Belonging

by Nancy Thayer

  She decided to call Madaket Brown the next morning, to tell her she was hired.

  Eleven

  On a sunny day during the second week of June, Joanna made an awkward exit from her Jeep while up on the front porch of her Victorian summer house on the bluff in ’Sconset, Tory waited, smiling.

  “Tory, come here a moment,” Joanna called out. “I want you to meet someone.”

  Tory walked down to the lawn and Madaket stepped out of the car.

  Joanna introduced them. “Tory, my best old friend, meet Madaket, my new right hand.”

  The two women smiled and shook hands. Together they were like night and day: Tory was tiny and dainty and slender, with the pale blue eyes and white-blond hair of her Icelandic ancestry. She wore brief white jogging shorts, a white T-shirt, and sandals, and she didn’t look old enough to have any children, let alone two adolescents. Standing next to her, Madaket seemed the older. Certainly she was larger. She was as tall as Joanna, and broad through the bosom and hips, and though Joanna had come to suspect the young woman had a small waist, she couldn’t know for sure because of the loose dresses Madaket wore. Tory looked very contemporary, very urban; Madaket could have arrived directly from an isolated village in the last decade of the last century. She had the look of a Victorian mill worker about her with her solid black work boots and her simple dark print cotton dress falling almost to her ankles and her hair pulled back in a braid with tendrils and curls and strands escaping romantically about her pretty face. Tory, as always, had on perfect makeup, so expertly applied it looked natural. Her lips were shell-pink. Beside her, Madaket, who wore no makeup at all, was naturally flamboyant, with eyes so black and intense and almond-shaped and long-lashed they flashed like coals catching fire, and the skin on her full rosy lips had an odd violet tint and around her eyes it was almost blue.

  Madaket was polite but shy, and Tory tried to put her at ease.

  “What a beautiful summer dress you’re wearing. It’s just the thing I see in the Tweeds catalogs. My daughter would die for it. Where did you get it?”

  “At the thrift shop. It’s a secondhand store in town.”

  “Of course, thrift shops are the best places to find marvelous old clothes. Well, I’m so glad Joanna has you to help her,” Tory said. “She’s hopeless when it comes to running a home.”

  “Hey, wait a minute!” Joanna protested, laughing. “I’m an expert on homes.”

  Tory waggled her eyebrows at Madaket. “Just mark my words.”

  “All right,” Madaket replied. Getting back into the car, she said to Joanna, “I’ll be back to pick you up in two or three hours.”

  “Don’t hurry,” Joanna told her.

  “And drive carefully,” Tory admonished. “The tourists are crabby these days.”

  Once Madaket had driven away, Tory turned to embrace Joanna.

  “I can’t believe you’re so pregnant!” she said, gently touching Joanna’s belly.

  “And you own a complete and entire house! Come in and tell me all about it.”

  Wrapping her arm around Joanna’s shoulder, Tory led her friend up the steps and through her spacious house and out to the shady covered porch. As she stood with Tory, gazing at the expanse of dappled-blue Atlantic, Joanna felt happy, both relaxed and excited—it was so good being with Tory again, and she wanted to tell her everything at once.

  Joanna settled into a chair. “Where are the kids? How was the trip?”

  “Hair-raising. Jeremy’s got his license and insisted on driving most of the way, with Vicki grumbling that she should be allowed to drive, too. Here, I made you a nice nonalcoholic fruit drink.”

  Tory had furnished this house wittily, in what she called British Pukka, with lots of airy Indian and Pakistani touches. The porch furniture was bamboo with lime-green cushions. Chinese wind chimes tinkled. Round glass tables supported by fake, highly detailed elephant legs held small painted porcelain rice bowls filled with chocolates and nuts. At the far end of the porch stood the battered old table and chairs where the Randall family had played raucous games of Monopoly or Clue or Trivial Pursuit by the light of the glass hurricane lanterns. It was all comfortably worn and familiar. Joanna leaned back on a chaise and accepted a tall glass adorned with a pleated paper umbrella and a straw.

  “Thanks. Wow. I’d forgotten how magnificent your view is. So much more dramatic than mine.”

  “Yeah, but there’s no access to the beach here unless you want to throw yourself over the edge of the cliff and free-fall. But I do love it. Joanna, you look absolutely radiant. How do you feel?”

  “Wonderful. I’m disgustingly happy and healthy. I’ve never been better in my life. I love my house. I love having a house. I love being pregnant. I love Nantucket.”

  “Don’t you miss Carter?”

  “Of course.” Joanna paused, reflected, took a deep breath. “But all this”—she put her hands on her belly—“was never part of any plan or promise between the two of us.”

  “I know. Still, I worry about you trying to raise two children without a father.”

  “I can do it. Lots of women—”

  “Oh, I know, I know, but it’s hard. Without someone to help you love and protect them, to love and protect you. I’m afraid you haven’t considered the long lonely nights when both babies will be sick and you’ll be sick and—”

  “—and then I’ll call you,” Joanna laughed. “But I’ll have help. Don’t be so gloomy! Remember, Tory, I’m a woman who was sure she’d have neither husband nor children. I’ve already adjusted to a lot of, well, not losses, but absences. Being pregnant is such an unexpected miracle.”

  “Yeah,” Tory mused, “I remember. Hormonal heaven. And they’re so sweet as babies and so fascinating and adorable, and so loving.” Her face grew solemn. “It’s really hard now that Jeremy and Vicki are growing up. They’re secretive. They don’t want me to hug them, or even be seen with them. I miss them. The little ones.”

  “From what I’ve heard, Tory,” Joanna said consolingly, “all teenagers disown their parents at a certain stage in their lives.”

  “I know. Still, I envy you. You’re at the fun stage. Hey, tell me about your house. When can I see it?”

  “Everything’s in chaos, but come over anytime, as soon as you can. I can’t wait for you to see it. I’ve got a father-son carpenter team knocking out a wall between two upstairs bedrooms so I can have a larger study. They’ve got to patch the walls, repair the woodwork, and paint the room. While they’re fixing up my study, I’m working on the screened-in porch. Sorting stuff, organizing materials for two books. Justin Karnes at DBP’s given me an advance. He wants them as soon as possible.”

  “Does he know where you are?”

  “Nope. I told him my agent will send chapters along to him as I finish them. He can always leave messages for me at Sheila’s office.”

  “Such subterfuge! Such drama!” Tory teased.

  “You know how everyone talks in New York. Or Carter could go charm Justin’s secretary into digging up my home address. I just didn’t want to take the chance. I want Carter to feel that all roads are blocked off. No access. Dead end.”

  “Do you have a secretary here?”

  “No. But, thank God, I’ve got Madaket. She’s only worked for me for three days now, and I don’t know how I lived without her. She’s energetic and polite and wonderfully self-starting. I don’t have to make a detailed list of things for her to do. I just said, you’re the housekeeper. She cooked dinner for me last night—grilled monkfish, rice, fresh asparagus. And strawberry shortcake. It was a feast.”

  “You’re going to get fat.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m already fat! But Madaket watches my diet more carefully than I would. She’s big on fresh fish and fruits and veggies.”

  “I’m glad she knows what she’s doing.”

  “Me, too.” Joanna hesitated, then confessed, “I’ve had a checkup with the obstetrician here. He says I need to be careful about salt a
nd so on. It looks like my blood pressure’s getting high.”

  “Oh, Joanna, how worrisome. That can cause real problems.”

  “I know. Especially with twins.”

  “You just have to force yourself to rest a lot,” Tory insisted. “You can’t run around like a madwoman the way you usually do, working night and day.”

  “That’s why I’ve moved here, where it’s peaceful and quiet. I’m trying hard, Tory. I’ve read all the books. I’m doing all I can.” To her chagrin, tears flooded her eyes.

  Tory leaned forward and stroked Joanna’s hand. “Honey, you’ll be all right. I’m sure you will be.”

  For another hour they lay back in their bamboo chairs, sipped their drinks, talked about pregnancy and babies. Joanna was at the stage where she wanted to know everything, in graphic detail, about the way babies grew in utero, and were born, and were nursed and cared for, and Tory was glad to oblige, confessing that such memories were balm to her soul.

  A horn sounded outside: Madaket returning with the Jeep full of groceries. Together Tory and Joanna made their way through the cool, shadowy rooms of the old Victorian house and out to the front porch.

  “I’ll be right down,” Joanna called to Madaket. Turning to Tory, she embraced her, saying, “I’m so glad you’re here.” Then, halfway down the steps, Joanna turned and looked back up at her friend. “By the way, I didn’t get a chance to ask—have you seen anyone from the network? Jake or Dhon or—anyone?”

  Tory laughed. “Now, where would I see them?”

  “Oh, at a party, perhaps …”

  Tory shook her head. “Shame on you. No, Joanna, I have not seen anyone from the network, and especially I haven’t seen Carter. He hasn’t called me to ask where you are. He hasn’t called John; John would tell me if he had. I haven’t seen Jake, either. He’s the only one I’d run into at parties, you know. Now come on. Remember what the doctors have said. Forget about them all. You’ve got to relax.”

  “I know, I know,” Joanna grumbled. Turning away from Tory, she made her way down the rest of the front steps.

  “Take care of yourself,” Tory called cheerfully. “Everyone in New York is doing just fine without you!”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Joanna said to herself, and she was in a quiet and thoughtful mood as Madaket drove her home.

  That evening, after the Snowmen rode off in their red pickup, after Madaket biked away, Joanna went for a solitary walk—or rather, she thought, a waddle—along the beach. The day had been full and busy, and she was cheered by Madaket’s presence and by Tory’s arrival on the island, yet tonight she was melancholy.

  She missed Carter. Terribly. She thought of him on first awakening and on lying down to sleep. Because of her hormones, her appreciation of the world was intense, and every moment of the day she encountered tastes or sights she longed to share with him.

  She missed his voice, his warmth, his elegance, the sparks of their collaboration. She missed his body. Even though she’d done everything she knew to keep her life here secret, whenever she heard the phone ring, her heart leapt with the hope that it would be Carter calling. Every afternoon as she strolled down her driveway to take the day’s mail from the box at the road, she hoped she’d find a letter from him.

  Yet she would not call him, or write him, and she knew she had to stop wanting him. She understood how the power of her longing was serving to blur reality, and she reminded herself that Carter was a man who always got his way. She wasn’t certain that even now she could withstand the force of his displeasure.

  These days when Joanna walked down the main street of Nantucket, she saw tourist families together, young sweet-looking men barely out of their teens with babies strapped to their chests in little canvas knapsacks. She saw couples walking together, mother holding one child’s hand, father holding another child’s hand, all of them eating ice-cream cones. She saw a bearded professorial type seated on a park bench with a tiny baby in his arms. He fed the baby from a bottle while his wife, inside a woman’s clothing shop, tried on garments, posing in the doorway for his approval. Couples like this made tears come into Joanna’s eyes and she wondered for the millionth time if what she was doing was right.

  But what was right?

  Had it been right for her parents to have a child when neither was capable of having a home? She certainly hadn’t had the perfect family, a daddy holding one hand, a mommy holding the other, and yet she’d turned out reasonably well.

  So she tried not to think of Carter, and instead to concentrate on her work and her beautiful house.

  “You’ll have to be patient,” Joanna told Madaket when she hired her. “And flexible. With all this work on the house, it’s bound to be chaotic.” But Joanna discovered that her life quickly fell into a comfortable pattern. Five days a week Madaket biked out, arriving at the house at eight o’clock, in time to fix breakfast for Joanna. Madaket joined her for coffee as they discussed the day’s schedule, then Joanna went onto the screened porch and spent the morning working on her books. Madaket cleaned house and cooked, the Snowmen hammered and painted and plastered away upstairs. After the lunch Madaket brought out on a tray, Joanna walked along the beach for an hour, returning for a catnap. Then she resumed work on her books until the hammering stopped and everyone left and she could relax in the still of the evening, eating at her leisure whatever Madaket had prepared for dinner. Still later, she talked with Tory on the phone, or often simply sat on the screened porch, looking out at the light playing on the water, sometimes listening to a classical CD, sometimes reading, sometimes only daydreaming, until, very early, perhaps at only ten o’clock, she climbed the stairs and went to bed, falling asleep instantly. She felt perfectly safe alone in her huge old house. It seemed to accept her and all the changes gratefully, holding the warmth of the day in its rooms at night, receiving light from the moon and stars in its deepest corners.

  Joanna liked having Madaket in the house. The young woman was quiet; she was quick. Obviously she was trying hard to please. Unlike Joanna’s city assistants, she wasn’t argumentative or pushy or strung out over her current lover or her landlord. In fact, she never talked about herself at all. Often as she worked she hummed under her breath, and when she came or left the room, a fragrance of herbs and spices drifted through.

  The first morning, as they went over the plans for the day, Madaket stood in front of Joanna, hands folded decorously in front of her, but this respectful, rather servile attitude bothered Joanna, and she said, “Oh, Madaket. Sit down,” and gestured to the other side of the kitchen table. “I can’t think with you standing there like a little soldier at attention. Help yourself to a cup of coffee, and join me. And please, speak up if you have some thoughts. I need all the advice I can get!”

  “Oh, I think you’re doing everything perfectly,” Madaket replied, but a few mornings later she surprised Joanna by taking the initiative. “Which cupboard do you want me to stack the plates in? And the canned goods? And the staples?”

  “Why do we need staples in the kitchen?” Joanna asked, truly dumbfounded. “I have plenty in my box of office supplies.”

  Madaket’s mouth twitched. “Not those kinds of staples. Cooking staples. Flour. Sugar. Baking powder. Those kinds of staples.”

  “Oh, God, I’m an imbecile! Well, does it matter? I mean, are there rules for this sort of thing? Guidelines? Does someone anywhere care? There are so many cupboards. Look, why don’t you decide?”

  “I’d love to,” Madaket replied eagerly. And as Joanna sat on the screened porch, reading through her files to the hum of her computer, she heard through the doors from the porch to the dining room and the dining room to the kitchen the companionable sounds of Madaket singing to herself punctuated by the pleasant, orderly tap of plates and cans being set down on wood.

  The next day, when Madaket brought Joanna her second cup of decaffeinated coffee, she paused, then said, “Joanna, could I suggest something?”

  Joanna turned in
her chair. “Of course.”

  They were on the screened porch. It was a cool, rainy day, and the rain drummed on the roof. The windows, thick with dripping vines, enclosed the room in a humid, fragrant green. Joanna had turned on the overhead light as well as the standing lamp, and the cool blue radiant lake of her computer screen gleamed. Madaket’s hands were behind her back and she stood very straight, as if at attention.

  “I don’t mean to be rude,” Madaket began, licking her lips, and then, taking a deep breath, she forced it all out: “but you see, you don’t have much cooking equipment. It limits what I can make for you.”

  Joanna shrugged. “I told you I was new to all this household stuff. All right, Madaket, sit down. Please. Now tell me. What else should I have?”

  Madaket settled on the edge of a wicker rocker and leaned forward. “Loaf pans, and then I could make bread. I make delicious bread. A set of measuring cups and spoons. A Cuisinart. Cookie sheets. Pie pans so I could make you quiches or fruit pies. An electric mixer. A large breadboard. Decent knives. Slotted spoons. Wooden spoons. Some nice big pottery mixing bowls. Shall I go on?”

  “You mean there’s more?” At Madaket’s affirmative nod, Joanna sighed. “You poor thing, what have you been using to cook with?”

  Madaket grinned. “It’s been a challenge. You do have lovely china and crystal and silver, but you’ve neglected to buy the basics. If you’d like, we could go in together and select things.”

  Joanna leaned back in her chair and considered. She imagined them together in the housewares department of Marine Home Center, debating over teakettles, and her immediate reaction was definite. She’d be bored to death. She always had been bored to death with kitchen paraphernalia, and it seemed she hadn’t changed. She wanted to spend her time on the architecture of her books, constructing a complete and satisfying thing from words and photographs and images and questions and answers, and so she asked Madaket, “Do you think you could buy everything yourself?”