Alison Lurie - Last Resort

But all this had taken only an hour or so, and the rest of the day still extended before him like the barren, endless salt flats of the southwest, where he had made some of his most difficult excursions as a naturalist. To maintain an appearance of normality he had walked to Valadarez’s newsstand on Duval Street as usual and purchased the Times. He had spoken as usual to the proprietor: the last words he would utter in his life, the lie: “Fine, thank you.”

Back home, he had methodically unfolded and refolded the newspaper page by page—another lie, a lie of commission—so that it would not seem to have been unread. There was no point in reading it. He would never know how the vote on taxes went in Congress tomorrow, nor pay these taxes; he would not view the new plays or films recommended by the critics.

When about to die, some men overindulge, since there will be no consequence to their health. “The condemned man ate a hearty meal.” But the idea of such a senseless binge—indeed of any sort of food or drink—now repelled Wilkie. He was not hungry; he had not really been hungry for a long while. If he were to create the illusion of normality, however, he would have to eat, or at least appear to have eaten, the sandwich his wife had left for him.

Facing this necessity, he opened the fridge and slowly removed the sandwich, which rested on an orange Fiestaware plate in company with a frill of Boston lettuce, a sliced tomato, and a dill pickle, the whole covered by plastic wrap. His impulse was to shove everything in the trash. But if he did so Jenny might find it later and wonder about his health or state of mind. It would be better to conceal the food in the garbage can outside.

Wilkie glanced toward the kitchen window. Barbie Mumpson was still reading in a lounge chair by the overheated communal pool, with her legs wrapped in a pink towel and another towel over her head and shoulders. This struck Wilkie as wholly idiotic. If she didn’t want a sunburn, why didn’t she stay indoors?

But the answer was simple: Barbie hadn’t stayed indoors because she was lying in wait for him, just as she had often done before. If he were to start for the garbage bins she would call out to him; she would want to talk about the endangered manatee. And if he didn’t reply calmly and cordially, later she would report to Jenny and everyone else that his behavior had been strange.

Wilkie had nothing against manatees per se, or even against Barbie—who, he thought now, somewhat resembled one. Like her, the aquatic mammal was a little heavy, a little fleshy, a little slow; not too well adapted to the modern world. The manatee, however, caused no trouble to anyone: it rested in shallow warm waters eating water weeds. As he watched, Barbie’s large-breasted, towel-wrapped (and thus apparently neckless and one-legged) form blurred in his nearsighted vision into that of a female manatee of the sort that sex-starved eighteenth-century sailors on long voyages mistook for mermaids. And of course Barbie herself belonged to a declining species: the fans of Wilkie Walker.

Right now Wilkie did not have the energy to converse with or about a manatee, or risk reaching the garbage bins without the creature spotting him. Also, it occurred to him, it would be best that his stomach contain the remains of a normal lunch in case of an autopsy. He opened the fridge again, poured himself a glass of seltzer, placed the plate containing the sandwich (chicken, apparently) on the kitchen counter, sat on a chrome-and-plastic kitchen stool, and attempted to eat. In his mouth the bread and meat tasted like chilled cardboard.

He got the first bite down, then another. The third, though, seemed to stick somewhere in his esophagus, causing sudden acute pain. Wilkie tried to swallow, but in vain. Instead of easing, the pain increased and spread.

A gulp of seltzer, rather than relieving the situation, worsened it. In growing distress he pushed the plate away and stumbled to the fridge, where he remembered seeing an open box of baking soda. Breathing hard, he mixed himself a dose and choked it down.

There was no relief. Instead the pain grew worse each moment, spreading inside his chest, modulating rapidly into agony. Not indigestion, he thought, gasping for air. This is a heart attack.

Shakily, Wilkie clutched at a chair and lowered himself onto it. Yes, he thought. Fate, having denied him his chosen exit from life three times, had now awarded him an ugly, painful death of her own choice: a death that presumably had been hanging over him for years, though that stupid doctor back in Convers had said his heart was fine, would last him to ninety.

Still the pain worsened, becoming agonizing. It was as if he had been shot or, as had actually happened when he was in fifth grade, been hit in the chest with a baseball bat. Then, though, the effect had gradually diminished; now it continued to increase, so that it was hard to sit upright. Clumsily, he collapsed onto the tiled kitchen floor, and though he tried to stop it, a shameful noise, half-groan and half-scream, forced its way out of his mouth. I don’t want to die this way, Wilkie thought. That’s too bad, Fate said to him unpleasantly, rattling her scales.

Hang on, he told himself, lying in a fetal position on the cold floor and breathing with difficulty. It can’t be long now. Soon it will all be over, soon I’ll be dead in this ugly rented house, where Jenny, when she returns from her stupid part-time job, will find me—

But that will be horrible. His beloved wife will walk into the kitchen and see him lying on the cold, ugly green-and-white marbled floor—a floor composed of genuine antique Cuban tiles, Kenneth Foster had told them with admiration, though to Wilkie they resembled some disgusting dish made of boiled cabbage and whipped cream. Jenny will find him lying dead here, his face distorted, in a puddle of urine and feces. A disgusting, terrible sight; a disgusting, terrible memory for the rest of her life.

No, no. Somehow he must get out of here, go somewhere else to die. Slowly Wilkie struggled to his hands and knees, then to his feet, gasping with pain. Dragging himself along the kitchen counter, he reached the back door, got it open, and shouted to the towel-wrapped manatee by the side of the pool.

In the front room of Artemis Lodge, Jenny Walker moved restlessly between the desk, the sofa, and the wide window-seat, where she perched on the handwoven red and purple cushions and stared out at the street, waiting for Lee to return, waiting to be alone with her again. When she’d arrived that morning other people were already there, preparing to accompany Lee to Tommy’s funeral and the reception afterward.

Though the house was quiet now—all the guests were out too—Jenny’s thoughts were loud and stormy. Lee had said she loved her, but what did that mean? Did it mean as much as it meant to Jenny? She might know if she’d been able to call Lee as she’d promised, but when she got home Wilkie was there, and if she called he might pick up the phone, as he sometimes did, and overhear her. Was Lee angry that she hadn’t called, was that why she’d hardly spoken to Jenny this morning?

Though the guests had seemed to enjoy it, to Jenny her dinner party last night had been almost unbearable—simultaneously boring and tense. She had been thinking of Lee the whole time, wanting to be with her. Wilkie had drunk rather a lot, and had been alternatively almost wildly talkative, and silent. At the end he had suddenly announced to everyone that The Copper Beech was finished, something he hadn’t yet told Jenny.

Though upset and insulted, she had managed to conceal her surprise. And after the guests had congratulated him and left she had said only that she was glad the book was done, and she looked forward to going over the final chapter with him.