“Some kind of cancer. I wasn’t in touch with her at that point. She did not want a funeral, but in the newspaper her mother wrote a really long and loving obituary of her. And she said in that obituary that Addie had not wanted a funeral. So I guess Addie must have been mad. I mean, who wouldn’t be. But Lindsay had written about how all the doctors just loved Addie. It was really so awful.”
“Ay-yuh, I guess it was,” Olive said.
Lucy pointed her finger and shook it slowly. Lucy said, “Only years later did I realize that she might have been sexually abused by that father. Because one night when she was drunk, she said something—I can’t remember exactly—about her father putting lipstick on her when she was a little girl.”
The two were silent for a while, and then Olive said, “Just like Diana Beach.”
“Right.” Then Lucy added, “We don’t know if Diana was promiscuous. But we do know that it got her all screwed up.”
“Of course it did.”
Lucy sat forward. “But, Olive, here is my question to you. Okay, so Addie’s life was one more unrecorded life, but what was the point of it? What was the point of her life, Olive?”
Olive sat back and watched Lucy. Lucy seemed quite distressed. “Lucy Barton, are you asking me what the point was of this young woman’s life? What is the point of anyone’s life?”
Lucy looked at her. “Well. Yeah. What is the point of anyone’s life?”
“I thought you believed in God,” Olive said.
Lucy shook her head slowly. “I never said I believe in God. You’re mistaking me for that guy who said ‘God bless you’ to me in the taxi. I don’t not believe in God, by the way. But I don’t believe in some father figure sitting up there in the clouds. I sort of believe—no, I do believe—that there’s something larger than us. But that doesn’t help me with the question: What is the point of anyone’s life?”
Olive thought about this. “Well, Henry and I believed that the point to our lives was to work hard and help people. So we did.” Olive started to rock her foot up and down and she looked out the window.
Lucy said, “Diana Beach was apparently a very good guidance counselor, she helped a lot of kids. So she had a point to her life, I guess. But what was the point of Addie’s life?”
Olive squinted across at Lucy. “Lucy. Are you depressed?” This had only now occurred to Olive.
Lucy looked surprised, and then she said, “Yeah. Sort of.”
“Why?”
Lucy shrugged.
“How’s your friend Bob?” Olive asked her, and she saw Lucy’s face become pink; this is what Olive thought she saw.
“I haven’t seen him much lately. I think he’s really busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Olive asked.
“Not sure. Helping Matt Beach, maybe.”
“Ay-yuh” was all Olive said.
*
But Bob had had a haircut ten days earlier, the day after he had last seen Lucy.
—
Matt had told him to get his hair cut, Jim had told him, and Margaret had told him the same thing. So Bob went to his local barber—it was a brilliantly sunny day—and on that particular day the man who usually cut Bob’s hair was not in. So a young woman with long dark hair that Bob had never met before swept a little apron over his shoulders, and she worked with her lips pressed together in great concentration; she wore a scent that smelled to Bob like bug spray. “Not the chatty type?” she asked him at one point, and he said, No, he was sorry, that he was tired. “Oh, that’s okay,” she said cheerfully, swinging her long hair back and then snipping his hair with the scissors. Bob closed his eyes. It was taking forever.
When he opened his eyes, he wanted to die, he did almost want to die. His hair was so short: He looked like a fat twelve-year-old kid with an old man’s face. He was really horrified. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, paying her, tipping her, thanking her; he was panicking.
He got into his car and drove home and went straight to the bedroom mirror and he could not believe what he saw.
When Margaret came home, she said, “Bob, what happened?” So it was real. He looked like an idiot.
—
And he could not see Lucy looking like this. Again and again, he saw the face of a twelve-year-old kid in his (sort of fat) old man’s head. He could not tell Lucy why he was too embarrassed to see her, and when she texted to ask him to go for a walk, he texted back that he was too busy.
“Try wearing a hat,” Margaret suggested. Bob never wore a hat except for a woolen one in the winter, but when he went to buy a baseball cap and tried it on, he thought he looked even stupider. Margaret said, “It will grow out soon, Bob. Don’t worry.”
*
Matt asked Bob to come back to sit for the painting Matt was doing of him. But Bob told him, “I got my hair cut and I look like a dickwad.”
“Come over anyway,” Matt said.
When Bob showed up, Matt looked at him and said, “Ouch.” Then Matt said, “Come on upstairs, I’ll work on your body.”
So Bob went and sat for Matt. “Just so you know, it’s not as bad as you think it is.” Matt said this as he took the charcoal stick in his hand.
“Yeah, it is,” Bob said.
“It’s not, though.” Matt glanced up, his hand working. “You know why? Because you’re still Bob Burgess. Nothing can take that away.”
Bob sat there for an hour, and he thought about what Matt had just said.
