Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  She's never had any women close to her, Jane suddenly realized. Only men.

  But that was more than Jane had.

  Chapter 16

  Cissy never came back with her evidence, and when Jane walked out to go to town the next morning, she saw that Cissy's Jeep was gone. Nine chances out of ten Phillip was back and snapping his fingers. It bothered Jane that the girl had fallen so completely under his spell. Not that there was anything wrong with spells, but Phillip was far too jaded for Cissy's sweet innocence. They were a tricky combination as a couple.

  Jane held up the pale yellow sleeve of her sweater against the peeling clapboard of the cottage and speculated about that shade of paint. Too yellow for Nantucket? Was white the best? She sighed, pleasantly obsessed by the homeowner's ultimate dilemma — just what color to paint the house — and realized again how good life could be on Nantucket year round. True, she hadn't been tested through an entire long and empty winter; but she knew instinctively that she'd fit in. Books, a crackling fire — no ghosts — and a man who truly loved her; that was the formula for making it through the cruel months.

  Too bad I can't get the formula quite right, she thought wistfully. I have one ghost too many and one man too few. She paused and listened to herself. This fretting over ghosts was new, obviously. But so was this fretting about not having a mate. After all, Jane was the one who'd always been comfortable about being single. Her friends used to be very impressed by her cool independence — the same friends who were now all married with children.

  Jane Drew — having second thoughts?

  Oh, what the heck. Chalk it up to spring.

  Besides, her love life wasn't completely without hope at the moment. Sooner or later Bing would be, if ever so briefly, back on Nantucket. She laughed a resigned little laugh and struck out on foot for Cliff Road and the town center, pausing every little while to admire the yellow forsythia still in bloom, or to stick her nose in the sweet waxy flowers drooping from the branches of an Andromeda bordering the road.

  Jane was still ambling along when she heard someone behind her. She turned to see Mac McKenzie coming up fast. It caught her unaware; he seemed to appear out of nowhere. He was wearing town clothes and walking with long, powerful strides, completely in his element on this stretch of near-country road. She couldn't help remembering him as he was at Phillip Harrow's dinner party, when he'd seemed so hemmed in by Phillip's fine antiques and crystal.

  At the time she thought he was shy, or possibly just plain sullen. Now she saw that he'd been biding his time all evening like some cornered lion, waiting to leap over their gentility and savor his freedom again. He couldn't survive for long in the drawing room, not without hurting himself or someone else. He needed this — the land, the sky, the ocean — the way Jane's mother needed theater and the opera.

  As he drew nearer to her, Jane saw a look on his face that she'd never seen before, a mix of contentment and anticipation. He looked far younger than his forty years. Of course! she realized. He feels it even more than I, this surge of spring. His whole life has oriented him to this season. He doesn't just witness the miracle of rebirth. He lives it; he's part of it. She could see it in his eyes, in his bearing, in the ruggedly handsome lines of his face.

  And it took her breath away.

  She stopped and waited for him. "Good morning," she said rather shyly, aware that their last exchange had been a typically caustic one. She wished, quite suddenly, that she could erase her memory of it. It was too perfect a day to go on sniping at one another — and anyway, she was wearing a skirt. Skirts made her feel feminine and winsome and not like fighting.

  Mac picked up right away on the fact that she wasn't in jeans and a sweatshirt. His gaze swept over her skirt, her lemon yellow sweater, her pinned-back auburn hair. "You finally get a job?" he quipped as he fell in alongside her. But there was an appreciative softness in his voice that was new, and it made her heart beat faster.

  "Nothing so radical as that," she said lightly, suddenly hoping against hope that it would matter to him. "It just feels good to dress up a little now and then."

  Mac slipped his hands in the pockets of his corduroys and slowed his pace to match hers. "Well, you'll be wearing power suits soon enough, back in Connecticut," he said without looking at her.

  For Mac it was a pretty blatant feeler, and it showed: a dark telltale flush began creeping up his neck.

  "All my plans are on hold right now," she confessed, giving him the information he seemed to be after. "I may never get off the island. Someone's living in my condo, my mother's taking my car, and no one wants to buy Lilac Cottage."

  "No one? That's hard to believe; you're doing a good job with that house," Mac said. "I'm glad to see you're not tarting it up."

  She savored the compliment, such as it was, before she disillusioned him. "Yeah, but you weren't there when Phillip's first buyer went through. 'Rough as a corncob' was all he said. The second one said even less — he just paced it off, muttered 'No land,' and left."

  Mac laughed under his breath and said, "That's the oldest one in the books: Send over a couple of so-called buyers to bad-mouth the property and drive down your hopes."

  "What're you talking about?" she asked, at a loss. "Why would Phillip do that?"

  "Obviously, because he wants to buy your property himself," Mac said in a voice that was suddenly low and grim and bitter.

  "What? Phillip isn't interested in Lilac! I had to force him just to take a polite look around. He doesn't want any more property on the island, Mac. He's told Cissy that he thanks his lucky stars he didn't get stuck with Bing's place. I assume Phillip has a cash-flow problem just like everyone else."

  "Naturally you continue to defend him," Mac said as they walked side by side. The more annoyed he got, the faster he walked. The faster he walked, the more annoyed Jane became.

  She decided that Mac was too biased ever to be fair to Phillip. "Mac, I know all about what happened when you and Phillip were in high school," she blurted. "I can see why you don't trust the man. But give me a little credit, won't you? I work with all kinds of people —"

  "And I don't, you mean?" he shot back. "I spend the day swinging from the tree limbs I'm paid to saw off?"

  She flushed, then halted and retreated in the face of his anger. "Okay, I agree, Phillip's not the best. But that doesn't mean he goes around twirling his mustache and plotting evil all day long," she said stubbornly.

  There they were, standing in the middle of Cliff Road, exchanging blows again. And meanwhile the sun was just as warm and bright and the daffodils were just as beguiling. Heartsick that they were destroying a perfectly magical walk, Jane sighed and said, "Why do we always do this? Why do we always fight?" She fell back to walking, but her heart wasn't in it.

  "Wait!" Mac said, reaching out for her arm. Electrified, she stopped and turned, and he released her. His look was intense, determined. "We fight because we can't communicate. Then we get frustrated. Then we get mad. Isn't it obvious?"

  "Not to me it isn't," she said, still burning from his touch. "This has never happened to me before. People in advertising don't usually have problems communicating."

  "It's happened to me before," he said in a voice of black calm. "With my ex-wife." He turned away from Jane and started heading alone to town, leaving her standing there.

  "Oh. Well — well, I'm not your ex-wife, dammit!" she yelled as he walked on ahead. "And I wish you'd stop treating me as if I were!" She listened in amazement to herself screaming.

  Mac stopped — again — and turned in time to see her throw up her hands in frustration. "All right," he said with an ironic smile. "We'll start over." He bowed and held out his hand in a gallant gesture for her to join him. "What do you want to try to talk about?"

  It was as close to a truce as she was ever going to get. Mollified, she fell in beside him again and said, "This is how we'll handle it: If one of us doesn't want to discuss something, we'll just say 'pass.' And the other will respect t
hat. Do you agree?"

  He nodded, humoring her earnestness with a grin, and she noticed for the first time how really handsome he was in profile. He had a dimple in his right cheek. Now she wanted to know if he had one in his left.

  "For ... for instance," she stammered, still distracted, "I've been meaning to ask you about that sign in your office — WHOLESALE ONLY. How come you don't sell retail? Is there a zoning problem?"

  "No; I'm grandfathered for retail business. I don't know," he said with a shrug, "I used to do it, but it's a hassle. I can't be in a shop and in the field at the same time, and I'd rather be in the field." He broke off a twig of spicebush and stripped its leaves absentmindedly, crushing them in his hands. He took a deep whiff and held out his cupped palm for her to smell.

  "Nice," she said, inhaling the sweet scent. "But wouldn't it pay for you to hire someone to work that side of the business?"

  "They'd have to work for next to nothing, and the only one who'd do that would be a wife," he explained laconically.

  "I understand. Whereas your wife Celeste —"

  "Pass."

  "Right. But it does seem a shame that you can't cash in on the seasons more than you do. I know I sound mercenary, but there's money to be made from events like Daffodil Weekend. And you just missed Easter. Mother's Day is coming up ... June weddings ... and Christmas! If you could just see your way to expanding from trees and shrubs to flowers and wreaths —"

  "I think I've explained why I'm not interested," he said with surprising patience.

  "Yes, because you can't afford to pay for full-time help. What if you started small? Your advertising could be minimal, just some flyers around town and a two-line classified. You don't need much inventory. Can you heat the hoop house? Oh, and an answering machine, that would definitely help. Someone could come in for you, say, just on weekends —"

  "Pass, I said."

  She had an inspiration. "I could come in, just on weekends! I wouldn't mind. It'd be fun!"

  "Pass. Pass, for Chrissake!" he shouted, clapping his palms to his forehead. "What is it with you? You get me to agree to this ... this rule of civility, and then you run roughshod over it!"

  "Oh." Jane stopped on the sidewalk — they were in town now — and blushed a shade of red as deep as the bricks under her feet. Of course if he didn't want her free help — the damned ingrate—then fine. He could just hide back there and lick his wounds until the bank foreclosed.

  She was rounding on him, ready to fire into him for his defeatist ways, when she spied a small rabbit across the street on the front lawn of one of the grand prewar summer houses that lay at the edge of town. The rabbit was on its hind legs, watching them with an expression that said, "People, people! This is a residential neighborhood!"

  It all took less than five seconds. Jane realized — really for the first time, since she'd had no experience — that it took two to do battle. To maintain peace, all she had to do was hold her fire. She took a deep breath, threw a smile at the bunny rabbit, and said to Mac, "You're right. I did break my rule, and I was butting in where it was none of my business. Friends?"

  She held out her hand to Mac, who shook it suspiciously. They walked a little way together, their conversation more awkward than their silences, until Mac suddenly stopped, bent down, and snapped off a daffodil that was growing at the base of an enormous maple.

  He presented it to her. "You don't need a designated weekend to enjoy a daffodil," he said with a look as complex as anything she'd seen from him.

  This was new for her. In her lifetime she'd been presented many times with roses by the boxful, all swathed in tissue and highlighted with Baby's Breath. But to be given this single, humble, naturalized flower ... She was overcome by a surge of emotion that lifted her like a moon tide, snapping the single thread that held her to her moorings. She was adrift; she didn't know what to do or say.

  "I can see why you chose it," she said, trying to sound lighthearted. "It's definitely the prettiest one on the island."

  "I think so, too."

  She was hearing his tone more than his words. "N-no, I meant the flower," she stammered, blushing furiously.

  "So did I," he said with a smile.

  That, of course, made her blush still more. Maybe he was right, after all; maybe they couldn't communicate. And yet, she was holding his keepsake in her hand, and they were strolling side by side, and now that she thought about it, she wasn't mistaken about the tone in his voice.

  They came to the corner of Lily Street and Mac paused and said, "This is my turnoff."

  "You're not going into town?" she asked, surprised.

  "Actually, a very nice lady has asked me to lunch."

  Young? Pretty? Good cook? The questions lined up on Jane's tongue, but she beat them back and said, "I'll be seeing you, then."

  "Where're you off to?"

  Jane considered lying, but she answered, "The Atheneum."

  "And what's at —"

  "Pass," she said tersely.

  "Ah."

  There was no denying the disappointment in his face. He seemed almost hostile, as if this were an inconvenient time for her mad obsession about Judith to surface. Jane sighed and shrugged, the disappointment in her face mirroring his own.

  ****

  She went the rest of the way alone, absently twirling the flower in her hand, wondering how they were going to get around this last and biggest impasse of all. Maybe they could skirt around the subjects of his wife, his financial straits, and his business methods; maybe they could come up with a way to pretend she didn't have a master's degree and a staggering number of frequent-flyer miles with three different airlines. But they sure as hell were not going to get around the fact that she believed in ghosts — well, one ghost — and he didn't.

  Jane wanted so much not to believe. Take right now, for instance. The thought that the spirit of Judith Brightman was using her to complete some unfinished business seemed ludicrous. This was Nantucket, not Salem.

  Dammit! She'd never live in a historic zone again; give her a nice new suburb anytime.

  Jane had a few moments before the Atheneum opened, so she lingered over a simple but hearty calzone at the year-round waterfront café, then wandered aimlessly around the wharf area. Some of the shops, housed in tiny neat shacks with still-empty window boxes, hadn't yet opened for the season, but here and there a determined shopkeeper or gallery owner had turned on the lights and the heat.

  There were no yachts, there were no shoppers to speak of, and yet the wharves had a cheerful, never-say-die air about them, probably because they were vibrant with spring bulbs: tulips and daffodils and grape hyacinths, all enjoying their all-too-brief time out of the ground.

  Jane had no real desire to go to the library, not after her experience there the day before, but at two o'clock she turned dutifully in the direction of Federal Street. She walked up the steps and stood under the library's columns, clutching the daffodil, which she'd wrapped in a wet paper napkin, and tried to think of reasons not to go in.

  If you find Ben's name in there, then what? And if you don't find his name — then what?

  Then what. The question had clung to her from the start like a cold, foggy shroud. It was pointless to speculate; who could possibly say what Judith had in mind next? Jane took a deep breath and went in, praying that whatever happened, she would be spared the pain and fright she'd suffered the day before. In a minute she was in the microfilm room, spooling through the last week of 1829 and into the first of 1830.

  And there it was.

  The bodies of three sailors — Ben Brightman, Francis Sylvia, and Ned Quick — had been discovered thrown up on the beach within a few hundred yards of the Humane House. Jane found herself actually disappointed that she hadn't come up with the names of the other two sailors on her own. It was a little like being at bat and hitting only one for three — a decent performance, but not good enough for Most Valuable Player.

  Shocked by her cool detachment, Jane rewound t
he spool and hurried from the library. The one thing she didn't want to do was to lose sympathy for Judith's cause. She knew, instinctively, that that would be fatal.

  ****

  Billy was at Lilac Cottage, putting up the last of the repainted glass-front cabinet doors. The kitchen was looking wonderful in an old-fashioned cheery way. Somehow, without installing Corian counters, designer faucets, or a Jenn-Aire cooktop, Billy had managed to bring out the best in the sweet old room. The new window over the sink invited twice as much sunlight, and with the pantry wall knocked down, the light was able to reach every corner. Best of all, everything was original, from the stripped-down pine floors and white wainscotting to the homey porcelain sink, newly adorned with a blue gingham skirt.

  "Billy, you did really, really well," Jane said with quiet satisfaction as she turned slowly around the room. "I'm glad you talked me out of the linoleum."

  "Hey, whaddya need it for? You don't have kids crawling around on their hands and knees all day."

  It was like taking an unexpected blow. "That's for sure," she murmured, catching her breath. She handed him a screwdriver, thinking. It's happening. I'm starting to panic. I'll be going to a sperm bank next.

  Billy looked down at her from his stepladder. "Did I say something wrong?"

  "No, not at all," she lied. "I think I must be a little blue over ... over funds, that's all. I'll be fine as soon as my mother pays me for my car this week. I have to admit, I thought I'd be back in Connecticut by now, having new business cards printed; but out here, one week just seems to fade into another."

  "Yeah. That's life, I guess."

  ****

  That evening the fickle month of April, like an ill-bred mistress, turned from temptress to banshee. A solid bank of clouds had been approaching the island all afternoon, and when it arrived, it came with a howling wind and pounding rain. The effect on Jane was profound. The last of the optimism she'd been feeling that morning was washed away in a wave of misgivings. The cold, hard facts were these: she was going through her money like a drunken sailor; Bing was never around long enough for the two of them to develop a meaningful relationship; and Mac seemed on and off to hate her guts.