Home Fires (14 page)

Now Maggie walked up and down the streets of Back Bay, waiting until she met her mother and Anne at the parking lot, in time to make the boat. Maggie saw a lot of cool-looking kids. She wondered how many of them went to college in Boston. Wasn't Boston supposed to be College Town, USA?

A very cute guy was sitting alone on the curb, reading a book. Jean jacket, straggly brown hair, a soul patch and semigoatee. Maggie glanced over his shoulders. Poetry in some foreign language. Irritated, he looked up at her. “May I help you?” he asked.

“Can I bum a cigarette?” she asked, noticing that he was smoking.

He shook a Camel out of his pack, and she took it.

“Do you have a light?” she asked.

He handed her his own lit cigarette, and she touched it to the tip of hers, and she couldn't help thinking how weirdly intimate the whole thing was, like having sex with a total stranger.

“You go to school around here?” he asked.

“Not exactly,” Maggie said, incredibly flattered that he would mistake her for a Boston kid.

“You look familiar. Did I meet you at a party at Emerson?”

“I don't think so,” Maggie said, blushing like crazy. Emerson College! God, he thought she was a Boston college kid!

“Hmmm. I could swear.” He went back to reading his book.

Maggie wanted to keep things going, but she didn't know how. She couldn't exactly make small talk about poetry or foreign languages. The Beantown Trolley rattled past, groaning under the weight of about a hundred fat tourists taking videos. When they showed the movies to their relatives, everyone would think the cute guy was Maggie's boyfriend.

“Well, see ya,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, not looking up.

He'd already forgotten about her. He'd probably figured out that she was a dumb loser. Not college material.

N
ED
Devlin had never felt so ready for spring vacation. His roommate's parents dropped him off at the mainland ferry terminal, and he boarded the late-afternoon boat feeling exultant, as if he were a conquering explorer returning home after a long, successful crusade.

He'd been accepted by Dartmouth.

The envelope, beautifully thick, had arrived in his mailbox last week. All the other colleges had said yes, too, but Dartmouth was the one that mattered. They'd offer him a partial scholarship and a work-study program, a starting spot on the freshman hockey team, and Ned was on top of the world. He was Hannibal crossing the Alps.

Standing on the ferry's top deck, he breathed the sea air. He'd told his father over the phone, but he couldn't wait to see him in person. His father always acted so proud of everything Ned did. Ned knew his father would want to celebrate about Dartmouth as much as he did.

As the ferry steamed into deeper water Ned started recognizing lobster buoys, and he knew he was getting closer to home. There were Marty Cole's buoys, painted neon pink and yellow, Mr. Hunter's, painted red and white. Once he started seeing island lobster buoys, he always relaxed. He felt the pressures of school blow away. This part of the ferry ride made him feel exhilarated, comfortable, slightly loose, the way two beers made him feel.

He'd been alone on the top deck, but now he heard voices. Women's voices. He felt too shy to turn. The air was cool. On dry land, the temperature had shot up to sixty-two or so, but out here, with the wind blowing, he needed his warm jacket. He could feel that his nose and the rims of his ears were red. When the voices receded, he glanced over.

Maggie Vincent and her mother and another woman stood across the deck. They were laughing, talking animatedly, not looking his way. He tried to hear, but the wind stole their words.

Maggie didn't look as tough as usual. When they were little, she and Ned had played together at Park and Rec. Ned had had a big crush on her. She was the second girl he had asked to dance; she would have been the first, but he'd had to get over his nervousness, practicing on Vanessa Adamson. In the last few years Maggie had been hanging out with idiots. Bored island kids who broke into summer houses to smoke too much pot, kids Ned didn't like.

Watching her now, Ned wondered what she was like away from her mother. She was joking around, making her mother and the other woman laugh about something. He could see they all liked each other a lot. But he wondered whether she was different with her school friends.

She glanced over, looked back at her mother, then glanced back at Ned. He had the feeling she was trying to place him. It had been over three years since they'd said two words to each other, and he knew he'd changed a lot in that time. He'd grown about a foot, started shaving, kept his hair shorter for hockey. But then it was obvious she recognized him. She waved and spoke to the others.

He waved back. Everyone was staring at him. For a second he thought they would cross the deck to talk to him. But Maggie pulled them into a huddle. They stayed where they were.

She'd probably told them what a jerk he was.

O
N
the ferry home, a few hours earlier, Gabrielle had watched carefully for Anne's reaction when Maggie pointed out Ned Devlin.

“He's tall, like his father,” Anne had said noncommittally. But suddenly she stopped talking and watched Ned—surreptitiously, Gabrielle would grant—for the rest of the trip.

Anne's mind had been going, that was for sure. Gabrielle had seen the little thinking frown on her face, the one that always gave her away. Gabrielle had learned to recognize it long ago. Whenever Anne had a problem to solve, whenever she wanted something badly, whenever she was just plain trying to figure someone out, she would get an intense look in her eyes and a barely visible frown on her lips.

If Gabrielle had to translate Anne's frown on the ferry, she would have to say Anne was wondering how it would feel to have Ned Devlin as a stepson.

“Oh, stop it!” Gabrielle said to herself. She was alone in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner.

“Stop what?” Maggie called from the dining room, where she was doing her homework.

“I'm just talking to myself,” Gabrielle called back.

“Keep it together, Mom.”

“I will, sweetheart.”

Gabrielle put the coffee cups and dessert plates in the dishwasher, wiped the counters dry, and went into the dining room. They had added this room on two years earlier, and Steve had done a beautiful job. A red oak floor, a bay window for Gabrielle's plants, and a chair rail. Gabrielle had chosen two different wallpapers: a colonial floral above the rail and a muted stripe below. All in shades of Williamsburg green and gold.

Maggie was leaning over her homework, making marks in a workbook.

“What's that?” Gabrielle asked.

“My SAT practice book.”

“Oh.” Gabrielle knew she shouldn't interrupt. Maggie doing schoolwork was a sight for sore eyes. You never knew how long the trend would last. Still, she had to talk to someone or she'd go crazy.

“What did you think of Anne today?” she asked.

“She's great.”

“I mean about the Thomas Devlin thing.”

“Like you said, whatever makes her happy.”

“It won't make her happy. She just thinks it will.”

“Mom, do you mind? The test's next weekend.”

“I know, I know. I'll leave you alone in a minute. Did you notice how quiet she got after you pointed out Ned?”

“No.”

“Well, she did. I have a bad feeling about this. She's not ready to be getting serious about anyone.”

“Just leave her alone, okay, Mom?”

“I care, that's all.”

“Where's Dad? I'm sure he'd like to help with this,” Maggie said with a snort.

“He went back to the big house. With daylight savings, he says they'll be done in two weeks.”

“What a hero.”

“Maggie, I wish you'd show your father the respect . . .”

Maggie put down her pencil and arched her back. She tapped her fingers, as if she had something else to say.

“What?” Gabrielle asked.

“Do you think I'm smart?”

“Yes. I do. It's nice to see you concentrating on your schoolwork.”

“Smart enough to go to college?”

“College is an enormous commitment, Maggie. It's four years of hard work, and a lot of money. If you prove you can get your grades up and keep them up, then I'd say you've earned the right to go to college.”

“I'm trying,” Maggie said, in a scared voice that reminded Gabrielle that in many ways, Maggie was still a little girl. Gabrielle gave her a warm hug.

“I know you are. I can see that. I'm very proud of you, and I'm even prouder that you've stopped seeing that troublemaker Kurt. He's a very bad influence.”

“Mmmm,” Maggie said, looking down.

Gabrielle didn't know what Maggie was thinking, but she could see that something was bothering her. Maybe she was afraid of disappointing Gabrielle by not getting good grades, by not getting into college.

“You know, not everyone has to go to college,” Gabrielle said. “Many successful people go far with just a high-school diploma. I didn't go to college, you know.”

“I know,” Maggie said, still looking down.

“And I have a business that makes me happy and puts food on our table when things are slow for your father.”

“Like nine months out of the year,” Maggie said.

“Stop that.” Gabrielle stood, her hands on her hips, regarding her puzzling daughter. As a child, Maggie had adored Steve. He took her everywhere, treated her the way other island fathers treated their sons. He taught her the right way to drive a nail, shingle a house, pour a foundation. To this day, he worshiped her. Gabrielle just didn't understand how Maggie could fail to realize that.

“Thanks for today,” Maggie said. “Boston was fun.”

“Wasn't it wonderful to get off the island? All those terrific shops, and that sweet little trattoria. I barely had room for dinner tonight. My quattro stagione was out of this world.”

Maggie gave her a long, thoughtful gaze, and Gabrielle thought for a minute that she was going to say something. Instead, she closed her workbook and stood. She kissed Gabrielle on the cheek.

“I'll be in my room,” Maggie said. “Thanks again for Boston.”

“You're welcome, honey,” Gabrielle said. She returned to the kitchen, but it was too tidy to pretend it needed any more cleaning. Standing on her toes, she reached for her current favorite cookbook,
The Mediterranean Table
. Summer was coming, and her business would start getting busy again. She'd look for recipe ideas and make some notes, to pass the time. Besides, who knew? Maybe Matt would call.

Chapter 12

W
ay back when, Matt Davis would rush home from a business trip, hardly able to stand it. The ride from Kennedy to Gramercy Park, those slow forty minutes, when he could practically feel Anne, were the worst part. The time would tick by as the car sped through Queens, with Manhattan right in sight, so near and yet so far. He had minded every second he was apart from Anne. For ten years, without abatement, he had pined for her when they were apart.

Later, after he'd fallen in love with Tisa, it had been the same way. On trips when he couldn't take her along, he would go nuts waiting to see her again. That first blush of erotic love was a powerful thing.

But now the first blush was over. He and Tisa had fallen into a routine not unlike that of long-married couples. They had gotten together about a year ago, been living together since September. She took his shirts to the laundry, his suits to the dry cleaner; from his trips, he now brought her duty-free scarves instead of jewelry. He had expected the love rush to thicken, to slow down a bit. He had not expected it to dry up. For him, at least, it had disappeared.

Now that Matt had a little objectivity, now that he could weigh the two relationships, he could see that he'd made the mistake of his life.

There wouldn't be ten years worth of pining for Tisa when he couldn't be with her.

He was with her now, in a cab stuck in Park Avenue traffic. They were late to some black-tie charity thing being thrown at the Waldorf by an old classmate of hers, and she was angry and hurt because he had taken so long getting ready. Because he hadn't wanted to go in the first place.

“Will you try to have a good time?” she asked, and there was more hurt in her voice than anger.

“Yes, of course.”

“It's just that Trisha's never met you, and I want her to see how wonderful you are.”

Matt slid his hand across the seat, to take hers. She was radiant tonight in a white Chanel party dress and black velvet cape. She was wearing the diamond-and-emerald necklace he had bought her last May at Fred's in Paris, the pearl earrings he had given her on her birthday in Rome last July, and a cheap silk carré from one of last year's stock he'd picked up just before his flight home this morning. It was two
A
.
M
. French time; he knew he should feel jet-lagged, but he was too wired.

Anne had a boyfriend.

He had found out just hours earlier when he'd called Gabrielle from the Concorde. Some local guy Anne hardly knew. The two elements of Gabrielle's description of him that Matt had registered were “clockmaker” and “burn scars.” The only way Matt could imagine Anne with a man like that was if she felt sorry for him. With her heart, and after what she'd been through with Karen, she'd be a soft touch for anyone with a sob story.

“Trisha's great,” Tisa was saying, “and you'll love her husband. Shippen Maynard? He's practically the head of ITX.”

“I know who Shipp Maynard is,” Matt said, picturing the pretentious blowhard. With his Hong Kong suits, his custom-built shoes, his manicures and wavy silver hair. The ex-marine had a keg head and barrel chest, he was known for telling tales about the women in his life. He was not, as Anne had once said, a nice man.

“God, all you scions of industry know each other,” Tisa said, her pretty laugh tinkling, telling him that she was over being mad. “I know, you all belong to the same club.”

Matt laughed because, in this case, it was true. The Racquet and Tennis Club, just a few blocks south of where they were now. The cab crept through in traffic, a roiling sea of yellow cabs, all honking their horns and nudging each other. Sharks in a feeding frenzy.

“Remind me how you know Trisha?” he asked, to get his mind off Anne and the man.

“We were models together at the same agency.”

“That's right. I was thinking you knew her from school.”

“No. She's actually a few years older than me. Don't tell her—she'd kill me. But she's thirty-one.”

“Horrors,” Matt said.

“We had this booking together, it was a riot. On the beach in Miami, and I'm talking pre-chic Miami, when there were Cubans just everywhere and no cute hotels. We were doing swimsuits for
Vogue,
and that's when I got picked for
Sports Illustrated
and at first she didn't, but then she did because it turns out . . .”

Matt stopped hearing her voice. He suddenly remembered something that had happened on this exact block, five years earlier, in another yellow cab stuck in traffic heading uptown instead of down.

Anne was pregnant with Karen. She was four months along, and she had an ultrasound scheduled that afternoon. Matt had come home at lunch so he could go to the doctor with her.

Entering their apartment, he had found Anne sitting on the floor with her glass, a pitcher of water, and a Xeroxed list of instructions. Anne was an obstetrician's dream. She followed her directions to the letter.

Catching sight of her, Matt felt his heart flip. She was
his
dream, pregnant with their child. Rounder than she had ever been or would be again, she had reminded Matt of a Raphael Madonna. All softness and goodness and maternal love, and somehow so sexy that all he wanted to do was take her to bed.

“You have to drink all that?” Matt had asked in disbelief, watching her down glass after glass of what seemed to be gallons of water.

“I need a full bladder,” Anne had replied. “It'll push up the uterus so Dr. Ventura can get a good reading on the baby. I think we'll find out the sex today.”

It was one of their few disagreements during the pregnancy. Matt had wanted to wait until the delivery room, for the great traditional moment when the doctor would hold up their baby saying “It's a . . . !” Anne had argued that the baby was growing in her body, and she wanted to know everything that was happening the first possible moment. In the end, Anne would win out. And Matt wouldn't mind at all.

When she had finished drinking all her water, they went down to the street. They walked around the corner, along East Twenty-first Street, and Matt hailed a cab. Anne was in a great mood. She looked beautiful, very happy, and she was telling Matt about ideas she had for the baby's nursery.

Anne, who, even when not pregnant, was known for having to make frequent bathroom stops during any long trip, who on childhood car rides had been called “pea bladder” by Gabrielle, now seemed completely unaffected by all the water she had drunk.

“Are you okay?” Matt kept asking as the cab sped north on Park Avenue.

“I'm fine,” she reassured him. She was fine through the Thirties, fine through the tunnel, fine as the cab snaked past Grand Central, around the Pan Am Building.

“You're still okay?” Matt asked when the cab emerged on the other side.

“I'll be glad to get there,” Anne said, and for the first time her smile showed strain.

“On the double,” Matt said to the cabdriver.

Traffic was moving, and they were nailing all the lights. Clear sailing, no stops all through the Fifties. They had to go only six more blocks to Sixty-sixth Street.

“I'm not going to make it,” Anne said, her eyes watering, as if the level of fluid in her body had risen into her head.

“Think of the desert,” Matt said. “Dry sand. The Gobi Desert. Morocco. Las Vegas.”

They hit some traffic, and they got a red light at Sixty-first Street. Anne clutched the seat, her eyes closed.

“Can you walk it?” he asked. She shook her head without opening her eyes, furrows in her forehead.

When the car started creeping along, Anne looked at Matt as if she needed him to throw her a lifeline.

“Tell him to pull over,” she said.

“You're going to be fine,” he said. “It's just a few more blocks.”

“I can't.” She had her hand on the door handle, ready to jump out of the car.

“Try, honey.”

“Okay. But listen: if we hit one more red light between here and the office, he has to pull over.”

“Deal,” Matt said, and he had no doubt that Anne was prepared to stand on the side of Park Avenue, pull down her pants, and urinate. He had never loved her more.

They made it. Anne ran into the office, past a legion of pregnant women, calling over her shoulder to the receptionist that she needed to use the bathroom.

“Pee to the count of ten and then hold it!” the receptionist yelled after her.

That was the day they learned they were going to have a girl.

Now in a cab with Tisa, traffic was beginning to move. Matt stared at Dr. Ventura's building, remembering that day. Anne's spirit, her incredible valor as a human water balloon. She had savored every minute of her pregnancy and motherhood, even the most ignominious.

He wondered whether Anne had registered the fact that Dr. Ventura had sent flowers last August. To commemorate the death of a child she had brought into the world.

Matt sighed.

“God, we're going to be late,” Tisa said. She took a compact from her purse and checked her makeup.

“I'm sorry I was so slow,” Matt said.

“I'm so proud to be with you,” Tisa said, her eyes wide and hesitant, like a fawn's. Perhaps she had picked up on his mood. He squeezed her hand.

Tisa gave him a restrained peck on the mouth, as if her lips had shock absorbers. She had lived in New York long enough to know that you don't kiss in taxicabs, that the wrong pothole could knock out two sets of perfect teeth. It's funny, Matt thought. He and Anne had made out in cabs all the time.

“How do I look?” Tisa asked worriedly as the cab swung around the island, pulling up at the Waldorf.

“Stunning,” Matt said, taking in her beauty. Her long blond hair, her widely spaced almond eyes, her full mouth, her lovely, graceful neck.

“Tonight will be fantastic,” she said, grazing his cheek with her own.

Matt paid the driver, and they climbed out of the car as another couple at the head of the taxi line jumped in. Matt tipped the doorman. His arm lightly around Tisa's waist, he followed her into the hotel lobby.

Tisa held their invitation in white-gloved hands. Standing side by side, they read the placard announcing that the Literacy for Homeless benefit was being held in the Starlight Ballroom. They piled into an elevator with fifteen people Matt vaguely recognized, and they disembarked on the eighteenth floor.

Matt took Tisa's cape to the coat check and put the ticket in his pocket. She stood in the foyer, as beautiful as a woman could be.

“Excuse me, darling,” he said to her. “I need to make a quick call. In the excitement of coming home, I seem to have forgotten something important. A client.”

“Matt! I'm not walking in there without you.”

“How about powdering your nose? I'll be done in a minute.”

Shaking her head, she gave him a long, fearful look. Then, realizing that people might be watching, she composed herself and strode off, with the poise of the runway model that she was, into the ladies' room. Matt headed for the bank of phones.

He dialed the island number Gabrielle had given him. Anne had rented an apartment in town, right at the head of Transit Street. Matt could actually picture her building. It was across from Ruby's, up the street from Atwood's, their favorite island restaurant.

The phone rang and rang. He checked his watch: eight-thirty. He counted twenty rings, and then he saw Tisa coming toward him.

“Tell him I'll call back tomorrow,” he said into the ringing phone for Tisa's benefit. “Thank you.”

“All done?” she asked as he replaced the receiver.

“I told you it would be quick,” Matt said. Then, lightly touching the small of her back, he escorted Tisa into the Starlight Ballroom at the Waldorf-Astoria.

T
HOMAS
and Ned Devlin spent Ned's first two nights on the island together, just the two of them: steaks on the grill, along with hours of conversation and plans for Ned's future the first night, a night in town for pizza, beer, and pool the second.

Ned beat Thomas two straight games, and then they returned to their table to polish off the Last Call Saloon's Famous Anchovy and Extra Extra Garlic Pizza. Extra Large.

“I send you to the best prep school money can buy, and they teach you to hustle pool,” Thomas Devlin said.

“Yeah, they call me ‘Hialeah.'”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you take their money?”

“I'll put it this way. I haven't had to buy my own lunch off campus all year.”

“Well, well,” Thomas said admiringly. Ned never ceased to surprise him. Sometimes he seemed so absurdly young and innocent, you'd never suspect him of turning into a first-rate pool player. Thomas knew pool; he'd practically grown up in a Dorchester pool hall. It's where he had first met firefighters, and he associated the game with respect for the men. It was good to know his son could play as well.

“You're a little rusty,” Ned said, drinking his beer. Narragansett, on draft. Bobby, the bartender, knew that Ned was underage, but whenever Ned came in with his father, Bobby would give him two glasses on the house.

“I don't play much anymore.”

“You should. You're the best.”