Fools Rush In

Here she is, ladies and gentlemen! Dr. Millie Barnes, winner of the Boston Marathon! I looked at my watch again. Twenty-eight minutes, 1.7 miles. That was awesome! I had done it. My convulsive gasping took a while to stop, but after all, what a workout! After twenty minutes or so, I heaved myself out of the chair and downed a glass of water.

Then I made the large mistake of looking in the full-length mirror. My face was a shocking shade of red. Not pink, not flushed with the glow of a good workout, not even just red. A shocking shade of beet-red. The whole face, just one solid color. My eyes were puffy from sweat irritation, my lips chapped and flaky white, providing the only break from the Crayola crimson. My sweaty T-shirt clung to the doughy skin of my upper extremities and neck. My legs were red and wind-burned, better, I supposed, than the chalk that was my normal skin tone. Oh, well. I was a work in progress, after all.

I took a hot shower, forced out far too soon by the tiny water heater’s shortcomings. As I made myself a pot of greenish herbal tea, I decided to call my sister. After all, her marriage officially ended today, and I thought I should be, well, sisterly. Still…Trish scared me a little. I remembered her hissing fury when Gran’s will had been read. Trish had received several thousand dollars, a pittance compared to what this house was worth. That was the last time I’d seen her.

After a few minutes of sifting through papers on my desk, I found her number. The strange area code gave me a pang. She was pretty far from home, our Trish.

When I’d been in college, I’d called her fairly often for Danny updates, as I adored my nephew, but after he was six or seven, Trish would just put Danny himself on, knowing the true purpose of my call. Or I would talk to Sam, who would give me blow-by-blows of Danny’s Little League games, parent-teacher conferences, clarinet lessons, etc.

“Hello?” As always, she sounded impatient.

“Hi, Trish, it’s Millie,” I said, immediately uncomfortable.

“Oh, Millie. Hi,” she answered. “What’s the matter?” I could picture her fidgeting next to the phone, no doubt with many better things to do than talk to her younger sister.

“Nothing’s the matter,” I answered, pouring my bilious tea. The aroma of herbal sludge filled the room. “I, um, I heard your divorce was final today and I wanted to see how you were doing.”

There was a pause. I could sense her irritation coiling like a rattlesnake. “I’m fine,” she said briskly. “Never better.”

I gritted my teeth. Wishing I hadn’t called, I nevertheless forged on. “Well, you know, you were married for a long time, and I just thought…”

“Millie, I’m happier now than I’ve been in years. Just because you belong to the Sam Nickerson fan club doesn’t mean that we made each other happy, okay? This is what I want. Avery is what I want. Not Sam. Sam is boring.” There was no greater crime in my sister’s eyes than being boring.

“Right,” I answered. “It’s just that…I thought you might be down. Seventeen years and all. Thought you might be feeling a little melancholy, but I can see I was wrong.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, Trish, great talking to you. Have fun in the Garden State.”

“How are you?” Trish asked unexpectedly.

“Me? I’m good. Great, in fact,” I answered, immediately assuaged by the unforeseen attention. Such was the plight of a younger sibling.

“How’s Gran’s house?” she asked with only a moderate amount of hostility.

“It’s getting there,” I answered. “Is there anything you want? Maybe an afghan?”

“God, no, Millie. Please.” We were back to normal.

“Well, I’m going over to see Danny later, and I’ll tell him you said hi,” I said, hoping to inspire some guilt. It didn’t work.

“I called him earlier. He’s coming to visit again next weekend.”

“Oh.” Our conversation was clearly over. We said our uncomfortable goodbyes and hung up.

Trish and I were as different as two who shared a gene pool could be. While I had battled crooked teeth and fat as a youth, Trish had floated through adolescence, untouched by eating disorders, pimples or bad hair choices. Trish had been captain of the cheerleading squad. I had been president of the science club. Trish had been prom queen. I’d taken honors biology. She’d dated the football hero. I’d dated not at all.

In order to dispel the feeling of incompetence and frustration my sister inspired, I next called Katie Williams. We’d been friends since kindergarten, when she’d thrown up on my desk, a bonding experience that has withstood the test of time. There’s something irreplaceable about a person who’s known you since you lost your first tooth, bought your first bra, had your first drink. Katie knew about my undying love for Joe, my plans, Trish, everything. Being the single mother of two little boys, she seemed to enjoy hearing about topics other than potty training and Bob the Builder. And of course, she got free medical care, courtesy of her sons’ godmother (that would be me). At any rate, Katie was my sounding board as I plotted, ranted, raved and fantasized about Joe Carpenter. She had always been extremely tolerant of this.

Katie listened with false compassion and far too many laughs to the account of my first athletic attempt, sympathized about my sister and agreed to come over for coffee the next day with my godsons. After we hung up, I got dressed, hooked up my CD player and danced around to U2, pretending to be Bono for two songs. Then I finally stopped stalling and got into my car. Time to go see Sam and Danny.

They lived on the other side of town in one of Eastham’s most picturesque neighborhoods. When my nephew was three or four years old, Sam’s parents had died in a car accident, the result of a drunken teenager smashing into them on Route 6. Trish, Sam and Danny had moved into Sam’s parents’ house three weeks after the funeral. My sister had begun remodeling immediately. A year later, the house was unrecognizable. They’d gutted it almost completely, and in its place now stood a modern, angular structure with huge windows facing the bay. Sam had taken a second job to help pay the bills.

The modern house was not at all my taste, though I had to admit it was very impressive—large, open, lots of glass and deck space. But it was the view that made your heart stop. The house overlooked a tiny bayside beach. Water stretched out to the horizon, dotted with wooden rowboats and seagulls, cormorants, the occasional swan. You could hear their constant cries, a melody of sea birds, if you will, that blended with the omnipresent wind and gentle lapping of the waves. At low tide, you could walk almost a half mile out, and at high tide, the water was deep enough to swim. Sea grass waved gracefully, deep green in the warm weather, golden in the winter. People, even we hardened locals, came to the beach to get a glimpse of the sunsets that glorified the sky each night. This was what my sister had left for Short Hills, New Jersey, where I hear they have an impressive mall.

I parked my car in the crushed-shell driveway and ran up the steps. Sam was a cop, and when he was not making the world safe for the rest of us, he worked part-time for a landscaper. His own gardens were spectacular. Even now in March, unexpected green things popped up to relieve the gray and brown of the dormant flower beds. In a few more months, people would be stopping on the street to admire my sister’s former showplace.

I opened the door and shouted hello. With pounding feet, my nephew came bounding down the stairs like an excited Irish setter. I felt a rush of love and gratitude that even at the advanced and cynical age of seventeen, Danny was still so happy to see me. My nephew seemed, to me and just about everyone else, the culmination of what you’d hope your child would be. Funny, generous, extremely smart, tall and a bit gangly, he also excelled at baseball, truly the all-American boy.

“Hey, Auntie,” he said, bending down to smooch my cheek. He’d become taller than I was about five years ago.

“Hello, youngster,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Calculus homework. Want something to eat? I’m starving,” he said as we went into the kitchen. Stainless-steel appliances, granite countertops, stark white walls and an unforgiving black tile floor gave the room an imposing military feel. Clambering onto a stool at the counter, I watched Danny galumph around, slamming, rattling, sloshing. I refused his kind offer of sustenance, though my stomach growled, triggered by the smell of a toasting bagel and the sight of my nephew downing a glass of creamy whole milk in four swallows. Thousands of calories.

“Is your dad at work?” I asked.

“Nope. He took the day off,” Danny said, peeling a banana and stuffing half of it into his mouth while he waited for the bagel to toast. “The divorce is final today, you know.”

“Yes, I heard. How are you doing with all that?”

“Well, okay, I guess.” He paused for a moment, looking out the window toward the bay. “I mean, Mom’s been gone for a while now, so I’m pretty used to that. But Dad’s taking it kind of hard.”

“Did you talk to your mom today?”

“Yup. She’s okay.”

I waited, fascinated by the amount of food my nephew could force into his mouth at once. A third of a bagel. My, my.

“She said she’s glad to be on to a new chapter of her life, a door closes, a window opens, that sort of thing. I think she’s doing all right.”

“Wonderful,” I murmured, trying to be neutral.

“Oh, come on, Aunt Mil. You can’t blame her too much.” Danny continued with a shrug, swallowing like a python polishing off a goat. “She deserves to be happy. Just because my parents screwed up when they were kids doesn’t mean Mom shouldn’t be able to move on. I mean, yeah, the whole cheating thing really sucked. But I don’t think she meant to hurt anybody.”

Such generosity! How could this child be the product of my sister’s loins? “You’re the best boy in all the world,” I said. “And they didn’t screw up, having you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to either one of them. Or to me, for that matter. Come here so I can pinch your cheek.”

“You’re not that old yet, Aunt Mil,” Danny said. “Hey, remember my friend Connor? He said you were cute. He wants to play doctor when you open the clinic.”

“That’s terrifying,” I laughed. “So, where is your dad, anyway?”

“He’s walking on the beach.” Danny turned somber. “He’s wicked sad, Aunt Mil. Wicked.”

Poor Sam, walking picturesquely on the beach on the day of his divorce. My heart tugged. I chatted with Danny a little more, asked him about his grades to remind him that I was the adult, and then left the house to find wicked sad Sam.

How Trish had landed Sam Nickerson—well, getting pregnant with Danny had worked its magic. But she’d never deserved him, that was for sure. Sam was the nicest guy around and always had been, and he’d always been especially good to me.

When I was eleven or twelve and Trish and Sam were hormonal teenagers, my parents had gone out, leaving my sister in charge. Katie was sleeping over, and Trish stuck her head into my room to inform us that she and Sam were going to a party. She warned us not to tell Mom and Dad or she would kill us, a threat we’d taken with the gravity it deserved.

At this moment, Sam came in and said hello to us, commented favorably on my Barbie and her Dream Van, chatted us up for a minute or two. When he realized that Trish was supposed to be babysitting, he told her that they couldn’t just leave us alone. They ended up taking us to the movies to see some preteen-appropriate flick. Sam even bought us popcorn and soda and hadn’t seemed to mind that Trish was fuming. Tragically, that night still held the title of Best Date of My Life.

That was Sam for you. Or that was Sam before seventeen years of marriage wore him into a “yes, dear” kind of husband, slightly defeated and always a little confused when it came to Trish. But once, at least, he had genuinely loved her, and when I caught sight of him, looking out over the ocean, shoulders hunched against heartbreak, he did indeed look wicked sad.

“Hi, zipperhead,” I called merrily over the wind, my shoes crunching on the crisp, cold sand as I walked over to him. He turned slightly, wearily.

“Hey, kiddo,” he responded listlessly.

“That’s Dr. Kiddo to you,” I said. My eyes felt wet; not from the wind, alas, but from seeing Sam so obviously miserable. I linked my arm through his. “How’s it going?”

“Okay.” He gave a halfhearted grin and returned his tragic gaze to the ocean. Sympathy and irritation bickered in my head. Sam was better off without Trish, though I knew better than to say this.

“Guess what?” I offered, determined to be upbeat.

“What?” Sam answered.

“I’m taking you out tonight! Come on, let’s go back to the house. Man, that wind is murder! My ears are like hunks of ice.” I began to steer him to the path that wound through the sea grass toward his house.

“Sorry, kiddo. I don’t want to go anywhere,” Sam answered, letting me propel him, though he had at least eight or nine inches on me.

“I know. That’s why we’re going out. It’s too pathetic to sit at home on the night of your first divorce. As opposed to your second, when you can indeed stay home. It’s every other divorce. Go out, stay home, go out, stay home.” Shockingly, Sam was unamused by my feeble attempt at humor. I stopped to look up at him. “Really, Sam. Come out for a beer with me. I’m buying. You will not sit home alone tonight. I will chain myself to your oven before I let you.”

“Millie…”

“Come on! Please?”

He sighed. “Okay. One beer. Nowhere local.”

“Good boy!” As we climbed up the deck stairs, I turned to him once more. His face was so sad, so dejected, that my eyes filled. “Listen, Sam, I want to say something. Seriously.” I swallowed. “I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re wonderful. And I’m sorry you’re hurting.” My mouth wobbled. “I’ve always been really proud to have you as my brother-in-law.” I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand and gave him a watery smile.

Sam looked at me with a trace of amusement, then put his arm around my shoulders and started into the house. “That was pretty good, kiddo. Did you practice it in the car?”

“Yes, I did, wiseass. For that, you’ll have to buy the second round.”

CHAPTER TWO

TWO HOURS LATER WE WERE at a bar in Provincetown, drinking beer and waiting for buffalo wings. There are still places like this in P-town, though you have to know where to look. Otherwise, you end up eating things like grilled sea bass enchiladas with fresh cumin in a creamy dill sauce.

The bar was perfectly ordinary and nice, and chances were we wouldn’t run into anyone we knew. I understood Sam’s desire to get out of town. There wasn’t a person around who didn’t know about the breakup and winced at the fact that not only had Officer Sam been dumped, but for a rich stockbroker from New Jersey.

We sat quietly at our little table, watching the local color. Sam had been pretty morose on the way up, and I was getting a little tired of it. Trish had left last August, and though today was the official day, it seemed (to me, anyway) that Sam was enjoying his misery a tad too much. Determined to snap him out of his funk, I kicked him under the table.

“Guess what?” I asked in my adorable, merry way.

“What, kiddo?” answered Sam gamely.

“I started running today,” I said. “As in, ‘I will someday run in the Boston Marathon’ running.”

Now Sam, as an ex–Notre Dame football player, had obviously been something of an athlete and was still in good shape. He ran, played softball in the town league and probably did other physical things related to his profession. His interest, however, was muted, and he merely nodded and took another sip of beer.

“Want to hear how far?” I tempted, not above using my own degradation to bring a smile to my brother-in law’s face.

“Sure.”

“One point seven miles.”

This caught his attention. “Really,” he said, looking slightly less tragic. “How long did that take you?”

“Oh, gosh, let’s see now,” I answered. “Um, about twenty-eight minutes.”

His laughter bounced off the walls, and I grinned along with him.

“Christ, Millie, I can crawl faster than that.”

“Ha, ha, gosh, you’re so funny, you stupid jock. I’m just starting, you know.”

Our wings arrived, and I, who had worked so very hard that day, felt that surely I deserved at least eight of them. We slurped our way through the food as old pals can, and I watched him for signs of suicidality or vegetative depression. None so far.

Sam was pretty attractive. Not the masculine perfection that was Joe, who had been the subject of at least three catfights in which the authorities had been called. Sam was averagely clean-cut, American attractive, tall and lean, light brown hair going to gray, beautiful, sad hazel eyes with crinkles at the corners. Gentle voice, nice smile. He was such a kind man, so sweet and hardworking. And yes, I had a master plan to fix his life, bring him happiness and undo some of the misery my sister had wrought. But I had to do this gently, because, after all, the poor guy had only been divorced a few hours.

“How’s your dad?” Sam asked as the waitress cleared our plates.

“Dad’s okay. You know. He’s still furious with, uh, Trish, but uh, you know how much he loves you.” Whoops! I didn’t mean to mention the T word. Sam grunted in response.

“So, Sam, how are you doing?” I asked in my best compassionate-doctor voice. He smiled sadly, tragically. I clenched my teeth hard for a minute.

“I’m okay, I guess.” He took a deep breath and another swig of beer, then rubbed his palms on his jeans. “It’s just that…well, I keep wondering what I did wrong. I never saw it coming.”

“Really?”

“Well, I mean, I knew she wasn’t happy. Neither of us was, but we weren’t exactly miserable, either.”

“Why wasn’t she happy?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t know! Don’t you guys talk about stuff like that? Ask her. She’s your sister.” Sam shot me an irritated glance, then began picking at the label on his beer bottle.

“Well, Trish and I aren’t exactly close,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you, big guy. It’s just…I don’t know, a marriage doesn’t fall apart just like that, does it?”

Sam sighed. “Probably not. She complained about me working too much, but, well, we had lots of bills. And she was happy to spend whatever I brought in.”

True enough. My sister liked nice things, a term she used to describe her spending habits. Others might use foolish or irresponsible.

“And…I don’t know, Millie. We got to a point where we knew things weren’t really working, but we didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t anything concrete, just this sense of things not being…right. I didn’t know how to fix it, so I basically just ignored it until the boyfriend came along.”

That was probably the longest paragraph I’d ever heard Sam utter, and he seemed to regret saying it. He took a long pull from his beer, then said, “It’s weird not to be married anymore. I’ve always been married, you know?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’ll take some time.” Six months and counting, I added silently. “And as for Trish, well, she’s just…she’s always wanted so much,” I finished lamely. “She’s kidding herself if she thinks she’s going to be happy with Mr. New Jersey.”

“Right,” Sam said tersely. I winced and made a mental note to avoid mentioning Trish’s lover.

“Guess what?” I said. “I’m getting a dog.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yup. I think I’ll name him Sam.”

He smiled. “It’s good to have you back on the Cape, Millie.”

I smiled back, and we chewed our celery sticks without further discussion, listening to the music and watching a game of darts. Then Sam glanced up. “Oh, hey, Joe,” he said casually.

My heart froze, my face froze, my mind—yes, you guessed it—froze. I looked up. And there he was.

It was like a play, when the spotlight shines only on the leading man. Joe Carpenter stood at our table, smiling down at us, dimples flirting, white teeth gleaming. Lust and panic flooded my veins in equal measure.

“Hey, Joe,” I said, my heart suddenly pounding, mouth dry.

“Hey, guys. Mind if I sit down a sec?” Joe asked, pulling a chair around and straddling it. He wore faded blue jeans, a flannel shirt and work boots, and I swear to you, he was the most desirable and delicious man God ever made, thank you, Father, thank you, Son, thank you, Holy Spirit.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Sam answered. “What are you doing so far from home?”

“Oh, just out on a date,” Joe replied, turning his beautiful, smiling green eyes to me. “Hey, Millie.”

“Hey, Joe,” I said again, wracking my brain for a clever comment.

“What about you two?” Joe asked. “What are you doing up here? Arresting someone, Sam?”

My heart thudded so hard my chest hurt. Why hadn’t I put on makeup? Why wasn’t I wearing something other than a Holy Cross sweatshirt? Did I have on earrings? Was chicken wing stuck in my teeth? Trying to save Sam from having to explain that this was Divorce Day and also to say something adorably memorable, I fumbled for an answer.

“Oh, we heard this place had good food,” I said.

Then, walking across the room, hips swaying, blond hair flowing as if in a shampoo commercial, came Joe’s date. Tall. Skinny. Big boobs despite the skinniness, their cantaloupe-like roundness announcing them as store-bought. Unlike me, she seemed to know what to wear to a bar in Provincetown: she had on a wide-necked shirt and interesting earrings that matched the blue in her blouse and, no doubt, her eyes.

“There you are,” she said, placing a hand on Joe’s shoulder in a statement of ownership. Yes, I could now see that her eyes were indeed blue—Caribbean-blue, I believe Bausch & Lomb called them.

“Oh, hey,” Joe said, grinning easily at the blond one, “let me introduce you. This is Sam, this is Millie, and this is Autumn.”

“Actually, it’s Summer,” she said with a glare. Sam swallowed a smile and I bit my lip.

“Right,” said Joe, unremorseful. “You’re just so pretty, I forgot for a minute.” Gross.

She bought it, gracing him with a tight smile. For us, she had nothing.

“Well,” said Sam. “We’ll let you get back to your night. Nice meeting you, Summer,” he said, standing. “See you, Joe.”

I sat frozen for a moment. Was I going to have to stand? This would mean Joe and Summer would see that I was still chubby, the day’s run notwithstanding. But, no, gracious Joe also stood. He smiled down at me and I managed to smile back.

“Bye,” I said.

“Bye, Millie,” he answered. Summer apparently didn’t think that a goodbye was necessary, for she just walked away, tiny little behind twitching.

I dragged my gaze away from Joe’s perfect backside and looked at the table. Say something, I commanded myself, not wanting Sam to see the love I had for Joe written all over my face. Feigning normalcy, I asked Sam if he wanted another beer.

While seeing Joe with another woman never felt good, it was certainly not uncommon. For sixteen years now, I had watched him with other women, and I didn’t expect that someone as gorgeous, sweet and hardworking as Joe would be alone. Of course, it bothered me a little. He was always with someone like Summer, someone very pretty and not really nice. These relationships never seemed to last.

I wholeheartedly believed that once I had Joe’s attention, he would see in me all that he had been missing with other women. I was smart, nice, funny, undemanding. And let’s not forget I was a doctor, for crying out loud, helping the sick, comforting their families, and, once in a while, saving a life! A pretty cool job, if I did say so. Once I became as attractive as I could become (short of plastic surgery and diuretics), Joe would finally see me as something more than an old classmate and fall in love with me.

Maybe you’re wondering where I got the chutzpah, the hubris, the balls to go after a guy like Joe. After all, the longest relationship I’d had was less than six weeks. The thing was, I’d spent most of my life in love with Joe Carpenter. I would be turning thirty soon. I figured it was now or never, and if I was going to try to get Joe, I was going to give it all I had.