A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  So Maddie said simply, "I have a certain amount of experience, and I know people with even more experience than I have, and what I'm telling you is fact."

  "All right," said Tracey with a shrug. "I won't do that anymore."

  So that was that, for now. The trial appeared to be over. All that remained was the punishment.

  Maddie grimaced apologetically and said, "You know you're going to have to be grounded for this."

  "I figured," Tracey admitted.

  "And I'm going to have to insist that you not see Kevin again. At least not for a while."

  "Not see Kevin!" Tracey cried.

  It came out as a shriek of pain. Immediately Maddie knew she'd struck a raw, raw nerve. "Tracey, you don't have to act so shocked. If Kevin is going to drink and smoke pot—''

  "Mom, that's not fair! I said I was sorry! You're grounding me! Why do you have to keep the punishment going forever? That's not fair!"

  "Look, Kevin is too old for you—''

  "He is not! He's fifteen!"

  "He's an old fifteen—"

  "Fifteen is fifteen! He doesn't even drive! How can he be too old?"

  "It's not just the number of years. It's attitude... experience. He's an old fifteen; you're a young fourteen."

  "Of course I'm a young fourteen! What do you expect? You treat me like a two-year-old!" she cried, sending Mr. James sailing across the room.

  Maddie eyed the teddy bear on the edge of the braided rug. "That's because you have a tendency to act like a two-year-old," she said with a dangerous edge in her voice. She stood up, determined to leave while her temper was still in one piece.

  For the rest of her life, Maddie wished that she'd walked out of the bedroom on the spot.

  Because Tracey wasn't through. "Well, I'm just about grown-up, whether you like it or not! I've been in the papers, I've been on TV, and I know more about the homicide department than anyone else in school!"

  And then came the final shot, straight for the heart: "And when I live with Dad instead of you, I'll be able to act my age for a change!"

  Chapter 12

  "Live with your dad instead of me?" Maddie was almost afraid to say the words out loud.

  She wanted to shout, "How dare you say that after I carried you in my womb and nursed you and went sleepless when you were sick and taught you to speak and sing and play and be kind and be fair and gave you birthday parties and sewed your torn clothes and helped you with homework and went to every one of your school events and drove you everywhere and never, ever stopped loving you even for one tiny second, even now, when you're trying your best to hurt me as deeply as you can—how dare you?"

  But she settled for saying, "I don't think so."

  "I can if I want to," Tracey said with a dark look. "You can't stop me. I'm old enough to choose who I want to live with and I want to live with Dad. He'll be home more than you anyway now that he doesn't have a job, and—"

  "What do you mean, doesn't have a job? What're you talking about?"

  Caught betraying a confidence, Tracey folded her arms across her rib cage and said defensively, "He quit. He said he doesn't need the money. He said he's just going to work on his paintings from now on, and other stuff. So he'd be better for me to stay with. Because at least he'd pay attention to me."

  Maddie was flabbergasted. Michael hadn't said a thing about giving up his professorship. "You misunderstood him, Tracey. He must be thinking of taking a sabbatical for a year, that's all."

  "He quit," she insisted. "He told me. He sent them a letter." Now that the cat was out of the bag, she became even more forthcoming. "Someone left him some money in their will and now he doesn't have to teach anymore."

  An inheritance? Who could've died? His great-uncle Winthrop?

  "Dad said he's going to hire a maid. I wouldn't even have to clean my room!"

  "Oh, there's a good reason to move in with someone," Maddie said sarcastically, though she realized that men did it all the time.

  "And he said I'll be able to go to any college that I want because he can afford it. Dad tells me everything," Tracey added with a sniff. "He treats me like a friend."

  "If you were a true friend, you'd be able to keep something in confidence." Maddie had never pumped her daughter for information about Michael, and she didn't plan to change that policy now.

  She surveyed the clutter in the high-ceilinged room with its cabbage rose paper and braided rag rug. It was a typical teenage mess, with cleaning enough for two maids.

  So. Suddenly Michael seemed to be holding all the cards: money and time and Tracey's devotion.

  "Good night, Tracey," Maddie said, closing the door on her way out. "We'll talk more about this tomorrow."

  Tracey didn't respond.

  As she dialed the number of Julie's mother on the phone in her own room, Maddie entertained a new and depressing suspicion. What if Tracey's milk-and-teddy-bear setting had all been staged? Because it certainly was true that once it didn't work, Tracey reverted instantly to form. And all because of Kevin.

  Kevin! The boy was a toad. If Maddie could, she'd ship him off to a penal colony; anything to get him away from Tracey. Michael, Julie—everyone seemed to be a bad influence on the girl. And yet Maddie couldn't just lock her daughter up in a bomb shelter somewhere. Tracey had to go out there, make mistakes, fall down, get hurt, and get back up again. Maddie had to advise her the best she could, and then step back and pray.

  There was no answer at Julie's house; Deborah must have stopped somewhere with her daughter. It was just as well. Maddie was tired of playing the Sheriff of Nottingham. She kicked off her low-heeled shoes, took off her black silk dress—finally—and changed into a batiste nightgown. Without emptying the dishwasher or folding the laundry, she peeled back the blanket on her walnut sleigh bed and lay down wearily in it.

  What a night. Hours of forcing herself to care about Corvettes, fending off an awkward pass, a flat tire, fending off another awkward pass, the shock of seeing Dan shepherding Tracey and Julie home, the exquisite agony of walking off her anger in his company, and now this.

  When I live with Dad. ...

  Not if. When.

  Girls should adore their dads. That wasn't the problem. But Tracey living with her father ... that wasn't an upbringing at all. Michael would never agree to rein her in. Their daughter would run free, which was fine for a Disney movie where the featured creature was an Orca whale, but a disaster when the creature was a teenage girl.

  Michael was so apathetic. Either that or at best he was overly trusting. In Maddie's view, trust was something you earned. You honored it, and then you were given some more of it. But Michael believed that trust was something you got a whole lot of up front, until you did something to have it taken away.

  They didn't agree at all about trust.

  Maddie stared at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Maybe Michael was right. Maybe she was being too hard on Tracey. Maybe—was it possible?—she was actually forcing Tracey into reckless acts of rebellion.

  Another thought occurred to her, even more painful: Was she taking out her feelings about Michael's unfaithfulness on Tracey? Was what Maddie considered common sense parental caution really a fear of being taken advantage of again? For the first time since the divorce, Maddie had to consider whether she was the obvious choice to have custody of their child. Could Michael do better?

  It was hard to believe that. Pushing the thought from her mind, she rolled over onto her side; her stomach; her other side; and then onto her back again. It was a warm night. Maddie made herself get out of bed and open the third window, trying to coax the faint sea breeze. She moved the lace panels aside, hooking each of them behind a metal tie-back, and stared into darkness, hearing the gentle hiss of the black, brooding sea rolling over the beach across the lane. A whiff of honeysuckle drifted through the window screen, maddening and elusive.

  Honeysuckle. Dan.

  Something else ruined, she thought with a sigh. Soon she'd have to leave the Cape a
ltogether.

  The phone rang. Deborah? Maddie was reluctant, but she made herself answer.

  "Maddie."

  Not Deborah. "Hello, Dan," she whispered. The darkened room filled with the sudden scent of honeysuckle.

  His voice was low, tentative. "I, ah, was wondering how things went between Tracey and you."

  Maddie laughed bleakly and said, "She's alive and I'm still here; they haven't hauled me away in handcuffs."

  "Good. I know you can be—"

  "Righteous?"

  "I seem to remember that," he admitted, a smile in his voice.

  "Believe me, I'm having second thoughts about it. In fact, I'm having my first crisis of confidence about being an adequate parent."

  "You're doing just fine," he said stoutly. "Trust your instincts."

  "My instincts say I'm in trouble." She meant it in so many ways.

  After a pause he said, "Well, I won't keep you. I just wanted you to know that I, ah—"

  Care? That you care?

  "That I think Tracey may not have a clue how lucky she is to have you for her mother. But she will. Maybe not tonight or tomorrow ... but she will."

  "I hope you're right, Dan," she said with quiet intensity. "You don't know how much."

  They said good night and Maddie went back to bed feeling immensely comforted. There was a time when his was the last voice she'd hear before drifting off into deep, satisfied sleep.

  Her sleep that night wasn't exactly satisfied, and it definitely wasn't deep, but at least it was sleep.

  ****

  The next morning, Tracey declined to meet her mother in neutral territory, the kitchen, so Maddie had to go up to Tracey's room to pronounce her punishment: no going out except under adult supervision for the next four weeks. The length of the grounding matched Julie's exactly; Maddie and Deborah had agreed on it half an hour earlier.

  Four weeks. Maddie might as well have told her daughter four years. The sentence was received with stony silence.

  "I'll be busy today with the cookout and fireworks," Maddie added, "and I've promised to go to the fund-raiser at Norah's house afterward, so I won't be home until late. Uncle George and Aunt Claire will bring you and your grandmother home, but they're going out again afterward. Will you be all right here alone with just Grandma?"

  Or do I have to hire a security guard?

  No answer.

  "I'll take that as a yes," said Maddie quietly, and left.

  ****

  The smell of charcoal grills being fired up on the town beach carried all the way to Rosedale cottage. Despite the standoff with Tracey, Maddie found her spirits lifting. It was the Fourth of July, after all.

  Dressing was the tricky part. Norah's wine and cheese fund-raiser was scheduled to follow directly after the fireworks, and shorts just didn't seem right. So Maddie donned a flowing sundress in sea foam green, and around her neck she hung a pendant of pearlized teardrops made of vintage Japanese glass. She surveyed herself in the full-length mirror, turning round and round and round, fretting over every angle, despairing of getting her hair just right. Her hair! She pinned it up. She took it down. She pinned it up; she took it down. Up, down. Up? Down. With every rearrangement it became more limp until finally she cried, "Enough!" and left it down.

  She was ready.

  She left her car on the seashelled drive, opting to walk to the lighthouse. Her daughter was at the cookout already, presumably wailing with Julie over their plight. But Deborah was there, too, and that made the outing supervised. Score one for the jailers.

  The crowd milling on the beach was large. There were many faces that Maddie knew and many more that she didn't. Volleyball, badminton, beach soccer—all the usual nets were strung, with players hustling for good shots and bystanders cheering them on. Dogs were everywhere, Frisbees too. A fire engine was parked near the lighthouse, looking official and dismaying kids who had sparklers hidden in their knapsacks.

  Old people sat in their folding beach chairs, keeping an eye on their Igloo coolers and rubbing themselves down with repellant. All around them, kids darted in and out on secret missions known only to them. Teenage girls sat on their blankets, giggling and eyeing the boys. The boys, desperately nonchalant, sneaked hurried looks at the girls.

  Maddie wandered through the crowd looking for Tracey and Julie, and found them with three other friends and no Kevins in sight. She breathed more easily, waved to them all, and made her way to the lemonade stand. Joan was there, ordering up drinks for Norah and herself. She added another lemonade to her tab.

  "Hello, hello," she said to Maddie. "I'm surprised you didn't get here sooner."

  "Why?"

  "To take a pee—what do you think? And check out the lighthouse. But there's a line now."

  "I've peed, thanks," said Maddie, smiling.

  "All the rumors are true. The house is a pit. Or, as realtors like to put it, 'It just needs a woman's touch', " Joan said, crooking her fingers into quotation marks.

  She added, "I sure hope we're not biting off more than we can chew. Norah's worked up an estimate for the rehab once they get the house and tower moved. Sixty thousand just to make the house habitable, she says, and that's without the granite countertops she prefers. Then, too, we'll have to find and pay a permanent lighthouse keeper to live there and conduct tours—"

  "Norah's been through the whole place that thoroughly?"

  Joan blinked. "Sure. You know Norah."

  "Oh, yes."

  That was the problem. Maddie did know Norah. Norah was spearheading the lighthouse project, so it was perfectly reasonable for her to have gone through the property. But when Maddie tried to imagine Norah with the lighthouse committee in tow behind her, all she came up with was Norah with Dan in tow behind her.

  Joan handed Maddie one of the lemonades. "Michael's here, you know."

  "Is he?" Maddie said, still distracted by the thought of Norah running around the keeper's house holding up paint samples. Dan wouldn't be interested, of course; what did he care what color they painted the baths? But Dan would be there. Day and, of course, night.

  "He's such an interesting person," said Joan.

  "I suppose. He's had an interesting job, after all. It's taken him all over the—Dan?"

  "Dan? Michael!"

  "Oh." Maddie saw the look on Joan's face and recognized it at once. She'd seen the same dreamy, smitten look on many of the coeds that Michael taught. Used to teach. Had he made a move on poor Joan as well? Joan, a little too short, a little too stocky, a little too owlish and much, much too good for someone like him?

  Probably not. Probably she'd fallen under his spell without his even trying. There was just something about a man who could knock off a flattering sketch of a woman in fifteen seconds. Maddie should know.

  She sighed and threw her arm around Joan's shoulder in a hug as they moved away from the lemonade stand. "Joanie, he's not the one. Trust me. For either of us."

  An embarrassed flush darkened Joan's cheeks. "All I said was that he's an interesting man, not that ... that I've fallen in love with him!"

  But she looked and sounded much too flustered for someone who wasn't falling in love. Maddie sized her up. Joan had taken more care with her makeup than usual, and the peach tunic and silk slacks that she wore were as flattering as could be.

  Obviously aware of Maddie's scrutiny, Joan busied herself with sucking lemonade through her straw. "Michael was talking to me just now about fireworks and smoke," she said offhandedly to prove her point. "Did you know that white smoke makes a better screen than black smoke? It scatters light and confuses the observer."

  "Michael's an expert at that," said Maddie, dismissing him in one quip. She added, "I'm surprised he came down for the fireworks show. As good as ours is going to be, it can't hold a Roman candle to Boston's."

  They were wending their way through the crowd, looking for Norah and not finding her. Joan said, "Didn't Norah tell you? Michael's just pledged two thousand dollars to the lightho
use project. Isn't that great? I guess he's about to come into a bit of money—but you already know that."

  "Yes." Thanks to Tracey.

  After one more pass, they spied Norah by the tower, schmoozing it up with a couple of Texans. In their ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots, the men stuck out from the crowd of New Englanders like rhinos in a petting zoo.

  "Uh-oh," said Maddie. "Five'll get you ten they want to buy the whole shebang and move it to Amarillo."

  "Wasn't it Texas that bought the London Bridge?" asked Joan, taking Maddie seriously.

  "I dunno. One of those states out there."

  Maddie didn't care about the Texans. She and Joan were near Dan's front door, where a dozen people were lined up patiently, waiting to use the bathroom inside. Trixie Roiters had appointed herself Official Bathroom Hostess and was shepherding guests in and out with ruthless efficiency. All perfectly routine for the Fourth of July in Sandy Point—but would Dan think so?

  Maddie pictured him at his desk trying to write to the sound of endless flushing, and she smiled. The Fourth was a funky, friendly holiday in Sandy Point, as endeared to its citizens as cotton candy on a boardwalk.

  She scanned the second-story windows. Was he even inside? A part of her soul felt suddenly, wistfully alone, convincing her that he was somewhere else.

  She turned to see Norah dragging the long tall Texans over to meet them. Introductions were brisk. The men had money and were willing to spend it, that's what came across.

  Almost at once Norah said, "Dan's off with one of the men in search of more charcoal; some of the bags got soaked in yesterday's thunderstorms."

  "Charcoal, on the Cape, on the Fourth? Lotsa luck," said Joan.

  Norah shrugged and said, "He told me that I should give the tour to anyone who was interested. Jake, Cliff, and I are just going over to join half a dozen other contributors for a tour of the place. Come join us. You'll be surprised to see who one of them is."

  Maddie didn't want to. It didn't feel right to go through Dan's house—it was his house, after all, and not a public exhibit—without Dan being there. And besides, she was getting anxious about the rest of her family. George had called to say they'd be late, but not this late.