Chapter 30 Something Rash
Something Rash
Margaret didn’t wait for Denise to ask her to go check on Charlotte. She said she’d call later, hung up without waiting for
a response, then ran out her front door and down the dark, still street. When she got to Charlotte’s corner, her feet and
head were pounding. All traces of her book club buzz had vanished, expelled from her body by a one-two punch of fear and adrenaline.
She raced up the walkway to Charlotte’s front door. The lights were on, but the drapes were closed. Margaret rang the bell
three times in succession, then hammered her fist on the dark wood as hard as she could, so hard her hand hurt. Still there
was no answer, no sound or sign of life coming from inside. Margaret reached for the doorknob. It was unlocked.
When teenage Margaret opened the family refrigerator all those years before and found it uncharacteristically organized and
filled with meals prepared by her mother, she didn’t understand what it signified. Why would a woman determined to take her
own life spend her final hours engaged in something so small, so trivial?
Now she knew.
After a lifetime of cleaning up other people’s messes, most wives and mothers are loath to leave loose ends that someone else will have to tie up. Even in moments of despair, that hardwired, hard-learned hatred of inconveniencing others isn’t easily pushed aside.
And that was why, after walking through Charlotte’s unlocked front door and finding the normally cluttered home in a state
of perfect order—paint canvases stacked neatly in a corner, paintbrushes smelling faintly of mineral spirits placed ends up
in a mason jar and left to dry on a sill, like a bouquet of field-gathered pussy willows, tubes of tempera oils carefully
capped and lined up on the table, carpet devoid of drop cloths and marked with fresh vacuum tracks, throw pillows arranged
just so on the sofa, kitchen floor mopped—Margaret was flooded with a terrible dread that grew as she circled through the
still and empty house, silent except for the dull buzz of the telephone in the foyer, which had been left off the hook.
Margaret set the phone back in its cradle.
“Charlotte? Where are you? Denise has been trying to call. She got worried when you didn’t answer and asked me to come check
on you. Charlotte?”
She circled back to the foyer, stood at the bottom of the stairway, frozen with fear.
Please, Charlotte, open the door and come out. Please, God, oh, please. Not again.
Every cell of Margaret’s being resisted climbing those stairs. But someone had to. She had to. She’d promised Denise. She grabbed the handrail and pulled herself upward, anxious breath coming in short, labored
puffs, until she reached the top and Charlotte’s bedroom door.
“Charlotte? Charlotte, are you in there?”
Margaret pushed the door open. The room was empty. But evidence of Charlotte’s presence and intentions was everywhere.
The tallest of the two dressers stood with the empty drawers opened like gaping mouths.
A half dozen suitcases, mounded with piles of unfolded clothing, lay open on the bed.
Atop one of the piles, Margaret saw three large black-and-white photographs of Howard and a woman Margaret remembered seeing at the party.
They were every bit as graphic as Denise had said, so lurid that Margaret turned her head away in disgust, and pity.
Poor Charlotte.
Opening an envelope from her daughter, only to find those humiliating pictures, must have been horrible. Thankfully, the sight
had only jolted Charlotte into taking her leave, not her life.
Margaret sighed, feeling suddenly drained, awash with the relief that follows narrow escapes and dodged danger. She crossed
the room to a side chair and started to sink down.
“Ack! Oh my G—”
Margaret’s startled shriek came directly upon the heels of Charlotte’s and was just as loud. Leaping from the chair and spinning
toward the sound, she saw Charlotte, wrapped in a bath towel, with damp hair and no makeup, standing in the open bathroom
door with her hand pressed to her chest.
“Good Lord, Margaret! You scared me half to death! I thought you were a burglar. Or Howard! Which, come to think of it, would
have been worse. What are you doing, sneaking in here like that? I damn near had a heart attack. Didn’t anybody ever teach
you to knock?”
“I did knock. And rang the doorbell. And walked through the house screaming at the top of my lungs. You didn’t hear me at
all?”
“Not over the shower. Hang on a second.”
Charlotte went to her closet and emerged a moment later wrapped in a robe of shimmering silk the color of a sun-blushed peach,
wet hair turbaned in a towel.
“What are you doing here anyway? Did something happen? Some sort of book club emergency?”
“Not an emergency. Something did happen at the Bettys meeting, but I’ll tell you about that later.
Denise phoned and asked me to come check on you.
Seems she had second thoughts about the wisdom of sending the pictures,” Margaret said, shifting her gaze to the pile of photos.
“She’s been calling and calling. When you didn’t answer, she started to worry you’d done something . . . well, something rash.”
“As you can see,” Charlotte replied, cracking a sardonic smile that made her eyes glitter, and sweeping a hand toward the
clothing-strewn bed, “I did do something rash. Or rather, I’m in the process of doing something rash. It’ll take a while to
get everything packed.”
Margaret nodded, her spirits drooping as relief made way for regret.
Charlotte was safe, she reminded herself, which was the important thing. Still, knowing that both Bitsy and Charlotte would
be leaving Concordia was a hard pill to swallow. Viv said they’d stay friends no matter what happened. But would they? With
Bitsy and Charlotte leaving, what would happen to the Bettys?
“Have you decided when you’re going?”
Charlotte’s eyebrows, thinner without benefit of brow pencil, popped with surprise. “Oh, I’m not going anywhere.” She picked
up her cigarettes and lighter. “However, in a final act of domestic devotion, I am graciously packing Howard’s bags for him.”
“Howard has decided to move out?”
Charlotte lit her cigarette, shaking her head. “I decided for him. As you may have noticed, I’m cleaning house.” She took
a short but clearly satisfying drag. “The first thing to go is Howard.”
Charlotte placed her cigarette in an ashtray and started scooping mounds of Howard’s unfolded clothes into the nearest suitcase,
squashing them down so they would fit, and wrinkling them mightily in the process. When the first suitcase was full, she slammed
the lid closed, leaning hard to keep it from popping open, and snapped the locks with a flourish.
“And that’s just the beginning. From here on out, you’re going to see a whole new Charlotte, a Charlotte who has her act together, a Charlotte who finally starts living her own life. I don’t know exactly what that will look like at the moment . . .”
She paused to take another puff before attacking the next suitcase, tossing shirts, pants, jackets, and jockey shorts into
its maw. “But one thing it will not include is Dr. Ernest Barry. First thing tomorrow, I’m calling to inform him that his
services are no longer required. My head’s been shrunk enough, thank you very much.”
“Yes, but . . . Charlotte . . .” Margaret bit her lip. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
Charlotte straightened and planted her hands on her hips, giving Margaret a hard stare.
“This is not a manic phase, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Frowning, she grabbed some undershirts and tossed them onto the
pile. “I don’t know what it is exactly, but trust me, not that. I know the difference.
“Look,” Charlotte said, her expression softening somewhat. “I understand that I still need help, just not from that man. Maybe
not from any man.” She paused briefly, eyes narrowing. “Now there’s an idea. Maybe I could find a female analyst. Are there
such things? Honestly, I’m not particular. Anybody who isn’t a Freudian and a jerk and who will let me smoke during sessions
would be fine.”
She snapped the locks on the second suitcase.
“Hey, can you give me a hand? This thing is heavy.”
Margaret helped haul the suitcases off the bed, then turned to Charlotte.
“You know what I think? I think you’re happy. Not manic, just happy.”
So it seemed. Margaret had witnessed more than one of Charlotte’s frenetic phases. Charlotte was right; this was not that.
Despite her initial misgivings, what Margaret now saw was a woman in control of herself and her circumstances, who had made
up her mind to take charge and make choices, choices that were right for her.
“You think so?” Charlotte’s smile reached her eyes. “Well, if it’s true, then you’re part of the reason. You’re a good friend, Maggie.”
Margaret cocked an eyebrow. “I thought I was a Pollyanna. And a pain in the butt.”
“Oh, you absolutely are,” Charlotte said. “But you’re also a good, sometimes infuriatingly honest friend, and braver than
you think you are. The kind of friend who doesn’t hold back from speaking the hard truths that people don’t want to hear but
need to.”
When Margaret’s eyes started to fill, Charlotte waved a hand in the air.
“Oh no. No, no, no. Just stop right there. Because if you start crying, then I will too, and there’s no time for that. Come
on, give me a hand with the rest of this crap. We can evict Howard and catch up at the same time. I’ve got so much to tell you.”
“Me too,” Margaret said. “Wait till you hear what happened with Bitsy and King. Unbelievable, but all for the best, I think.”
She picked up a pair of men’s oxfords and dumped them into the next suitcase.
“But first, tell me something. What changed? You always knew Howard was cheating, so what’s different now? Was it the pictures?”
“Yes and no.”
Charlotte took one of the photos from the bed, pinching the edges gingerly between two fingers, as if afraid of smudging it.
“There was a lot leading up to it, other things that made me realize I couldn’t keep going on this way. Still,” she said,
her tone philosophical, “an eight-by-ten glossy of your husband with his fly unzipped and his hand up a woman’s skirt will get your attention.”
She laid the photo down on the nightstand, then picked up a cigarette with one hand and one of Howard’s crisp white dress shirts with the other. She held the shirt up close to her face, squinting.
“Well, will you look at that? I do believe this collar has a lipstick stain. And in a very unattractive shade of mauve I wouldn’t
be caught dead wearing,” she said, and tsked her tongue. “That’s a shame. You know, I’ll just have to see if I can get it
out.”
Charlotte gripped the cigarette in her fingers, holding it like a stylus, and pressed the lit end against the shirt collar
for a long moment, curling the fabric and leaving a charred hole.
Margaret gasped, then laughed.
“Charlotte! That’s a nice shirt! It must have cost ten dollars!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This shirt is from Saks. It cost twenty. Probably more.”
“Charlotte! You’re terrible!”
“I am,” she said, eyes sparkling as she tossed the burned shirt aside. “Thanks to Denise, I plan to go on being terrible.
Those pictures aren’t just pictures. They’re my ticket to freedom.”
The blue princess phone on the nightstand started to ring. Margaret’s eyes went wide.
“Denise! I promised to call and let her know you’re okay. She must be worried sick.”
“I’ll tell her myself.” Charlotte picked up the telephone and perched on the edge of the bed, waiting for the call to be connected,
lips bowing to a smile when she finally heard her daughter’s voice.
“Hello, baby. How is Oxford? No, no, I know. Margaret told me. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I must have knocked
the phone off the hook while I was dusting.”
Charlotte puffed her cigarette and grinned, listening to Denise’s reaction.
“Yes, dusting. Yes, me. No, I’m not lying! Ask Margaret if you don’t believe me.”
Charlotte laughed. Margaret took a step backward, then another, inching toward the door. Charlotte and Denise needed to talk, and Margaret needed to go home. She had things to do, including a task she’d put off for far too long and which suddenly felt very urgent.
Margaret slipped out the door, catching a final snippet of conversation.
“Oh, darling. Darling, please don’t cry. I’m all right, Denise, truly I am. From here on out, everything will be.”