“Got it.” Charlotte slowed the cart to stop at the mailbox, reached in, and placed a stack of envelopes on Lee’s lap. Moments later, Charlotte pulled into the garage. She’d hung a tennis ball from the ceiling: when the ball hit the windshield, Charlotte halted and plugged in the golf cart to recharge.
“Well, I’d better call my agent again,” said Lee, hopping off the cart. “See what’s new.”
“Ooooh, yes,” said Charlotte, gathering their wet towels and magazines. Lee dumped the mail on the counter and grabbed her phone. Charlotte sorted through a stack of catalogs and coupons before discovering a large white envelope with her name and address typed on the front. “Oh,” she said, hope like a hot balloon in her chest. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. But it was: a letter from Splendido Cruise Lines.
“What is it?” said Lee.
Charlotte realized she was shaking. Was this another manifestation of old age, or simply nerves? Most likely it was shock. She gripped the letter, opened it slowly. Its words swam in front of her eyes:Congratulations! Pleased to inform; Please call as soon as possible; Charlotte Perkins; first-class; Athens, Greece.
Charlotte was suffused with joy. If only he could see me now, she thought, the “he” referring to a few men: the one she had written the essay about (those strong hands on her), the husband who had never known her (those small hands, kind of stubby and soft), the golf pro whose hands (she really did think, though perhaps she was deluded) lingered a bit too long on her hips as he adjusted her swing.
A lover. A fighter. A winner: Charlotte Perkins.
Ofcourseshe was too classy for cruising. She was elegant and refined, more suited to posh hotel rooms in London or Paris. But Charlotte hadn’t been able to go anywhere, posh or otherwise, in fifty years! She was above the sorts of vacations she could afford. And so she had stayed put. But now, her insides buzzed as if she were filled with champagne.So whatif cruises were cheesy?
Charlotte took a shaky breath. She and her children would enjoy European wonders, then sit in a row on a cruise-ship deck as the sun set over the Mediterranean, toasting one another with overfilled glasses of Chardonnay!
Maybe she would even meet a man who wanted to kiss her, who would run his warm hands down her back to her bottom, cup her buttocks and pull her into him…Oh, here she was in broad daylight, imagining her dream lover’s erection straining at his expensive gabardine slacks. She tried to make herself stay in reality, but her brain allowed her dream lover to press himself into her private place, his mouth on her neck. She flushed, hot with desire and embarrassment.
“Are you okay, Mom?” said Lee.
“Oh, honey,” said Charlotte, meeting the eyes of her firstborn. Lee’s gaze was as direct and penetrating as when she was a baby. Charlotte grabbed her girl, wrapped her tight. This cruise would fix whatever was broken in Lee, would repair and renew them all. “Oh, honey,” said Charlotte. “I won!”
IT WAS A RUNNINGjoke between Cord and Giovanni: Cord’s mother always called when they were having sex. It was as if she had a sixth sense. Cord had begun leaving his phone and his dog in the kitchen with the door shut when things got going. “I’ll be back soon,” he told Franklin on Thursday evening.
The dog looked at him knowingly.
“Okay,” said Cord. “You’re right. It might be a little while. You understand, right?”
Franklin sank into his Hermès dog bed and sighed.
When he’d finally gotten sober (for the last time—really!), Cord had bought an aromatic diffuser and noise machine to protect his fragile nervous system. If he did say so himself, his bedroom was an oasis of calm. “Lavender or ylang-ylang?” he said, entering the room and brandishing two tiny blue bottles.
“Who cares?” said Giovanni. “Come here.”
Cord shook his head, loving Giovanni, his innate happiness. Had Cord ever been whole, even when he was twenty-one, a newly minted Princeton graduate with a fancy job in venture capital and a secret midnight life in Alphabet City, drinking and drugging and sleeping with every boy in sight? God, those had been good days. But fake days, impossible to sustain. He looked at Giovanni, impatient, erect. “I said,” repeated Giovanni, “come here.”
Cord hurriedly dumped lavender oil in the diffuser, pressed Mist, breathed deeply, and launched himself across the room toward his fiancé.
Fiancé!
Midway through the proceedings, Franklin escaped from the kitchen and entered the bedroom, trying to make his way stealthily onto the mattress. “Your…damn…dog,” said Giovanni.
“Our dog,” said Cord. “Yes, yes, he’s OUR DOG, GIOVANNI!”
Franklin watched them both with disdain.
Afterward, Giovanni lit a cigarette. “What’s the plan with the dog, anyway?” he said.
“The plan?” said Cord, watching Giovanni’s face. The lonely voice in Cord’s brain said,He’s going to tell you to get rid of Franklin. He’s going to tell you it’s him or the dog.
“The wedding plan,” said Giovanni. “I mean, does he walk with us down the aisle, with, like, rings around his neck? Or is he going to be a flower girl, with your sister’s kids and my many, many adorable nieces?”
Cord’s stomach—always seconds from chaos—eased. “Ring bearer,” he said.
“Yeah, I like that,” said Giovanni.
Cord watched Giovanni’s smoke trail toward the ceiling. He closed his eyes, so happy it overwhelmed him. This was one of the pleasures of recovery: you opened the door to the pain and gnawing tedium, but joy came in as well. All of it, all of it, brilliant and clean and true.
