It worried Quinta enough that she had gone to Dr. Greene in late August, asking rather shyly whether it was natural for someone in her father's situation to reject all comfort and help. And Dr. Greene had said, yes, after a trauma such as her father had suffered, it was possible for a personality change to occur, but to give it time. Quinta was far too embarrassed to admit that she was jealous of a puppy, but she was far too good a judge of human nature not to arrive at her own theory: by asserting his mastery over Legs, her father was symbolically denying his dependence on Quinta; on everyone.
"Dad; how are you feeling today?" Quinta interrupted at last. She kept her tone light.
"The usual," her father answered without looking up.
"I mean, are you up for an adventure?"
At that he looked up from his paper. "I don't like the sound of that. What kind of 'adventure'?"
"I overheard some guys say the Cup is going to be presented to the Australians in a public ceremony at the Marble House today. It's a last-minute thing. The real, actual America's Cup is finally in Newport. Let's go see it."
Her father had filled his pipe and was patting his shirt pockets in a search, she knew, for matches.
"I'll get them, Dad," she volunteered.
"Stay right where you are, please, young lady," he answered quickly, and she watched him wheel himself over to a long table that held a mundane collection of daily needs: tissues, tobacco, pills, bottles of water, writing material. A second table held his computer, a keyboard, a printer, a phone. All the unnecessary bits and pieces of furniture that clutter the average living room had been removed: the coffee table, the pretty little accent rugs, the huge floor pillows that Quinta and her girlfriends had lounged on during pajama parties—all gone. Even the thick gray wall-to-wall carpet that lay over the oak floors had been taken up, to make things easier for a wheelchair.
Gradually the house was looking more austere, more functional, less like the home Quinta's mother had made for them all. At first Quinta had secretly resisted, not only because they were removing long-loved memories, but because each new decision was another nail in the coffin of hope: hope that her father would ever again walk without help. But she came to realize that it did give her father mobility and independence, and that was the important thing.
She stood there, hands on hips, wanting to help, not sure if that was right or wrong, in over her head with responsibilities but determined not to sink beneath them.
"Dad!" she said, and the resolve in her voice surprised her. "I'm going to the ceremony. This is history, dad. And the Cup may never come back to Newport again. Even if the Americans win it back—what if it goes to San Diego or Miami or somewhere? Dad? It means more to you than anyone," she said softly. "You've given twice."
Her father's scowl was fierce as he pulled on his pipe. When at last he got it going he looked up and the scowl remained. "Why the hell aren't you ever in school?"
She'd won. "Oh, Dad—this is history!"
****
It is no small thing for a paraplegic to be able to get around town after only a couple of months of therapy. Fortunately for Neil Powers, his therapy was being conducted on a carte blanche basis: thanks to the unusually liberal terms of a prompt out-of-court settlement, Powers had money and then some to buy not only a specially equipped van but all the pulleys, ramps, motorized devices, and state-of-the-art electronics that he could possibly need.
It was little consolation. When things were going awkwardly—as they were now, with the wheel of his motorized chair sinking into a soft spot near a just-watered flower bed—Powers became impatient, self-conscious, depressed. By temperament he was an onlooker; he hated to be the center of attention.
Quinta helped to jockey the chair through the small crowd of several hundred people who had gathered on the vast manicured lawn of the Marble House, the childhood home of Commodore Harold Vanderbilt and one of the most significant acquisitions of the Newport Preservation Society. Very few among the crowd were from the great unwashed public, Quinta saw. Mostly they were silver-haired men in dark blue blazers, and crew members dressed in the colors of their syndicates. A smattering of well-dressed women was present, and some ordinary citizens in shirtsleeves. And everywhere cameras and the press.
So intent had Quinta and her father been in maneuvering his wheelchair over the grass that they hadn't noticed the America's Cup itself, dazzling in the brilliant September sun, positioned majestically on a table on the terrace of the Marble House. Quinta sucked in her breath, as though she'd bumped up against a ghost in the night.
"Oh my god," she whispered, awestruck. "There it is. There it really is."
Her father said, "Ah," and that was all.
Like all Newporters, Quinta knew precisely what the baroque silver trophy, with its serpentine curves and handles, looked like. Like nearly all Newporters, she had never actually seen it for real. How could she, when it had been sequestered in the exclusive, all-male New York Yacht Club in New York City?
"It looks taller than I pictured," her father said softly.
Quinta thought it was magnificent. Oh, she knew it was chic to refer to it as gaudy and inelegant, but in its intricately curved surfaces polished to brilliant perfection, Quinta saw the magic. It was no more just a trophy than the Olympic flame was just a torch. What was it then? Surely not a silver toy for the yachtsman who had everything. A symbol of—what did the papers say?—of international prestige and technological supremacy? No. More than that.
"Dad? It's … it's—"
"I know, Quinta," he said sadly. "I know."
"It makes me want to ... want it," she murmured.
"I know, dear. I know." His voice had taken on a sweet melancholy, and the words came out a sad, soothing lullaby. "I know."
There it was, the America's Cup: an elaborate silver pitcher, not a cup at all, weighing one hundred and thirty-four ounces, standing twenty-seven inches tall, originally offered as a trophy on August 22, 1851, to the winning yacht of a race around England's Isle of Wight. In one hundred and thirty-two years, unlimited millions of dollars and countless buckets of blood, sweat, and tears had been poured freely through that bottomless Cup—and the mystery of its allure, as anyone could see, was still there.
There was shuffling and movement on the terrace: some of the principals in the drama that had ended the night before were being arranged for their final bows.
Neil Powers had been looking around him. "But … where's Dennis Conner? The winners are up there, sure enough. Where the hell are the losers?"
"I think I saw someone with a Liberty shirt in the back of the crowd, dad," said Quinta, methodically scanning those around her for the color red. Maybe they're not all in uniform. Like most Newporters, Quinta had been trained to read and interpret shirts; it was the quickest way to determine status.
It was then that she saw Mavis Moran. Tugging at her father's shirtsleeves, Quinta whispered, "Isn't that Mavis Moran? The woman with the gorgeous red hair talking to the two men in blazers? Wow. She's a stunner. The papers don't do her justice."
"Don't be silly, Quinta," her father answered. "Your hair is just as nice."
"Oh Dad, really. Look at her clothes. Look at the cut of that dress. Look at her shoes, that bag. Big bucks." Quinta was in jeans and a white blouse. "I feel like a ragamuffin."
"Well, you yanked us out of the damn house—"
"Why is she even here, anyway?" Quinta wasn't alone in resenting Mavis Moran for not campaigning Shadow after she'd bought it from Alan Seton.
True, the gossip had it that her funds were already committed to the other syndicate. But then why buy Shadow if she wasn't going to race it?
"I've heard she only wears emeralds," Quinta whispered. "I wish she'd turn toward us more so that we could see."
Which Mavis did. Turned, as if on command, and looked Quinta full in the face, probably trying to place her face from behind the checkout counter at the supermarket. And, yes, she was wearing emeralds, a pair of teard
rop earrings.
"Oh my cripes," Quinta murmured, aghast. "She's looking at us, Dad!"
"Maybe she's the kind who stares at cripples," her father answered dryly.
"Dad! Don't ever talk like that!"
Quinta's tone was fierce. Her father backed off and changed the subject. "I've read somewhere that she may yet marry Alan Seton. Funny he isn't here today; he has as much right to be as she does." He added, "Neither one did the Cup a hell of a lot of good."
"Marry! When his wife has just died?" Quinta said, shocked. "No one falls in love so fast."
"Quinta, you don't have the foggiest notion of these things." Her father's voice dropped low. "Don't you suppose they were involved before Cindy Seton's suicide? Why did his wife kill herself, anyway? The public can't possibly have all the facts. I expect," he added caustically, "that Seton isn't here for the simple reason that they don't want to distract the press on what you insist on calling this occasion."
"What a horrible gossip you are, Dad! You're worse than Mother ever was!" Quinta moved several paces away from him, really angry now. She could not think of her father's words without an odd sense of dismay, and so she blotted them out by focusing on the introductory remarks being made by the Commodore of the New York Yacht Club.
As for Neil Powers, he felt a pang of conscience for baiting his daughter. Why take it out on poor Quinta, his fifth, his most steadfast child? He must try to keep his bitterness inside. She was handy and so he lashed out at her, but he shouldn't. Three of his daughters were scattered around the world like gypsies. The fourth, Jackie, was nearby, true, but completely consumed by her first baby—a girl, of course, what else?—so where was she going to find time for a needy father?
Nancy dead and four of the girls unavailable; the load had fallen on Quinta. Neil was damn lucky that she'd chosen to go to a local college and live at home. Economics had been her original concern, but still—damn lucky.
He wasn't hearing a word of the presentation ceremony. It was too hot, and he was uncomfortable. Besides, his view was hindered by the crush of photographers who'd squeezed in front of him. His gaze wandered up to the marble mansion that loomed over them. He had toured the house—what Newporter had not?—and of course he knew its history. From the opened window on the south end of Marble House, young Consuelo Vanderbilt had once gazed longingly out to sea, locked away from her one true love before being forced into a marriage with the Ninth Duke of Marlborough.
Her only ally had been her brother Harold. Harold Vanderbilt, who had played on that same thick lawn underneath the wheels of Neil's chair—at least, as much as such children were allowed to play during the two months their parents spent in Newport each year. Harold Vanderbilt, the man who grew up to become an accomplished yachtsman, and who would go on to successfully defend the America's Cup three different times.
Neil had been spoon-fed the Vanderbilt story from infancy, which was why as a boy he had been so dazzled when his own father, Sam Powers, was asked by the legendary Commodore Vanderbilt himself to crew aboard his magnificent Rainbow.
Something about the hot, blinding sun, something about the urbane accents of the men who were speaking, something about his own helpless state, catapulted Neil Powers fifty years into his past.
It was a hot, calm morning in July of 1934. Neil was eight, a bold age. He had rowed the little cedar dory that his father had bought especially for him straight up to the Rainbow, which was destined to become the America's Cup defender that year, and which was lying quietly in Newport Harbor, waiting for the afternoon sea breeze. Neil's father, who was crewing that summer belowdecks, had warned him before that the deck of a J-boat was no place for a tomfool boy to even think of stepping foot on, and Neil had accepted that.
Still, no one had said anything about rowing around a J-boat. For one thing, it let you understand, well, the sheer size of it. Neil had pushed his cap back, and with his oars winged above the water, his elbows resting on the looms in counterbalance, he was squinting up at the masthead, a hundred and seventy-odd feet above the water, where a speck of a man was working on some rigging. He wondered whether it was his father and shaded his eyes with his hands to see, but the sun blinded him.
The voice that shattered his reverie wasn't a voice at all; it was the fierce grunt of a charging rhino.
"You, boy! What're you up to?"
In a heart-thumping panic Neil shifted his look to the Rainbow's rail, where a crewman in white was leaning over, scowling. Groping for a reason to be so close to the yacht, Neil stammered, "I have a message for my father." Which wasn't a complete lie, though his mother would've boxed his ears if she'd known where her son was. "But I can tell him later, sir." Stealthily Ned shipped his oars, preparing for a getaway.
"And who might you be?"
"Neil Powers, sir." He felt inexpressibly small, and he thought his voice sounded hideously squeaky.
"Sam Powers' boy. All right then. What is it? I'll pass it on."
"Oh no, sir, really. Later will be—"
"Well, well. A pint-sized sailor in a pint-sized skiff." The clear, cultivated voice belonged to a second man at the rail, dressed more formally in a dark blue blazer, and much taller and handsomer than the first. "But aren't you a bit young to be navigating on your own?"
"Pardon me, I've been rowing since I was four, sir," Neil returned, wounded.
"Oh, well, in that case ..." And he looked gravely down at Neil and saluted.
Rather self-consciously, Neil returned the salute.
"It's Sam Powers' boy, Mr. Vanderbilt. With an urgent message for his father."
Urgent! Who said urgent? Distressed, Neil stared wide-eyed at the gentleman in the blazer. Mr. Vanderbilt, the crewman had said. Not Harold Vanderbilt, oh please, he thought.
It was.
"Let's have Powers up on deck, then," Mr. Vanderbilt said to his crewman. "And, son? Just bring your dory around to the gate, there's a good chap. And come aboard."
Pop-eyed with fear, Neil said, "Yessir," and, still under Vanderbilt's interested eye, rowed around the Rainbow in his most grown-up manner, even feathering his oars, though there wasn't a breath of wind and the water was flat. He would be absolutely killed, that he knew. If his father didn't do it, then his mother would. At the very least—worse, really—he'd be denied access to the dory for a week or maybe for the rest of his life.
Feeling miserable and an alien thing, Neil walked timidly up the ramp of the great yacht, until at the head of it he paused and waited stubbornly for permission to come aboard; he might not have heard Mr. Vanderbilt right. He glanced up and down the gleaming starboard deck, miles and miles of brightly scrubbed teak and neatly payed seams. Two men were running out huge manila lines; two others were posted at the foot of the mast, ready to assist the man at the head. And there was a photographer with a tripod on board, taking pictures of the boat's fittings, which seemed truly strange to Neil. Rainbow was brand new and perfect and all the brass was sunshine bright, but it was still just a sailboat, no more so than his father's cargo schooner, the Virginia.
Harold Vanderbilt met the boy, offering his hand and introducing himself.
"And you are?" he asked politely as he led the way aft.
"Neil Powers, sir," the boy answered, padding barefoot over the smooth silver surface of teak. He was wearing knockaround clothes, and instinctively he knew his mother would be mortified later.
"Neil? I have a cousin named Neil. Actually, his Christian name is Cornelius. Is that yours as well?"
"No, sir. Just ... Neil." It made him feel like a pagan.
"Your father is below, tearing down a halyard winch that needs repair. He'll be up in a moment. He's a fine mechanic, and an expert seaman—but I expect you know all that already."
"Oh, yes," Neil answered breezily, "Dad keeps everything on the Virginia shipshape." And he did. Then why did the Virginia suddenly seem, compared to this sleek racing steed, more like an old plow horse? For the first time in his young life Neil Powers felt, i
f not exactly ashamed, then at least self-conscious about his seagoing home. The Virginia was a two-masted coasting schooner stoutly built in Maine to carry cargo, and in her time she had ranked with the best. But it was the age of steam, and people only sailed for amusement nowadays, not for profit; that's what his mother said. It was true that his parents weren't rich, but then again, Mr. Vanderbilt didn't look all that amused. It was very confusing.
The photographer and two other men came aft to where Neil and the commodore stood beside the varnished, spoked wheel. One of the men, addressing Mr. Vanderbilt, said, "That's the lot, except for the preventer winch, which hasn't been bolted down yet. How about a shot of you at the helm?"
Neil, praying quietly for a large bird to swoop down and carry him away in its claws, tried his best to look invisible as he waited for his father to appear.
But Vanderbilt was having none of it. "Here," he said, taking the boy gently by the shoulders and propelling him to a position alongside the wheel, "let's have a shot of a future skipper."
Neil was not so blinded by embarrassed joy that he missed the look that passed between the photographer and the man who was coordinating things for Mr. Vanderbilt. Wrong wrong wrong, their look said. Barefoot urchins do not pose at the helms of rich men's J-boats.
By this time Neil was absurdly dazzled, confused, and impressed with himself. One hand in his pocket, he was shyly assuming what he hoped was a yachtsman's air when his father appeared from belowdecks, wiping his oily fingers into a rag.
"What's this, Neil?" Sam spoke directly and quietly to his son, then nodded an acknowledgment of the other men. To Vanderbilt he said quietly, "You'll excuse us, sir." And with a look, he led Neil toward the ramp.
With an awkward goodbye to the Commodore, Neil fell in behind his father, who did not pause until they were at the ramp leading down to the boy's dory.
His father's first words were, "Is something amiss, then?"
"No, Dad," Neil said, without raising his eyes from the deck, "not exactly." When he looked up, he saw relief in his father's sea-washed eyes.
By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs Page 11
