A Charmed Place

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Maddie's mind was racing ahead. "And you want to cross-reference names in my dad's address book with names that you find of the owners of the other ticketed cars?"

  "As soon as we put together the list. For that matter, maybe someone in the address book actually has a Natick—can you hold on, Mrs. Regan? I've got Officer Geary on the other line right now."

  Maddie waited in agony through an entire Muzak version of "Hey Jude" before Bailey came back and said, "Okay, one question's been resolved, and I don't much care for the answer. So many motorists complained about the tickets issued that morning that the entire batch of 'em was given amnesty. Some of the violations are still in the computer and some aren't, so the records are incomplete."

  "How is that possible?" Maddie asked, dismayed.

  "My guess is that a shift ended before someone finished expunging the records. So maybe this won't turn out to be such a big break, after all. But it's a break, nevertheless. We really need the address book, Mrs. Regan. We need it soon," he said, pushing her hard.

  "I'll start looking immediately," Maddie promised, and hung up.

  She went to the dresser to pull out new underwear for after her shower, then slid the drawer closed, knocking over one of the bronze-framed photos that stood on top. She straightened the frame back up and gazed at the photo within: a snapshot from five years earlier of Tracey and Maddie's mother, taken in front of a Ferris wheel. Tracey had Mr. James, already an old bear, under one arm; her grandmother had Tracey under hers.

  They were at a carnival that had passed through Sandy Point at a time when Maddie was laid low by flu, so Maddie's mother had pinch-hit for her. It was the first time that Sarah Timmons had ever gone somewhere with Michael and Tracey without Maddie being there.

  The day had gone well, much to Sarah's surprise. You could see it in her grin, in Tracey's, too. But then, Michael was a skilled photographer. He'd know just what to say to get them to laugh in just the right way. It was a great shot, one of Maddie's favorites: all bright colors, crazy angles, and high spirits.

  Maddie's eyes glazed over, and the picture began wavering and dissolving in front of her. "Tracey ... Mom ... how will I ever make you understand?"

  She had no answer to that question as she headed for the bathroom down the hall, passing Tracey's open door and empty room on her way. In the bathroom she heard music blaring from the garden: Jimmy Buffet, singing some noisy, innocent song about hamburgers. In ordinary times, Maddie would've had to force herself to sound stern (she liked Jimmy Buffet, too) as she yelled outside for Tracey to turn down the volume.

  But these weren't ordinary times.

  ****

  "Honey, can you turn down the radio? I can hardly hear you."

  "Dad, I can't. Someone could listen in on us."

  "Tracey, you sound like a spy. You shouldn't be on the cordless phone if you want your conversation to be so private. Now turn down the radio and tell me what's happened. Or at least go to the far end of the garden and talk."

  Immediately the girl began to sob. Her breath caught in short, semi-hysterical gasps. She wasn't able to tell him a thing.

  Michael was completely frustrated, as usual, because he couldn't comfort his own child by wrapping her in a hug. "Tracey ... sweetie ... shhh ... don't cry. Just tell me what's happened and I'll fix it. Nothing's worth crying over."

  "Oh, Dad ... it was h-h-horrible," Tracey said, collapsing into another series of gasps. With an effort, she pulled herself together and said, "Mom was on the beach with Mr. H-Hawke in the middle of the nuh-hight and... and the countess saw them when she was walking her dogs, but they were in the water only with their sweatshirts on ... and then she told Grandma, and Grandma came back early from lunch and told Mom ... but Mom, she denied it, at f-first anyway, and then she didn't and not only that ... but, oh, Dad, she said awful things ... she said he was the only man she ever loved and that must mean she didn't love you best, and you're my f-father, and she was banging on the door and screaming at Grandma and, and Grandma's gone now and Uncle George had to take her h-home but like, they h-had to sneak away because Grandma didn't want Mom to know and now there's only me and Aunt Claire and ... oh, Dad ... I don't want to be here ... any-mor-r-re," she wailed. "Oh, Da-a-d ...."

  The wave of jealousy that had been ebbing and flowing in Michael now became a tidal wave of rage. "Damn! I'll kill her," he said, seething.

  Dad!"

  "No, no, it's just a figure of speech, honey," he said, forcing himself back under control. "No, don't worry, we'll take care of this. Look, this is your weekend with me anyway. I'll come down early, right now—no, I can't, I have something I have to do first—all right, I'll be there by—" He glanced at his watch. "By seven, the latest. Maybe earlier. Definitely earlier. We'll straighten this out. Just sit tight. I'll be there, honey. I'll be there. You won't have to stay there. I'm damned if I'll leave you there after this."

  He would kill her!

  He made a few more reassurances to his distraught daughter to calm her down, then hung up and immediately dialed the Brookline Institute.

  "Dr. Woodbine, please," he said to the receptionist.

  He was put through to Woodbine and got straight to the point. "I can't make it this afternoon for testing. I have a family situation down on the Cape."

  Woodbine's voice dropped from cordial to cool. "What kind of situation?"

  "My kid's hysterical—with reason. I have to bring her up here. Now, Geoff, not later."

  "Are you serious? We're running out of time, man! No, it's impossible. No rescheduling. Be here in an hour."

  "I said I can't make it! Do you think I'd be any good in this state? Put it off until tomorrow!" he said, shrill with anger. "If you expect me to go through with this—then put the goddamned test off!"

  Woodbine was forced to back down. "All right. We'll reschedule for tomorrow at the same time. You're screwing me, Michael," he added. "The grant's up for renewal and you're our last, best hope. You understand what's riding on this, don't you? Dammit, man—everything!"

  "Bullshit. The Pentagon doesn't know its ass end from a mousehole. You won't get a hard time from them. They've already spent millions. They're not going to stop funding the project now; that's how it works over there. I don't need psychic powers to know that, for crissake."

  "Resolve your domestic crisis by tomorrow, Michael," Woodbine said in an icy voice. "Or be prepared for the consequences."

  Michael hung up without responding. He had to dress and get to the Cape, and get there fast. He went to his closet for a clean shirt and faced an empty rack: he hadn't sent out his laundry in weeks. It angered him still more; if Maddie were still his wife, this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

  Making it on the beach with that son of a bitch!

  Dan Hawke! He should have known. Even in college there was something about him. Michael saw it, and she did too. The bastard was arrogant and defiant; seedy, and proud of it. Bastard! But you knew, even then, that he was going places.

  Were they making it then, too? Christ—of course they were! All these years he'd been assuming that Maddie had been merely intrigued by Hawke, the way nice girls are always intrigued by bad boys. On the few occasions that the three of them had hung out together, he used to catch Maddie sneaking looks at Hawke, but Hawke had always kept his expression bland.

  Faking! Hawke had been faking disinterest in her. It was obvious—now. Like a sap, Michael had pursued Maddie and convinced himself that her willingness to be swept off her feet by him was real.

  Rebound! He, Carmichael Winthrop Regan III, was a fucking rebound lover for her! The sudden realization overwhelmed him, making him sick. He had a visceral urge to tear Hawke limb from limb and throw the pieces into the sea.

  On the beach. Hawke, with his wife!

  How could she?

  A low snarl came out of his throat. His mouth tasted like vomit, his head pounded with fury, and his guts had coiled into a single steel spring.

  He grabbed a dirty shi
rt from a pile on the floor and pulled it over his head, catching a reflection of himself in the bathroom mirror on his way out. Shock: he saw another man altogether than the one who'd shaved there yesterday. His face was red and blotchy with rage and his lips were peeled back, baring his teeth and gums. He'd turned into a wolf—and she was the one to blame.

  Blinding shafts of pain were splitting his head in two, like a machete slashing a coconut. He'd taken the drug, expecting the test, but all he had for his effort was pain. Before he got into his car he took a series of deep breaths, trying to calm himself—for Tracey's sake—but it was no use; the rage returned.

  So be it. The rage felt good. All he needed was to vent it.

  ****

  Maddie pulled a dress of cool lavender cotton over her head, then towel-dried her hair and ran a comb through it, too much in a hurry to fuss with the blow drier. The few hours of sleep she'd had had helped immensely, and so had the shower. She felt ready to take on her family again.

  She followed the succulent aroma of roasting beef into the kitchen, where she found Claire peeling potatoes for supper.

  "Hi," she said shyly to her sister-in-law from the doorway. "Are we on speaking terms?"

  Claire looked at her with a rueful smile and said, "Idiot. Couldn't you just rob a bank instead?"

  Claire, beautiful Claire. Maddie took the potato peeler from her and said, "Make tea for us while I do these. And then sit down. Just because you're the only one left standing after the shootout, it doesn't mean you have to make the meals."

  "Your mother's gone back to Sudbury; I assume you know that," Claire told her.

  "I figured. She overreacted, you know," Maddie said, peeling a little more fiercely than necessary. "What Dan and I did was possibly stupid—okay, it was stupid—but it was hardly criminal. There are whole beaches set aside for nude bathing, you know."

  "Lillian doesn't walk her dogs on them. And it sounds like you did more than bathe," said Claire as she filled the kettle.

  Maddie let out a nervous laugh and threw the potato into the pot, then picked up another and sighed. "I have to straighten things out with Tracey, too. This is such an unbelievable mess. It was a bad scene, Claire, it really was. But I was so frustrated, so ... so—"

  "Pissed?"

  "Pissed that Mom wouldn't listen, that I just lost it. I mean, really lost it. I don't even remember what I said, but I know Tracey heard most of it. She burst into tears, the way she always does—"

  "You mean, like when you tell her it's her turn to do dishes?"

  "Oh, heavens, she wasn't that upset," said Maddie, looking up from her potatoes with a smile. But the smile died on her lips as she added, "Seriously—I never should have said those things, knowing Tracey was anywhere around. They weren't for a child to hear." She went back to peeling fiercely.

  "Can you smooth things over with her?"

  "I think so," Maddie said, frowning in an effort to remember exactly what Tracey had overheard. "She had to learn about Dan and me sooner or later. It's just that right now, I wish it were later. My plate's pretty full as it is."

  She told Claire about the phone call from Detective Bailey, and the need to find the address book. Claire, so blonde and pale and pretty, looked uncharacteristically grim as she said with quiet resolve, "I'll help you look."

  "Oh, would you, Claire? That'd be great. I'll do all the heavy lifting. I put all of Dad's boxes of papers, books, and even the photo albums in the basement; I wanted the study to be all bedroom for Mom. Anyway, I'll begin bringing them back up and we can go through them one last time. That'd be such a help to me."

  "Consider it done."

  "You're a doll. So. Next up: my mother. What can I do about her, Claire?" Maddie asked humbly. "In her mind, Dan as much as murdered my dad. With time, she'll get over the beach episode. But it's obvious that she's never going to get over what Dan did in college."

  "For that matter, George isn't too keen on him, either," Claire reminded her. "You Timmons folk have long memories."

  "Is that why you're so accepting? Because you weren't there at the time?"

  "That's part of it," Claire admitted, taking down a ceramic teapot and a tea tin from the glass-front cupboard. "But it's also that I knew your father so well. If he were alive now, I'm sure he'd be perfectly fine about Dan and you. Your father admired him, Maddie, despite the tragedy."

  "How can you say that?"

  Claire lifted the lid from the tea tin and began measuring scoops of loose Darjeeling into the pot. "I can say that, because he and I were watching CNN together once, and Dan came on with a follow-up about the breakup of Yugoslavia. When it was over your dad said to me, and I quote, 'He's a hell of a reporter. He cares about the people, not the politics. Good man.' "

  "Oh, Claire—really? You're not making it up just to cheer me?"

  "Not at all," she said in her serene way. "I related the same story to George when he came back up to bed—just before you ran off to the beach?—but he didn't want to hear it. I left it to him to tell your mother, but if I were you, I'd tell her myself."

  Maddie sighed and said, "Assuming she ever talks to me again."

  "She doesn't have to talk. She only has to listen."

  "I suppose I'll have to kidnap her from Sudbury and bring her back down here somehow. I wonder if they sell handcuffs in town," Maddie said lightly, but she was at a loss about her next move.

  She winced again at the thought of the scene earlier. "She's too old for this, Claire. I'm too old for this. I need all my strength to ride herd on Tracey. I can't go around throwing hysterical fits in the middle of the day. I never should have done it," she said with a sigh. "Teenage rebellions are best left to teenagers."

  "Maybe that's your problem. Maybe you didn't rebel enough when you were young."

  Maddie thought about it a moment, and then said, "You know, Dr. Ruth, you may have something there? My dad made sure I was a responsible citizen, and my mother made sure I was responsible, period. I voted and I volunteered; I sent handwritten thank-you notes, never cards, and I got my work done on time, come hell or high water. I was always doing things for extra credit. God. I was a complete failure as a teenager."

  "You never ran with a wild crowd?"

  "Never," Maddie said, running water into the pot of potatoes. "Dan Hawke was the one wild thing in my entire life. But my parents never knew it. No one did—except maybe the groundskeeper at Lowell College. I wish now that they had ... especially my father. But I guess I was too afraid of my mother."

  Claire said softly, "The way Tracey is, you mean?"

  Surprised, Maddie looked up at her sister-in-law. "Tracey's not afraid of me. She's much too busy defying me."

  Claire shrugged and poured the boiling water slowly into the teapot, then snugged a quilted floral cozy over it. Her silence was more eloquent than any argument could possibly be.

  It had a direct, immediate impact on Maddie.

  "I'm going out to talk to Tracey right now," she said suddenly, wiping her hands on a towel. "And—Claire?"

  "Hmm?"

  "I hope you're wrong."

  "You wouldn't be a mother if you didn't."

  Chapter 20

  Maddie found her daughter in the most secret place of the yard: a small nook, tucked in the northwest corner behind an ancient clump of lilac, that Michael had paved with a few flagstones one summer. Tracey had liked to hide there when she was a little girl, and now that she was a bigger girl, she liked to hide there still.

  She'd hung a miniature set of chimes from one of the lilac branches; they tinkled in a delicate, enchanting way at the slightest hint of a breeze. But the chimes were silent now, like Tracey.

  She was sitting cross-legged in a twig chair that doubled as a scratching post for every cat in the neighborhood. One of the cats, the neighbor's calico, was curled up in her lap at the moment as she sat with an utterly blank look on her face.

  "You look so sad," Maddie said as she lifted a branch and stepped inside th
e nook, sending the chimes caroling. "Do you mind if I visit a bit before supper?"

  Tracey pressed her lips together and shrugged. Permission was neither denied nor granted.

  Maddie repositioned the unused footstool and then sat down gingerly on it, hoping it wouldn't collapse underneath her and create an unwelcome diversion. Somehow, some way, she had to get through to her daughter, because the chasm between them had just widened again. Both of them knew that Maddie had Dan, but that Tracey wasn't being allowed to have Kevin.

  "I don't know what to do about us, Tracey," Maddie said softly. "We used to be such great friends. But somehow I've gone from being your mom to being your jailer. And you know what? I'd rather go back to being your mom. Do you think I could do that?"

  Tracey hadn't expected the question; that was obvious. Maddie could practically see the disk drives spinning inside her head as she searched for the right rebuttal. Finally she sighed rather violently and said, "I never said you couldn't."

  "True."

  Stroking the chin of the neighbor's cat, Tracey continued to look straight ahead at nothing at all. She looked exhausted; it was wrenching to see.

  "Well, here's the thing," Maddie began. "I know that when your dad and I decided to—"

  "Divorce."

  "—divorce, it was hard on you."

  "You decided; not Dad."

  "Whatever. And then when Grampa was ... was—"

  "Murdered."

  "It made it even harder for you to deal with your feelings. I know that, honey. I can't tell you how bad I feel that you were gypped of your childhood. It doesn't seem fair. And the fact that a lot of other kids are also gypped in the same way—as incredible as that may seem—doesn't make it any better. It's unfair, it's awful, I wish it could be some other way, but there it is. Nothing we can say or do will bring Grampa back... and nothing we can say or do will bring your father and me together again."

  "Don't you think I know that?" she said, becoming more rigid in her exhaustion.