by Luanne Rice
He had laid the groundwork: a call to her dorm, getting her home to the Point, a note in the drawer at Foley's telling her where and when to meet. But she hadn't shown up. Zeb had waited, alone in his tent by the grave, the happy sound of spring peepers mocking him. Perhaps she just wasn't ready. Maybe he had rushed her. But he felt scorned and humiliated, and he wasn't sure he'd ever gotten over it.
Would they have possessed each other then? Would they have belonged to each other forever? Zeb was loyal. Rumer might not think so, but he was. Until he and Elizabeth divorced, she was the only woman he'd ever slept with. And from their first time, his fate was sealed: His own stupidity, his lust, had blinded him to the future. He'd landed in bed with Elizabeth Larkin, and that was that.
Now, standing in his yard, he couldn't stop himself from running through the torturous rest of it. The way he and Elizabeth had gotten together: A few weeks later, Elizabeth had invited him and Rumer to see her in a play. Rumer had come to New York. Zeb, still smarting over being stood up, had acted so aloof, she had laughingly decided to head back to Hartford to study for exams, “where people aren't mad at me for no reason,” Rumer had teased. Elizabeth must have noticed. Because walking her home after watching her onstage in Romeo and Juliet, Zeb had felt her take his hand.
He had pulled it away, thinking of Rumer.
“What's wrong, Zeb?” Elizabeth had asked.
“Nothing,” he'd said. “Except we're just friends.”
“Like you and Rumer?” Elizabeth had asked.
Zeb hadn't known what to say to that. What did Elizabeth know? Had Rumer confided in her? The sisters seemed to know everything about each other, but Zeb had thought maybe Rumer would keep things about her and him private—even from Elizabeth.
“I thought you and Rumer were more like brother and sister than… you know,” Elizabeth had said. “Maybe that's the problem?”
“What problem?” he'd asked, his heart pounding. So Rumer had talked about it. Maybe she'd blown him off at the grave for reasons he didn't understand. Maybe she didn't love him anymore. What if there was someone else?
“The fact that you can't seem to get together. It's just not meant to be, Zeb. When you start out as really close friends, it's sometimes too hard to take the leap. She's more like your younger sister, you know?”
“And you're older and wiser?”
“Hey! Watch the ‘older’ part.” Leaning forward, she'd tousled his hair, letting her fingers trail down the side of his face.
“Sorry,” he'd said, the heat rising in his neck as he tried to control the lust he'd always felt for Elizabeth. Looking down at the street—right there by the curb— he saw gold glinting amid litter. He bent to pick it up and realized it was one of the Larkin sisters’ lighthouse pins.
“My pin!” Elizabeth exclaimed, throwing her body against his. “You found it.”
“You lost it?” he asked, feeling her full breasts against his chest.
“I did,” she whispered now. “Only now…who cares? You found it.” Her breath was warm, but it made him shiver.
“Elizabeth,” he said, warningly
“It's hard to feel sexy over a little sister,” she'd said, now touching his neck, his collarbone, as he pulled away. “And that's what she's been to you. Face it.”
He didn't answer. His feelings toward Rumer hadn't felt brotherly at all. He remembered his arms around her, the intensity of her kiss, his wild desire to make love to her, but all that was melting away in the inferno of Elizabeth's attention. She was a blast furnace, the Queen of the Point. She brought out his base instincts; he'd been fighting them for years.
“See?” Elizabeth had asked smoothly, taking his hand again. “I'm not a shrink, but I think it's pretty plain that you're better suited as friends than lovers. Lovers are more alluring when they're unfamiliar, somewhat forbidden. Like you and me, Zeb.”
“Excuse me?” he asked, jumping, watching her run her hand over her own breast, feeling for a place to attach the pin.
“Forbidden, I said. Just imagine what everyone would say…”
He closed his eyes, blood thumping in his ears. Forbidden, all right. It would kill Rumer.
Now Elizabeth's hands ran up under his shirt, and he shivered as she lightly raked his skin with her nails. On the other hand, what did Rumer care? After waiting so long, trying so hard, she had left him alone in the tent, waiting yet again. It seemed clear that their deep friendship was as far as they would go. Maybe that was best, not to ruin it.
He tasted copper as Elizabeth's hand rubbed his chest. His knees nearly buckled. Why couldn't this be Rumer? Shit, why had she pushed him away? He pulled Elizabeth close and began to kiss her, their mouths open and their tongues hot and moving, right in the middle of New York City, feeling that damn gold lighthouse dig into his chest.
“Elizabeth, sorry,” he had said, dizzily yanking himself back, trying to forget the shocking sensation her nails had made on his body, wondering what the hell was happening. He was with the wrong sister—how could Rumer have drifted off without him noticing?
“You're forgiven. All you have to do is feed me.”
“Feed you?”
She'd laughed. “I'm hungry.”
“Oh,” he'd said. It had sounded as if she'd meant something else.
“I just did a performance, and you just made it a perfect night by finding my pin. Now I need food. Not to mention wine. How about you buy me a burger and a bottle of merlot, and I thank you by listening to your troubles? You can call me Dr. Larkin if it'll make you feel better. I'll even give you my best advice…”
“Maybe I could use some advice.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth had said, her laughter trilling into his ear. “I think you know what you want… you don't need me to tell you. After all, you're a man who shoots for the stars. You're going to be a pilot—a space shuttle pilot… and I think that's so incredibly sexy.”
Her hand had slipped from his to his elbow, and then around his waist, under his shirt, her fingernails raising the goose bumps on his skin again. Zeb held her too. The thing was, he felt so lonely. He was at school in New York City, and with all these people around, he was a stranger to them all. Rumer was the only person he'd ever felt like himself with, and he felt the division between them. Elizabeth's words, her arm around his waist, had been like hot wires zapping him awake.
Looking back all those years, Zeb stood in his old yard and sighed. He had bought the burger; they had drunk the wine. People in the restaurant—Bradley's, on University Place—recognized Elizabeth from the play, and he felt proud and pumped up.
Was that the night he had sold his soul? Turned in his true feelings for some idea of what would bring him more? More fame, more notice, more attention, more approval? Especially from his father—even that first night, holding hands with Elizabeth Larkin under the table while the Ricky Karsky Jazz Trio played on, Zeb had realized that his father would think he'd chosen the right sister, captured the prize.
Or she had chosen him
They had slept together, and their lives were sealed: He wouldn't leave her after that. His father had cheated on his mother, showing Zeb how not to do it. Especially after Michael was born.
Zeb gazed at the house next door. He wasn't going back to California; he wasn't going anywhere. He had come east to pay his penance to Rumer, and he wasn't leaving until he did. Winnie was right: He had learned his lessons the hard way. But now it was time to put them to the test.
THE NEXT DAY, the tent went up for the wedding. Michael stood in the shady road, watching the men hoist it. He had been to plenty of big parties out in California and Houston, and at the sets of his mother's movies around the world; this tent looked just about big enough to cover the buffet table at one of his mother's premieres. Blue and white striped, this puny one was obviously for the whole wedding: Round tables were being rolled in.
Walking past, Michael headed the long way down to the beach. He'd left his father holed up on the screen porch, do
ing preliminary research for the first project at his new lab. Books and papers were spread over the scarred wooden table; star charts and navigation tools were piled beside his chair. Satellite photos were stacked on a pile of books. No matter what his father said about wanting to drive cross-country with his son, Michael knew the real story: His dad had needed the car just to lug all his stuff.
Anyway, Michael was on his own today The place looked vaguely familiar: His father had pointed out the side-by-side cottages where he and Michael's mom had grown up. An overgrown right-of-way led along the southern edge of his dad's old yard, all the way down to the beach, but Michael bypassed it in favor of the road. Knowing he had spent his first few summers here, he wanted to see what he remembered.
Around the bend, down a bicycle path that led past the tennis and basketball courts, along a rough stone wall that dropped steeply to the sandy parking lot. Reeds grew around the perimeter, right up to the edge of the boat basin. A quick memory flashed into Michael's mind: he and his aunt in an old rowboat, drifting around a small island where the swans made their nest.
He scanned the island and saw no swans. Boats filled the round basin, bows forward, rocking with the tide. Some of the boats looked sweet: fiberglass, chrome rails, big engines; others looked like they could barely make it out to sea. And there in the scruffiest boat of all—wooden, looking ready to sink—was the girl he had spotted yesterday.
She was still in her oilskins. Dark glasses covered her eyes, and when she glanced over at him, her expression grew dark to match. Lobster pots were piled high on the boat basin's wall. Reaching for them, she dragged them closer—it took real strength to haul and stack them one by one in her boat.
“Need some help?” Michael asked, walking over.
“Wouldn't want you to get your hands dirty,” she said.
He stopped short. What was she talking about? He was a man of the land. While his mother was on location last spring, he had replaced about half the shingles on the barn roof. He wore the jeans he had worn for that project: faded, torn, stained with tar. His shoulders were practically bursting the seams of his old Nine Inch Nails T-shirt; to hold his long brown hair back, he wore a red bandanna.
“Where do you want it?” he asked, hoisting one of the pots—surprisingly heavy, weighted down with bricks. “In the front or back?”
“Thanks,” she said, ignoring his question and, taking the pot from him, expertly swinging it into the back of the boat. “I can take it from here.”
“Have it your way,” he said, shaking his head and giving what he hoped was an ironic little laugh. Did she think he was after her or something? If so, dream on. He had had girlfriends back home with younger brothers cuter than her. Starting to walk away, he realized the whole thing bothered him.
“Yes?” she asked, right in the midst of hauling another pot onto the boat.
“You got a problem?”
“Just your looks,” she said.
His mouth dropped open—he couldn't help himself. Without intending to, he touched his hair. He was his mother's son, and she was considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. He had never considered his looks to be part of his problem before. “My what?”
“Your… looks,” she said slowly, one word at a time, as if he were not only very ugly but stupid as well.
“What about them?” he asked, anger rising.
“You've got to think them through,” she said. “You can't come roaring up in a Range Rover one day—the speed limit in Hubbard's Point is fifteen miles per hour, by the way—and go walking around like Hippie Boy nineteen sixty-something the next. It's just incredibly annoying.”
“What the hell is it to you?”
“I live here.”
Michael stood on the seawall, unable to speak or move away. He was totally shocked by her rudeness, and his tongue was ready with about fifty comebacks.
“I have the right to be here,” he said.
“It's not about the right, rich boy. It's about fairness.”
“Explain your warped logic. I'm sure it's fascinating.”
“Well, you and your father are renting Winnie's little house, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
“See? You don't even want to be there—I knew it! What's a Range Rover person doing at Hubbard's Point? Especially in Winnie's cottage? You're used to mansions, right? Malibu, or wherever the beautiful people go?”
“Malibu.”
“Well, you should have rented a place in Fenwick, across the river. They have huge houses and millionaires there—even a movie star. You should have left Winnie's place free for a family that would love it. Kids who like sand and rocks and crabs, you know?”
“Aren't we a little too old for sand and rocks and crabs?” Michael asked, smirking.
The girl reached into her bait bucket and, shouting like a ninja, sprayed him with a burst offish heads. “EEEEEEEEEEEYAH! Maybe you are!” she yelled.
“You're sick,” Michael said, wiping fish entrails off his shirt as he backed away. “Why aren't you in school anyway? They kick you out for being a sociopath? Jesus Christ!”
“I'm not a sociopath!” she hissed, sunglasses sliding down her nose as she pulled the starter cord on her engine and revved it up. Casting off her lines, she gave Michael an evil stare. “And it's ‘bow’ and ‘stern,’“ she said. “Not ‘front’ and ‘back.’ I'd have thought you'd know that from spending time on people's yachts.”
“I hate yachts,” he said, watching her back the boat into the basin, Vs of wake rippling the smooth surface, reversing direction as she shifted the engine and began to move forward.
Michael watched her maneuver around the island very gently, as if there were still swans nesting there. And then, moving under the footbridge, she shouted something over her shoulder, then gunned the motor and zoomed through the narrow channel with a rooster tail of white spray flying out behind her as she left Michael in her wake.
Rumer had set the table with her mother's china, wishing Clarissa Larkin could be there to help her through. It felt impossibly hard, having Zeb and her nephew over for dinner. Bumping into Zeb last night in the dark had nearly given her a heart attack. She had thought she was prepared to see him; she had steeled herself from top to bottom.
But when she glanced through the privet hedge and saw him standing there, the ice in her veins melted all at once. She'd been gripped by old, undeniable joy—as if the cells of her body remembered their old love. But then her mind with its more recent memories regained control again, and the ice returned, encasing her heart for good measure.
Getting dressed proved to be difficult. She wanted to make the right impression on Michael. First she put on an Elizabethesque light blue sundress, then changed into a Winnielike caftan thing, then, cursing at herself for being idiotic, threw on what she had wanted to wear in the first place: jeans and a white cotton sweater.
Her mother's needlepoint pictures hung on the wall. They showed scenes from the Point: swans on the island, Mrs. Lightfoot's house on the Point, Wickland Rock Light, and then the series that Rumer had loved most when she was a child… she and Elizabeth had nicknamed them “The Unicorn Tapestries.”
Clarissa Larkin had incorporated the Point legends into her work. She had begun some of these as a very young girl, living in this same house. She and her best friend next door—Leila Tournelle—had seen a unicorn one foggy night when they were ten. Pure white, with a flowing mane and a horn of pearl, it had stood among the azalea and laurel bushes, staring at them with gentle black eyes.
Leila had grown up to marry a pilot—-Jacob May-hew Clarissa had grown up to run a small needlework shop by the Congregational Church in Black Hall. It was called Tapestry, after the lush and magical unicorn tapestries at the Cluny Museum in Paris and the Cloisters in New York.
Clarissa spent her days at the shop, needlepointing her own panels: the Point unicorn leading her and Leila amid oak, holly, pine, and flowering pear trees, its pearlescent narwhal's
tooth pointing toward the lighthouse. Hubbard's Point rabbits nestled beneath the azalea bushes. The rich colors—the dark blue sky and green house—created a harmonious background.
It was into that shop, with Clarissa stitching one of her panels, that Sixtus Larkin walked one June day. He had come down from Halifax to teach school in Black Hall, and he carried under his arm a sampler his mother had made as a girl.
“It needs restoring,” he said gruffly, spreading it out on the counter.
“It's lovely,” Clarissa said in her gentle way, running her soft hands over the water-stained and moth-eaten canvas.
“Had it in my trunk… I nearly threw it out, but then I saw your shop and thought I'd come in and see.”
“You did the right thing,” Clarissa said, and as her gaze moved from his mother's embroidery up to his hurt and hollow blue eyes, both their fates were sealed. Clarissa had never stopped believing that the Point unicorn had brought them together, and although Rumer knew her father was more practical and scientific—even about love—she knew that if his Clarissa said it to Sixtus Larkin, it must be so.
The wind had swung around, blowing from the east. Rumer stood at the kitchen window, watching the road and the sea beyond, hoping the weather would hold for Dana's wedding tomorrow. Spotting the guys coming through the yard, she felt her heart start to pound.
Michael had grown so tall—he was over six feet, a young man. She watched Zeb duck through the privet hedge, say something over his shoulder to Michael, scowling at the ground. Getting no reply, Zeb pulled the red bandanna from Michael's head. The exchange was so swift and charged, she barely had time to register anything but Zeb's nervous eyes, Michael's shocked expression, the jolt she felt at seeing Zeb, and the overwhelming love she had for her nephew.
“You're here,” she said, opening the door wide, looking past Zeb.
“Hi,” Zeb said. Their eyes met just briefly. Rumer sensed him wondering whether to hug her or not, like last night, but she brushed past him. Here was Michael, her baby nephew all grown-up, right there in her doorway, and the sight of him made her eyes fill with tears.
