The Virtues of Oxygen (3 page)

Even with Vivian breathing again, Holly’s heart still beat in double time. She and all the volunteers lived in fear of being responsible for Vivian’s death through inattention or incompetence. They didn’t discuss it, but each one knew that the town would despise anyone who botched the remarkable joint effort to keep Vivi
an alive.

When the electricity came back on, Holly let out a deep breath she didn’t even know she had been holding. Her arms ached from turning
the crank.

The firefighters began to shift in their heavy uniforms and gear, seemingly unsure of what to do, since the emergency appeared to be over. One policeman began writing a report as two others huddled a
round him.

Vivian looked as exhausted as Holly had ever
seen her.

“I’m okay now,” Vivian said in a small voice. “It’s
all over.”

The firefighters soon ran out to another emergency, and the policeman writing the report made Vivian promise to get a new generator. Eventually, the policemen said they would check on Vivian again before their shifts ended
and left.

When Holly and Vivian were alone again, Holly found Vivian’s eyes in her angled mirror. “We almost lost you,” she said, an ache rising in her throat. “What if the generator hadn’t k
icked in?”

Vivian closed her eyes and sighed, then opened them. “I’ve probably been that close or closer to dying a dozen or more times. It comes with the t
erritory.”

“You need to replace that generator,” Holly said, still shaken. “And have the cra
nk fixed.”

“It’s never been this stubborn. I’ll have to call my technician, I guess, to order me a new one,” Vivian said, sounding to Holly strangely calm and almost disappointed, as if she would miss a piece of machinery that looked like it came from the Roose
velt era.

“Tell him to get one today. I don’t know about you, but I can’t go through th
at again.”

CHAPTER 3

I
t was someone’s idea of a joke, Holly had always felt, to name the town Bertram Corners. There were few actual corners, because some early architect of the town streets apparently had an aversion to right angles. Instead, a map of the town showed arcs and curves, traffic circles and cul-de-sacs, with the exception of Main Street, which held the town up like a spine, running north to south. Such small hamlets in upstate New York could barely be associated with the city that shared the state’s name, Holly thought, and yet they weren’t all that far from the glass-heavy skyscrapers, the white-walled art galleries, or the punishing traffic and noise of the B
ig Apple.

Bertram Corners had its share of small-town small-mindedness, but Holly had had very little trouble convincing Chris that it was the best place for them to buy their first home. He had loved her stories about the Fourth of July bike parades, the annual fried pickle festival (now defunct), and the Main Street sidewalk sales during which the merchants handed out candy like it was Halloween. Holly’s parents had wanted them to consider the exclusive neighborhood where Holly had grown up and even offered to help with the down payment, but Holly and Chris wanted the house to be theirs, not three-fifths theirs or two-thirds theirs. They wanted to pull off the grown-up act of buying a house all on
their own.

They had looked at three inexpensive starter homes with trendy open floor plans, but Chris always knocked on the thin drywall and shook his head. He wanted plaster. He wanted crawl spaces and foundation stones and crown moldings and trees taller than the rooftop. He wanted generations-old dust to fill their lives and their lungs. He brought Holly into his quest for something grounded in
the past.

“Otherwise, it’s just us,” he had told her as they drove out of yet another new development. “There should be layers of memory, you know? Doorknobs that have seen people live
and die.”

Holly remembered shaking her head, though, when they first toured the house they would eventually buy. It had doorknobs turned by many a generation, but it also had decrepit plumbing, rotting clapboards, and a kitchen with Depression-era appliances coate
d in rust.

“It’s got great bones,” Chris had said, though Holly thought he was referring to whatever might be buried under the dirt floor in the basement. What sold her was the china cabinet built into the corner of the dining room. They didn’t own any china, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the tiny windowpanes of that cabinet. A month later, after they had pulled together the down payment and figured out that the mortgage was only slightly higher than what they could reasonably afford, she found herself signing dozens of papers, committing herself to a relationship that felt almost as emotionally complicated as a
marriage.

Within a year Chris had replaced the rotting clapboards and repaired the plumbing using a book from Home Depot. They bought a new refrigerator and stove, though they ran out of money before they could buy new countertops or install the tile backsplash they had spent months planning. Even with its imperfections, the house was loving and safe, chipped and charming. The house
was them.

Now the house was her. Its endearing flaws had aged into liabilities. The plaster walls and ceilings had developed the same sorts of fine lines that had appeared on Holly’s face. The speckled Formica countertops that had seemed so retro and cool now looked dated and worn; she had scrubbed the speckles right out of them in spots just as her own childhood freckles had faded. And yet the roof still sheltered Holly and her boys. The house still embraced them as much as it possibly could. The doorknobs and the china cabinet and the creaking floors had witnessed their memories. She, Chris, and the boys were in the layers of paint and in the dust beneath the furniture. She never wanted
to leave.

Holly had agreed to meet Racine, Vivian’s cash-for-gold connection, in a coffee shop just down Main Street from the weekly newspaper she ran. As she walked toward the shop, she peered in the window of the pharmacy and saw a line already forming at the medication pickup window. The pharmacy seemed to be the one business in town that still thrived, and Holly assumed it was because it both indulged vices—cigarettes, fattening snack foods, sexual aids—and treated the medical issues they caused. Next door to the pharmacy was a liquor store that had a few customers at ten in the morning on a Monday. Past two empty storefronts was the coffee shop, which had a sign in the shape of a quaint whistling teakettle. The aroma of coffee and bacon greeted her as she opened the door. Nodding to the waitress, she found a seat in a booth by the big plate-glass window adjacent to t
he street.

When Racine walked in, almost everyone in the coffee shop turned to look, first because he was a stranger, and second because he wore jeans with a narrowly cut suit jacket—a combination rarely seen in Bertram Corners. He also had a leather messenger-type bag with a long strap that crossed his body, which told Holly that he either didn’t care what other men thought about him or cared very much what certain other men thought about him. Even though they lived less than two hours away from one of the most clothing-obsessed cities on the planet, most of the men Holly knew were so afraid of looking fashionable that they erred on the side o
f flannel.

“Holly?” he said as she scooted her way out of the booth and stood up to shake his hand. He was slim and well dressed, and his curly hair was cropped close to his head. He had a wide, welcoming smile showing a line of exceptionally white, straight teeth. At the same time, his eyes kept Holly guessing. His lids were somewhat heavy and guarded, which gave Holly the impression that the welcome in his smile was conditional and possibly superficial. The conflict between two such essential parts of the face fasci
nated her.

“You must be Racine,” Holly said, motioning for him to sit down. “I’ve been wondering how you got that name ever since I heard it fro
m Vivian.”

“Not that interesting, really,” he said in an accent that Holly couldn’t quite place. For the most part he sounded American, though not when he said certain words with long vow
el sounds.

“I was born in Argentina, but my parents met in Racine, Wisconsin, when they were in college, and they liked the name, he
nce . . .”

“Hence,” Holly repeated, extending a palm as if this explained everything. Nice-looking men always brought out her awkward side. She wished she had worn something chicer than a V-neck T-shirt
and jeans.

“So Vivian tells me you’re my contact for her investment,” Racine said, running a hand lightly over his hair. “She recommended yo
u highly.”

“I’m at your service,” Holly said, because she now believed Vivian, who had told her that Racine could sell milk to a dairy farmer or ice to Eskimos, or one of those. She could now picture everyone in town parading into the cash-for-gold store, clutching a handful of the pathetic gift-giving efforts of former husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends: the thin gold chains that had broken in the first few months of devoted wear; the chunky earrings purchased from the sale rack because chunky earrings were out of style; the low-end tennis bracelets with diamonds so small they qualified as a vision test; the needlessly heavy class rings worn for a few months and then abandoned in a box of old souvenirs. These would be deposited with a smiling Racine, who would turn them into cash as cold and hard as the hearts of the men and women who sold their
memories.

“Would you mind explaining to me how this works?” Holly asked. “It seems like these places are cropping up everywhere, but that must be because they make mone
y, right?”

“Of course,” Racine said. He took a white binder out of his messenger bag and put it in front of Holly. “This should have everything you need to know, but basically we set up the shop for a minimal outlay. If gold dips too low for an extended period of time, we close up and move on, but right now we’re looking at a significant profit for every ounce we collect. Gold is a much safer investment than the real estate market th
ese days.”

“Do you have some kind of a track record w
ith this?”

“I do, actually. I’ve set up four of these shops in Lower Manhattan, two in Brooklyn, and five more in Connecticut. Right now we’re looking for small towns in New York State that don’t have a lot of competitors. Once it’s set up, the business kind of runs itself. It’s really all about the initial capital and a good location, and when the investors are from the community, we tend to have a better outcome. It gives us more eyes and ears on the street. Speaking of which, I’m looking for a spot on Main Street, if you know of any. Vivian said you might be able to help me w
ith that.”

“You shouldn’t have a problem, with all the empty storefronts,” Holly told him. “I can give you the name of a real estate agent. She should be able to track down the l
andlords.”

“Perfect,” he said, taking a pen out of his messenger bag. “So I have Vivian down for a hundred and twenty thousand. Is she still comfortable w
ith that?”

“That’s her commitment,” Holly said, wondering even as she said it how Vivian could have that much money to spare for an uncertain in
vestment.

“Excellent,” he said, clicking the pen a few times. “What about you? I could squeeze in another investor if you’re in
terested.”

Holly looked down at her menu and suppressed an urge to write Racine a check that would bounce higher than the Empire State Building. She wanted, for some reason, to make him think that money meant nothi
ng to her.

“I don’t think that’s in the cards,” she said, feeling her cheeks grow sligh
tly warm.

A waitress Holly had known for years approached the table. “Hi, folks, can I start you with som
e coffee?”

“Thanks, Helen,” Holly said
, nodding.

“Nothing for me,” Racine said, standing up from the booth. “Unfortunately, I need to get back to the city. Here’s my card. I’ll call you when I have the papers ready for
Vivian.”

Holly took the card—noting that he hadn’t tried very hard to talk her into investing. He ran a hand over his hair again, which Holly noticed was just on the verge of receding, and slung the messenger bag back over one shoulder as he left the restaurant. Through the plate-glass window, Holly could see him getting into a small white s
ports car.

“That’s a Jag,” Helen said, sitting down with the coffee pot where Racine had been just moments before. “He’s drivi
ng a Jag.”

“He must be doing okay then,” Holly said, now convinced that Vivian knew what she was doing and grateful for a small second paycheck that might allow her to reduce her reliance on her mother, who had been helping her with her mortgage for the last year. A little breathing room was all she wanted. After Helen filled her coffee cup, Holly sat up a little straighter, pushed her hair behind her ears, and opened the white binder. It wasn’t about driving a Jag for her. It was about fixing the garage door, which had been stuck halfway down for more than a year. It was about finally paying for the long-overdue service on the ancient furnace. But mostly it was about Marshall and Connor, who deserved to stay in their own home, the only one they had ev
er known.

She flipped through the binder. Maybe this was jus
t a start.