You’ve Got the Time

Michelle was not being judgmental. Hadn’t she said that, oh, a million times? “I’m not being judgmental. I’m just offering an opinion.” So when she said it for the million and one time, surely she meant it.

I’ll give her this much. She was a psychologist; her job was to be judgmental. Diagnosing people was her career. Shrinks are supposed to listen a lot and talk very little. Not our Michelle. When offered a penny for her thoughts, she’d put in her two cents. That might explain their financial problems.

The most recent episode came at yet another dinner where she was merely observing that there were too many potatoes in the chowder, too much salt, and not enough clams, and that it was too rich to begin with. “They use butter and cream to mask its deficiencies,” she’d said. To everyone else at the table, the chowder wasn’t just good; it was outrageous. And it was, even if I had to add a little salt to mine with those delightfully crisp oyster crackers, the type that come in little plastic bags and are the constant accompaniment to clam chowder everywhere along the coast. I used to split them in half with my front teeth when I was a kid. I still do.

"These crackers don’t help the soup,” she said. We all corrected her at the same time with a resounding, “Chowder,” to which I added, “Not soup.” “It doesn’t warrant being called chowder,” she countered as she motioned over the waiter.

“Is anything okay?” said the waiter. How he was able to hold a smile after Michelle had returned both of her salads just moments before was a mystery. Or it could have been a function of the happy patrons at surrounding tables who were, again, rolling their eyes at Michelle.

“I would have ordered a bowl. Oh my God, it’s good,” I said.

“If you like the chowda,” he said in a way that exaggerated his Down East accent, “you will love the fried clams.”

Michelle intervened. “I hope so,” she said. She pointed to a neighboring table where a diner was dipping a massive belly into a dollop of tartar sauce. “That looks like a lot of batter.”

The waiter mentioned their fried clams were rated number one in Maine by both Downeast and Yankee Magazine, suggesting that they “must be pretty damned good.” If it hadn’t been for that smile beneath the Ned Flanders mustache, you might have thought he was getting annoyed.

“What was it you needed?” he asked. Michelle was about to gripe about the chowder, or something else she hadn’t yet shared with us, when I threw up my hand. “More of these crackers, if you don’t mind?” My friends picked up the thread.

“Another beer, please. Moosehead.”

“Good idea. Can I get a glass of the sauvignon blanc?”

Drew focused his gaze on Michelle. “Do you have another table? For one.”

Now that was funny. Only Jack, Michelle’s husband, stumbled. He started on a full‑throttle guffaw, I saw that. His eye squinted with a massive smile. That rapidly faded into an uncertain giggle under Michelle’s glare and concluded with a choked cough into a napkin.

“Went down the wrong way,” he said. Michelle didn’t have to say anything. Laughter wasn’t in her vocabulary.

That broke the tension when the waiter turned to Michelle. “Ma’am?”

“A cup of hot water, please,” she said.

“We have lots of teas, if you’d like,” he said.

“I didn’t ask for tea, just the water. Please make sure it’s hot.”

“Hence the term hot water,” he said. “Which is where I don’t want to find myself.”

We all tasted what followed: the fried clams, the OMG onion rings, the buttered lobster rolls, homemade blueberry pie à la mode, deserving another OMG, and vowed to return before the trip was over. Except for Michelle. “These portions are obscene,” she said, eyeing the barely nibbled brioche with half its lobster sticking out. “Palatable,” was all she said. That was high praise, steps above not returning the main course because it was, choose from the following: cold, spicy, bland, salty, tough, overcooked, undercooked, soggy, dry, stale. Or make up your own. “Gelatinous” accompanied the blueberry pie and was a new one.

If it hadn’t been for her jovial Jack, we might have seen Michelle but once and never again. But Jack was a good guy. A really good guy. You know the type. He’d arrange a spontaneous hike, hold a barbecue, arrange a night of bowling. Who bowls anymore? But it was fun. He was fun. Once.

When teased about Michelle, he’d shrug his shoulders, toss his hands in the air, and say with his eternal smile, “That’s Michelle for you.”

I once replied, “Yeah, but Jacko, that’s Michelle for you, too.” He looked away at that. Gave it some thought, then said, “Yeah, so she is.” My wife and I wondered if the job that required forty percent travel found him, or him it.

When we first met her, people probed gently, tactfully: “Michelle’s a good friend. She means well.” That was his ongoing apology, his excuse.

After that dinner, I decided to walk back to the beach house. To be fair, we all had a bit to drink, but I didn’t want to hear from Michelle on the evils of alcohol and a grown man behaving like a frat boy. P.S. Jack and I were besties in college, true, but we were never in a frat, and I don’t think a few IPAs between us was such a problem. Jack said he’d go with me, “to make sure I was all right.” I assumed that was Michelle talking.

I had to say something. I asked if things with Michelle were okay. “She sometimes seems, I don’t know, unhappy. Like, you know, pissed at us. If I said something offensive, I’m sorry,” I suggested. Let me take the blame, right?

He kicked up some sand on the beach before speaking. “She can be very helpful,” was his response.

That comment stung. I said, “Helpful like medicine?” I meant it as a joke. I liked Jack, loved him, and didn’t want my pushing the Michelle issue to go too far. He gazed off for a second; it was a trait when Michelle entered the conversation or the room. “More like a placebo,” he said.

I thought that was brilliant. He didn’t.

“You can laugh,” he said. “I’m not.”

Jack sat down on the beach, staring at the incoming surf. He pointed out and mumbled something about a shark. There’d been an attack on this very beach earlier in the year. Some fisherman was wading out, got twisted in his line or something, and the shark—you get the picture.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“I’m not talking, I’m musing,” he said. “I’m musing if getting killed by a shark is less painful than the alternative.”

I might have been crying or laughing; I couldn’t tell. Being the super‑sensitive frat boy I wasn’t, I said, “Well, it’s a quicker death. Out here on the beach at night, not a bad place to end it all.”

Jack rose. He handed me his watch. “Here, keep this.” It was a Rolex Explorer, the type Hillary wore up Everest. That’s not important. What’s important was that he took it off and waded in, splashing the water. “Here, fishy fishy. I’m your chum. Get that? Chum. It’s a play on words.”

“It’s a pun, strictly speaking. Get back here. What the hell are you doing?”

He sat back down. I handed back his watch and he said, “Keep it for a while; you’ve got the time. Her dad gave it to me as a wedding gift. Good man. Died of cancer just after we got married. Do you know what he said? He said, ‘Good luck. You’ll need it.’ I should have taken that as an omen.”

I don’t know why I said it. Or maybe I do. “You can give it back, you know.”

He looked at me, stared, more curious than shocked. “Hmm. I suppose I could. I could tell him my luck ran out or something. I mean, it has, hasn’t it? My luck. I’m scared, man. I’m really scared.”

I can’t say I was surprised. I could say, about time, but that didn’t seem right. “Well, we’ve got the rental for a week, and you’ve got to think about the kids, Jack.”

He pushed me into the surf. I deserved that. You see, Jack and Michelle didn’t have kids. Jack wanted them, but Michelle didn’t want to bring them into “this world,” whatever that meant.

We got back to the house, opened a bottle of a very nice single malt, and were quiet as mice crawling into bed with our sleeping beauties. I heard them arguing—the walls in these summer rentals are thin—and heard crying. Michelle, of course. What now? Was it the long walk? One, just one, glass of whiskey. Jack was trying to soothe her. I fell asleep before it ended. What that man had to put up with.

I couldn’t sleep. Maybe the whiskey kept me up, or maybe my mind was elsewhere. Naturally, though there were eight of us in the house, had anyone bothered to shop for milk? No. I wasn’t so hungover that I needed black coffee, and my wife, still sleeping, was grumpy without her latte. I was almost out the door when Michelle asked what I was up to.

Up to, really? Now she was keeping tabs on me?

“Can I come along?” she asked. “I need to talk to you.”

Here it was, I was sure. I’d corrupted Jack. Got him to drink too much. Why were his pants wet last night? And why was I wearing his Rolex? Oops, I’d forgotten to give it back.

“I’m just getting some milk. I’ll be like five minutes,” I said. “I can get muffins! I’m going to the place that has those muffins you like.”

I was hoping I could extract myself from the inevitable admonitions. The good news was the car ride was only five minutes. Worst‑case scenario, she spewed on, and I got some really good baked goods. I was looking forward to the corn muffins. That was one thing we agreed on; the corn muffins were to die for.

“Please,” she said.

Michelle touched my arm when she said that. I think it was the only time she touched me. It wasn’t aggressive; it was pleading.

“Sure,” I said. “C’mon. No problem.”

We got back an hour later without the milk, without the muffins. We had something else, though.

“You don’t know about Jack, I think,” she said. “No one does other than me and, of course, his doctors.”

Michelle said Jack was keeping it to himself to the last moment. He ordered her not to discuss it with anyone, even me. “He’d kill me,” she said. “He wants to go through it alone, make up some excuses, and then…” She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“My God, Michelle. How long have you known?” I asked.

“He was diagnosed just before we met you guys,” she said. “I couldn’t say anything. It made it so awkward. You all were having such a great time, and I was all alone. I just couldn’t join in the fun. I resented it. I did. I’m so sorry.”

“How long?” I asked.

I was as shocked by her answer as she was by mine. Not years. Not even months. Weeks, she said. Maybe a couple.

“They’ve been awful weeks. I don’t want that for him. He’s in terrible pain already. He hides it so well. Whenever he’s looking off, you know, like staring, he’s holding in that pain. I wish I could be so brave.”

She broke down again and asked me to drive around so she could “comport” herself before we returned. I’m not lying when I tell you I had to do the same. I had to think how I’d face Jack, how I could act as if I knew nothing, as if all were normal.

We finished the week and had a good time. Jack and I took our walks. If I was upset when he’d stop suddenly and look out over the water, I tried not to show it. That was hard. He didn’t seem to notice. He was in his own world. At one point he came back to life and said the Rolex looked good on me, that I should keep it for a while. I told him I’d take care of things. Left it at that.

A few months later we took Michelle out for dinner, all of us. It wasn’t a memorial‑service thing; that one had taken place already. We were all subdued. What can you say? It was the menu we focused on.

Michelle ordered the clam chowder and blueberry pie à la mode. She stole a few of my fried clams. She said it was all delicious.