As Good as It Got by Isabel Sharpe

the common area, she could still hear Dinah prattling. If anyone could make jingly-shawl woman and horsey-cheerful woman bearable, it was Dinah. Blond, mid-fifties, barely over five feet, and stacked like a stripper, verbiage exited her mouth with such speed and relentless constancy that Ann was nearly as impressed as she was irritated. Or would have been if Dinah had anything of the slightest interest to say. She’d be the perfect power-saving option in households that kept the TV
    on all day for noise.
    The joke made her think of Paul, and how much he’d have loved it, how much he’d have enjoyed poking fun at this place with her, and that made her throat ache and the familiar panic of disconnect start up again. Why had she thought 50 Isabel
    Sharpe
    coming to this place was a good idea? Exchanging the stress and misery of her life for the stress and misery of dozens of other women’s lives thrown on top for good measure? She wasn’t a team player. One of the reasons her marriage to Paul worked so well was that they were both loners. Both re-viled the kind of rah-rah let’s-go emotion that bonded other people so artificially. She suspected she’d been fired partly for her lack of that attitude. If a challenge or opportunity arose, she went for a solution or score by herself. Who else could she trust?
    Paul. She laughed sickeningly. Oh, yes, please, someone turn up the irony, we’re all getting too cozy here.
    A self-pitying tear tried to enter her eye, and she scowled until it retreated. She was tired. The drive up had been hell, temperatures murderously near ninety in Massachusetts and traffic up the wazoo on I-95. She’d cranked up the A/C in the Mercedes, blasted Cindy Lauper’s She’s So Unusual , the Beatle’s Rubber Soul , and Joni Mitchell’s Blue albums, singing along in her ragged voice, which made valiant leaps toward pitches rather than landing on them.
    Needless to say, she’d done a lot of stage managing when it came to high school and college musicals.
    But she’d made it, with only one stop in New Hampshire for lunch at a mom and pop restaurant that should have been awarded a spot in the Food Hall of Shame.
    And by the way, if she’d known there wasn’t going to be booze here at Camp Kitchy-koo, she would also have stopped at the New Hampshire state liquor store and stocked up.
    What kind of cocktail social was held without cocktails?
    Calling club soda with lime a cocktail was like calling chop suey Chinese food. Her chicken divan at dinner had sat up As Good As It Got
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    and begged to be washed down with a glass or two or three of sauvignon blanc or pinot noir.
    But no.
    One thing about this place, though . . . one thing . . .
    She’d stepped reluctantly out of her climate controlled car on arrival, expecting another oven blast of summer. And ohhh, the air. Nothing she’d ever remembered breathing had seemed so clear and sweet and pure. Her tight lungs practically jumped out of her body to get enough of it down.
    Maybe nothing else would come from her sentence here, but at least she’d finally remembered how to breathe.
    A few female bodies exited cabins around her, then a few more, heading for the shore, some somber and silent, some chatting, only one laughing. Fish schools, lemmings, a she-wolf pack, hooooooowl! Bonfire tonight, with inspirational speakers and sing-along. Girly Girl Scout heaven. Maybe later they could play truth or dare. No, try on makeup. No, share sad stories and cry.
    Okay. She was being snarky, and should take the time to feel ashamed, but she’d rather get in her car and find the nearest bar. A shot of whiskey for penance, followed by a second, then, as expected numerically, a third. Or a couple of martinis, to take the edge off this damn tension she was never quite without. Unfortunately, in this part of the world the nearest watering hole was probably an hour away and closed up for the night at eight.
    Behind her, the noise that was Dinah preceded Martha and