neighboring field picking enough wild strawberries to
WOMEN
make a pitcher of daiquiris. She and Diana lay in the sun drinking them until they were so drunk they made love in the open meadow. A herd of cows arrived to watch, munching placidly on all sides. Carorecalled thinking as she lay there surrounded by the sound of cuds being chewed, This is it.
This is happiness.
How could Diana prefer Suzanne’s witless hero worship to honest interaction with an old friend? It was incredible. Suzanne wasn’t even attractive.
She was gawky. With buck teeth. And slightly crossed eyes. And a hunchback, Caroline added in an unsuccessful attempt to cheer herself up.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” said Brenda as they pulled into the parking lot at Lake Glass Lanes, a low building sided with asbestos shingles that were supposed to look like bricks. It sat on the highway next to the new mall.
“I guess I am.”
“Something wrong?”
“No, I’m fine.” You couldn’t complain about a little insomnia to someone who’d spent the day rigging IV’S, pumping stomachs, and jump-starting stalled hearts. A gold medallion at Brenda’s throat glinted in the streetlight. A gift from Barb, who, like Brenda herself, was from a French Canadian family, it read, “Plus
que hier, moms que demain.”
Caroline and Diana used to mock Barb and Brenda’s devoted coupledom, saw it as a parody of Irene and Brian Stone. Two flagging swimmers in a death grip, dragging each other under.
Even at the height of their honeymoon she and Diana had retained separate friendships, separate flirtations, separate apartments, and separate checking accounts. But this afternoon Barb and Brenda’s symbiosis struck Caroline as touching, if the alternative was abandonment. Better to suffocate in sweetness than to drown in despair.
Barb was taking a practice frame on lane four. She slid up to the foul line and stumbled over it, setting off the buzzer. Brenda cheered and applauded. Lucille from Coronary Care, whose rows of finger curls made her head look like the roof of someone’s mouth, was setting up the score sheet.
Brenda and Caroline changed from boots into red, white, and blue spangled shoes. As Brenda unzipped her ball from its padded case, Caroline went in search of one of the alley’s balls with finger holes the right size. When she returned, Brenda was splashing
OTHER
rum from a bottle in her pocketbook into her teammates’ Cokes, glancing around to be sure the manager wasn’t watching.
Caroline sat on the smooth red plastic bench, getting up for her turns, making the proper responses to teammates’ chatter, and reflectthat bowlers sometimes turned up in the ER with dislocated shoulders and thumbs, or broken ankles. As the game progressed, she felt she was being packed in a cocoon of sterile cotton wool, like the batts for casts. The voices of her teammates were the cackling of a flock of migrating birds during a rest stop. The balls down the alleys and the clatter of falling pins were the hollow thundering cracks of distant rifles, killing geese in mid-flight on gray fall mornings. Watching the pins scatter, get swept away, then set up again, only to be knocked down again, she felt exhausted. What was the point? It was exactly like her life-she’d set it up, it would fall apart, she’d set it up again . .
. . There was no point.
She watched her teammates critically as they howled at Barb’s story about Dr. Watson at the urinal in the men’s room, being paged for ICU: “Dr. Watson, Dr. Watson, ICU,
ICU …” Brenda spewed her rum and Coke all over the score sheet. Caroline smiled weakly when Lucille looked her way.
Caroline continued to study these women, her teammates, her colleagues, as they ate powdered doughnuts, slid to the foul line in spangled shoes and orange shirts, jumped and squealed over strikes. She finally concluded they were simpletons.
If not, they’d be as appalled as she over the futility of it
WOMEN
make a pitcher of daiquiris. She and Diana lay in the sun drinking them until they were so drunk they made love in the open meadow. A herd of cows arrived to watch, munching placidly on all sides. Carorecalled thinking as she lay there surrounded by the sound of cuds being chewed, This is it.
This is happiness.
How could Diana prefer Suzanne’s witless hero worship to honest interaction with an old friend? It was incredible. Suzanne wasn’t even attractive.
She was gawky. With buck teeth. And slightly crossed eyes. And a hunchback, Caroline added in an unsuccessful attempt to cheer herself up.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight,” said Brenda as they pulled into the parking lot at Lake Glass Lanes, a low building sided with asbestos shingles that were supposed to look like bricks. It sat on the highway next to the new mall.
“I guess I am.”
“Something wrong?”
“No, I’m fine.” You couldn’t complain about a little insomnia to someone who’d spent the day rigging IV’S, pumping stomachs, and jump-starting stalled hearts. A gold medallion at Brenda’s throat glinted in the streetlight. A gift from Barb, who, like Brenda herself, was from a French Canadian family, it read, “Plus
que hier, moms que demain.”
Caroline and Diana used to mock Barb and Brenda’s devoted coupledom, saw it as a parody of Irene and Brian Stone. Two flagging swimmers in a death grip, dragging each other under.
Even at the height of their honeymoon she and Diana had retained separate friendships, separate flirtations, separate apartments, and separate checking accounts. But this afternoon Barb and Brenda’s symbiosis struck Caroline as touching, if the alternative was abandonment. Better to suffocate in sweetness than to drown in despair.
Barb was taking a practice frame on lane four. She slid up to the foul line and stumbled over it, setting off the buzzer. Brenda cheered and applauded. Lucille from Coronary Care, whose rows of finger curls made her head look like the roof of someone’s mouth, was setting up the score sheet.
Brenda and Caroline changed from boots into red, white, and blue spangled shoes. As Brenda unzipped her ball from its padded case, Caroline went in search of one of the alley’s balls with finger holes the right size. When she returned, Brenda was splashing
OTHER
rum from a bottle in her pocketbook into her teammates’ Cokes, glancing around to be sure the manager wasn’t watching.
Caroline sat on the smooth red plastic bench, getting up for her turns, making the proper responses to teammates’ chatter, and reflectthat bowlers sometimes turned up in the ER with dislocated shoulders and thumbs, or broken ankles. As the game progressed, she felt she was being packed in a cocoon of sterile cotton wool, like the batts for casts. The voices of her teammates were the cackling of a flock of migrating birds during a rest stop. The balls down the alleys and the clatter of falling pins were the hollow thundering cracks of distant rifles, killing geese in mid-flight on gray fall mornings. Watching the pins scatter, get swept away, then set up again, only to be knocked down again, she felt exhausted. What was the point? It was exactly like her life-she’d set it up, it would fall apart, she’d set it up again . .
. . There was no point.
She watched her teammates critically as they howled at Barb’s story about Dr. Watson at the urinal in the men’s room, being paged for ICU: “Dr. Watson, Dr. Watson, ICU,
ICU …” Brenda spewed her rum and Coke all over the score sheet. Caroline smiled weakly when Lucille looked her way.
Caroline continued to study these women, her teammates, her colleagues, as they ate powdered doughnuts, slid to the foul line in spangled shoes and orange shirts, jumped and squealed over strikes. She finally concluded they were simpletons.
If not, they’d be as appalled as she over the futility of it
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