Kindred Spirits (2 page)

Yes, it would be a good thing. Good for everyone.

When she was done talking to Tiff, Lynne left the phone off the hook and tackled the stairs. It took so long, what with stopping and sitting to rest at every other step, that it was almost dusk when she reached her bedroom. After a nap, a brief shower, and a change into her pj’s and fluffy flannel housecoat that she
would. . . not. . . miss
, she opened the top drawer of her bureau for a pair of socks and caught sight of the orange envelope addressed to the Ladies Society for the Conservation of Martinis
.
No, that would never do. Sean or his snooping sister Danielle would find it and that would be the end.

She opened the envelope to check the contents once more: a note to Julia, another to her mother, a two-page explanation for the girls, and the book that started it all—
Best Recipes from the Ladies Society for the Conservation of Marshfield, 1966
—its formerly pristine white paper cover stained with grease spots and ripped in one corner.

Sitting on a small chair Sean had brought up just for her, she flipped past hors d’oeuvres, soups and salads, main courses, side dishes, and desserts to find what mattered most: The Art of Mixing the Perfect Martini.

Of course, these days you couldn’t put out a community recipe book with alcoholic drinks—not even a sparkling wine punch—without the Carrie A. Nations of this politically correct town wielding their hatchets. But back in the ’60s, as Lynne vaguely recalled, martinis represented the height of sophistication—James Bond, the Rat Pack, long legs, tight capri pants, and bouffant hair.

Mary Kay liked to remind their tiny group of martini drinkers—the “Society,” as Lynne, Beth, Carol, and Mary Kay called themselves—that the year this cookbook was written, Johnny Carson had just published
Happiness Is a Dry Martini,
featuring his bawdy drawing of a naked woman on the cover. Lynne would never forget coming across that on the bookshelf of her parents’ modest Pennsylvania house, along with
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask),
and wondering what her churchgoing, conservative parents
really
did with their nights after she went to bed.

Her finger traced DeeDee Patterson’s quirky handwritten notes next to each recipe:

 

The Cosmopolitan—
Served 7/10/67 at cabin. Soothed ruffled feathers. Add splash more Cointreau.

 

The Manhattan Martini—
B. Newell drank three, donated $500 to Bill’s campaign. Makes a man feel like a man.

 

The Dirty Martini—
Oooh! The Society’s favorite. Sipped to “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” Naughty fun!

 

And the most powerful of all, the Classic Martini, gin, a whiff of vermouth, three olives on a toothpick. Elegance in a glass.
Cannot be topped,
DeeDee wrote.
Gets you whatever your heart desires.

They’d tried them each with glee, finding DeeDee’s observations consistently proved true. Thanks to the invention of flavored vodkas, they even went on to create their own—Persephone’s Cosmos, Ginger-Pear, Chocolate-Raspberry Decadence, Lemon, and Clean Apple.

These were not mere drinks. They were potions, magical elixirs that transported them from their everyday occupations as mothers, a librarian, a nurse, a lawyer, and a teacher, to gloriously free spirits. Gorgeous, twirling, fabulous bon vivants! On some martini nights they ended up bobbing in Mary Kay’s pool as a milky mist rose to meet the full moon. One winter, fueled by ginger brandy, Carol streaked naked out of the sauna, running smack into the Markowitzes cross-country skiing across Kindlewah Lake, and was so mortified she leaped into a snowbank for cold protection.

Then there was the early summer evening thick with the sweet scent of Mary Kay’s tea roses, when they lay on her green grass, headto-head, hand in hand, forming a single large flower of women, strong and united, blissfully at peace.

Lynne closed the cookbook and studied the Kodachrome photo of the original Society perched in a semicircle on an elaborate memorial in the Old Town Cemetery that, thanks to their efforts, had been declared a national historic landmark. Their slim ankles crossed demurely, hands folded neatly in the laps of their short pastel dresses, sprayed hair swept into elegant blond or sleek chestnut updos, they were the picture of perfect propriety and breeding.

And yet, a keen eye would notice that behind each woman peeked the rim of a martini glass, a glimpse into what actually transpired at those conservation meetings when they weren’t researching Marshfield’s role in the Revolutionary War or preserving graveyards. DeeDee Patterson, trim, blond, and buxom, hardly the proper wife for a state assemblyman, sat front and center, a sly smile playing at the corner of her wide, red lips.

DeeDee, like many original members of the Ladies Society for the Conservation of Marshfield, was gone now, her beautiful remains entombed just beyond where she sat in the photo. Others had dispersed to warmer climes, but were they still together in spirit? Lynne hoped so, because she could not imagine eternity without Mary Kay, Carol, and Beth. Or, as they’d officially dubbed themselves during one particularly merry night of perhaps too many Cosmopolitans, the Ladies Society for the Conservation of Martinis.

Love you!
She kissed the old recipe book and stuffed it back into the envelope along with the rest of the letters, resealed it, and pressed it to her chest. It was to these women, her closest friends, she would entrust the one task—the most important task, really—that bully cancer had refused to let her finish. She couldn’t imagine anyone else handling the job—certainly not her husband.

For as much as she loved Sean, he would have been so hurt to learn that for decades she’d hidden this secret. But they would understand completely. They would set things right without Sean or the boys ever discovering the truth, so she could rest in peace.

Knowing this was the only way she could leave.

She hid the envelope under the protective safety of nightgowns and slips like a squirrel storing its treasured nut for her babies to find the following winter. One of the agreements they’d forged early on in the Society was that, should one of them pass, only a Society member would be permitted to clean out the personal belongings of another Society member. This vow was as sacred as never speaking ill of another’s husband and—perhaps most holy of all—never adding “tini” to a drink simply because it contained alcohol. The addition of vodka no more made some lesser beverage a martini than the ridiculous addition of carats transformed a cubic zirconia into a diamond.

Martinis were sacred.

Downstairs, the brisket Beth had dropped off while Lynne was sleeping simmered in the Crock-Pot. “Thanks, kiddo,” she whispered, yanking the plug.

As her next-door neighbor, fellow Society conspirator, and best friend, Beth didn’t ask, she just
did
. Cleaned out the coat closet. Bundled up the recyclables and old newspapers. Scrubbed down the bathrooms. Stocked the refrigerator for Sean. Emptied the cat’s litter box and took home two loads of laundry, returning them the following day clean and folded, picked up the prescriptions and made dinner three times a week.

Lynne was pretty sure she would have checked out long ago if it hadn’t been for Beth holding on, refusing to give in, certain that if she turned her back for just one minute, Lynne would slip away.

And she was right, Lynne thought, bypassing the stack of letters that had taken weeks to write, along with the newly paid bills and envelopes containing spare keys, instructions, and various account passwords for Sean, who would never remember.

Chores over, duties done, she pulled herself onto a chair by the liquor cabinet over the refrigerator and let her fingers flutter across the bottles until they landed on the one she needed—a bottle of Hornitos tequila.

It was Carol who insisted that all their martinis be made of the highest-quality spirits. In her opinion, nothing less than velvety Jewel of Russia or Chopin would do for vodka, though Beth, who could be just as much of a snob, was satisfied with good old Smirnoff. Mary Kay didn’t give a tinker’s damn as long as it wasn’t gin, which made her depressed, while Lynne was partial to Hornitos tequila simply because it reminded her of her honeymoon with Sean in Cancún.

She cracked open the tequila and added it to ice in the martini shaker along with a shot of Cointreau, some lime juice, limeade, and a dash of Blue Curaçao for color, following from memory DeeDee’s recipe for the exotic Blue Martini—
turns strangers into friends and, therefore, turns failures into triumphs. Good icebreaker for tough crowds.

Taking a taste, she was instantly whisked to the Mexican beach where she and Sean had frolicked, swimming in sparkling turquoise waters and lazing on the sand under the breeze of gently waving palm trees, steel drums playing softly in the background. She could still smell the coconut oil. She could feel Sean rubbing her tanned back and leading her by the hand to their secluded bungalow, where he proceeded to slowly and seductively untie each tiny bow on her bikini.

So fit. So young. So completely sure that their vitality and youth would last forever. Such a gift.

Having shaken vigorously, she poured out the drink and stood back to admire its dazzling aqua beauty. How could a drink that pretty, that sexy, play a part in something so lethal?

She grabbed a quilt off her hospital bed and went through the dining area, where family photos of better times dotted her china cabinet. Kevin and Kyle as naked babies splashing in the bath, her wedding day with Sean holding her as if he’d never let her go, the boys eager on their first day of school neatly dressed in matching khakis and wetted hair, the whole family blueberry picking, flying kites on Cape Cod, prom, graduation. Sean and the boys hugging her on Christmas morning, their last together. She carefully lay each on its face, putting them to bed.

Hers hadn’t been an “exciting life” in terms of accomplishments. She hadn’t earned a million dollars or become the next Laura Ingalls Wilder or married the prince of England, as her girlhood plans had presumed. But surveying the tiny house that she had decorated with her homemade curtains and colorful quilts of purple, red, blue, and green; her watercolors and oil paintings; and even her students’ clumsy clay models, it had been a good life, rich with love and laughter. She was glad for the choices she’d made.

A zap of pain shooting up her spine pushed her back on track, even if the sliding door off the dining room to the screened porch wasn’t. Sean really needed to fix that thing. It was insane that they’d paid all that money to have it installed just over a year ago and already it was stuck. She tried to yank the door shut by forcing it back and forth, but it wouldn’t budge. Screw it. One more thing she wouldn’t have to worry about—again.

She collapsed onto the fancy Swedish divan Carol had sent her and let out a sigh, stretching her slippered feet as her aching body melted into its patented design.

Craning her neck to sip her martini, she spilled a bit on her hateful robe and concluded there was not much else Sean or anyone, really, envied about her situation. But if there was bitterness in this thought, the sunny tequila and Cointreau took care of that, the martini’s blue fire rippling to her toes. She was getting warmer, though the air was colder. She pulled the quilt around her shoulders to stop the shivering.

Her first blue martini finished, she downed the second, poured a third, and decided it was now or never.

The oral morphine in the plastic specimen jar was thirty milligrams of instant death. If her oncologist, Dr. Bikashini, knew, he’d go ballistic, she thought, laughing to herself, slightly drunk perhaps. Old Bikashini had doled out the pain meds like a miser, drily explaining the dangers of developing a narcotics addiction. Right. As if becoming a junkie were a terminal cancer patient’s biggest problem.

With a quick prayer, she knocked back half the entire specimen jar. It was incredibly bitter, as death should be. Gripping the edge of her divan, she managed to swallow the rest, chasing it with the martini. The rush of the morphine and alcohol was so intense she began to shake in panic.
Perhaps this is it! So soon? No, no, no.

She decided she should call 9-1-1. Forget the embarrassment, just get the damn medics here to pump her stomach. But then what? The outcome would be the same.

Only worse.

Tears came to her eyes, she couldn’t help it, thinking of her sons and her husband, even her abiding cat snoring on a nearby chair. The Brezinski boys next door ran out to play kickball in the dark as their mother flicked on the back light. A howl of wind blew dead leaves against the screens of her porch. Somewhere a dog barked.

Please,
she begged God.
If it is Your will.

Lynne had always passionately defended life, had fought for it with courage and determination. Until recently, she believed the end was God’s to decide, not hers. But then years of poison and pain and the elimination of options that is the hallmark of terminal cancer treatment led her to one last conclusion.

She refused to accept an ending that would destroy her sons’ memory of their mother as a healthy, strong woman and would drag her family into depression and inching despair and bankruptcy. She would not let cancer call the last shot. If there was nothing left to do, then she would go on
her
terms.

Shh
, she heard Mary Kay whisper as clearly as if she were kneeling by her side, felt her stroke her forehead.
Let it be, honey, let it be.

Lynne
did
feel sleepy and heavy, sinking deeper into Carol’s soft sofa like a baby falling asleep in her mother’s arms, the aroma of Beth’s brisket snaking from the broken door, enveloping her in a motherly hug.

They were here with her in spirit if not in body. She knew they’d come. Lynne could sense them holding her, supporting her without judgment or pity as they had so many, many times before, buoying her with their wisdom and humor and boundless love. Her head began to buzz like the whistle of a teakettle. She was going under. This was it.