One Night in Boston (2 page)
“It’s one of those big Boston corporations, you think?” Neve said after a minute. “There are so many of them trying to come into town and buy real estate. Andrew was telling me about it.”
Maggie almost smiled. How long had it been since the Weatherby wedding? Six months? Seven? And still Neve blushed like a schoolgirl when she mentioned her new husband. Maggie supposed it was charming, really, even though the thought of marrying one’s high school sweetheart at the age of twenty-one was as foreign a concept to her as swimming the ocean from Manhattan to Madrid.
She drew a random pattern on her thigh with one forefinger. She didn’t want to sell the house, not to a software company. Not even to the guy down the street. But what choice did she have? If she didn’t come up with the money, she’d lose everything.
If she didn’t come up with the money…
Maggie pushed herself to a stand.
Enough feeling sorry for yourself. Figure out a way to find it. Figure out a way to pay back the bank. No matter what.
She wound her hair into a tight ponytail at the back of her neck. To get the money, her best bet was still to find Dillon. And to find Dillon, she needed to start with her mother, however daunting the thought. Maggie swallowed. Facing down Alzheimer’s, that slippery monster that reared and roared when you most wanted it to shut up and go to sleep, wasn’t exactly the way she wanted to spend her morning.
But again
, the voice buzzed,
you don’t have a choice
.
“Take messages from anyone who calls,” she said. Then she turned into her workroom and locked the door behind her.
*
Maggie punched the Play button on her stereo and scrunched down into her favorite recliner. Jon Bon Jovi, heartthrob extraordinaire and love of her life since the eighth grade, crooned the opening bars of “Livin’ on a Prayer”. She reached for her lighter and lit a clove cigarette, letting it burn in the ashtray beside her. Though she’d given up smoking almost a year ago, sometimes she still craved the sweet smell and the kick of a Kretek clove cancer stick.
Picking up her cell phone, she pressed the first of the saved numbers. She leaned back and followed the cigarette smoke on its hazy journey up the wall, toward the ceiling, and out the screened windows. Maggie sighed. For an instant, she wished she could ride the smoke, just journey up to the clouds and turn to vapor.
I wish I could disappear. Forever
.
“Elmhurst House.” The receptionist chirped her familiar welcome, breaking into Maggie’s daydream. As always, she had the urge to reach through the phone and grab the girl around the throat, to stop that cheerful voice before it uttered another inane syllable. “How may I direct your call?”
“Fourth floor, please.”
“Certainly. Just a moment.” Soft rock faded in and out as Maggie waited for the transfer.
“Fourth floor, Nurse Keller.”
That’s more like it
, Maggie thought. Celia Keller, shaped like a battleship with a voice to match, fit Maggie’s mood much better most days. The steel-haired, steel-gazed head nurse never bothered with pleasantries, never dawdled in residents’ rooms to make small talk with their visitors or lingered on the phone to discuss the weather. She got straight to the point, good or bad. Maggie liked that.
“Ms. Keller, it’s Maggie Doyle. I’d like to stop by and visit my mother this morning. In about an hour or so.”
“Regular visiting hours are from ten to eight, as you know.”
Maggie stared at a bare patch on her wall. I need to repaint that, she thought. I missed it, somehow, in the sunlight. Or the shadows. Either way, I’ll—
“Ms. Doyle? Are you still there?”
“How is she today?” Maggie asked in lieu of a response. She needed to know before she got there. She needed to prepare herself.
Nurse Keller cleared her throat, sounding a little like the engine of a big-block Chevy revving up for a drag race. “She’s been sitting in the parlor for the last hour or so. Not too talkative today, but she’s awake and out of bed. I’d take that as a good sign.” Her voice remained noncommittal, not revealing much of anything. Maggie supposed when you worked in a place like Elmhurst House, you couldn’t get too attached to any one person on any given day.
“All right. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The nurse’s words sounded stiff. “We’ll see you in a little while, then.”
Yes, you will.
Maggie hung up the phone and uncurled herself from the chair.
Standing in front of the mirror, wondering if it mattered whether or not she changed her shirt or did her hair, she tried to imagine the world inside her mother’s head. She tried to picture the cast of characters from the past who had taken up residence there. Maggie pulled at the corners of her eyes, but the tiny wrinkles didn’t disappear. God, she’d never even heard of early-onset Alzheimer’s before three years ago. She certainly hadn’t imagined the way it could twist a life into something unrecognizable.
At first, her mother had joked about losing her car keys or driving all the way to the salon and forgetting her purse. She blamed her failing eyesight for the fact that she put away her socks in the basement freezer. She told Maggie that the reason she called her daughter Diane sometimes was because she’d always wanted Maggie’s middle name to be that instead of May.
I wanted to believe her,
Maggie thought as she took out her ponytail, parted her hair and pulled a brush through it. The snarls hurt.
I wanted to accept every excuse she gave me. After John died, I thought living by herself made her lonely. God help me, I thought she made up half her problems just to have something to talk about when she called me every night.
The telephone call after eleven on a sleety November night had changed all that. Maggie had driven home, four hours without stopping, to find a woman she didn’t recognize curled up in the fetal position, whispering names Maggie didn’t know and had never heard before.
Some of the doctors tried to find environmental reasons for it, personal triggers for her mother’s dementia. Some simply pointed to chemical changes in her mother’s brain, as if Hillarywere a specimen to be analyzed, more a subject and less a person. All charged more than Maggie’s meager health insurance policy or Hillary’s pension could cover. In the end, it didn’t matter what had altered her mother. Elmhurst House, the only assisted-living facility within fifty miles of Hart’s Falls that Maggie could afford, became Hillary Doyle’s new home. They’d packed up everything one weekend, put the shabby Poughkeepsie house on the market, and driven straight to Rhode Island. Her mother didn’t speak one word the entire trip.
Maggie usually visited on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes Wednesday evenings. Now she had to make the twenty-two mile trek under a blazing morning sun, with fingers crossed that her mother would remember Dillon and the things she’d told Maggie about him, some three or four years ago.
Dillon came to visit this weekend. He’s moving back East, he says. I’m glad. Maybe he’ll visit more often…
You know, your brother is doing well for himself. Finally got away from that partner who was stealing half the profits…
Dillon called yesterday. Wanted to treat me to a weekend up in Boston. Said his business is taking off, that he picked up a couple of rich clients who want to hire him for the whole summer…
Maggie catalogued the things she knew about her brother—her stepbrother, really, no relation except in growing up under the same sagging roof. One: after spending some time wandering around California and Oregon, doing odd jobs, he’d found his way back East. To Boston, maybe, or someplace close by. Two: he owned his own company, or had at one point. And three: this company was successful enough to attract elite city spenders. She ticked off the positives on her fingers and hoped they might outweigh the negatives circling her brain.
He doesn’t live in Boston.
His business went belly-up years ago.
He never even started one to begin with.
Maggie stared out the window, at the lilacs and hyacinths and lily of the valley blooming in her backyard. She’d planted them all, taken gardening books out of the local library and urged the flowers to take root and bloom for her. She found, after the first few visits with her mother, that she needed something else to tend to. She needed bright faces that responded to the sun and the rain and her voice talking to them. She picked at a chip in the wooden sill, blinking back tears that had snuck up on her.
Darn it. I don’t even want to say goodbye to my gardens.
She rubbed at her eyes.
Well, I won’t worry until I get there,
she thought as she slipped her bare feet into flip flops.
Until I see Ma. Until I hear what she has to say
. She grabbed her purse, vintage patchwork and suede with a clasp that didn’t always work, and headed for her car.
Only if she doesn’t remember me, only if she doesn’t have a clue about where I might find Dillon, will I panic
.
Only then.
11:00 a.m.
Jack Major wrapped his fingers around a pencil and struggled not to break it in two. Behind him, framed in the windows of the top-floor meeting room, Boston’s skyline speared the heavy, gray clouds. He pulled at his tie and tried to remember if he had any aspirin left in his desk.
“…and so most of the reports confirm that the Hart’s Falls location is the best one for our southern branch,” the vice-president of Bullieston finished. He wiped his brow and glanced at his superior, a nervous squeak in the final syllable of his report.
Jack didn’t speak. The back of his neck burned with impatience. Around the table, three junior VPs waited, adjusting their collars and trying not to meet his gaze. The heater whined, sending a stale draft of warm air into the room. For late June, the morning was cool, almost ominous, in its threat of rain. Jack spun the Rolex on his wrist and wondered if he’d have time for lunch.
“Zoning?”
“Not a problem. The properties we’re looking at are in a commercial area. North end of Main Street, easy access to the interstate.”
“How many can we get?”
One of the other VPs shuffled through a file folder. “Two for sure. Both single-story houses. Both rentals, currently empty. Talked to the owner yesterday, who’s more than willing to unload them to us.”
Jack nodded. With any luck, the buildings would be gone before summer’s end, and Bullieston Software could move ahead with the office complex that its board of directors had planned.
“There’s a third possible property, adjacent to the other two,” Carl Anderson went on after a moment. “It’s a larger piece, on almost an acre of land. But that one’s on hold for the moment.”
On hold
. Jack didn’t like those words. They meant delay. Difficulty. Pressure from the Board. He rubbed his chin and stared at the table. Waves of tension rolled through the room.
“Has anyone talked to the owner about selling?”
“Apparently the first floor of that house has been turned into an interior design business,” Carl said, “with the owner living upstairs. I did make a call this morning…” He trailed off and reached for a pitcher of water, spilling a little as he poured himself a glass. “I hope that she’ll get back to me sometime today.” He cleared his throat and wiped the corners of his mouth.
“She?” For the first time in a long five minutes, Jack slid his gaze from the notepad where he’d been jotting ideas, pictures, threats.
“The designer. The owner. She’s in arrears. Behind on—ah—three mortgage payments, I believe. The Bay Bank is about to begin foreclosure, so I don’t think she’ll have any choice but to sell the place.” The man checked his notes again. Sweat dotted his temples.
Jack cracked his knuckles, relieved. This wouldn’t be as difficult as he’d imagined. “Then it should just be a matter of talking to her and getting the paperwork in order. Right?”
Carl stared at his boss. “Ah, yes. Right.”
Jack closed the file. “We don’t need to spend any more time on this. I’ll expect an update Monday morning.”
The vice-president scratched something on a piece of paper.
Jack’s gaze swept the room. “I don’t need to remind you all that we’ve spent the last year researching locations. Done multiple financial analyses. Spent umpteen hours driving up and down the interstate between three different states.” He slapped a flat palm against the wood of the enormous meeting table. Everyone jumped.
“We have well over ten million dollars invested in these expansion plans. I don’t want any glitches in the next few weeks. None at all. That includes getting this third property.” He aimed the last remark straight at Carl before turning to the map on the wall.
Bullieston had signed the papers on a three-story building in Wildwood Lakes, New Hampshire, last week. Now the Board wanted a modest but key location in Hart’s Falls, Rhode Island. With satellites to the north and south of its Boston hub, the multi-million dollar software company was poised to become one of the leading industries in the northeast. As CEO, Jack Major had no intention of letting anything stop the expansion plans.
“Carl, spend the rest of the afternoon on the telephone if you have to. I don’t care how many times you have to call, or how many messages you have to leave. Convince this woman that she’d be a hell of a lot better off selling to us and saving her name than packing her bags once the bank starts foreclosing.” He rose, and the five other men hurried to scrape their chairs against the floor and stand as well. Nodding, they waited as Jack strode from the room.
A murmur of conversation rose behind him, but he didn’t care. He could imagine what they might be saying about the acquisition, about him. Having been promoted to the company’s top position two years ago at the age of thirty, Jack knew he had his doubters. His critics. He also knew they were far too afraid of him, and of the conservative board of directors, to breathe a word of discontent out loud. If some minor hang-up like a stubborn small businesswoman stood in the way of the company’s progress, he had no doubt that those five men in the room behind him, directors of their respective divisions, would walk across coals in their bare feet to make the acquisition happen.
A wry smile crossed Jack’s face as he marched into his corner office. The power of his position and the influence he wielded never failed to please him. From the womb, he’d been groomed for it. The Major bloodline, well grounded in Boston, demanded it. Everything he’d done since leaving home at eighteen, every step he’d taken and every goal he’d set, had led him to this point. He’d planned it. Earned it. Worked his way through college at the top of his class, earned himself a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, and landed on the fast track to corporate success soon after returning to the States.
A glimpse of his reflection in the wall of windows revealed a square jaw and cleft in his chin, both courtesy of his father’s English heritage. His broad shoulders and long legs, good for tackling on the football field back in school, matched his father’s as well. Only the light green eyes and jet-black curls reminded Jack of his mother: part Native American, part Irish, five-foot nothing and full of a quiet fire.
That reminds me,
thought Jack.
I owe Taz a phone call.
According to the two messages left on Jack’s private voicemail last week, the youngest of four Major brothers was back from his charity trip to Honduras and needed a favor. Jack shook his head. He loved Taz, but how the guy had managed to dodge the family legacy of big business and fast living still amazed him.
Well, Taz always did march to a different drum,
he thought.
I guess that’s the one thing he got from Mom.
Cracking his knuckles, he fished through his top drawer. He still needed that aspirin. Jack loosened his tie and pulled his thoughts back to the acquisition. To the present. To the light blinking on his private telephone line.
Just past eleven in the morning and she’d already called his office twice. Licking his lips, preparing for the worst, he reached for the receiver.
“Paige? Hello, sweetheart. What’s wrong now?”
“The invitations.”
He rubbed a damp palm on his knee. A familiar ache set in around his temples. Meetings with the board he could handle with no problem. Disgruntled clients and impatient department heads posed no challenge. But Paige? Beautiful, successful Paige Webster, partner at Crohn and Sawyer Legal Firm and Jack’s fiancée as of last month, had a way of turning him inside out with two words.
“What about them?”
“The engraver isn’t sure he can meet with us this afternoon.” Tension strung her words into long, slippery syllables.
“We had an appointment with him?” Jack rubbed his temples, waiting for the aspirin to kick in.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Fingernails tapped impatiently on the other end of the line. “You forgot?”
He tried a different tactic. “Can’t you handle meeting him without me? You know all about that stuff.”
And I don’t care
, he almost finished. “I trust you,” he said instead.
Paige said nothing.
“Tell you what,” he went on. “We’ll meet at Jacque’s for lunch. Talk about it. I’ll look at the samples, tell you what I like, and then you can make the final decision.”
“I only have about a half-hour.” Her voice softened a degree.
“How’s the case?” He changed the subject.
“Don’t ask.”
He chided himself for upsetting her. He shouldn’t blame Paige for getting uptight about the wedding plans, really. She had enough to deal with, prosecuting one of the biggest murder cases on Boston’s docket in recent history. She worked eighteen hours a day, barely ate or slept at all, and here she was trying to plan the city’s most lavish wedding on top of everything else.
Unlike Jack, Paige had worked her way up from a modest childhood, putting herself through college and law school by waiting tables and slinging drinks to Boston bigwigs. To make junior partner at one of the top firms in the city at such a young age—well, she’d proven that she could match Jack step for step on the career ladder.
And he admired his fiancée’s drive, her work ethic, her refusal to settle for less than the best. Beautiful and brainy, Paige matched him perfectly in a half-dozen ways. He only wished she’d slow down every once in a while. Enjoy the engagement. He’d even tried to convince her to use a wedding planner the way some of their friends had, just to free up some time. But she’d fired two within a matter of days, insistent that she could do a better job than either of them.
“Is one o’clock all right for lunch?” Jack said. “I’ll call ahead for a table.”
“Fine. And get something in the back, if you can. I don’t want to sit by the window and have half of Boston staring at me while I eat.”
Jack kind of liked watching the world walk by on the street outside. He liked studying the coeds in their low-cut jeans, the ample-bellied construction workers, professors in tweed coats who muttered Byron under their breaths. The sights of the city he loved refreshed him. They reminded him of the world outside his corporate office. Still, he supposed Paige had a point. She spent so much time in the public eye, criticized in the newspaper or misquoted on the local news, that a fragment of anonymity every now and then was the least he could do for her.
“Bye, babe.” She hung up before he could answer.
“Goodbye,” Jack said to the air. The clock on his desk, an elaborate creation from the Museum of Modern Art, flipped silver squares in a delicate pattern as it turned to eleven forty-five. Outside his door, the secretaries’ voices rose in laughter.
“Oh, I know what I’d do if I won the lottery,” he heard one of them say. “I’d fly straight to Vegas and gamble it all away.”
“No, you wouldn’t!” said another, sounding shocked. “All that money, and you’d waste it on—”
Jack stopped listening.
Las Vegas
. Now there was an idea. Maybe he could convince his fiancée to forego all the pomp and jump on a jet. They could spend a weekend in a glitzy resort, maybe invite some close friends to come along, and tie the knot there in the middle of the Nevada desert. It sure would save them a few thousand dollars, not to mention six months’ worth of headaches and arguments.
But even as the thought scratched his brain, Jack dismissed it. She’d never go for it. Paige, an only child, wanted a traditional ceremony. She wanted the ten bridesmaids, the ice sculptures, the fireworks over the bay. She’d turned thirty-five a couple of months ago and he had made her wait far too long for a proposal in the first place. Finally, gentle nudging from his father, who wanted grandchildren in the worst way, and a realization that they were the last of all their friends to settle down, had made him pop the question. Plus, a Webster-Major marriage wouldn’t hurt either of their careers. Considering all that, he doubted a shotgun affair in Vegas would measure up.
The clock flipped again, this time sliding a square, steel twelve into the space where eleven had been. Jack barely noticed.
Las Vegas
.
One corner of his mouth twitched.
My God
,
I almost forgot
. The memory he’d buried a lifetime ago, the one he took out and dusted off only when he had too much to drink, blazed into his mind. For a minute, that memory erased the office, the lunch reservation, the Hart’s Falls acquisition.
One night in Vegas, longer ago than he cared to remember, everything in Jack Major’s life had changed. A giddy airplane ride, a sleepless twenty-four hours, a low-budget hotel room on the Strip, and his heart had been broken with so much violence that weeks later, he still wasn’t sure what had happened. That single night, and the morning after, had crushed him. It had crippled him. It had wrung his heart clean of every emotion he‘d ever believed in. And for a while, Jack pointed to that experience as the moment that divided his life in two.
Before and After Vegas. Before and After Her
. Twenty-four hours, and everything changed. Twenty-four hours, and he went from a college senior heady in love to a man setting his sights on Wall Street and swearing off women forever. Jack’s jaw set as he forced the memory away. Well, no use remembering now. He’d traveled a lifetime since then. He’d moved on to other jobs, places, lovers, possibilities. That night was gone, just a memory, and so was the boy he used to be.