A Charmed Place (8 page)

Surprised, he smiled, then laid his hand over hers on the table. "I wish I'd been able to be there for you, Madsy. It was a hideous time, I know."

Her smile was more quivery than his. "Yes
... thanks."

They heard a sound in the hall and turned at the same time to see Tracey, dressed in drab, standing with a startled look on her face. "Dad! I didn't know you were here." Her glance took in the relative positions of her parents' hands.

Gently, Maddie slid her hand out from under Michael's.

"Hey, Trace," Michael said, flashing his daughter his earnest smile. "Your mom tells me you're feelin' punk."

He got up and walked over to her while Maddie began clearing the table. Placing a graceful hand on the girl's brow, he said, "Aw, baby, you're hot. Maybe a touch of the flu?"

Maddie laid the plates a little too hard in the sink and came over herself to check her daughter's temperature. Tracey pulled back a fraction, as if it were her mother who was contagious, then submitted with sullen meekness to her touch.

"You're fine," Maddie said. "Sit down and have some cereal."

"Mom, I
told
you."

"And I told you. Eat some breakfast or you're not going anywhere."

Tracey gave her father a tragic glance before she stomped over to the cupboard and took down a box of shredded wheat. Trying hard not to seem to be standing guard, Maddie busied herself with the dishes. She heard a single clunk in the cereal bowl, then the milk jug being waved over it before almost instantly being returned to the fridge.

The contretemps ended with Michael saying with forced cheer, "Hey! I almost forgot!"

Maddie watched her ex-husband take three loping strides across the red and white checkerboard floor, scoop up Mr. James from the top of the breadbox where Maddie had tucked him, and wiggle the long lost teddy bear in front of his daughter's face.

"Oh, Dad," said Tracey. "Where did you find him?"

She said it in such measured tones that Maddie found herself turning around and staring, just to divine the teenager's mood. Was she pleased? Was she not?

But Tracey's expression was as careful as her voice. She wasn't going to give her mother the satisfaction of catching her red-handed with enthusiasm, that was for sure.

Maddie sighed and stole a peek at the frail old bear: Mr. James looked alone and forlorn, and desperately unloved.

With every passing day Maddie became more aware of him. She saw him leave at eight in the morning (she began getting up early just to see him do it) and strike out for town on foot. At eight-thirty she saw him return, a loaf of French bread sticking out of his backpack, a newspaper under his arm. At ten he left in his red Jeep. At twelve he returned in his red Jeep.

After that, the pattern broke down. Sometimes she didn't see him all afternoon. Sometimes he puttered outside. For one devastating thirty-six-hour period he and his red Jeep were gone altogether. But then Maddie saw the car turn up again around midnight, and the light go on in the storage room—obviously his bedroom—and she found herself bowing her head in the dark and saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

And that shocked her.

The next day, Maddie chose not to sit in the patio chair that looked out at the lighthouse; she sat facing her roses instead. It was Norah who took the chair that faced the tower. She was in an especially gleeful mood, and it made her blue eyes sparkle.

"Fifty thousand," she said, triumphant color flagging her cheeks. "That should get people's attention."

"Fifty!" Joan was clearly astonished; she could go antiquing for the rest of her life. "You got that ancient old man to pledge fifty thousand dollars? But what does he care if the lighthouse gets moved or not? He could be dead by the time that happens."

Norah smiled her special smile, reserved for occasions like these. "He took a little—very little—persuading." She lifted her chin and ran a slender index finger along the line of her throat. "I may have to drum up another fifty," she said, pursing her lips. "But for now, fifty is fine. It proves we're not in it for the parties and the cocktail wieners. It proves we truly care."

If Maddie had learned one thing in her ten-year friendship with Norah, it was that she never rallied to a good cause just because she felt obliged. Norah was motivated to do things by one of two impulses: boredom, or curiosity.

"I keep meaning to ask you, Nor, how's the gallery doing this summer? Is Cheryl working out?"

"
Yes, thank God. The woman is determined to have a gallery of her own someday. I may just sell her the
Seaside
at a bargain price."

Yes. Just as Maddie suspected: boredom.

"Now that I think about it, you don't seem to be spending much time there," Joan chimed in.

Norah shrugged. "Been there, done that, you know? Besides, the gallery doesn't maximize my greatest skill."

"Which is?"

"
S
queezing blood out of a rock," said Norah, laughing.

She surprised them by adding, "No, seriously, I guess I'm tired of the gallery because it doesn't seem—" She frowned, struggling for the right word. "Significant enough. Maybe it's because I chose not to have kids; but I feel a need to leave something
... I don't know
... of
me.
I guess that's it. Cheap egotism, isn't it? To want to leave something of me?"
She added softly, "
But saving the lighthouse would—might—satisfy me that way."

Coloring again, Norah turned away from them to gaze at the lighthouse. It was so unlike her to sound deep that Maddie and Joan were left exchanging a long, wordless look.

"But! That's not today's problem," Norah said more cheerfu
lly as she rose to her feet. "
Getting the reclusive Dan Hawke to come out and play: that's today's problem."

Joan smiled and said, "Hey, take a walk on the beach topless. That oughtta do it."

Norah batted long lashes at Joan and said, "You're warm."

She peeled off the yellow knit sundress she'd been wearing and revealed an eye-popping yellow bikini underneath.

Joan said with respect, "You've been working out."

"Have to," Norah said as she laid the sundress over the back of her chair. She picked up her canvas beach bag, rooted around in it, and came up with a hefty screwdriver.

"Hide this," she told Maddie, handing her the tool. "It's evidence."

"What the hell are you planning to do?" blurted Maddie. She was scandalized at every one of the possibilities that had begun lining up in her brain.

"I'm going windsurfing. And somewhere in shouting distance of the lighthouse, the fin is going to fall off my windsurfer and I'm going to have to call for help. If no one should come out to save me, I'll end up drifting helplessly out to sea. Does that answer your question?'' she asked with a guileless look.

Joan blanched. "Oh, don't do that, Norah, don't! It's too dangerous. You could be swept out to sea. Oh, Norah, don't. Please don't!"

"Joanie, I'll be fine," Norah said with a squeeze of her friend's hand. "You know I'm an excellent swimmer; where do you think all this definition comes from?" she said, flexing a slender but tight upper arm for Joan to see. "This'll be fun. You can watch me from here. I guarantee I'll flush the son of a bitch out of his lair. That brooding author routine of his is beginning to get tired."

"Leave him be, Norah!" said Maddie. She was appalled by the tension in her own voice.

Surprised, Norah said, "No way, darling. If I'm going to save the lighthouse, I'll need his cooperation. The man doesn't really have a choice. Besides—why should you care?"

"I don't," said Maddie quickly. "Go right ahead and make a fool of yourself."

"Thank you. I reserve that right, though I don't usually take advantage of it."

A light bulb seemed to go on over Joan's head. "Norah! Do you really want to save the lighthouse, or do you just want to get this guy in the sack?"

"Wouldn't it be nice," said Norah, slinging her beach bag over her shoulder, "if I could do both?"

They watched Norah cross the lane and head for the beach by ducking down a right of way that ran alongside the shingled cottage opposite
Rosedale
.

Joan turned back to Maddie. Her expression, normally open and naive, was pinched with dread. "It's a horrible idea," she said, shaking her head. "She could fall off."

"Of course she'll fall off," Maddie said with a laugh
meant to reassure
. "That's the whole point."

"You know what I mean. She won't be paying attention; her mind will be on trying to get his attention. She could
... anything could—"

"Nothing will, Joan. Truly."

"But it's blowing out," Joan said, standing up so that she could monitor Norah's progress better.

"You'
re making too much of this, Joan
nie."

Joan scarcely heard her. "
Where are your binoculars?''

"Uh, let me think."

They were sitting on the lowest shelf of the cupboard to the right of the kitchen sink window, from which Maddie had a view of the lighthouse. Could she direct Joan there without drawing down suspicion?

"I saw
an
Indigo
Bunting
feeding on the
feeder
in the front yard the other day," she
l
ied, "and I've been keeping the binoculars handy in case it comes back. Look around in the cupboards by the sink. I think that's where I left them."

"I'll see."

Even without the binoculars, Maddie was able to follow the progress of the bright pink and magenta sail as Norah kept a steady course for the water directly in front of the
lighthouse. Norah being Norah, she wouldn't fall until she had to. And even then, she'd probably keep her hair dry.

Poor Dan Hawke. He didn't stand a chance. For one brief moment, Maddie put aside her resentment and longing and actually felt sorry for him. A genuine siren was about to come calling.

She has it all. Looks, money, brains, and confidence. Why didn't she ever have children? What an odd, odd thing.

Maddie thought of her own adored child (she did adore Tracey, despite the widening gulf between them). And she thought of Joan: everyone's favorite aunt, longing to have children of her own.

A mother's love. Was there anything stronger on earth?

"They were right where you thought," Joan said, reappearing with the strap of the binoculars looped around her neck. She refocused the lenses and peered in her nearsighted way at the horizon. "Is that her sail? The pink striped one?"

"Yes. She's fine. Although, why she expects him to realize she's in trouble after she manages to lose the fin is beyond me. He won't be able to see her if he's working at his desk."

Joan looked back at Maddie. "How do you know where he works?"

"I... often see a light on, on the side that faces my house. I assume he has an office set up there."

"Really. That's strange. You'd think he'd want to look out at the sea."

Maddie had had the same thought herself. Over and over again. "Maybe it's too big a distraction," she mumbled. "Anyway, Norah can sound like a banshee when it suits her. He'll hear her, even if he doesn't see her."

Maddie watched with her heart bouncing around in her throat. If someone offered her a million dollars to describe her own feelings at that moment, she'd have to pass, because she didn't have a clue.

Joan gave Maddie a blow-by-blow account of Norah in action. "Okay, she's down. She's just stepped off the board, kind of casually. You wouldn't call it a fall."

"Her bikini wouldn't take the force of a fall," said Maddie.

They laughed together. Joan's mood was less tragic now, and Maddie was glad.

"I wonder if Norah can actually pull it off," Joan mused.

"If necessary," Maddie deadpanned. They laughed again.

"Okay, she must've got the fin off. Now she's climbing back on the board. Now she's standing.-The sail's lying flat in the water. What great balance she has. If
that
were me
.
... Now she's cupping her hands, yelling at the lighthouse."

"I think I hear her from here."

"I wonder if he's even home.
Just because the Jeep is there .
... And in the meantime, she really is drifting away fast. Oh, why did she pick a day when the wind was blowing offshore?''

"Joannie, think about it. It wouldn't make sense to pick a day with a sea breeze nudging her gently back onto the beach, would it?"

Joan sighed and said, "No
... but
... she's getting farther out. He won't be able to hear her, not with the wind blowing her cries away from the lighthouse. Oh, Maddie, we should go! We can knock on his door, point her out to him. Oh, let's," she begged.