The Virtues of Oxygen (6 page)

CHAPTER 7

P
ortia Kim, Holly’s youngest and most productive reporter, was the only one in the
Chronicle
office when Holl
y arrived.

“Where is everyone?” Ho
lly asked.

“Town Hall,” Portia said. “There’s a truck handing out free samples of some new kind of Hot
Pockets.”

“Did someone bring
a camera?”

“Les did. He’s going to write it up for a front-page
feature.”

“Why aren’t y
ou there?”

“I’m on a diet,” Portia said, looking down at the small roll of fat just above the belt on her black jeans. “It’s really my mother’s fault. She still treats me like I’m five. I get the look if I don’t eat everything on
my plate.”

Holly sat on Portia’s desk, sensing this would be a longer conversation than she initially thought. “Any chance of liberation this year?”
she asked.

“Not really. I still have to do their books because their English isn’t good enough, and another cousin just came over from Korea, so he’s in training. It takes him an hour to do a
manicure.”

“Well, I’m pulling for you. Any daily would be lucky to have you,” Holly said, though she knew that most daily newspapers were laying off reporters. The economics of the industry barely sustained the actual gathering of news
anymore.

“Thanks,” Portia said. “You’re the reason I don’t beat my head against the wall wondering why I went to Vassar. I mean, you moved back to Bertram Corners, and you’ve never regretted i
t, right?”

Holly picked up a rubber band from Portia’s desk and began to twist it around her fingers. “Do you know how old my husband was when
he died?”

“I know he w
as young.”

Holly had wrapped the rubber band around the tips of two fingers, which were now turning white. “Thirty-seven. Marshall was nine, and Connor was six. He kissed me good-bye one morning, left for work, and had an aneurism when he got to the office. It took me a full year—a full year—to stop waking up in the morning and looking to Chris’s side of the bed, absolutely sure it was all a nightmare. Even now, seven years later, I have nights l
ike that.”

Portia lowered her head. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. And your p
oor kids.”

Holly pulled the rubber band off her fingers and let the blood flow back. “I know,” she said, taking a deep breath. “But to answer your question, I don’t regret coming back, because this town came together for me after Chris died. Marshall and Connor had a lot of support, especially in those first few years. I know that everyone in town is looking out for them, like we all look out for Vivian. That’s wh
at we do.”

Holly knew forty or fifty e-mails awaited her, bristling with false urgency, but she paused, putting her hands under her thighs as she sat on Portia’s desk. Her impulse to warn Portia that life could pivot drastically without warning needed a little
tempering.

“You know that you’ll be fine, right?” Holly said. “You’re smart and you’re resourceful, and you’ll make your own way, if not in this business then in another one. I’m completely confident ab
out that.”

“I hope you’
re right.”

“I am right,” Holly said, jumping off Portia’s desk. “If I’m right about nothing else, I’m right ab
out that.”

Back in her office, Holly looked at the large paper calendar on the wall, a gift from the bank. She had just sent a check to the very same bank for half of her mortgage with a handwritten note on a Post-it saying she would make up the difference as soon as possible. It wasn’t a complete lie, even if “possible” might actually be “never.” But as her eyes swept across the perfectly boxed days and the neat rows of weeks, she realized that the next month’s mortgage would be due in just a few weeks. And just four weeks after that another check would be due, and another after that. The fear of losing her house consumed her. It felt like she had gone too far underwater and couldn’t be sure she’d have enough air to make it to the
surface.

She pulled her eyes from the calendar and tried to breathe slowly and evenly by imagining herself inside an iron lung that did the breathin
g for her.

“Mom, I’ll be late fo
r school.”

Holly could sense Marshall standing over her even before he started prodding her in the shoulder and shining the bright red digital numbers of the alarm clock in her face. She had been up until two in the morning putting the paper to bed, as she did every Tuesday night before Wednesday’s
press run.

“It’s six forty-seven, and I have to be there by seven fifteen. C’mon. I made you som
e coffee.”

Holly got up, pulled on some sweatpants, and shoved her feet into an old pair of untied running shoes. She felt her way down the stairs, rubbing her eyes as she entered the unnatural glow of the kitchen. Marshall put a cup of coffee into
her hand.

“This is the last day I can bring in the money for the b
and trip.”

Holly fished around in the bill drawer for an envelope with the money she had saved for the trip and counted out two hundred and eighty dollars in twenties into Marshall’s open hand. She had a feeling the money for this band trip was just the beginning of all the cash she would be asked to shell out during his junior year in hig
h school.

“It should be three forty,” he said. “Where’s t
he rest?”

She counted the money again. Two hundred and eighty, despite her fervent wish that at least a few of the twenties had been stuck
together.

“It has to be here,” she said. “I’ve been putting a twenty away ev
ery week.”

“Did you take
any out?”

She paused, remembering an emergency pizza night a few weeks ago, before the mortgage mess, when she had borrowed from the band fund, intending to pay it back. There may have been a few other emergencies
as well.

“I may have accidentally used some of it,” Holly said. An ugly knot of guilt traveled from one internal organ to the next like a pinball as she realized she hadn’t been vigilant enough with her saving. “But,” she quickly added, “I’ll get it today. Just bring this in and tell them you’ll have the rest
tomorrow.”

Marshall looked at the twenties as if they were unclean or some kind of pitiful ransom. “Why don’t you just write me a check for the whol
e thing?”

“When did we all start looking down on legal tender?” she said, taking a long sip of coffee to avoid explaining to Marshall that her checking account could not accommodate his request until her next paycheck hit. It would be worse to bounce a check and have to pay a penalty. “Go get Connor while I start
the car.”

Marshall, who played the trumpet, tightened his lips the way trumpet players habitually do and put the cash in his pocket, then headed back upstairs to find his brother. Holly stepped out onto the wet lawn, worried because the Subaru sometimes had trouble starting on the kind of high-humidity days they often had when school was just starting. She got in the car and turned the key, leaning forward in her seat as if that might give the car momentum. The engine sputtered but eventually caught. A few minutes later, Marshall emerged with his backpack slung over one shoulder, and Connor followed, still groggy, eating a slice of bread with peanut butter on it. Marshall’s hair dangled in his eyes so annoyingly that Holly brushed back her own, clearing her forehead. At the same time she promised herself that she would let it go because it wasn’t worth starting the day with an argument. The boys climbed int
o the car.

“You seriously need a haircut,” Holly said, the words out of her mouth before she could s
top them.

“We’re la
te, Mom.”

“How can you see? It’s like a b
lindfold.”

Holly backed out of the driveway, cautious of the traffic on the street, now the main access road to a new subdivision of homes for those craving a bonus room and a three-car garage. The new lots hugged the hill behind the Showalter house, which looked like a historic homestead, with its stone foundation and its wide front porch, its peeling paint and its tiny dormer windows. Holly wanted to take the house to dinner and buy it expensive new clothes, but she couldn’t afford to make any improvements. Instead, the ceiling in the kitchen leaked from the shower stall above, the wallpaper in the hall had faded in areas that saw the sunlight, and patches of gray showed through the white exterior paint that Chris had used to change the house color after they bought it. He had always wanted a wh
ite house.

“Don’t forget to hold the door handle,” Holly told Connor, who was in the backseat. “I don’t want you flying out this
morning.”

“I miss Dad,” Connor said, surprising all
of them.

“Me, too,” Mars
hall said.

“Oh my boys,” Holly said, blindsided once again. A grief counselor had warned Holly that her children would have to reprocess their father’s death at every stage of their development, but the counselor hadn’t addressed how helpless Holly would feel every time it resurfaced. She cleared her throat so that her voice wouldn’t break. “M
e, three.”

A few days later, Racine blew into the newspaper office like a fresh breeze off the ocean, and Darla, the lifestyles reporter and calendar editor, spotted him before Holly could run out from h
er office.

“And how may we help you?” Darla said, coming out from behind the desk where she was presumably writing the weekly community theater roundup Holly had asked for tha
t morning.

“I’m looking for Holly Showalter,” he said, turning around as if he might be in the wrong place. The newspaper office looked like the home of a hoarder, with boxes and papers stacked on every conceivable surface, the sight lines obscured by shelving units full of obsolete phone books. Clearing it out would have qualified as an archeolo
gical dig.

Darla, who at barely five feet couldn’t even see over the bookcases, stroked the uppermost of her three chins. “She’s here somewhere,”
she said.

Holly could see Darla smiling in a slightly inappropriate way as she took in the whole scene from her office, which had a door she rarely closed and glass walls above waist height. Holly enjoyed seeing Racine from a distance, where she could study his fine bone structure without being self-conscious about her own
features.

“May I say who’s asking for her?” Da
rla asked.

Racine extended a hand to Darla, who looked delighted to take it. “Tell her it’
s Racine.”

“Racine,” Darla repeated. “Now doesn’t that sound like an exotic travel des
tination.”

Holly emerged from her office to cut off whatever Darla might say next. “Hey, there,” she said. “I’m glad you stopped by. I have Vivian’s check
for you.”

“Excellent,” he said, running a hand lightly over his hair. “And I was looking for your advice on the storefronts. Could we tak
e a walk?”

“Sure. Just have to finish answering an e-mail. Be ri
ght back.”

Racine stayed in the main newsroom, looking around with an amused expression, perhaps at its quaintness, as Darla followed Holly into h
er office.

“Where do I get one of those?” Darla said in a
low voice.

“He’s just someone I’m doing business with,” Holly said as she typed and hi
t “Send.”

“Doing business. Is that what you kids are callin
g it now?”

Staring down Darla’s smirk, Holly left her office and led Racine through the warren of the newsroom and out the door. He was wearing some sort of sneaker-shoes with visible stitching that made small squeaking noises with each step, though he didn’t seem
to notice.