The Jezebel Remedy (15 page)

“Yep. Hit Bet Max.”

The third time she played, she landed on the Spin-the-Wheel gimmick, and a recorded audience singsonged “Wheel of Fortune” through the machine's tiny speaker. Brett had her mash another button, and a colorful wheel of chance on top whirled around and slowed and the pointer barely ticked into a three-hundred-dollar space, and she shrieked “Oh, damn, Brett, we won three hundred dollars.” The same fake audience clapped and cheered from inside the machine.

“Yeah. More important, we evidently have some pretty prime luck operating for us.”

To her amazement, they returned to a dry, repaired bed with fresh linens and chocolates on the pillows. They kissed some more, and he took off her top and bra, but it was uncomfortable when he touched between her legs and she made him quit. Then they fell asleep half-naked and drunk, with her makeup still in place, the photograph from the casino set nearby on the nightstand, their jackpot—three crisp hundred-dollar bills—folded in half and tossed beside the goof of a picture, the paper money and silly throne shot the last image she recalled before shutting her eyes.

Regardless of how late she went to sleep, Lisa usually awoke at the same time, no clock or alarm needed, and she was up at six-thirty the next morning, the day just starting to take shape, the sky still bland and listless, the light subdued. She felt sketchy. The sides of her head ached. Her mouth was dry and stale. The coffeemaker was far too involved and complicated in the murky room, so she drank some bottled water and scrubbed her face with a white washcloth and brushed her teeth.

Yesterday, she'd called Joe from the airport while waiting in the immigration line, and an hour later she'd phoned to let him know she'd arrived safely at the hotel, the room under her name if he needed her for an emergency. She finished the water and checked her messages, discovered he'd left a voice mail at 10:33 last night, telling her to have fun and sleep well. She walked outside and shut the patio doors and used M.J.'s cell to call the farm. Brett was sleeping, his cheek flush against a pillow, his hair in a riot, still wearing the dress shirt he'd put on for their evening at Atlantis.

“What's the word, M.J.?” Joe said when he answered, his voice alert and chipper despite the hour. “You're up and at 'em awfully early for a girl on vacation.”

“It's me, Joe,” Lisa said. “My stupid cell is on the fritz. I'm using M.J.'s. She's still sleeping.”

“Oh,” he said, “even better. How's my wife?”

“Fine,” she answered. “How are things there?”

“My man Brownie and I are in total command. We watched some pro hoops and busted out
Zombieland
. Polished off the spaghetti
you left for me. Probably the gym and a horse ride today. I might try to replace that bad sheet of tin on the barn roof too. How are the Bahamas?”

“Fun. It's warm and sunny, and that counts for a lot. We had a nice dinner and a few drinks. Went to the casino. By the way,
Zombieland
was made for stoners and teenage boys.”

“Well, I'm neither, but I have to find movies Brownie can enjoy.”

Lisa laughed. “Of course.”

“The casino, huh? Don't get tangled up with some high roller and run away on a yacht, okay? I imagine you and M.J. strolling through a gambling hall at night probably set off alarms and turned more than a few heads. Especially since I'm guessing M.J. was very short-skirted and you were the hottest woman in the joint.”

“That's sweet,” she told him and suddenly felt very affectionate toward him. She was wearing her white hotel robe and cloth slippers. The sun was rising, the ocean stirring. “But as best I can tell, we didn't attract any admirers.”

“Oh, yeah, damn, I do have one gripe. I hate that friggin' Pampered Chef can opener. It's worthless. I thought you were going to buy a normal one, one I could use.”

“I showed you how it works, okay? It's actually an improvement. Neat as a pin.”

“Could be. But it's not an improvement over my pocketknife, which is what I used to gouge open a can of pears last night.”

She laughed again. “I'm headed to find some coffee.”

“Hang on. Wait a minute.” She heard him moving through their house. “Now we're ready. Speak, Brownie, speak!”

The dog barked, stopped, barked some more. “You guys be careful and steer clear of shady Rasta men and time-share hucksters,” Joe said when he came back on the phone. “Hey—remember when we were, what, a year out of law school and suffered through that condo presentation in Mexico so we could earn a free extra night and a breakfast coupon?”

“Yeah,” she said. “The good old days.”

“See you soon. I love you.”

“I love you too. Give the mutt a hug for me.”

She felt melancholy after she ended the call, a bit
too
unencumbered and rootless, hungover in another country, an honest to god adulterer of sorts, her companion a charming, handsome man with whom she shared a casino visit and a bar show in Roanoke as her main common denominators, but she'd struck that bargain and understood there'd be a Saturday morning with far less luster than the night before, and she hadn't traveled to Nassau to be even more pensive and gloomy than she already was in Henry County, and yesterday was textbook blue-sky romance, exactly why she'd flown away to the Bahamas, so she papered over the second thoughts and misgivings, smiled at the vast ocean and the swath of perfect green yard and the palm trees and hibiscus hedges, raised her hands as high as she could and stretched out the kinks, sins and booze-aches into surroundings that seemed quite capable of absorbing them, no problem.

She slipped back inside, checked to make certain Brett was still asleep, carefully picked and sorted through her suitcase, found her hat and sunglasses, and scrawled a note to him, wrote that she was hunting for coffee and then planning on some beachcombing; she'd see him later. She glanced at her watch before she left. The sky was lit now, and the beach was vacant, the sand smooth, not a single footprint.

She stayed gone until around nine-thirty. She and Brett had room service bring them breakfast on the patio, and even at the beginning of his morning, diminished by a night of steady carousing, he was talkative and attentive. After the young man from the hotel had set their plates and poured their coffee, Brett courteously pulled a chair from the table so she could take a seat, and he told her he wished they had more days together. She said the hotel was beautiful and thanked him for making the arrangements and mentioned that the pineapple looked like it had just been picked. He smiled and teased her about taking such a long beach walk; she'd been away for nearly three hours.

They spent the morning at the pool, and she ordered a mimosa for lunch, Brett a rum and Coke. They took a cab into Nassau and toured the town and stopped for an early dinner in the Fish Fry area, sat on a balcony and spent an hour drinking and sharing a plate of conch, fried grouper and homemade coleslaw. As they were leaving the restaurant, they laughed off a couple local drug dealers and a guy in a Toyota with
tinted windows who wanted, at barely six o'clock, to take them to “the most happening club in the Caribbean.” They returned to the resort, swam in the ocean and sat on the sand shivering under towels for a few brief moments until they dried.

“So what comes next?” Brett asked.

“This might sound dull, but I wonder if we could drag chairs down here and have them bring us a bottle of wine? Put on some dry clothes and sit at the edge of the water.”

“I'm all for it,” Brett said. “I'll start to work on the chairs.” He stared out at the ocean, wasn't looking at her. There was still daylight left. “To tell the truth, I was kind of referring to longer-term plans. If that doesn't ruin the evening for you. Fine with me if we just take the rest of Nassau as it comes and worry with the details later.”

“Yeah,” she said, and she didn't focus on him, either. “Let's not complicate such a nice vacation.”

“Sure,” he told her. “Okay. But let me say one thing: I want you to understand I wouldn't jump in the middle of a twenty-year marriage for a quick party trip, even with the amazing Lisa Stone. I've never, ever been with a married woman. You're a spectacular lady—I'm guessing you've heard that for most of your life—and I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't thinking about more than a weekend. Of course, who the hell can predict how things will or could turn out for us, and I don't want to sound like some infatuated teenager, but I realize how much you have invested. I've had a great time so far, and you're better than I imagined you'd be…and I had large, high expectations. So there you go. For what it's worth, I'd like to think we can manage to keep seeing each other.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “You're sweet to say all that. I don't guess I planned to dump twenty years for a weekend, either. But I'd rather not start exploring that road, trying to see around the bend, not here, not now.” She felt another stab of remorse, and it was harder to tamp down, especially since she had only this last night remaining before her plane boarded and she'd be returned to Martinsville and her permanent address and a much sterner landscape, the butlers, fresh flowers, pool drinks, high tides and gorgeous vistas utterly and completely gone, behind her, not even saved and tucked away in snapshots.

Three, three, three. 3:33. The digital red numbers on the clock all matched, and when Lisa awoke several hours later and saw them, she was addled, disoriented, and for a moment there were echoes of the slot machines and casino games, and it was as if the wheels had spun to another winner and she was due a jackpot, triples in the pay window, all lined up. But there was also something spooky about the sequence, the row of fiery threes—they almost menaced the unfamiliar room, like Lucifer's signature at half strength. She rubbed her eyes. Blinked. The end number flashed to a 4.

As she came to herself and faded into her surroundings, she had to pee, that's why she wasn't sleeping, and damn if it wasn't pressing and urgent, and she realized right then it was going to sting and her bladder would vex her for at least a week, and the Azo pills and cranberry juice probably wouldn't be heavy-duty enough to remedy the infection, so she'd have to visit the women's health center in Roanoke and endure the PA's clipboard questions and Marcus Welby shtick, a steep price for a simple prescription. She scurried to the restroom and sat on the toilet, didn't bother with the light, closed her eyes and bit her lip as the urine streamed into the bowl.

The next morning, first thing, Brett slid off the bed, went to his suitcase and cartoonishly shuffled and windmilled clothes until he finally located a piece of paper. “Ah. Found it. Here you go: My last try on the last day. My eleventh-hour petition. I had the whole panel done last week. All negative for embarrassing diseases. Because we're lawyers, I brought the proof with me in case I needed it. I thought maybe that's why you're avoiding sex with me.” He grinned, folded the paper into a haphazard plane and tossed it toward her. It rose quickly, a nose-up burst, then lost height and momentum and pitched to the left and augured into a pillow on the side of the bed opposite her. “Consider it evidence of my bona fides where you're concerned. You realize I literally had to give blood for the test? How about some bonus points and gold stars for the effort? A glowing letter in my permanent file? A morning of serious romance?”

“All that for me, huh? Pretty darn selfless. And what could be more romantic than STD results?” She unfolded the report and glanced at it.
“Sad to say, I woke up with a…well, anyhow, a problem. I'm not used to so much sex—well, so much, you know, sex like we had, with, uh, your hands. The infernal sand, maybe. And drinking. All the drinking couldn't help.”

“Seriously? Are you all right?”

“It's just, uh, cystitis. If you have to know. You're mostly to blame.” She'd hoped to come off as glib and droll, but didn't. “Not really. I'm only kidding, okay?”

“Sorry.” He sat on the foot of the mattress. “Bummer. I'm guessing this doesn't bode well for my remaining prospects. Our last few hours here too.”

They took separate flights in Atlanta, Lisa to Greensboro, Brett to Roanoke, and by the time they left each other, she was sick and glum and her crotch pained her even more, the hurt an emphatic rebuke, and she really didn't know what to say to Brett when he kissed her goodbye, right there in the busy airport amidst the hurry and swirl of strangers. The light was harsh and indifferent. The trapped air smelled of too many scents at once.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You're welcome.” He slid his arm around her waist. “Are you going to be able to manage? Want me to walk with you to your gate?”

“You're a sweetheart. I'll be fine. I'm just worn out.”

“How should I get in touch?” Brett asked. “I'll probably have wicked withdrawal. The DTs for a couple days.”

“E-mail,” she said, not facing him, distracted, already heading in another direction, anxious for the shuttle and a different concourse and the flight home, rolling her small suitcase along with her, the bag poorly packed and lopsided, a threat to tip over even on the smooth, level floor. She fell in with the foot traffic and never looked back over her shoulder, never considered turning around.

Five miles from her farm, Lisa eased the Mercedes onto the shoulder of the road and switched off the ignition. She bowed her forehead until it rested against the arc of the steering wheel. Stopped there near a scrub sourwood tree and a clump of briar bushes, she wept, the regret and
remorse she'd numbed on Saturday morning now raging and febrile, almost to the point she was disabled, an invalid. She cried and cried and wiped snot on her bare wrist, and when she finally gathered herself enough to consider traveling to her house, she looked through the windshield and noticed she'd pulled over beside a pasture, several acres enclosed by rusty strands of barbed wire, the brown wire sagging and lackadaisical and tacked to mismatched fence poles, the first spring weeds starting to sprout at the bases of the poles.