Morning Read online

  On the other hand, perhaps it was a successful haircut. It was the twenty-ninth day and she hadn’t started her period. If she were pregnant, she wouldn’t care what her hair looked like!

  Her stomach was swelling outward the way it always did just before her period—she couldn’t ignore that. So maybe she wasn’t pregnant. And her breasts were sore. That, Ellie said, could mean anything either way.

  Sara looked up from her stomach to see her face in the mirror. Her blond hair was sticking up and out all over. “You’re losing your mind,” she said to herself. “Get to work.”

  After her marriage, after blissful months of painting woodwork and matching napkins to placemats, Sara had grown bored and had called on her old boss at Walpole and James for help. Donald James had gladly sent her work. In the past year she had edited a no-sugar-or-salt-or-alcohol cookbook, a nonfiction book about the slaughter of seals and whales, and a dreary novel about the end of the world. Jokingly, she had said to Donald, “Cheerful stuff you’re giving me to fill my days with,” and he had replied, “Cheerful? You want cheerful?” And he had given another Boston publishing house her name, more in jest than anything else.

  Heartways House, with a millionth the prestige of Walpole and James, but with more than five times the sales, specialized in paperback romances, the sort of books Sara had never even read before. To her surprise she found it a treat, like eating junk food, to edit these books, and for the past few months she had spent her days reading about lust, revenge, lace-covered bodices, heroines running from castles, dark-eyed mysterious men. The endings were all predictable—but at this point in her life she appreciated that.

  Her workroom was the living room (while the spare bedroom sat waiting for its baby). The manuscripts and notebooks and pencils were stacked neatly on a shelf in the bookcase. With a fresh cup of coffee on the table next to her, and an afghan pulled up over her knees, she settled down with the latest gothic from Heartways House. It was a lazy way to work, cozying up on the sofa, still in her nightgown and warm pink robe, but she loved it. No intrusions, no interruptions, no other people scurrying down a hallway outside the office, laughing, calling out, luring her mind from her work—just the warm silence of her house. Sunlight slanted through the windows, making a crazy quilt of dark and light squares on the faded ruby and azure Oriental carpet. Her body was still: no signs. She bent to her work.

  Seraphina stood panting next to the mammoth wooden doors that led to the turret. The heavy brass keys were in her hand.

  “Seraphina,” Errol called, “my darling! Let me out!”

  Seraphina shuddered as fear and desire passed through her slender body like a flame. Should she let Errol out? Or should she run and fetch Jean-Paul? Which man was the murderer? Which man should she trust?

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, Seraphina, let poor old Errol out, Sara thought, sighing. We all know he’s the hero; he’s the one who’s got all the money and will inherit the castle.

  After a few more paragraphs (during which Seraphina let Errol out of the turret) Sara looked up, away from the manuscript. She stared out the window at the blue sky, but didn’t really see it. She was wondering whether when Seraphina and Errol got married they would have any trouble conceiving. That was the real mystery, the real adventure, Sara thought, getting a baby. But no, Seraphina would get pregnant right away and deliver a healthy baby boy, just like Princess Di. For some people it was as easy as slipping down a slide.

  She forced herself back to the manuscript. She had to be attentive, even with this writer, who was usually meticulous. Did she feel anything? Any twinge anywhere? No.

  She forced herself to concentrate.

  Errol, much to Seraphina’s (and Sara’s) surprise, once out of the turret, tied poor Seraphina up with rope and gagged her with his ascot, inflicting light bruises (and copping some feels, though the writer didn’t quite put it that way) as he did. Sara’s interest was whetted. She had been sure Errol was the good guy. She turned the page.

  When I was twelve, I raised my own herd of polled registered Hereford for a 4-H project. I had five heifers who were old enough to be bred and to calve that year. I loved those heifers. I had a name for each of them. My father gave me one side of the barn just for them and I kept their stalls full of straw so fresh and golden that a princess could easily have spun it into gold; when the sun slanted in through the high loft door, the dust motes drifted down onto that straw and onto the backs of my cows like more gold, golden coins; you could almost hear it chiming as it fell.

  All animals, if loved personally and often, respond. So it came to be that every evening when I went out to the barnyard to call the cows home from the pasture, clanking the bucket of grain against the great round metal water trough and making triumphant gonglike dinner-bell sounds ring out, those five cows came running in from wherever they were. Really running. Father said he’d never seen anything like it. My brother, who was sometimes home from college, talked to us about Pavlov and stimulus-response. Whatever it was, when I called my cows in the evening, they came, knowing they would get a nice big helping of sweet ground corn and part of a bale of hay. Later, when they had been bred and were big with their calves, I would laugh to see them come running up, their enormous bellies swaying above their slender legs. It was as if all the maiden ladies at our church had suddenly run out together into the street, their flowered pillbox hats bobbing, their pocketbooks and huge corseted bosoms and hips and stomachs swinging gently above their tapered ankles and dainty tiny feet. My shy-eyed cows did have that air of refinement about them.

  Sara picked up the next manuscript sheet. Seraphina was there, twisting and writhing, her bosom heaving under delicate lace. Errol had left her shut in the turret.

  Sara looked back at the page she had just read. How had this realistic little memoir about cows get into the middle of the romance novel? Had Heartways House mixed up two manuscripts? But what would Heartways House, which published only romance novels and a few spy and adventure stories, be doing with a realistic piece? Perhaps one of the editors was reading it for a friend.

  Sara set the page about the cows aside. She’d rather read about that than old Errol and Seraphina, she thought. Seraphina, really, what a hokey name.

  Before she read on, she treated herself to another trip to the bathroom. Her heart leapt: still no blood.

  That evening, her work done, Sara stood in the bedroom, looking at herself in the full-length mirror that hung on the closet door. She had pulled up her newest pair of jeans—size fourteen. My God, she had never worn size fourteen before in her life, she was getting to be an absolute whale. And today the jeans would not quite fit. They were too big and loose on her legs, but she could not zip them up around her stomach and waist.

  Despair beckoned. All day long she had hoped, but this was one of the unmistakable signs that her period was about to start—this swollen stomach that bulged out in front of her like a mock pregnancy. In a few days, after she had gone through the heaviest flow, her emptied body would suddenly slip back into shape, her stomach would tighten, all of its own accord, and she would look normal again, if not terribly slim, at least not bloated. But for now, she was stuck with the silhouette of a kangaroo. Still—her period hadn’t started.…

  Bending over to tug off her jeans, she smiled at her tummy. “Hi,” she said. “Anybody home?” Then, optimistic, she dressed in a long denim skirt and several bright baggy shirts, grateful that the layered look was in. She pulled on knee-high red boots, brushed her hair up and out, and put on dangling earrings that her mother would have scorned as being fit only for Gypsies. Throwing on her red wool cape, she went out into the evening, to walk to the Atlantic Café to meet her husband.

  It was not quite five o’clock, not yet dark. This was a mild November so far, and the air was gentle, the wind low. One of the pleasures of living on Nantucket was that one could walk to almost any spot in the village, along streets that were as charming as a dream. Pleasant Street curved before her like a s
cene from a European fairy tale, brick mansions with their walled gardens and winding stone paths next to snug cottages with blue doors and window boxes still spilling over with flowers. The lamplights and shop lights glowed golden across the cobblestones as she turned down Main Street, where, this time of year, she saw more people walking their dogs than driving cars. She slipped into the Hub to see what new magazines were in, then wandered on down to the Atlantic Café.

  The group was already there, laughing, at several tables they had pushed together; Sara eyed them with nervous uncertainty.

  “Hi, Sara!” Carole Clark called. “Sit here!” She beckoned, indicating a chair between her and Steve.

  As Sara squeezed into place, Steve pulled her to him. “Hi, babe,” he said, nuzzling her ear. His skin was silk over steel; he was as strong as a lumberjack but he looked like a lawyer with his thick blond hair and perfectly regular features.

  “Ahh, don’t give me that crap, he’s a scumbag!” Mick roared from across the table, and Steve released Sara and turned back to a discussion of a local real estate agent.

  Sara ordered a glass of white wine, then settled back to watch and listen, trying to keep a smile on her face. At least, she thought, relaxing, at least, thank God, The Virgin wasn’t here tonight.

  The Virgin was Sara’s secret nickname for Mary Bennett, a woman Sara’s age who had been Steve’s serious girlfriend for years. They had broken up just a few months before Steve and Sara met. Now Steve was married to Sara and Mary was married to Bill Bennett, but Mary never let a meeting pass by without referring in as many ways as possible to the old days when she and Steve were lovers.

  “Remember—he was that guy who sang folk songs at the beach party at Cisco?” she would say to Steve. “That party where we slipped off and—” Mary would stop talking and just grin.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember that guy,” Steve would say, not returning Mary’s conspirator’s smile.

  Or, “Steve, where did you get those turquoise-and-silver earrings you gave me for Christmas a while ago?” she would ask, right in front of Sara and Mary’s husband, Bill.

  Steve, embarrassed, uncomfortable, and aware of Sara’s feelings about Mary, would mutter, “Oh, I don’t remember, Mary. That was so long ago.”

  “Not so long ago,” she would say with a smug smile.

  The first few months Sara had lived on the island, Mary had been openly, if sneakily, hostile to her. If they passed each other on the street, Mary would look the other way, or, if Sara spoke first, Mary would only look at her, unspeaking, sometimes with contemptuous surprise on her face as if she were thinking “Who is this dreadful person and why is she talking to me?”—sometimes with simple blank dislike. She had pretended for a long time not to remember Sara’s name: “Hi, Shari,” or “Hi, Susie,” she would say when she found it necessary to acknowledge Sara’s presence.

  In defense, Sara came up with a nickname of her own for Mary: The Virgin, because even when taunting Sara, wide-eyed Mary looked and acted as pure and perfect and maternal and loving as a saint. Mary had the sweetest face on earth, heart shaped, with a pointed chin and huge soft brown cow eyes. She had lots of long curling brown hair that framed her face and feathered around her head and shoulders like a halo. She spoke in a high, breathy, little-girl’s voice with never a hint of harshness or sarcasm, so that her question, “It is Susie, isn’t it?” seemed as innocent as an angel’s.

  Everyone else seemed to adore Mary. Four years ago, when Steve and Sara were living together in Boston, Mary had married Bill Bennett, a tall handsome angry man who wanted to be a novelist. Mary devoted her life to helping him; she supported them entirely by running a day-care center in her home. It was no wonder everyone adored her; she took care of everyone’s children with love and tenderness and sympathy and everlasting patience. “Mary’s just incredible,” people were constantly saying. “I don’t know how I’d live without her.”

  Sara wondered if no one else noticed that Mary, in spite of her goody-goody act and her sweet childish nature and great rolling cow eyes, wore the most revealing clothes of any woman on the island. Pretending to poverty (Steve had told Sara there was money in Mary’s family), Mary wore nothing but jeans and T-shirts or turtlenecks or sweaters. She never wore a bra, and every sweater or top she ever wore was so tight on her that her breasts and nipples were outlined with great clarity. She might as well have worn a shirt with “Hey! Look! Great breasts!” and arrows pointing which way to look. Her jeans were always skintight. She had two children, one three, one almost two, and until recently she had nursed the baby, pulling up her shirt in front of anyone and everyone, exposing her large full breasts. Once Sara had noticed Steve watching Mary nurse; she had then looked at Mary and, startled, had received a look from her that was full of smugness and scorn. “I was his first love, he’ll always be fascinated by me,” Mary seemed to say with every glance at Sara.

  It had been later that night, back at home, only a few months ago, when Sara had lost her temper and stormed at Steve, “I hate her! I hate being around her!” Steve had pulled into himself as he often did when she was upset. He was calm and hated fights. (One evening Sara had yelled at him, “Oh, you drive me crazy—you’re so—so blond!” “But Sara,” Steve had replied, baffled, “you’re blond, too.” That was true, but Sara felt that she was blond like Charo, every now and then erupting into a tumult of shaking ruffles, screeching so wildly in her passions that she cruised right through her anger into a foreign language—at times she was sure it must seem that way to Steve.) As their marriage unfolded, she had tried to be more reasonable in her angers, but that night Sara had been driven past reason.

  “I saw you looking at Mary’s breasts. God, can’t you understand how hard it is for me to live here with you, with you looking at your old lover’s breasts? How would you like it if I sat around with David Larkin looking at my breasts!”

  “She was nursing a baby,” Steve had sighed.

  “That’s beside the point!” Sara had cried, lying. For of course it hadn’t been beside the point at all: there Sara was, starting her period after seven months of trying to get pregnant, and there Mary was, Steve’s old girlfriend, nursing her second child. If Steve had married Mary, he would have children by now. Surely that thought had occurred to him, although he would never be so unkind as to speak it aloud.

  “The point is,” Sara had gone on, “that you are living here with your old friends, seeing your old lover all the time, looking at her, talking with her about old times. And Christ, she’s always kissing you!”

  “She’s always kissing everyone,” Steve said. “That’s just the way she is.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean, Steve. She’s always acting like the two of you share some big secret.”

  “I know what you mean,” Steve had said, weary, “but I think you’re exaggerating it. Mary’s just one of those super-friendly people. I don’t love her anymore, Sara. I love you. And she’s not interested in me, she’s married to Bill, they’ve got kids, she’s working her ass off to support the family so he can write. Don’t get paranoid.”

  “Oh, right. Paranoid,” Sara had sniffed, going cold and sarcastic. “Mary’s perfect, just friendly, and I’m paranoid.”

  “Well, you are,” Steve said. “You know I don’t care a thing about her.”

  “I just wish David lived here, I just wish I ran into my old lover every single damned day of the year, I wish he were kissing me every time we saw each other—then we’d see about paranoia.”

  “Look, what can I do?” Steve had asked unhappily. “She and Bill are part of the group. They’re friends with everyone I’m friends with. I can’t avoid them.”

  “No,” Sara had agreed. “So for the rest of my life I’ve got to live with the knowledge that you’ll be seeing your first love all the time—and God knows how many times you run into her when you’re off by yourself.”

  “Oh, Sara—”

  “Oh, Sara nothing! No wonder you were longing to move back
to the island. The place where you and your lover had such wonderful times—”

  “Sara, come on,” Steve had said, trying to take her in his arms.

  But she had been in a fury then, feeling trapped, and angry because no one could understand how it was for her—and jealous, jealous beyond words that Mary had children and Sara had only this week of cramping womb and flowing wasted blood.

  She had pulled away from Steve. She had gone into their guest bedroom and lay on the bed, sobbing.

  At last Steve had come in. He had sat down next to her on the bed and put his hands on her shoulders. “Sara, I hate it that you’re so upset,” he said. “Listen, we can always move back to Boston. I wouldn’t mind at all. We could buy a place outside Boston, in the country, you could go back to work for Donald James.…”

  Slowly becoming sane again, Sara remembered all the cocktail parties for authors she had gone to, all the authors she had picked up at the airport for her boss, all the handsome men who wrote or edited or published or worked somehow in the field and who had flirted with her or complimented her or somehow passed through her life vividly enough to remind her that she was a sexually attractive young woman. Steve had never been jealous of those parties she had gone to by herself, of those men she had “had to” eat dinner with or somehow entertain. He had never accused her of anything during all those associations with all those men. She knew he loved her as much as she loved him. She really did know that.

  “Oh, Steve,” she had wailed. “I’m so ashamed. I know you love me. I know I’m acting like a bitch. I’m just so jealous, so jealous of the way she looks at you, of what she is always trying to imply.”

  “She means nothing to me, I promise you. I was the one who broke up with her, if it’s any comfort to you.” (It was—great comfort.) “I’d kept going with her for months just out of habit. She’s really not that interesting, if you really knew her, Sara. She’s—oh, Sara, I never would have married her.”

  Sara had turned over, scooted across the bed, snuggled into Steve’s arms. “You would never have married anyone but me,” she told him.