Elin Hilderbrand - Barefoot - A Novel

Vicki closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun. It felt wonderful—sun on her face, her feet buried in the Nantucket sand. It was just as her mother had promised. The sound of the waves lul ed Vicki into a sense of drowsy wel -being. Was this what it was like when you died? Or was it completely black, a big nothing, oblivion, the way it was before you were born? She wanted to know.

“How long have you noticed this shortness of breath?” Dr. Garcia asked. They were in his office, which was bland and doctorish: medical books, diplomas, pictures of his family. Two children, Vicki noted. She liked Dr. Garcia more for the picture of his daughter dressed up as a dragonfly for Hal oween.

“I’ve had tightness in my chest, a little pain for a week or two, since Easter, but I didn’t think anything of it. But now, I can’t get air in.”

“Do you smoke?”

“God, no,” Vicki said. “Wel , I tried a cigarette when I was thirteen, outside the ice-skating rink. One puff. I smoked marijuana in col ege, three, maybe four hits altogether. And for two years I had a Cuban cigar once a week.”

Dr. Garcia laughed. “Cuban cigar?”

“It was a poker game,” Vicki said.

“The MRI shows a mass in your lung.”

“A mass?”

“It looks suspicious to me, but we’re going to have to take a cel sample to figure out what it is. It could simply be a water-fil ed cyst. Or it could be something more serious.”

Vicki felt her stomach rise up in revolt. She spotted a trash can next to Dr. Garcia’s desk. Something more serious? Do not, she implored herself, think about the children.

“We’l do it now,” Dr. Garcia said. “When I saw your scan, I blocked off time.”

It sounded like he expected Vicki to thank him, but it was al she could do not to spew her breakfast al over his desk.

“It could just be a water-fil ed cyst?” she said. She held out hope for a juicy bubble of stagnant liquid that would just pop!—and dissolve.

“Sure enough,” Dr. Garcia said. “Fol ow me.”

“Vicki! Vicki Stowe!”

Vicki looked up. A woman was waving at her. It was . . . oh dear God, Caroline Knox, an acquaintance from Darien. Caroline’s sister, Eve, had been in Vicki’s Lamaze class when Vicki was pregnant with Blaine. Eve had brought Caroline as her partner a few times, and somehow Nantucket had come up—that Vicki stayed with Aunt Liv, that Caroline owned a house and came for the summer with her husband and kids. A few weeks ago, Vicki bumped into Caroline Knox in the parking lot of Goodwives, and Caroline asked Vicki if Vicki was going to Nantucket, and Vicki, not wanting to discuss the only topic on her mind that day, which was her cancer, had, without thinking, said, Yes, we’ll be there on June tenth. To which Caroline had replied, Oh, us, too! We must get together! Vicki had agreed, though real y, if she and Caroline Knox didn’t get together in Darien, why would they get together on Nantucket?

Vicki pushed herself up out of the chair. Porter had crawled off the blanket and was sitting in the sand chewing on the handle of a plastic shovel.

“Hi!” she said, trying to muster enthusiasm at the sight of Caroline Knox, who, Vicki noted, looked very matronly in her black one-piece suit. And she’d cut her hair short. Not even forty and she looked like Barbara Bush. “Hi, Caroline!”

“Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” Caroline squealed. “Vicki, how are you? When did you get here?”

“Yesterday.”

“We’ve been here a week already. It’s heaven on earth, don’t you think?”

Vicki smiled.

“When is Ted coming?” Caroline asked.

“Friday. He’s driving up with the car.”

“Wel , we should have dinner while it’s just us girls. Are you free on Wednesday?”

“I’m free . . . ,” Vicki said.

“Oh, good!”

“But I start chemo on Tuesday, so . . .”

Caroline’s face stopped its smiling. “What?”

“I have lung cancer,” Vicki said. She felt mean dropping it on Caroline this way, in front of Brenda, who had just scrawled two lines on her yel ow legal pad, and Melanie, who was stil staring at the phone in her lap. But Vicki enjoyed it, too, making Caroline Knox uncomfortable, watching her grope around for something to say.

“I had no idea,” Caroline said. “Eve didn’t tel me.” She dug her toe in the sand and the flesh of her thigh wobbled. “You know that Kit Campbel ’s father had lung cancer last year, and . . .”

“Yes,” Vicki said, though she had no idea who Kit Campbel was. “I heard al about it.”

“So you’re getting chemo here? On the island?”

“At the hospital,” Vicki said, in a voice that ended the topic. “Caroline, I’d like you to meet my sister, Brenda Lyndon, and my friend Melanie Patchen.”

Caroline shook hands with Melanie. “Patchen, you say? Are you related to Peter?”

“He’s my husband,” Melanie said. She squinted. “Why? Do you know him?”

“He plays squash with my husband, Edgar, at the Y,” Caroline said. “I didn’t realize Peter was married. For some reason, I thought he was single.”

It’s official, Vicki thought. I hate Caroline Knox.

Brenda shifted on her towel, though she made no move to acknowledge Caroline’s presence. Despite their mother’s best efforts, Brenda had the manners of Attila the Hun. When Brenda spoke, she said, “Vick, where’s Blaine?”

Vicki looked at the water. Blaine had been digging a hole just beyond where the waves broke so that the hole fil ed with water. That was what he’d been doing when she shut her eyes. But when she looked now, she saw the shovel, the pail, the truck, and the hole—but no Blaine.

Okay, wait. Vicki checked the perimeter of where they were sitting. He was behind them—no. He was . . . where was he?

“Mel?” Vicki asked. But Melanie looked even paler and more panicked than Vicki. You were watching him, right? Vicki thought. You said you’d keep an eye on him . Melanie stood up. Her left foot crushed her straw hat, and Brenda’s cel phone fel into the sand.

“Oh, God,” Vicki said. She jogged to the shoreline. Her insides twisted up in preliminary panic, and she felt her lungs tighten. “Blaine!” she cal ed out. She looked to the left, to the right, and then al the way back to the dunes. Was he hiding in the dunes? Brenda grabbed her arm.

“It’s okay. Do not panic. Don’t panic, Vick. He couldn’t have gone far.”

“Did he go in?” Vicki said. The surface of the water was calm; smal waves broke at her feet. She waded in up to her knees, scanning the dappled surface of the water. The only thing she had to worry about was Blaine under water. “Blaine?” she cal ed out, looking for air bubbles.

“Blaine?” Blaine could swim a little bit. If he were drowning, he would have splashed and made a fuss; Melanie certainly would have noticed. If there was an undertow here, and sometimes there was, he would have cal ed for Vicki. She would have heard him cal ing out.

“Blaine!” Brenda shouted. She turned back toward the beach. “Blaine Stowe! Where are you? Are there footprints? He was right here a second ago, wasn’t he?”

Was he? Now Vicki couldn’t remember if she’d seen him digging at al . But his toys were here. She’d had her eyes closed, she’d checked on the baby, she’d been thinking about Dr. Garcia, she’d assumed Melanie was watching Blaine. But then Caroline came.

“He’s here somewhere,” Vicki said. “He has to be here.”

“Of course,” Brenda said. “Obviously. We’l find him.”

“I’l go to the left,” Vicki said, though there was no evidence of humanity to the left—no people, no footprints, nothing but five or six plovers pecking at the sand. “I’l go to the right, I mean. You check the dunes. He probably had to go to the bathroom. Mel can stay with the baby.”