That Birthday in Barbados Read online

  She avoids eye contact, taking a bike in the back. I walk around the room, helping the other riders adjust their seat height, pull the handlebars closer, anything to avoid looking at Catherine.

  I glance at my watch. It’s time to start. I lower the lights in the room. I walk to the front, climb on my bike and hit the iPad beside me to start the music. It’s a full class this morning, and I’m glad because I have a variety of places to rest my gaze other than on Catherine. Even so, I’m able to take in her movements from the corner of my vision, and I’m noting the nice color to her arms and legs beneath the short black shorts. Gone is the New York winter pallor, a healthy sun-kissed glow in its place. Her blonde hair is snagged in a high ponytail, dancing off her shoulders as she pulls a towel and bottle of water from her bag, stowing it at the back of the bike, and then adjusting the seat to the proper height, all without looking at me, or giving any indication she knows I’m in the room.

  So I play it cool too. I crank the music, climb on the bike and start pedaling while jumping into the instructor mode my classes like best. Coach with a sense of humor, prodding them to join me in meeting the goals of the class.

  Ten minutes in, everyone is sweating which tells me I’m doing my job. I’m thirty minutes into the class before I let myself meet Catherine’s gaze head on. Neither of us looks away for a full five seconds, and I don’t bother to hide the heat in my eyes. I intend for her to look away first, and she does, dropping her head and increasing her pedal speed, as if she can outrun this thing between us.

  But she can’t.

  And I don’t intend to let her.

  *

  THE ROOM EMPTIES out pretty quickly. There is the buffet waiting, after all. Catherine is about to make her getaway through the open door when I call her name.

  She stops, stands stiffly, and then slowly turns to face me. She says nothing, simply meeting my gaze and holding it as if she is forcing herself not to glance away this time.

  “Can we talk?” I ask.

  “About?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “There’s nothing you need to explain, Anders.”

  “I’m pretty sure there is.”

  “I saw Celeste at the spa last night.”

  I take this in, nod once. “So you know we didn’t-”

  “It’s none of my business,” she says, repositioning her bag on her shoulder.

  “What if I said I’d like it to be?”

  “Anders.”

  Just the way she says my name reveals exactly what she’s thinking. We’re a waste of time. She lives in New York City. I live here. She’ll be gone in a matter of days. I’m not going anywhere. “I know,” I say. “And if you go strictly with logic, you’re exactly right. Only where you’re concerned, I’m not feeling very logical.”

  She wants to argue. I see it on her face. She bites her lip once, sighs as if giving in to something she doesn’t understand. And then she says, “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”

  *

  WE SIT AT a table close to the beach. An umbrella protects us from the already heated sun, and all around us birds sing happy songs, the lyrics of which I suspect have something to do with bountiful food and life in paradise.

  The waitress approaches our table with a smile and asks for the room number. Catherine tells her and then adds, “I’ll have a guest on my ticket this morning.”

  “Not a problem,” the pretty young woman says, looking at me with a smile.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  As soon as she leaves the table, Catherine pushes back her chair and says, “Come on. You need to see why your students struggle to sweat so much in your class.”

  I follow her to the area where the buffet is set up. We make our way to the juice bar first, and I take in the individual signs identifying what is in each pitcher. “Carrot, green juice, watermelon,” I say. “This looks like it won’t do too much damage.”

  She smiles and says, “Oh, you haven’t been challenged yet.”

  We take our juice back to the table and then reach for plates at the omelet bar. We meander in the direction of our individual choices, until I’m finally heading back to the table with enough calories to get me through at least seventy-two hours.

  Catherine is already seated, and she takes in my heaping plate with a knowing smile. “See what I mean,” she says.

  “Yeah, I think I do. What is it about a buffet that turns innocent men into gluttons?”

  She laughs softly. “Women too,” she says, pointing at her own plate.

  “I should have stuck with the juice,” I say.

  For the first couple of minutes, we eat in silence, and I finally put down my fork and look at her. “Everything you’ve thought about why we would be wrong to continue this thing we’ve been flirting with between us is almost for sure correct. We live thousands of miles apart, have chosen completely different lifestyles. In a few days, you’ll be gone. I’ll still be here.”

  She puts down her fork, watching me with conflicted eyes. “Yes. And yet.”

  “And yet,” I repeat.

  “I don’t want to close the door.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “If we can agree that we know what this is, something that has no hope of living beyond my time here. . .”

  I wait as she lets the words trail off. I take a sip of my juice, set the glass down and nod once. We’re both adults living in reality. If anyone understands what reality is, I do. “Agreed,” I say.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”

  ― Mother Teresa

  Nicole

  SHE VOLUNTEERS AT the no-kill shelter in West Palm Beach two or three mornings each week. When she first decided to volunteer at the animal shelter, she knew she had to go to the one where the dogs and cats were assured of getting out by adoption. She couldn’t volunteer at the one where they have a certain number of days to be found by their forever family or receive an orange tag on their door that tells the euthanasia tech who will be put to sleep at the end of the day.

  Nicole knows this because she used to volunteer at the public shelter in a county outside Greenville, South Carolina the summer after her senior year in high school. Catherine was already in college and had won a scholarship to spend the summer at a design school in Italy, and Nicole had been incredibly lonely. She’d thought spending hours working at the shelter with dogs and cats would be a great way to involve herself in something good and combat her loneliness with animals because she loved being around them.

  Nothing would have been further from the truth.

  On her first day at the South Carolina shelter, she went through the necessary volunteer orientation with one of the full-time shelter employees. He was a gruff older man who had been there for years according to another volunteer, and he never smiled when he looked at the dogs or cats. The first warning sign for Nicole should have been his advice “not to get attached.” She’d assumed he meant because they would be adopted, and it would be painful to see them leave with their new family. She understood that, but it seemed to her that she would be happy to see them leaving with someone who would love them.

  For the first week, she was only allowed to work at the front desk. She wasn’t allowed to go into the kennels, and although she saw dogs and cats when owners brought them in to sign them over to the shelter, she did not see them again once they were taken back. One day, she asked the shelter manager when she would be able to work in the back. The manager was a woman in her forties who also didn’t smile very much and looked at Nicole as if she had grave doubts about her ability to do much more than hand people relinquishment documents and answer the telephone.

  “I’m not sure you’ll be suited to working in the back. Let’s keep you out front for now.”

  Nicole wanted to argue with her, but she wasn’t exactly sure what the basis of her argument should be because she didn’t know why the woman thought she wouldn
’t be suited. And so she did her best to shine in the position she’d been put in, greeting people with smiles even when she began to wonder how so many owners could drive their pet to the shelter and hand them over to her at the front desk as if they were a piece of mail that had been delivered by mistake.

  She began to wonder if the people had any idea how scared their dog was when he or she realized their person had left them, how they barked or meowed to be allowed to follow them out the door. She wondered if they felt any guilt at all for raising a puppy to love them and their children and then “getting rid” of them because they chewed the corner of the living room rug when they’d left them home all day alone.

  As the weeks went on, Nicole’s smiles were less ready, and her stomach hurt when the front door opened, and in walked another person with a dog so old he couldn’t clearly see where he was being taken, a dog who had devoted his life to loving his person and should be allowed to die at home in the place he knew and loved. She wondered how anyone could do such a thing.

  It was on a Saturday morning that a man in a baseball cap walked in to the shelter with just such a dog. The man couldn’t look her in the eye when she handed him the relinquishment form. He was well-dressed and spoke like a person with a good amount of education. Out the front window of the shelter, she could see that he had pulled up in a Lexus sedan. The dog was black with a gray muzzle, and he had trouble standing on the tile floor. His back legs shook, and he finally lay down beside the man’s feet, his head raised as if he didn’t want to let the man out of his sight.

  Nicole’s heart throbbed, and she tried not to look at the dog for the duration of the man’s filling out the form. She saw the number 16 filled in beside Age. She wasn’t allowed to question him or do anything at all except take the form when he was done. When he signed his name at the bottom, he held the dog’s leash up and waited for her to walk around the desk to take it from him.

  The man turned to walk away. The dog tried to stand to follow him, but his hind legs slid on the tile, and he fell onto his stomach.

  “What’s his name?” Nicole called after the man.

  The man stopped at the door, still not letting himself look at the dog. “Nash,” he said.

  The dog’s tail began to thump, but the man opened the door and walked out.

  The dog again tried to stand up, whimpering now. Nicole dropped to her knees and scooped him up, walking over to a nearby chair and sitting down with him on her lap.

  “It’s okay,” she said in a soft voice. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re going to be okay though.”

  Nash shook, so hard that she could hear his teeth chattering. She held him closer and rubbed his head. He tucked his nose inside her armpit, as if he couldn’t bear to look at his surroundings or face what was happening to him.

  The door to the shelter area opened, and Jerry, the morning’s attendant walked out. He saw Nicole holding the dog and said, “Owner surrender?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “I’ll take it back.”

  Nicole wanted to protest, to keep the dog here with her a little longer, at least until he stopped shaking, but Jerry reached for him and was walking for the door before she could say a word. There was no one else out front then, and Nicole could no longer hold back her sobs. She felt Nash’s terror and sadness as if it had been injected into her own bloodstream, and she sat there absorbing it on a level she had never imagined possible.

  And she knew with a sudden, undeniable conviction that she had to take Nash home with her. She ran to the front desk, dialed the number to her house and prayed her mom would answer. Her dad was playing golf this Saturday morning, and her mom had planned to run some errands. The phone rang and rang with no answer. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Eleven-forty five. The shelter would close in fifteen minutes.

  She tried her mom again, still with no answer. At five minutes until twelve, she decided she would adopt Nash and take him home without asking her parents. She knew they would understand once she had explained the situation.

  No one else had come in to the shelter so she decided to go back and tell the attendant she was going to adopt Nash. She stepped through the door that led to the kennel area, and the first thing she noticed was the silence. She walked down the row of cages, frowning when she saw there were no dogs in them. But by the door at the end of the hall, six or eight or ten black bags were stacked alongside each other in a row. Nicole shook her head, trying to process what she was seeing. She realized with a sickening thud of her stomach they were body bags.

  “Oh, no,” she said out loud. “Nash. Nash!”

  She began to scream his name over and over again, running down the hall in the opposite direction to find someone, anyone who could tell her where he was. She stopped outright at the sight of the door at the end of this corridor. A red sign – DO NOT ENTER – hung in the center.

  Nicole’s mind raced, her thoughts all running into one another at the same rate as her pulse.

  The door opened, and Jerry stepped out. She ran to the door. “Where is Nash?”

  Jerry looked irritated and said, “You’re not supposed to be back here.”

  “Where is he?!!?” she screamed.

  Jerry tried to close the door, but she jerked it toward her, and it opened wide enough for her to see Nash, the sweet old dog she’d promised would be okay, the dog she was going to adopt, lying on the floor on his side, his eyes open wide but now unseeing.

  “What did you do?” She sobbed the words at Jerry who jerked the door from her and closed it.

  “Owner surrender. We can euthanize those before the owner pulls out of the parking lot. It’s Saturday. We empty the kennels for the weekend for whoever hasn’t been adopted. What? Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”

  Nicole stumbled backwards, her shoulder crashing into the wall. “No. I. . .I didn’t know. How could you? You’re a monster!”

  “If you’re gong to work here, I’d suggest you stay up front where you belong. Behind the desk in Pollyannaville.”

  Pure hatred filled her, and Nicole turned and ran to her Toyota Corolla in the parking lot. She drove home crying so hard she could barely see through her tears.

  Looking back, Nicole knew that this moment, this scene, her own heartbroken sobs marked the beginning of a lifelong depression and sadness that would take root inside her and forever mark the world as a place where horrible things happen. Because despite the fact that the sun shines, that people laugh, that babies are born, horrible, truly horrible and unjust things happen. Every. Single. Day.

  *

  ON THIS SUNNY, blue day in Florida, Nicole sits in the well-kept yard of the Ruth Ann Cosby No-Kill shelter with an older dog named Callie. They are sitting on the grass, Callie’s chin resting on Nicole’s knee as she dozes with her eyes closed in the warm sun. Nicole strokes her head, her touch soft and comforting. She isn’t sure whether the comfort is for her or the older dog, but the nice thing is that she knows they both have something to give the other.

  It’s always been like that for her with animals though. She’s always felt an acceptance, a connection from them that she has never felt with people. It’s as if animals see that part of her she never lets others see, the part that wants to be loved for who she is. She knows that is how she sees them.

  She tries not to think about the fact that Callie’s family gave her up because she now has trouble making it outside to potty. The shelter vet put her on a medication that has helped her a lot. The family was notified of this, but they did not want to take her back.

  Nicole runs her hand across Callie’s soft back and wishes for a moment that she could think of her own life with Callie in it. But every time she tries to do that, her thoughts stop at the black wall, and her chest feels as if an enormous block of concrete has been lowered onto it.

  Pain floods through her head and rushes through her veins with such force she has to close her eyes against it. She wishes with every good thin
g left inside her that she could be this little dog’s miracle. The undeniable truth though is that she is as far from miracle-material as it is possible to get. Maybe a good family will come for Callie, a family deserving of the love of a good dog like her.

  Nicole is not that person, not for Callie, not even for her own parents and sister.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

  ― John Keats

  Catherine

  “YOU’RE REALLY NOT going to tell me where we’re going?”

  “This is a surprise you’ll like. I promise.”

  It’s just before five o’clock in the afternoon, and the sun has started to dip in the pink-streaked sky. The windows are open on the Defender, and the wind, warm and humid, blows my hair back from my face.

  I’d like to argue, but honestly, it’s easier not to. I settle back in the leather seat and turn my gaze to the island views flowing by, and I’m overcome with a feeling of contentment. When was the last time I felt happy to hand the decision-making over to someone else? Made the choice to be patient and wait for whatever unfolds ahead of me?

  Never would be the answer.

  But today, I am. I don’t understand it. But I am.

  We drive for fifteen or twenty minutes more before we turn onto an unpaved road that winds through some palm trees and big, colorful bushes before the ocean appears in front of us. Other cars are parked in the grass at the edge of the sandy beach. A group of people stands to our right. A couple of them glance around and raise a hand when they spot Anders.

  I turn a questioning gaze to him. He smiles and relents. “I think I told you I help out with the Sea Turtle project when I’m needed. A bunch of babies hatched out today on Needham’s Point Beach, and volunteers have been collecting them to release this evening when they have a better chance of survival.”

  I draw in a short breath of surprise and delight. “And we get to watch them?”