Her Last Words Read online

  Her Last Words

  A Jo Barney Henlit Novel

  Jo Barney

  Contents

  Copyright

  New Release Newsletter

  Dedication

  1. Early Monday Morning: Flotsam

  2. Friday, June 2004: Storm Warnings

  3. Saturday Morning: Cloud Cover

  4. Saturday Noon: Slack Water

  5. Saturday Noon: Riprap

  6. Saturday Late Afternoon: Downdrift

  7. Saturday Early Evening: Lagoon

  8. Saturday Evening: Undercurrent

  9. Saturday Evening: Squall

  10. Saturday Evening: Breakwater

  11. 1955: Hinterland

  12. 1955: Hinterland II

  13. 1955: Hinterland III

  14. 1955: Hinterland IV

  15. 1956: Hinterland V

  16. Saturday Evening: Eddy

  17. Sunday Morning: Tide Pool

  18. Sunday Morning: Accretion

  19. Whatsoever Things Are Pure:

  20. Sunday Morning: Turbulent Skies

  21. Whatsoever Things Are Honest:

  22. Sunday Morning: Choppy Seas

  23. Sunday Noon: Swells

  24. Sunday Noon: Cusp

  25. Sunday Afternoon: Fogbound

  26. Whatsoever Things Are Lovely:

  27. Sunday Afternoon: Uprush

  28. Sunday Afternoon: Headland

  29. Sunday Afternoon: Storm Warning

  30. Early Sunday Evening: Turning Tide

  31. Early Sunday Evening: Green Flash

  32. Early Sunday Evening: Clearing Skies

  33. If There Be Any Virtue

  34. Sunday Evening: Calm Before

  35. Friday Evening: Tsunami

  36. Whatsoever Things Are Of Good Report:

  37. Friday Evening: Overwash

  38. Friday Evening: Whirlpool

  39. Friday Evening: The Chart

  40. Sunday Evening: Storm Surge

  41. Sunday Evening: Flood Tide

  42. Sunday Evening: Backshore

  43. Early Monday Morning: Sneaker Wave

  44. Early Monday Morning: Spring Tide

  45. Monday Morning: Shoal

  46. Monday Morning: Ebb Tide

  47. Monday Afternoon: Doldrums

  48. Monday Afternoon: Swells

  49. Monday Afternoon: Detritus

  50. Monday Afternoon: Blowout

  51. Monday Late Afternoon: Seventh Wave

  52. Monday Evening: Moonlit Ripple

  About the Author

  Smart Women’s Fiction

  This edition published by

  Penner Publishing

  Post Office Box 57914

  Los Angeles, California 91413

  www.pennerpublishing.com

  * * *

  Copyright © 2011, 2013, 2015 by Jo Barney

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  ISBN: 978-1-940811-39-0

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  For my friends, the old ones, from years ago, lives ago.

  Could we ever have imagined this day, this world, in which we find ourselves wandering?

  Chapter One

  Early Monday Morning: Flotsam

  Lucius

  “My God,” Lucius says, as close to praying as he has been in years. “We’re on Venus.” Monoliths rise ahead of him like black specters, their crags and angles cutting through the mist, jutting towards the high, bluing sky.

  The others, silent, have dropped their handholds on the rope. Lucius bends to loop it over his arm, and as he does, he sees the man in the slicker, his bag over his shoulder, kneeling, rising, waving at them.

  “That guy’s found something. Let’s go.”

  He runs, slogs, really, his boots heavy with water. The women in their sneakers move faster, their arms reaching out to the dark figure and whatever lay at the foot of the rock he’s leaning against. Lucius cannot tell if it is the gulls or the women crying out.

  Then they drop to their knees, a huddle of sorrow. They don’t look up as Lucius and the two firemen come up behind them. The mussel gatherer, his empty bag hanging from one grimy hand, a walking stick in the other, stands to one side, his eyes red and wild-looking, his sou’wester pulled down to his eyebrows. Hanks of wet, black hair drag over his eyes, drain down his cheeks like tears.

  Madge Slocum lies wedged under an overhang, her face gray. Sand seeps from her mouth. A strand of seaweed wraps her out-flung hand like a bracelet, her bare feet seem ready to run, the toes spread, arched. An arm folds over her body, across a pack strapped to her waist. Several mussels have fallen from the pack and nestle at her throat.

  “She came here for mussels,” Lou cries. “For us.” The women reach for her. They grapple with the iron until it falls, and they pull it away from her. Their fingers close her eyes, brush grit away from her lips. They remove the pack and empty it of its black shells. Joan crouches, takes a hand, massages it as if to warm it. Jackie closes the torn jacket, covers the white skin under it.

  The ocean ripples as it awakens. White-edged swirls send the little birds skittering. Lucius motions to the men, and they consider how to this. Then the young one, Steve, bends and picks her up. “Over my shoulder,” he says, and the others help him drape Madge across his back. He flexes his neck against the cold wet seeping over his collar, down his spine.

  As they round the point, Lucius manages one last look back into the cove. Mars, not Venus, he thinks. A fucking Mars. Red now, a sliver of sun making its way through the clouds. He should come back, when things die down, when he can think of what he’s looking at, not like now, when what just popped into his head is where the hell did that mussel guy go?

  “Almost there,” he hears someone call. He doesn’t look up, just reaches for Steve’s belt as he feels him go down, yanks him up, hears him groan.

  “Doin’ great,” Lucius tells him. One of Madge’s arms has slipped out of Steve’s grasp, hangs down the slick back of her bearer, swings against Lucius’ wrist, as if she’s trying to get his attention.

  Chapter Two

  Friday, June 2004: Storm Warnings

  Lou

  On the day the four of them are to come together at Madge’s beach house, Lou pulls her car into an empty parking pad at the end of the gravel driveway. She‘s not surprised she is the first to arrive. Joan is driving north from San Francisco, and Jackie is always late to everything. But where is Madge’s car?

  She opens the car door, steps out into a gentle breath of ocean air. For the past thirty miles her body has felt as if she were wearing too many layers, heavy, moist. When she left the cabin on the mountain that morning, the thermometer needle had pointed at 36 degrees. Dropping down into the valley, heading to the coast, the balmy air filling the car sent a wave of queasiness through her and she had to unzip her parka to breathe.

  The nausea wasn’t only about a jacket and a change of barometer. Whenever she leaves her forest, descends to the flats, pokes her way around the tangles of towns that grow like lichen along snow-fed streams and rivers, she becomes anxious, almost fearful
. The clumps of people, the throb of voices, the thrusting groans of passing cars collide with the fragile sense of peace her new life has brought her.

  No crowds here at this cabin, though, only four good friends. Taking a deep breath, she feels the heaviness lift. She pulls her duffle from the back seat and steps toward the small cedar-shingled house. The wild fuchsias along the path have been recently trimmed; splashes of red curl under the bushes like snips of velvet. Madge has been busy getting the place ready for their old lady slumber party, this one almost fifty years after they first met at the dorm cookie shine.

  Did any one of them ever believe a day would come when they spent their time together remembering instead of dreaming? Lou’s hand brushes against a gathering of lantern blossoms and she wonders how they’d do on the mountain. She must remember to take a cutting or two when she leaves for home.

  Then the blue door opens and a smiling Madge steps out, holding out her arms to her. “Lou?” she calls. Lou steps into her friend’s hug. They and the duffle bump through the door and into the hallway. Over Madge’s shoulder Lou gets a glimpse of green shimmer at the end of the room, the Pacific, not so pacific at the moment, white froth lapping at the sand under the cabin.

  They make their way through the open kitchen. A jagged row of yellow Post-its flutter on cabinet doors like resting butterflies.

  “What’s all this?” Lou asks. “Another decorating fad I’ve missed?”

  Madge waves a dismissing hand and moves on. “I’m cooking dinner,” she says as if that explains everything. “Come sit down. Don’t worry about your bag. I want to hear how your garden’s growing.”

  They talk. Madge’s hair is short and brown, and she pats at the wayward tendrils over her ears just as she did years ago. She nods at Lou’s description of her mountain house’s newest additions, two wild rhododendrons nestled against the wall of logs and the stone chimney and she hesitates when Lou asks her about her writing. “Going fine,” she says.

  But Lou sees that something’s not fine with Madge. As they talk, her bright gaze lands on Lou for a moment then casts about as if she has lost something, a gesture catches in mid-sway, thoughts break in half.

  “Are you all right?”

  Madge doesn’t answer. Instead she checks her watch, rises, and goes into the kitchen. She runs a finger down a yellow note. “Good,” she says. “Glass of wine?”

  She is opening the bottle when the blue door swings open and Jackie swoops into the house. “Hey, let it begin,” she calls. “I’m here!”

  Lou looks up and she wonders for an instant at the sense of relief she feels as she moves into Jackie’s swirl of arms and bags and hugs her. Behind her Madge repeats softly, “Jackie,” and then louder, “Welcome! How was the drive?”

  Jackie, still tall at sixty-six, looks as if she is about to pull off her sweats and run a marathon. Instead she drops the two suitcases she’s carrying and reaches for Madge. “Same as usual, RV’s and trucks and me on a two-lane road to your little village. How can you stand it?”

  “Don’t drive much anymore.” Madge pokes a finger into the black curls bouncing above her as they touch cheeks. “God, I’m still envious of your hair, even in my old age.”

  “I’ve always liked yours too.”

  “No, you didn’t. The first time I cut it you said I looked like a boy.”

  “I’ve always liked boys, also.” Jackie grins at Lou and adds, “And if mine were silver like yours, I’d save a fortune at Ardella’s salon.”

  Lou can’t remember the last time she went to a beauty parlor. Or whatever they’re called these days. When it needs it, Susan cuts her white hair near the compost pile and the birds make nests of the trimmings.

  The three of them move to the window and look out across the ocean. Everyone who enters this beach house does this, following a worn path in the carpet, eyes searching the horizon. Especially on a cloud-clear day like today.

  “Japan, maybe?” Lou murmurs.

  Madge apparently is still thinking about hair. “I haven’t had the courage to find out what color mine really is. I’ve had to look young and vital on my book covers. My agent has hinted at even more drastic alterations.” She faces her two friends and pulls at the skin under her ears. “What do you think?”

  They go to the old sofa, set down their glasses.

  “Better wait to ask Joan. She’s the one with the new neck,” Lou answers. A bit harsh, she scolds herself. When will she learn to burst the bubble of jealousy that pops to the surface whenever she hears Joan’s name? Should have outgrown it forty or fifty years ago.

  Madge must think so too. She points a finger at the room the two women will be sharing. “Want to unpack?” A sticky note with their names on it wavers on the door.

  After Lou and Jackie line up their suitcases next to the bed, they go back to the living room. Lou pushes into a corner of the sofa, her legs tucked under her, Madge settles into the opposite corner, and Jackie falls into one of the large armchairs at the side of the stone fireplace.

  Lou has always admired this room, its large windows with the ocean churning behind them, the knotty pine walls aged to a warm orange, several blue seascapes at either side of the couch, in fall-back positions in case fog blocks out the real thing outside. She could easily go to sleep right now, her eyelids heavy in the midst of a sip of merlot and the soft laughter in the story Jackie is telling Madge.

  Except she sees that Madge is fiddling with her hair again, smiling vague twitches, nodding every so often to keep Jackie going.

  Madge is not Madge, the friend Lou’s known for almost fifty years, the Madge who would listen so carefully she could repeat what you said years later, with whom your secrets were safe and your faults accepted. That familiar woman is somewhere else. This Madge’s gaze wavers, her easy flow of words are now spurts of escaping thoughts. Her lips, once loose and ready for whatever came next, are tight, as if she is afraid of what will leak out if she isn’t careful.

  Jackie doesn’t seem to notice as she goes on in her usual scattered way about roads and her decision to keep her hair dark except at the temples and her daughter’s recent visit and her hope for a low tide and finding a Japanese glass float in the morning.

  Then, headscarf around her neck, her blondeness unruffled despite her two-day drive, Joan breezes through the open door. She still looks good, Lou observes. Not just the new neck. She glows as always with her California tan and her perfect lips and her smooth yellow hair. And she’s held up a lot better than the rest of the foursome, boobs and waistband still in the right places. Lou takes a last sip at her wine and stands to greet California Girl. Time to grow up, she tells herself. Time to let it go. If not now, when?

  They open another bottle, this time from Joan’s cellar. A half hour later, Madge looks at her watch, goes to the kitchen and slides a casserole, lasagna Lou guesses, into the oven. She watches as Madge squints through the reading part of her glasses at several notes lined up on the cabinet.

  “Any munchies?” Joan has joined Madge behind the island in the kitchen. “I haven’t eaten a thing since breakfast and I need food if I’m going to drink more wine, which I am.” She pushes aside cartons and bags and pulls out a package of cheese. “What happened to the idea of eating out most nights? You have enough stuff here to feed us for a week.” She is reaching for a knife when she sees a list held by a magnet to the side of the refrigerator. “Menus? Damn, I’m cooking enchiladas on Monday? Appropriate since I’m the only one from California. Maybe the recipe is on the can.”

  “It is.” Madge is standing next to Joan; her lips mouth words as she reads from a label. “Right here.”

  Joan stops slicing into the block of cheese and looks at Madge. “Can I help?” she asks. In the living room Lou hears the answer, a whisper floating over the muffled groans of the sinking tide outside.

  “Yes, you can, but later.”

  Lou feels her jaw tighten and sends her gaze out over the quiet sea. What will it take for her to a
ccept Joan’s perfection—and even more painful, her closeness to Madge?

  It has always been that way, Madge and Joan, hasn’t it? She straightens her back, tells herself to stop slogging like a lost soul along this trail to nowhere. She glances at the two women in the kitchen, at Jackie by her side. No. I’m wrong. Madge is good friend to all three of the women in this room. She has brought them together this weekend and other weekends in the past. Because of her, after all these years they still think of themselves as sisters, like they did in the smoking room of the Gamma Psi house

  From the kitchen, Madge turns to Lou and Jackie and calls, “Let’s go down to the beach. The tide is out. Dinner will be ready in an hour.”

  The four of them walk down to the water’s edge, follow meandering curves of wavelets to the south, the sand firm under their feet. Seagulls sail overhead searching for what the tide has left behind, and the women also search, for luminescent agates, prizes to be tucked into pockets and lined up on sunny windowsills in their other lives. The world is green, blue, and then pink with sunset, the ocean almost silent as it calms, readies itself for its return journey to the rocky arms that reach out for it.

  The casserole is indeed lasagna, from Costco, Madge confesses, and smelling of herbs and cheese and tomatoes. By the end of the meal, Lou can see that they all know something’s wrong with Madge, even Jackie who has stopped talking and is shooting anxious frowns at her and Joan.

  After dinner, they clear the table and take thimbles of brandy to the couch and chairs facing the warmth of the fireplace.

  “Kind of like the solarium.” Madge’s voice, wistful, young, surprises Lou. Solarium. Until today, Lou hasn’t thought of that midnight room in a long time. Madge sets her glass on the chest that serves as a coffee table. Her hand is shaking, a drop of brandy spills onto her finger and she licks it off. “Only we don’t smoke anymore.”