

Back on task, I selected two strings of turquoise that I really liked. And then, just because I could, I chose another string—of the leopard jasper.

When I got back to the house, Jeannette’s Caddy was parked in the driveway, and the chain saw was silent. Grabbing up the bakery box, I took a deep breath and girded my loins for the inevitable confrontation.

My mother-in-law was at the kitchen counter, mixing a meat loaf. The girls sat at the table, hunched over coloring books, scribbling away purposefully. I held the bakery box aloft and said brightly, “I come bearing gifts.”

All action stopped. Taylor dropped her purple crayon and examined the box with interest. “What’s in it?”

“Doughnuts.”

Sadie scratched the tip of her nose and said solemnly, “I like doughnuts.”

I felt not even the merest twinge of guilt at my blatant attempt at bribery. I was willing to pay whatever price it took to unlock the doors to their little hearts. I set the box on the table and lifted the cover to reveal an assortment of doughnuts. The coloring books were instantly forgotten. Their faces painted with identical expressions of delight, both girls craned their necks to see what was in the box.

Behind me, my mother-in-law cleared her throat. “Tom doesn’t allow the girls to eat sugar.” Her tone implied that I, as Tom’s wife, should already know this salient fact. “Besides, it’s only a couple hours to supper. You’ll spoil their appetites.”

I stiffened. It was at least three hours until supper. God forbid I should spoil their appetites. God forbid a single grain of sugar should pass their lips. The girls looked crestfallen, and suddenly that guilt, heretofore absent, reared its ugly head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I had no idea.”

Jeannette covered the meat loaf pan with foil and put it in the refrigerator. Untying her apron and pulling it off over her head, she said, “As long as you’re here, I need you to run to the grocery store and pick up a few things. You’ll have to take the girls with you, because the babysitter’s sick. I’d do it myself, but I have to go back to work. I have a shampoo and clipping at four-fifteen. Late in the day, but not much I can do about it.” She folded the apron with precise motions, tucked it into a drawer, and reached up to smooth her hair. “If I’m not back by five, you might as well go ahead and put the meat loaf in the oven. Potatoes are already peeled and in the fridge. They just need to be put on to boil.” Her eyes, peering at me over the rim of her glasses, were skeptical. “You do know how to cook?”

What idiot couldn’t boil a potato? Did she really think I was that incompetent? “Of course,” I said, an ingratiating smile glued firmly in place. “I’m much more than just a pretty face. What do you need at the store?”