The Secret of Joy (24 page)

Why was the one thing she knew, with certainty, that she wanted to be here, where Joy was? Because Michael was right? Because it gave her somewhere to be, somewhere to run and hide where not much was asked of her? Was Michael right? Or was where she’d been just so … wrong?

The answer would have to wait because Charlie had tangled up his leash around her legs. As she spun and darted to free herself, she saw the house.

The
house.

The one in the painting at Mama’s that she’d seen her first day in Wiscasset. The little yellow house with the white trim and the flower boxes and the cobblestone path. It was a cross between a craftsman bungalow, like Theo’s, and a Cape. She
stood there and stared at it, at the yellow sweetness of it, at the small porch with its rocking chair. The house wasn’t the same one as in the painting, she realized. But it was so close.

She imagined the porch swing Theo would build for her. She imagined sitting there with him, holding hands. She imagined herself inside that house, coming and going.

Living here.

And there was a
FOR SALE
sign in the yard. She smiled at it. She imagined running up the three little stone steps to the porch with her tote bag full of textbooks from her grad school program in counseling. She glanced up at the second-floor window and envisioned herself sitting at a desk overlooking the tree in the front yard while typing a term paper and researching happily with a cup of tea and Charlie at her feet.

But it was just a fantasy. And reality was the fact that there was something to work out with Michael, something true, despite all their problems. He wasn’t completely wrong when he accused her of running away from what bothered her in New York—from her job to their problems to the stress of the city itself. She
was
a New Yorker visiting someone else’s life for a little while. She couldn’t just up and buy the little yellow house of her dreams in a tiny town in Maine.

But she jotted down the name of the real-estate agency and the telephone number anyway.

thirteen

A little before ten thirty, Rebecca was waiting inside the Children’s Room of the Wiscasset Public Library. Six or seven children were seated on colorful little cushions in a semicircle around a young woman with a big smile and great enunciation. Parents and caregivers sat on sofas and chairs along the back walls, reading or chatting or watching. Rebecca glanced at her watch. Perhaps Joy had changed her mind.

But there they were. Adorable Rex wore a red Superman cape and blue swimming goggles, which elicited happy laughter from the other kids. He squeezed between a boy and girl he seemed to know, and stared up at the young woman. He was so cute! The Story Time leader held up a book,
Caps for Sale
, which Rebecca remembered reading as a little kid. When the woman began reading, the children focused on her. Joy came over to Rebecca’s love seat and sat down beside her.

As the kids giggled over the antics of the naughty monkeys in the story, Rebecca thought about how she and Michael
used to lie in bed and talk about the children they’d have one day. Two boys and two girls. Michael liked classic names like Catherine and Henry. Rebecca liked Clementine and Milo. They’d finally agreed that he could name two kids and she could name two kids. But those conversations had stopped long ago. Now, she couldn’t imagine having children with such a rigid person, a father who’d tell his three-year-old daughter she was operating under an “information deficit” when she wanted cake for breakfast.

“I love his cape,” Rebecca whispered to Joy. “And his goggles. He’s just adorable.”

Joy smiled. “Harry has a picture of himself as a kid in a Superman cape, and you’d swear it was Rex.”

Rex did look like Harry in terms of coloring—the same thick, shiny brown hair and hazel eyes. But the features were Joy’s—the round shape of the eyes, the slightly aquiline nose, the strong chin. There was Strand in him.

After the story, the kids scrambled up and began choosing books from atop the low shelves. Rex came over with
Curious George Flies A Plane
and squeezed between Rebecca and the edge of the sofa, then put the book on her lap.

“Wow,” Joy said. “He usually wants only me to read to him. He must like your face.”

Rebecca laughed. “Do you like my face?” she asked Rex.

Rex didn’t answer, but he did lean his head against her, the straps of his little blue goggles cool against her skin. He stared at the book, waiting, and so Rebecca opened it on her lap, and Rex pointed at George staring out a large airport window at a small airplane. “He fly the plane!” Rex said, giggling.

Rebecca laughed again and let Rex turn the pages and comment on the pictures, which he seemed more interested in than the story itself.

“You’re good with kids,” Joy whispered, and the compliment made Rebecca ridiculously happy.

This was her family, no matter how much Joy had tried to resist her—or might continue to resist her. This woman and this boy were her
family
. Immediate family, interrupted.

When Joy took Rex to the bathroom, Rebecca opened her purse and fished around for the receipt she’d used to scribble the name and number of the real-estate agency. The moment she got back to her room at Finch’s, she was calling that number. Suddenly, having a place of her own here in Wiscasset didn’t seem like a crazy fantasy. She
did
have family here. And Maine
was
Vacationland.

“Coastal Real Estate, Maggie Herald speaking.”

Maggie? Ah—Rebecca had forgotten that Maggie was a Realtor. “Maggie, it’s Rebecca Strand.” She paced her small room at Finch’s, excited, nervous energy coursing through her.

“Hi, hon! If you’re calling about Ellie, she’s doing much better. Last I spoke to her, which was in the middle of the night last night, she had five Hefty bags full of that jerk bastard’s crap and had dumped them all in the backyard for him to pick up.”

“That must be so hard, getting rid of his stuff.”

“She’s purging. Vomiting him out of her life like the rotten egg he is. She’ll be okay. I have all my best divorce
books in a pile for her.
Spiritual Divorce, The Good Divorce
. Like there’s any kind of divorce but a shitty divorce. Oh, and speaking of divorce, did Ellie tell you we started a new club? The
Bitter
Ex-wives Club of Wiscasset? We had to start a new club since Victoria is so sickeningly in love with Victor and can’t stand to be around us bitter hags. You think the town recreation department will let us call it that in the catalog?”

Rebecca laughed. “It’s catchy.”

“We’re going to have weekly meetings. Ellie and I were hoping you could come and lead the discussions, help keep us on track so we don’t start sharpening knives or anything.”

“I’m not sure there is a track with clubs,” Rebecca said. “You really just need each other and maybe some good junk food.”

“Oh, we’ll have the junk food, definitely. But we think having an impartial person might really help. Will you at least come to the first meeting? If it’s too boring, we’ll totally understand. We’ll pay you in booze and really good appetizers. Nachos with the works. Chocolate. None of that cucumber sandwich crap. First meeting is Thursday night at six at my house. Two other women will be joining us, and one man. We might have to change the name to just Bitter Exes Club to be inclusive.”

Michael’s voice rang in her ears. “
You’re
not
a mediator …
” But she was a person with a brain and a heart, and she happened to be good at helping people make sense of their own lives, their own hearts, even if she couldn’t seem to do it for herself. “I love pigs in a blanket. So it’s a deal. Oh, and,
Maggie, I was out walking last night and I noticed this adorable yellow house, like a craftsman-style bungalow.”

“Oh, yes—on Elm, right?”

“That’s the one.”

“Well, it’s been on the market for over six months and the price has been dropped twice already. It’s tiny is the problem. Only two bedrooms. One and a half baths. People like a full second bath. And a third bedroom, whether to turn it into an office or a guest room.”

Tiny? It was a whole house! After a one-bedroom apartment in New York, shared by two people, a house was … huge. “I realize the sign said it was for sale, but, by any chance, is it available for a month-to-month lease? Till it sells?” She realized she was holding her breath.

“Absolutely. I’ve listed it in the local paper and on Craigslist every month and a few people have been out to see it as a rental, but no takers. A house without a garage in Maine scares people off, even renters.”

Thank you, universe
, Rebecca said, ceilingward.

As for the lack of garage and winter looming (not that she necessarily anticipated still being here when the blizzards began), Rebecca figured that was what Home Depot was for—snowblowers and ice scrapers. “I’d love to see it. Can you show it to me today by any chance?”

“Tell you what—I’ve got a few appointments over in Brunswick this morning, some properties I’m showing, so why don’t you take a look inside the house yourself and let me know what you think. Oh—it’s lightly furnished, but the owner will rent it unfurnished if you prefer. She lives over
by Sebago Lake now and will just have the stuff put in storage. If you like the place, I’ll come back with you and give you the details. You’ll find the key in the little can in the flower box window on the side, just before the fence. Let yourself in and look around. Good thing I can vouch for you personally.”

She smiled. “Thanks. I’ll call you later.” She was about to hang up when she remembered Charlie. “Maggie, are dogs allowed?”

“Dogs
and
cats. The owner is one of those animal rescue types, fostering three-legged everythings. I think she’s fostering a one-eyed ferret right now.”

Rebecca laughed. “Thanks. Call you later.”

Rebecca put on Charlie’s leash and practically ran over to the little yellow house. It had its own wonderful tree right in the front yard, shading the porch. The houses on either side weren’t too close, either, and they were as adorable as this one, but they were both white.

She found the key, then walked up the three steps to the little porch and unlocked the door, which opened into a tiny foyer with a round braided rug and a wrought-iron coatrack. The hardwood floors were wide-planked and old, yet weren’t scratched. The living-room walls were painted a pretty pale blue. There was a stone fireplace with a decorative mantel, above which was hung a particularly nice painting of five brightly colored rowboats docked in water. And the furniture was decent—a cranberry-colored denim sofa, another braided rug, and a coffee table made of what looked like sticks. Three tall windows were covered by filmy white curtains dotted with
a tiny red filigree design. Down a short hallway was a small bathroom with a toilet and an antique round white wooden mirror above the sink.

Down another short hallway was the kitchen. It was small, but a good square shape with hardwood floors and a big window over the white-enameled sink, which reminded Rebecca of her late grandmother’s old apartment in New York. The appliances looked sound; she liked the fact that there wasn’t stainless-steel anything in this kitchen. And she loved the white wooden pedestal table with its matching chairs by a window covered with yellow curtains. Rebecca could absolutely imagine eating her Special K and the occasional bowl of Crunch Berries there.

Up a flight of ten or so stairs was a short landing and two decent-sized bedrooms, both with four windows each and double closets. One of the bedrooms, the one with the pale yellow walls, had a queen-sized bed and a dresser; the other had a twin bed. Between the bedrooms was a great bathroom with a claw-foot tub and a beautiful vanity that reminded Rebecca of a movie star’s dressing table.

This was definitely a woman’s house, Rebecca knew. A man had not lived here recently. It seemed a place where the owner had transitioned, perhaps, between lives.

This was Rebecca’s house.

She stood in the small backyard (fenced—another plus) and called Maggie. “I love the house. I absolutely want to rent it.”

“Great! You just earned me a commission. I’ll come by
Marianne’s tonight with a month-to-month agreement. I’ll need the first month’s rent and a month’s rent as a security deposit, and you can move in immediately if you want. I’ll prorate the rent.”

“What
is
the rent?” Rebecca asked. She realized she had no idea what it cost to rent a whole house. The apartment she shared with Michael was thirty-one hundred dollars a month.

“It’s eleven hundred plus utilities. I could probably talk Anna down to ten-fifty, though, since it’s been empty for so long. She’ll be thrilled to rent it. Then again, she might insist on the eleven hundred because of the fence she had installed this past summer. Did you see the backyard? Theo Granger did the fence. Ellie said you brought him to her bust of a dinner party last week. You two dating?”

Rebecca smiled and spun around in her yard, her gaze on her white picket fence that Theo built. “Nope. Just friends. And eleven hundred is just fine.” Thanks to Michael’s frugal ways, she had a fat savings account.

“So you’re not interested?”

“In Theo? Maggie, you know I live with someone.”

“But you’re renting a house in Maine. Unless the boyfriend is planning to move up here, too?”

Good point.

“My life is a little complicated at the moment.”

“All our lives are complicated at the moment,” Maggie said. “You’re lucky, though—Theo has his pick of single women in this town, and he hasn’t been interested in anyone. Except you.”

“He’s not interested, Maggie. We’re just friends.”

“ ‘Just friends’ don’t go to dinner parties together. ‘Just friends’
don’t take long walks together on beaches. ‘Just friends’ don’t sit on Marianne’s front porch and talk late at night.”

Humph. Small-town life had its drawbacks. “I’ll give you that he is cute. But like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing. I just know that I want this house.”