A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Five years earlier, Norah's third husband, Maximillian Mills, had built the house as a birthday present. Max was a very rich Texan who had never quite connected with the low-key sensibility of the Sandy Pointers. Max had wanted a palace for his new bride, and that's what Norah had got.

  But the marriage went south and so did Max, to Palm Beach, where he felt more at ease among the cap-and-polo set. His fancy new pals spent their summers in the Hamptons, of course, so naturally Max did too. Norah, on the other hand, stayed faithful to her friends, opting to summer in sleepy, not- so-fancy Sandy Point.

  But that didn't mean she was thrilled about it.

  She continued to flip through the alphabet of her Rolodex, muttering nonstop about her misery the whole time.

  "This backwater hole ... we can't compete ... Nantucket's bound to do a better show ... Osterville, too ... Marion has money ... Marblehead has mansions ... we have squat ... no one's going to pledge ... hmm, my good friend Senator Haskins from Connecticut—would he kick in? Probably not. They have their own lighthouses to worry about ... ah, Billy Bob Jordan! Billy Bob owes me; we'll pull him out ..."

  Little by little the stack of cards piled up on the patio table's glass top as the Rolodex came full circle. In the meantime, Joan was happily leafing through her fireworks catalog (Maddie, who hadn't known there was such a thing, had already shown it to Tracey and her friends, pandering shamelessly for their good will).

  While Norah flipped and Joan thumbed, Maddie reflected. She sat back on the chaise, cradling her coffee, breathing deep the combination of Starbucks and salt air. She smiled at the reassuring sight of Tracey and her girlfriend Julie sunbathing at the far end of Norah's beach—and wondered what was missing from the friendly, comfortable scene.

  Well ... Maddie's father, for one thing. How much better, if he were perusing the science section of the Tuesday Times and enjoying his own coffee back at the cottage right now. A wistful sigh escaped her. She missed him.

  She missed her mother, too. Sarah Timmons should be at the library right now, organizing the used book sale, not brooding alone in Sudbury.

  And finally, painfully, ultimately—Dan Hawke. Was it possible to miss someone, not during the twenty years that he'd been out of your life, but after he showed up again?

  It was. Her gaze slid to the east. She saw the white cone of the lighthouse, aglint in the morning light, practically daring her to walk along its sandy beach. Once, the morning walk would've been part of her daily regimen. No more. It was yet another part of her life that she'd had to shut down because of him.

  I miss you. Damn you.

  Out of sight, out of mind, went the old saying, and for twenty years it had proved more or less true. But after the scene in her kitchen, Maddie was being forced to deal not with the memory of Dan Hawke, but with the man himself: with the nick in his eyebrow, the scar on his cheek, the utterly electrifying way he said her name.

  I miss you. Damn you. I miss you.

  She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. The memory of him was one thing, the sight and scent and sound of him another thing altogether.

  The soap bubble of her thoughts was pricked by Joan, who said, "Hey, I almost forgot. Trixie finally wrangled a telephone interview out of him."

  No need to ask who "him" was. Maddie mumbled "Good for Trixie."

  "Interview!" Norah said with a snort. "I heard about that interview. He answered all twelve questions with yesses and noses. Max's cockatoo has a bigger vocabulary." Her voice turned low and musing as she added, "Still, he does seem to be coming around. I have hopes."

  "I'll bet you do,'' said Joan, giving the redhead a sideways look.

  Norah shrugged. "I admit it. The man intrigues me. There's something so remote about him ... he's like the lighthouse, surrounded on three sides by water. But he's not yet an island. I can reach him. I will reach him."

  Joan nodded gravely, as if Norah had just announced an all-out drive to save the rain forest. She sneaked a quick glance at Maddie before immediately returning her attention to Norah.

  Norah pounced on that glance. "What's up, Joan? What is it you want to say?"

  Joan's cheeks got red. "Well, nothing ... I mean, if Maddie has nothing to say about it ..."

  Norah said, "Maddie? Do you have something to say about it? Or do you plan to go all summer without telling us what the hell went on between you and Dan Hawke?''

  So. The moment of truth had arrived. It was idiotic to think that Norah hadn't got wind of Maddie's connection to Dan Hawke. Maddie had been subjected to enough odd glances and pointed questions around town to know that her past—some version of it, any way—was making the rounds. The jig seemed to be up.

  But instead of answering Norah, Maddie turned to a thoroughly sheepish Joan and said calmly, "I'm curious. Tell me how you claim to know about Dan Hawke and me."

  Joan stared into her teacup like some fortune teller at a strip mall. "Trixie told me," she said without looking up. "She said that you and Dan Hawke were once—you know—a pretty hot item."

  "And how does Trixie claim to know this?" Maddie asked, still managing to sound casual.

  Joan looked up. Her brown eyes became two slits of concentration. "I just want to make sure I get this straight. It was Trixie's brother's ... boss's ... hairdresser's cousin, I believe. I might have missed a career in their somewhere. But I know it started with this cousin who used to work as a groundskeeper at Lowell College, and he said that you and Dan used to ... to ... He saw you two, uh ... he saw you doing it behind the bushes once!" she finally blurted out.

  Maddie gasped. "He said that? He saw that? Oh, my God. I don't believe it. He said that?"

  Now what? Confess? And stop where?

  Best to keep on denying. "I don't know what he thought he saw," Maddie said firmly, "but he didn't see that."

  Joan looked uncertain and so did Norah. Maddie should've quit while she was ahead, but she proceeded to go and blow it.

  "Besides," she added, "he may be able to remember Dan Hawke's face, but he can't possibly have a clue who I am. It could've been the Queen of Sweden behind that shrub, for all he knew."

  Joan looked hurt. "Oh, Maddie," she said, "you don't have to lie to us. We're your friends." Before Maddie had a chance to deny the lie, Joan added, "The reason everyone figured out that it was you is, the groundskeeper said that Dan Hawke carved both your initials in a tree after ... it ... took place. The groundskeeper remembers thinking how old-fashioned it seemed, carving initials in a tree. He remembered the initials. D, H, M, and T. He remembered they sounded like 'dammit.' "

  Their initials. Maddie hadn't forgotten them, but she hadn't thought about them for many years. Out of sight, out of mind.

  "The tree is gone," she said quietly, caving in at last. "It was cut down the following year."

  "After your wickedness, you mean." Norah seemed positively joyful at the sight of Maddie squirming. "My, oh my, proper Maddie Timmons, banging in the bushes with Dan Hawke? Gee. Who would've guessed?"

  Maddie managed a small, wry smile. "But you'll notice I got right back on the straight and narrow: I married into an old Boston family and went directly to Bermuda for my honeymoon."

  "Dummy."

  "Not so dumb," Maddie said with a flash of heat. "I wouldn't have had Tracey otherwise."

  Norah, childless, had no comeback for that. She softened and said, "So are you going to tell us about the guy, or what?"

  Tell us about the guy.

  It sounded so tempting. For twenty years she'd kept him hidden in the hollows of her heart. It was hard not to share someone like Dan Hawke. And yet ...

  "There's not a whole lot to tell," Maddie said, glancing back at the lighthouse despite herself. "It was a wild college fling. We were so young ... so different from one another. Maybe that was the attraction. But there was nothing substantive to it," she insisted. "It wasn't the kind of relationship you could build on, have children from. We were just too different."

  Norah wasn't buyi
ng it. "Why are you so reluctant to tell us about him, if it was just one of those flings?"

  "Well, look at you, now that you know," said Maddie with an edgy laugh. "You're going to be a hopeless pest about him."

  "True." Norah flashed her infamous grin. "So-o-o? Curious minds want to know: how was he?"

  "At?"

  Norah snorted. "Picking pineapples."

  "Norah!" cried Joan, coming to Maddie's defense. "She can't possibly remember; it was decades ago. Can you remember your first time?''

  "Of course I can!"

  "Who told you it was my first time, for pity's sake?" Maddie said, sitting up in the chaise.

  Blinking like an owl, Joan said, "I suppose I just figured it out for myself. You once said that you were still a virgin in your junior year, and the groundskeeper only worked at Lowell College for a year—your junior year, I figured out—so either you became some kind of nymphomaniac overnight, or—"

  "Good God, Joan! Don't you have anything better to do than to work out the dates of my sexual portfolio?"

  Stung, Joan snapped, "It's your fault, Maddie; you're the one who's clammed up good about him. You were the same way when you were splitting up with Michael. Maybe if you weren't always so private about your sex life—"

  "My sex life is my own business, damn it!"

  "No, it's not. I repeat: how was he?" said Norah.

  Completely exasperated by now, Maddie flung her hands in the air and said, "Great! He was great! We went at it day and night! He had a dick the size of a musk ox and it never went down between bouts! Is that what you wanted to hear?"

  "No kidding?"

  "Oh, for ..." Maddie let herself drop back on the chaise and covered her face in her hands. She sucked in a big breath of air, pulled her fingers down to her chin, and let out the air in an explosive sigh. She looked at the sea. She looked at the lighthouse. She looked at her friends.

  "All right," she said at last. "I'll tell you what happened. And then we'll never speak of it again. And that includes both of you—to one another or to anyone else. Do I have your word?"

  Joan nodded gravely; Norah, amused, smiled an assent.

  "I met him here, the summer before my junior year. He was part of a crew that was painting the lighthouse, and one day when I was quahogging on the beach, he happened to notice that I was wearing a Lowell College sweatshirt. He'd transferred to Lowell the preceding semester, and naturally he commented on the coincidence."

  Joan nodded and said, "It beats the old 'What's your sign?' "

  Maddie snorted. "I'm not so sure. His exact words were, 'Boyfriend go there?' ''

  "Ouch," said Norah.

  "Yeah. I often think that if he hadn't been such a chauvinist, if he'd just said something conventional like, 'Hi, I go there too,' I would've just smiled and been on my way. Because he really wasn't my type; I could see that at a glance. I've never been big on rebels. I mean, he was such a stereotype. He even rode around on a motorcycle. God, that Harley," she said, laughing softly at the memory. "How it set my parents' teeth on edge."

  "Ah, they knew him, then," said Joan.

  Maddie shook her head. "Not socially. My mother would never acknowledge someone who stored his cigarettes in the sleeve of his T-shirt. Not then; not now; not ever."

  "So how did you two hook up?"

  "I told you. He pissed me off," Maddie said simply. "You know how we all were back then; we didn't let anyone get away with anything. I took him on after that opening crack about a boyfriend, and somehow one thing led to another, and we ended up ... well ... behind the bushes. Among other locations."

  She ran a finger around the rim of her cup and said in a faraway voice, "He was as quick and charismatic as a man could be, you know. A natural leader. But he was from a dirt poor background, and he never let anyone forget it."

  "He bragged about how far he'd come on his own, you mean?"

  "Not at all," Maddie answered, shaking her head. "It was more that he resented anyone who didn't have to make the same trip."

  "That would include you, of course."

  A rueful smile. "No, he said he'd make an exception of me."

  "What a hypocrite!" cried Norah, laughing.

  "That's what he felt, too. It really bothered him. As for me, I didn't care if he was rich or poor," Maddie added softly. "I was crazy about him."

  Still puzzled, Joan said, "But your parents never knew?"

  "Never."

  "How could the groundskeeper know, and not your father?"

  "Dumb luck. My father worked and taught in the physics department, and Dan and I were in liberal arts—Dan was in journalism, I was in literature. Our paths just never crossed with my father's. Plus, my dad was flat out busy with his research when ... well, he was flat out busy at the time," she added, not wishing to go down that road.

  And yet it turned out that she had no choice. Joan was processing information with the efficiency of a computer. She said, "What did break you up, then? Not your parents, since they didn't know. Not the differences in your background, since you seemed to be working around them. Did he take off again? Maybe leave Lowell for an internship with some newspaper or something?"

  "He didn't exactly leave," Maddie confessed. "He was ... pushed."

  "Bad grades? Didn't study?"

  "You really don't know?" Maddie asked, surprised for no logical reason. After all, neither Norah nor Joan was from the Boston area, and even if they had been, they might not have been tuned in to yet another mess on yet another campus.

  But still. The tragedy had been so central to Maddie's life that it was impossible for her to believe that Joan and Norah were in the dark about it.

  Maddie looked from one friend to the other. They seemed to understand how hard the going was for her, and they waited with puzzled patience for her to continue. She gazed at the reflection of a stone urn in the pale blue water of Norah's Olympic-size pool for a long, long moment, and then she spoke.

  "Dan and I had been inseparable the entire fall of my junior year," she began. "I was serious enough about him that I wanted to bring him home and introduce him to my parents. Dan turned the idea down flat. Finally I accused him of being afraid to face my mother."

  Joan was agog. "What did he say?"

  Maddie shrugged. "What could he say? It was true. Oh, he hemmed and hawed and tossed off some rhetoric about taking a stand against the privileged class, but I was convinced he was afraid of sitting down to dinner with my parents and picking up the wrong fork during the fish course. He was incredibly sensitive about dumb little things like that."

  "Lots of people are insecure, socially," Joan said.

  "True. But they don't barricade themselves in buildings to get out of putting on a tie and making small talk at dinner."

  "He didn't!"

  Norah was incredulous. "All this, to get out of a meal with your parents?"

  "Believe it or not, I thought so at the time," Maddie said. "I was young. Emotional. Stupid. Now I see that the timing was pure coincidence. At the time, Americans everywhere were protesting nuclear energy. Lowell just happened to reach critical mass around Thanksgiving, when Dan led the students into taking over the physics building."

  "Surely Lowell didn't have a nuclear facility."

  Maddie shook her head. "But one of the professors was overseeing an experiment in which several of his students were working with nuclear energy," Maddie explained.

  "The actual work was being done in a lab off campus, but it's hard to take over a nuclear lab. Not so the faculty offices; they were in a quaint old Victorian mansion with lots of stained glass. The building was pretty to look at, but not at all secure."

  "I assume that's where he spent Thanksgiving?"

  "Most of it. The point is, my father spent Thanksgiving there, too, negotiating with Dan and the protesters, while the rest of the family sat around a twenty-five-pound turkey pretending nothing was wrong. My mother was the perfect hostess, despite being in a cold fury. But I was sick with anxiety
. It didn't seem possible that Dan could have sabotaged our relationship any more thoroughly."

  Maddie gazed at the lighthouse to their east. "But I was wrong," she said softly. "The day ended up so much worse than in my wildest scenario."

  No one spoke. After a long moment, Joan whispered, "What happened?"

  "Things got out of hand. Equipment was destroyed. Files were scattered. And then someone—they never did find out who—started a fire with them. The building was evacuated, but not everyone ... made it out safely. My father was in the building. He tried to retrieve some of his research. Back then it wasn't like now—you couldn't put a life's worth of accumulated data on a couple of floppy disks and then in a crisis stick them in your pocket and run."

  Maddie wasn't looking at either Norah or Joan now. She was somewhere else altogether: back in Sudbury, forcing down a slice of pumpkin pie while her brother George answered the phone.

  She took a deep breath and went on. "My father was overcome by smoke before he could make it with his armload of files to the door. Fortunately someone was aware that he'd rushed into the building, and they were able to rescue him, but by the time they found him, part of the building had collapsed on him. They weren't able to save his arm—or his research, needless to say."

  Joan was stunned. "He lost his arm in a fire? I thought it was ... on a safari," she said, realizing her naïveté.

  Maddie smiled. "That's what he used to tell everyone: that his arm got crushed by a charging rhino. You actually believed it?"

  "Oh, Maddie, I'm so sorry," said Norah. "What a ... bummer."

  Maddie nodded and said, "It was a long time ago. Lately it hasn't seemed that long."

  "Was anyone ever arrested?" asked Joan.

  "Oh yes. Dan, and as many of his followers as the authorities could round up. But a lot of the charges were dismissed. For one thing, the school was in violation—the sprinkler system was defective. The legal tangle ended up a real mess. I think eventually he was given probation. I really don't know. By then we were out of touch," Maddie said dryly.