Chamberlain, Diane - The Shadow Wife

“Sneakers,” Carlynn said. “I’ll put them on.”

She changed her clothes and her shoes, and they left the cabin and wandered through the woods and open spaces of the commune. Penny obviously knew her way around. She pointed out the different cabins to her, and after a while they reached a clearing, where children swung on rope swings hanging from the branches of mammoth trees and darted in and out of the fog. The latrine was not far from the clearing and it was worse than Carlynn had expected, an open area where everyone was expected to defecate side by side. She now understood why hippies had the reputation of being dirty, as they passed the one shower that served the entire community. The showerhead was rigged up to a tree, and it was connected to a huge barrel of water resting above a fire that someone would have to keep stoked, if anyone was to ever have a hot shower.

“Guess what, though,” Penny said in her anemic voice. “The main cabin—the one near where you parked—is where we cook meals, and it has plumbing, so you don’t have to freak out about germs when you eat.”

Carlynn was secretly relieved by that fact. She was wondering how quickly she could help Penny with her voice so that she could leave this place. Being here was like stepping back— way back—in time. She decided, though, that she could only get through the next few days by taking on a positive attitude, and so she followed Penny to the large cabin for dinner that night with a smile on her face and her appetite intact.

They sat on benches at one of three long wooden tables, and Carlynn enjoyed the vegetables and rice and tofu, which she had never eaten before and which was not as bad as she’d expected. Penny introduced her to a few people at their table, but then leaned forward to tell her about her other friends sitting elsewhere in the room.

“I’ve slept with him,” she whispered, pointing to a man with very long, kinky-curly blond hair. “His name is Terence, and God, he was so good.” Penny’s eyes were half closed, as though she could taste the memory. “So amazing. And with him.” She pointed to the young black man sitting next to the curly-haired blond, then to the heavyset woman next to him. “And with her,” she said.

“Her?” Carlynn tried not to look as stunned as she felt.

“It’s nothing here,” Penny said. “Everyone sleeps with everyone.”

“You’re on the Pill, I hope.”

“Of course,” Penny said. “Although, I was thinking that if I never get my voice back, I could just stay here and have babies. It’s so natural and beautiful, having babies here. There’ve been two born since I arrived. The fathers actually help deliver them. And there’s another one due soon.” Leaning forward again, she nodded in the direction of a very young dark-haired woman, huge with child, who was laughing at something one of her tablemates had said. Even from the next table, though, Carlynn could see a strain in that laugh. Whether the woman was in physical—or perhaps emotional—pain, she didn’t know, but something was troubling her.

“Her old man is the guy sitting over there.” Penny pointed. “Johnny Angel.”

“Johnny Angel?” Carlynn tried not to laugh.

“His real name is something else, but that’s what everyone calls him,” Penny said. “I’ve slept with him a few times, too. He’s very young, but the young ones can go all night long, if you know what I mean.”

“You slept with him while his wife is pregnant? ”

“Her suggestion,” Penny said. “It’s a different world here, Carly.”

A large woman with long, frizzy gray hair walked into the cabin and climbed over the bench to sit next to Penny.

“How’s your voice today, Penny?” the woman asked.

“Same as always,” Penny said. “Felicia, this is my old friend Carlynn. Felicia’s the midwife here. She’ll be delivering Ellen’s baby.”

“How far along is she?” Carlynn asked the midwife.

“Carlynn’s a doctor,” Penny whispered to Felicia.

“She’s thirty-eight weeks.” Felicia’s voice was loud and commanding. She dished a large serving of vegetables and rice onto her plate. “I think she’s going to be early, though,” she added. “She said she was having some back pain today.”

Carlynn nodded. That explained the halfhearted laughter.

Felicia looked across the table at her as she began to eat. “Do you have any antibiotics on you?” she asked. “River has the clap and he ran out.”

“No, sorry, I don’t,” she said, although she had brought some just in case she needed them to treat Penny. She would leave them for the guy with gonorrhea if Penny didn’t need them.

“Hey, Pen!” Terence called from one of the other tables. “Since you have company tonight, would you like to sleep at my cabin? Give your friend some privacy?”

“No, thanks,” Penny said as loudly as she could, to be heard over the chatter and crying babies. “I want to be with her.”

“Oh, I get it.” Terence smiled, and Carlynn grimaced.

“It’s not like that,” she said to the man. “I’m a married woman.”

Everyone laughed as though she’d said something hilarious, and she smiled.

“Let me start treating you,” Carlynn said when she and Penny had returned to Cornflower. She was anxious to see how Penny would respond to her touch. “I’d feel so good if I could get you back to New York and into that beauty parlor musical.”

“Beauty parlor musical?” Penny frowned at her.

“Didn’t you say you were going to be in a musical about—”

“Oh, Hair! ” Penny interrupted her, laughing. “Oh my God, Carlynn, a beauty parlor musical! You’re too much.” She could hardly catch her breath for laughing, and Carlynn joined in, not sure what the joke was.

“ Hair is about Vietnam, and love and diversity and people taking care of each other. It is decidedly not about a beauty parlor. God, I love you, Carly.”

“Now don’t start that.” Carlynn laughed. “I am not sleeping with you. No lesbian stuff.”

“Right, you’re a married woman.”

“Are you making fun of me?” Carlynn grinned. She was a fish out of water, but felt no discomfort at being the brunt of the jokes, as long as Penny was the joker. “Come here,” she said, pointing to one of the mattresses on the bedroom floor. “Lie down and get comfortable.”

Penny lay down and Carlynn sat on the mattress next to her, taking her hands. “Tell me about when it started.”

“Is this how you do it?” Penny asked. “You talk, like a shrink? I’ve been to a shrink already. He was useless.”

“I’m not a shrink, honey,” Carlynn said. “Now just talk to me. How did it start?”

Penny cried as she reported waking up one morning without a voice. Carlynn tuned out the outside world, the shouts of children, the occasional laughter from an adult, the guitar music that was floating in through the window from somewhere nearby. Closing her eyes, she let Penny’s words come inside her. This was going to work. She could feel it in Penny’s hands, in the absolute concentration in her face. Thank God. She did not want to disappoint her old friend. It might take some time, but Penny would get her voice back.

The next day, when the world was again white with fog, Ellen Liszt’s cries filled the commune, and everyone knew she was in labor.

“Should I help?” Carlynn asked Penny as she stared out the bedroom window in the direction of the cries.

Penny shook her head. “No. Believe me, they don’t want a doctor in there,” she said. “They don’t particularly trust doctors here.”

Except to hand out antibiotics when they contract a sexually transmitted disease, Carlynn thought.