Free The Girls of Tonsil Lake by Liz Flaherty Page B

ovarian cancer. At the age of fifty-one. And Carolyn had discovered the lump in my breast.
    “What’s that?” she’d said.
    “It’s nothing. I think you have this thing for women’s boobs,” I said. She pressed harder. “Ouch.”
    There were a lot more ouches before we were done.
    Jean stopped at her bedroom door and glared at me. “I’ll take care of it,” she promised in a loud whisper. “Now please shut up. We’re going to Maine. We’re going to have a good time. We’re not going to fight.”
    “The hell we’re not.”
    The telephone rang, and a moment later, David called, “Andie, it’s for you.”
    We met halfway and he handed me the cordless phone. “It’s Paul,” he said. He raised his voice. “Tell him we’re on for the women tonight.”
    “I heard that, David O’Toole,” called Jean from their bedroom. I heard her laughter when he went in, closing the door behind him.
    “Did he say we were on for the women tonight?” asked Paul, after I’d said hello.
    “Yes, he did, but you’re out of luck. The women down at the Senior Center are on to you guys.”
    He laughed, and the sound ran along my nerve endings in a way I found altogether too pleasant. I was fifty-one, not seventeen, which meant I was no longer prepared to deal with that kind of feeling. Except maybe in my stand-up breast, which doesn’t have much feeling at all but does look like it’s seventeen. Oh, I already said that, didn’t I?
    “I just wanted to say goodbye again,” he said, “and to tell you to have a good time.”
    “Thanks,” I said, sounding as breathy as Suzanne at her worst.
    He waited the space of the three loud heartbeats I was all but certain he could hear over the phone. “I’ll miss you, Andie.”
    Jake had said those words the day our divorce was final. If I closed my eyes, I could still see him standing there outside the courthouse while his lover waited in the car. He’d traced a finger down the side of my face and tugged gently at the little gold hoop in my ear he’d bought me the day young Jake was born. “I’ll miss you, Andie.”
    I had turned and walked away. I’d gotten into the car and driven to Lewis Point to Jean and Suzanne. Miranda had ridden beside me, young Jake in the back with the dog. We did not speak until I stopped the car at Suzanne’s house.
    “We’ll be all right,” I said, looking from one of them to the other. “We all will.”
    It had taken me a year to convince them, longer than that to convince myself. The dog never had come around.
    “Is it okay if I call you once a week or so?” asked Paul, bringing me back to the present.
    “I’d like that. Did I give you the number?”
    “Last night.”
    Thinking of last night made my blood start rushing around crazily, and I knew beyond all doubt he could hear my heart beating then. “Oh,” I said, “yes. Last night.”
    I am not prepared to write about last night, even in this coil-bound journal no one will ever see. Let it suffice to say that losing one breast does nothing at all to lessen the pleasurable sensations that can be felt in the other.
    I don’t know whether I am getting prudish in my old age or simply paranoid, but that’s absolutely all I’m going to say on the subject of last night. God knows, if I chose to tell the whole story, Jean would probably send this journal off to her publisher.
    My blood was still thundering. I could hear it.
    David walked past, carrying Jean’s luggage, and I looked at the grandfather clock. “I have to go,” I said.
    “Have fun.”
    “I will. Thanks for calling, Paul.” I waited a second, maybe two. “I’ll miss you, too. Bye.”
    I hung up before he could answer.
    Jean
    Dear David:
    As I said on the phone, the trip was uneventful except for my motion sickness, which took us all by surprise. I’m fine now, although it left me a bit weak in the knees for a while.
    Vin looks well. She’s thinner than she was when I saw her last, and maybe she has some new lines