Strangers (27 page)

“What are the signs”—she hesitated, sipped her old-fashioned. It was her second. The first was a subtle glow within, just enough relaxation to give her courage—“of a nervous breakdown?”

Across the small table in the comer of the dimly lit lounge, Kevin Bollender stirred his scotch and water. Quietly, he said, “Beth, am I right in thinking that’s not a theoretical question?”

She smiled glumly. “Does it show?”

Kevin said, “You’ve got a lot on your mind. There’s something bothering you, probably a number of ‘somethings.’ That shows. Feel like talking about it?”

“Feel like talking?” she answered with a shrug and a melancholy laugh. “I feel like I
have
to. My whole life is a mess. It’s like being on a treadmill in quicksand. I keep on walking and walking and I don’t go forward, only down.”

“Please go on.”

Whatever floated up in her mind came spewing forth as words, the orders of events no real order at all, her silent lulls made less awkward by swallows of her drink: Brad Zeller and Kim’s accident and the death of a dog and a guinea pig and—
It’s good saying this. He is really listening to me
—Mom’s stroke and always, always now, this heavy sense of dread…

She hit an abrupt dead end. She thought there was more she wanted to say but she had no idea how to say it.

She felt a jumble of emotions: embarrassment, foolishness, annoyance at herself for burdening someone else with her troubles—and relief. She stared at her glass. It would be hard to look at Kevin right now; she had revealed more of herself to him than she ever had to anyone else.

Even to Michael, way back when she could believe everything was fine between them?
She wasn’t sure. She searched her memory for those times of closeness and intimacy between herself and her husband that surely had to be there, but moments like that seemed so long ago, so ethereally distant, that they had no more substance and reality than a dream.

Kevin said, “Things have been going badly for you. You’re under a great deal of pressure. You’re hurting. I understand. And there’s something I want you to know.”

“What’s that?”

He took her fingers from her glass and held her hand. She had to look at him then. She saw the solicitude in his eyes, heard it in his voice. “I care.”

She wished she could freeze
time,
hold onto this moment and the near-magical assurance she felt that “Everything was all right.”

Then she pulled away her hand. There was something wrong in her sitting in a cocktail lounge, holding hands with this young man, her teacher, telling him her private woes. She had a husband and children at home. She felt adulterous and immoral and…

While she couldn’t abandon her guilt, she did manage to set it aside for the time being.

“Why?” she asked.

The corner of Kevin’s mouth twisted. “Sorry, afraid I don’t get the question.”

“You said that you care, Kevin,” she said. “I…I’d like to believe that. It would help me right now.” She went on in a rush, realizing he might construe what she said as insulting but having to say it nonetheless.
“Why
do you care about me?”

Kevin raised his hand. “One,” he said, ticking off points on his fingers, “you’re intelligent. Maybe I’m funny that way, but I have always liked bright people. Two, you’re articulate. Half the people you meet nowadays can’t express a simple thought.
Three, it so happens that you’re easy to talk with.
How’s that for starters?”

She had to smile. “Please continue.”

Her smile was returned. “Okay, let’s not forget that you laugh at my jokes, in class and out. We’ve discovered that we like the same old movies. Besides, when my poor jade plant at home was on its way to the Great Greenhouse in the Sky, you were the one who told me to lighten up on the watering and saved the little critter’s life.”

Kevin rested his elbows on the table. “I like you, Beth,” His voice dropped and grew husky. “I like your brown eyes and those freckles. There’s something woman and little girl about you, Beth, and that appeals to a man who…”

He suddenly leaned back against the booth’s padded backrest. Not looking at her, he too lightly said, “Oh, you know what I mean. It’s just that, well, we’re friends, okay?”

Friends,
Beth thought. That was what they were, and so there was no reason for her to have an ounce of guilt about being with Kevin Bollender.
But I do.
Certainly no one would condemn her for having a drink twice a week with her friend.
Then why did I tell Michael only that some “people from class” stop for drinks, without mentioning that the “some people” are Kevin and myself?

“Okay,” Kevin said, “let’s take a look at some of what’s bothering you.” His tone became more formal, almost as if he were lecturing to a class of one. “People have what we term a nervous breakdown when they’re overwhelmed by free-floating anxiety. You’re experiencing anxiety, but it’s
not
free-floating. There are real causes that triggered your feelings of depression and apprehension. To put it simply, some rotten, painful, out-and-out bad things have happened to you. You’ve taken an emotional clobbering. You’ve gone through the grinder, so naturally you feel all ground up. But you’re dealing with it. You’re handling it. You’re meeting your responsibilities and getting along from day to day.”

“But why do I keep thinking more out-and-out bad things have to be on the way?”

Kevin pursed his lips to draw in a whistle. “Because that’s the way people
do
think, Beth. They look for reasons in the unreasonable and patterns in the random events that make up all the crappy stuff that occurs in life. Years ago, someone wrote
The Book of Job
to try to understand the ‘why?’ of human suffering. You take a look at today’s bestseller charts and the big book is called
When
Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Same old ‘Why’ question, same attempt to find answers.”

“I see,
Dr.
Bollender,” Beth said with a nod. “So I am not—what’s the clinical term—becoming a loony?”

“Nein,”
Kevin replied with a comic Viennese accent. “It is
nicht
crazy to be depressed when
der
depressing things give you
der
kick in
der keister.
” He grew serious again. “I can’t consider you a likely candidate for a nervous breakdown. I sense a real strength in you, Beth; probably more strength than you know is there. You’ve got internal resources, that ability to cope and to keep on coping.”

“Kevin?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for…for the free psychotherapy.

Kevin laughed. He held up his empty glass. “Not free. The workman is worthy of his wages and all that. You can buy me a drink.”

It wasn’t until the waitress brought Kevin’s scotch and water—“No, no thanks, the lady doesn’t want another”—that Beth gave him the thanks she’d originally intended to.

She said, “Thank you for being my friend.”

— | — | —

FIFTEEN

MICHAEL TURNED west onto Elmscourt Lane. In the back seat, Kim yipped, “Good! We’re almost there!”“You like visiting Laura and Vern don’t you?” Michael asked.

“Yeah,” Kim answered. “They’ve got great video games!”

“Oh,” Michael laughed,
“they
do? I wasn’t aware that Laura was a video game addict. How about you, Marcy? Glad to have a sleepover at the Engelkings’?”

“Sure, Daddy. It’s always fun with Aunt Laura and Uncle Vern.”

Beth smiled, wondering when the Engelkings had become “Aunt and Uncle.” She had to admit that she herself thought of them in much the same way.

Gazing through the windshield, Beth admired the impressionistic beauty of the setting sun that splashed the hazy blue sky with ripples of orange and pink. Her window was open an inch or so. Today, Friday, had been warm, with a light breeze that seemed left over from summer, and she thought she smelled the lazy-crisp aroma of burning leaves. A moment later, she realized that could not be so. Like most suburbs, High Wood had ordinances against
leaf-burning
.

Funny how the mind works, Beth thought.
For a day as lovely as this she had naturally conjured up a fitting scent of fall.
Well, that was certainly better than dreaming up all that dire, threatening, terrible garbage that had made her feel like a basket case without a basket!

She was realizing just how much last week’s talk with Kevin—
Bless him
—had helped, giving her insight into what she had been feeling and why. She’d vowed to take one day at a time, accepting whatever “bad” might occur if there were no other choice, dealing with it, but no longer forgetting to see the “good” of each day when it was there. She could handle life; she knew she could. (In fact, several times, when she felt herself slipping back into the blues, she gave herself a “chin up, shoulders back” pep-talk: You’re okay, Beth Louden. You’re making it and you’re going to keep right on making it.”)

The power of positive thinking?
Or maybe a ridiculous attempt to be Pollyanna? She didn’t think so. She was simply seeing things as they were, and that made all the difference. For instance, when she got home after her conversation with Kevin last week and learned that one of her antique crystal lamps was smashed, she was angry, upset, and sad. Case closed. It was
not
multiple
choice
: A) the worst disaster since the destruction of Pompeii; B) a certain portent of imminent catastrophes; C) part of a Cosmic Plot against the Loudens; D) all of the above.

She wasn’t sure if Michael had been correct in punishing
both
children but he had and what was done was done. The girls didn’t seem to have any lingering bad feelings, anyway. Everything was settled, everything was normal, everything was “all right” for the Loudens; that was how it felt to Beth.

And she was hopeful that tomorrow, her mother would take a giant step back to “allrightness,” too. They’d pick her up in the morning and keep her until Sunday evening. While Dr. Rhinehardt was pleased with Claire Wynkoop’s progress thus far, he believed it important that she start moving back into real life.

“She needs to be with people she cares about,” Dr. Rhinehardt had explained, “and who care about her. She ought to see something besides sickness. It could help snap her out of her lethargy, make her work harder in therapy. It will give her a goal, you see, remind her that as soon as she’s able, she can resume her place as an active member of your family.”

Claire would have the girls’ room. So she could rest in a quiet house when she needed to, Marcy and Kim were spending tonight and tomorrow night with Laura and Vern. Vern would bring them home late Sunday morning; that way the kids could visit with their grandmother before she had to be taken back to the convalescent home.

Michael pulled into the long, winding driveway. “Ladies, we have arrived,” he announced, putting the LTD in “Park” and switching off the engine.

Her train of pleasant thought broken, Beth turned her head in his direction. Michael was smiling; Beth thought he looked as handsome as he had in those carefree days of “UsedToBe,” when she was a college freshman and he was always the joking senior—”I’m trying to woo you, Beth, and make you my
woo
-man, woo, woo, woo!” More than that, his face was endearingly familiar. Those crinkles around his eyes, she had been with him through the years as time had etched them, and that slightly discolored canine tooth, a root canal three years ago…

Her throat tightened. She and Michael shared a past, all the moments, important or insignificant, that comprised a life together: watching late movies, painting a kitchen, catching a cold and passing it back and forth like a game of “hot potato,” making love, raising children…