Alison Lurie: Last Resort

And in the end he had done so. Choosing among three possible endowed professorships, he had returned Jenny to an unspoiled New England town, bought her an unspoiled colonial house, and surrounded her with woods and fields and flowers. There was nothing he would not do for Jenny, Wilkie thought. She asked so little, was so content only to be with him. For twenty-five years she had made him almost wholly happy. Moreover, she had presented him with what most people would consider the three greatest gifts of his life: two healthy, handsome, intelligent children and (perhaps even more important) Salty.

It was Jenny who, when he had taken her to San Francisco at the end of his lecture series, had given a name to Reithrodontomys raviventris. Walking in a Bay Area park just after sunset on that first miraculous evening, Wilkie had spotted a rare salt marsh mouse and pointed it out to her. “Oh, Salty, you’re beautiful!” Jenny had cried as the warm wind swept musically through the pale winter reeds and her long pale reed-colored hair. And the tiny bright-eyed creature, as if understanding, had paused on his tuft of grass to exchange with her a look of mutual appreciation.

It was not Jenny’s fault that her gifts had turned sour in the end: that Salty had become a media cartoon; or that Ellen and Billy, once so wholly satisfactory, had grown into flawed and problematic young adults. It was no one’s fault that Ellen should have inherited Wilkie’s strong will and his tendency to take control, so much less charming in a woman; or that Billy should have inherited Jenny’s physical slightness and her sensitivity to the opinions of others, so much less charming in a man. In his darkest moments Wilkie sometimes described Ellen to himself as a noisy, opinionated feminist and Billy as a sissy and a computer nerd.

The way it seemed to Wilkie now, as he crouched in the cold draft, clenching and grinding his jaw against the pain in his hip, only two possible futures were open to him. Either he would give up, tell some doctor the truth about his symptoms, begin taking mind-altering painkilling drugs, and descend into a blurry, shameful last act of life. Or he would get out, while it was still possible.

And it was, theoretically, possible. An accident on a field trip, for instance ... He would have to leave Convers for that: there were no mountain cliffs here, no lakes he could not easily swim across, even if he could discourage Jenny from accompanying him as she usually did. Perhaps an automobile smashup, one that wouldn’t injure other people? When the snows came, some night when the roads were dark and icy ... But if no one else was involved, there might be doubts about his intention. And how could he be sure that it would not end in a fate far worse than his slowly dwindling life: brain damage, a coma, paralysis?

Upstairs Jenny was still awake. At last she slipped out of bed, pulled a long robin’s-egg blue robe over her lacy white cotton nightdress, and padded barefoot down the wide, chilly oak stairs.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” she apologized. “Goodness, it’s cold in here.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Wilkie lied, watching his wife as she turned up the thermostat, thinking how graceful she was, how beautiful, with her pale, fine regular features and her silky pale-beige hair, still only lightly touched with silver, waterfalling over her shoulders.

“Do you know, I was wondering,” Jenny began, perching on the arm of a wing chair. She paused, waiting for the go-ahead.

“Yes?”

“I was thinking about that awful cold I had for so many many weeks last year. I was wondering if we might go somewhere warm for a while this winter. It would be so nice to escape all the viruses that I know are on their way to Convers now, just looking for me.”

Wilkie said nothing.

“It doesn’t have to be abroad,” she added. “There are parts of America that don’t have winter.” She glanced at the silent television screen, which obligingly showed a weather map of the United States banded in rainbow colors, the wavy bottom strip a glowing red. Wilkie hardly saw it; instead he recalled a recent interview in a local TV studio where he had learned that what one sees on the screen is a lie, a construct: there is no real map projected behind the weatherman, only a blank wall toward which he gestures. That’s what I’m doing now, he had thought at the time, gesturing at a blank wall, while people imagine I see something there.

“I was wondering, what if we were to take a place in Key West for a month or two,” Jenny continued. “Molly Hopkins still goes there every winter, doesn’t she?” Molly was the widow of a professor of American history who, though older than Wilkie, had been one of his closest friends.

“I believe so,” her husband said in a neutral, considering voice. Key West, he thought. An island, surrounded by the deep kind drowning sea—Afterward everyone would assume it had been a sudden cramp, or a freak undertow—

“I wondered if Molly might know something about houses to rent in Key West.”

He should have known better; some people might say that too, Wilkie thought. Why did the old fool try to swim out so far? they might say. Well, so what?

“I could write to her there. Or even phone.” Jenny glanced back from the weather map to her husband, and caught her breath. What she saw in the flickering television light was someone she hardly recognized: an old, exhausted-looking person in the grip of something between desperation and despair, his eyes squeezed shut as if in pain, his jaw set.

But then Wilkie shifted his position, turned away from the ghastly blue glare toward Jenny, smiled slightly at her, and was himself again. “Well, why not, my dear?” he said. “If that’s what you’d really like.”

2

MID-DECEMBER IN KEY West. Bougainvillea foamed over white stucco walls in Christmas-ribbon colors, palms swayed in the soft breeze, sand sparkled like Christmas tinsel in the sun. Streets and shops and restaurants were crowded with adults dressed like children at play, in colorful shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, and sandals. Their garb was the outward sign that for these few days or weeks they were free to enjoy and indulge themselves, like kids on vacation. They had no responsibilities or chores: they did not cook for themselves or make their own beds. They stayed up late at night, and ate when they liked, preferring the childish foods disapproved of by parents and health experts: cheeseburgers, hot dogs, sodas, chips, fries, pizza, and candy.

During the day many of them were at the beach: splashing in the warm ocean, or lazing in the warmer sand, watching the slow waves lick the shore. Others dawdled along the streets, gazing into shop windows or licking ice-cream cones. The more athletic were jogging, riding bikes, throwing balls, and tossing Frisbees, or out at sea: windsurfing, sailing, snorkeling, deep-sea fishing, or scuba diving. At night they could be seen dining in open-air seafood restaurants, or sitting in bars listening to loud, rhythmic music and exchanging loud, rhythmic comments.

Though most tourists accepted the occasional comic misadventure, it was important to them that overall their vacation should be pleasant. When you spend money on a holiday you are essentially purchasing happiness: if you don’t enjoy yourself you will feel defrauded.

There are dangers, though, in enjoying yourself too much. “Real life,” when you return to it, may seem painfully drab and confined by contrast. But this is usually temporary and bearable. More serious consequences faced those tourists who did not go home, who enjoyed the freedom and pleasure of Key West so much that they stayed on longer and longer.

What happened then, inevitably, was that these temporary children started to grow up. They bought property, joined volunteer organizations, took jobs, invested in some local business. As homeowners, workers, or proprietors, they began to view tourism from the other side. When they saw plastic debris washed up on the shore, or homeless people sleeping in alleys, they had the impulse to do something about it. They began to take positions on local issues; they not only read the local papers but wrote to the editor. Some became active in politics, or even ran for office. They agitated to save the reef, change the zoning laws, and permit cruise ships to tie up on Mallory Dock more often or never.