Belonging

by Nancy Thayer

  Joanna grinned. “That good, huh?”

  “That good. We’ve got a great fall lineup going. The California division wants to see us ease away from anything directed to people under twenty-five, and that’s giving us a whole new perspective.”

  “Fabulous Homes is targeted to people above twenty-five,” Joanna reminded him. “Way above twenty-five, or at least with incomes and interests of professional, accomplished, mature—”

  “Hey, honey,” Jake interrupted her. “You don’t have to sell me.”

  “I’m just—” Joanna urgently needed to finish her thought, but Jake put his hand on her cheek, sliding it beneath the false curls, and she felt the coolness of his hard palm on her skin and realized her face was burning.

  “It’s okay,” Jake said. “It’s all right, Joanna. Don’t worry. I won’t let them take the show off the air. We’ve got it under control.”

  “Carter—”

  “I told Carter I’d deal with it. He’s working on some new projects.”

  “Gloria?”

  “Gloria’s working with me to slot in a few of the best old shows among the new. I’m watching her.”

  The wave of anxiety ebbed within her. Joanna leaned against the wall. “Do you miss me?” she asked, tilting her head coquettishly, trying to seem playful about this immensely important question.

  “We all miss you like hell,” Jake told her. His hand was still on her face; the wide, hard tips of his fingers were gently caressing her cheek. Such sensuality …

  “Do you think Carter—”

  Jake shook his head once, impatiently. Removing his hand, he stepped away from her. “Joanna, I don’t talk to Carter about his personal life at all. We had one brief and extremely businesslike conversation about how to deal with FH in your absence, and that was it. I don’t know what Carter thinks, and frankly, I’m not interested. Let’s go on back up.”

  Joanna agreed meekly. “Yes, all right.”

  They returned to the upper deck where Jake settled Joanna back in a chair, then went off to fetch her more seltzer. People were crowding up on deck in anticipation of the fireworks. Suddenly Tory appeared from the crush, with Claude and Morris and June in tow.

  “Darling!” Claude whispered, bending to kiss Joanna. “I never would have recognized you! This must be the wicked wig!”

  Jake knew me, Joanna thought, and thank God for that.

  Jake returned, and Tory greeted him with cries of surprise and then she and Joanna introduced him to their Nantucket friends. As they talked, darkness fell. The water rippled away from them like black satin while on the shore buds of light bloomed and dipped as the fireworks show got under way. With a shrill whistle, the first display rocketed through the sky and burst above them into a fluorescent flower.

  “Can you stand?” Jake asked. “There’s a better view from the rails. Here, lean on me.” Joanna joined the crowd, exclaiming in delight as the multicolored fireworks streaked across the sky. The big yacht rocked gently in the black water. The fresh salt air, the explosions of color, the cries of pleasure, the scent of champagne, and the solid comfort of Jake’s arm as he supported her combined to make Joanna sentimental. She felt certain that tonight something was beginning. Perhaps it was only the beginning of the Nantucket summer season, but romance and the possibility of rapture floated in the air like the ribbons of light that burst, full of magic, in the night sky.

  When the yacht finally headed back to the harbor, Joanna went back inside the cabin to sit where it was warm. Stewards were handing out coffee and she was glad for it.

  “Well, there she goes, folks,” Tory teased. “She’s fading on us.”

  “As well she deserves to do,” June declared.

  “Come on, Cinderella,” Tory said. “I promised I’d drive you home when you got tired.”

  “Let me help you.” Taking Joanna’s arm, Jake carefully escorted her down the ramp and off the boat. The darkness of night fell around them as they stood together on the wharf.

  Joanna stared at Jake, as if trying to fill up her eyes and her soul. “It is so good to see you again. How long will you be here? Can you come see my house?”

  “Not this time, I’m sorry to say. We’re leaving tomorrow for Maine. Another time. I promise.” Jake leaned forward and hugged Joanna against him. “Take care of yourself, honey,” he said softly. She felt his breath against her cheek. His embrace was invitingly warm against the cool night air.

  “You, too, Jake,” Joanna replied. She put her hands on his shoulders. His body felt solid, strong.

  They looked at one another.

  “Joanna—” Quickly Jake bent his face toward hers and kissed her full and hard on the lips.

  “Is that you over there?” Tory called out. “It’s so dark here I can’t see a thing.” Detaching herself from a group of friends, she approached Joanna and Jake, who pulled away from one another.

  Joanna wondered if Jake felt as suddenly shy as she did. “Oh, Jake, I wish—” She shook her head in confusion, not certain what she meant.

  “I’ll be seeing you, kid,” Jake said.

  Tory, high on good spirits from the evening, grabbed Joanna’s arm. “It’s okay, Jake, I’ve got the old girl now.”

  “Well, take care of her,” Jake said gruffly. He nodded brusquely, then turned and strode up the ramp and back onto the yacht.

  As they rode back toward the east end of the island and their homes, Tory said, “See? I told you it would do you good to come to this party! Wasn’t it wonderful?”

  “Tory, it was amazing,” Joanna said. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back against the seat. The air, sweet and silken as honey, slipped past her as they drove through the night.

  Saturday afternoon the Snowmen quit work early. They shut off their screaming saws, swept up the sawdust, packed their gear into the red pickup, and tore away toward town. In the sudden silence, Joanna stood at the front of the house, looking out the living room window at the white dust settling back down onto the drive. She rubbed her lower back. She’d worked hard today and accomplished a lot.

  “I guess I’m off, too,” Madaket called. “Unless there’s anything you need.”

  Joanna turned. The young woman was standing in the front hall tying a red bandanna around her braided hair. The air around her was vibrant with sunlight.

  “What a wonderful job of housekeeping you’re doing,” Joanna remarked. “Look how the floors gleam. The baseboards are so clean. Even the corners are shining.”

  “Thanks. I like working in this house.”

  “So. What are you doing tonight?”

  Madaket’s eyes lit up. “I’ll work in my garden. Then when it’s dark, take Wolf for a long walk. And you?”

  “I might see a movie with Pat.”

  “Well. Have fun.”

  “You, too.”

  Still Madaket remained in the hall. Meticulously she repositioned one pink-tipped white peony in its bouquet in a blue-and-white vase on the hall table. Joanna waited.

  “I was wondering”—Madaket paused, then plunged ahead—“do you have plans for tomorrow?”

  Surprised, Joanna answered, “Not really. Why?”

  “Would you like to …” Madaket stooped to pick a bit of dust off her sneaker. “I thought maybe you’d enjoy seeing a place I go. An outdoors place,” she concluded awkwardly.

  “Why, I’d love to do that, Madaket. What a great idea. I know so little of the island. Shall I pack a picnic lunch?”

  “All right, if you’d like, that would be nice.” Obviously encouraged by Joanna’s response, Madaket ventured, “… if you could pick me up in the Jeep, I could bring Wolf along. That is, if you wouldn’t mind a dog in the car. Wolf’s clean and well mannered.”

  “I’m sure he is. I’d love to meet him. I’ll pick you both up.”

  They agreed on a time—ten, early enough for Joanna to drive into the Hub and buy a Times before they were sold out, late enough to let her have a nice morning lie-in. Then Madaket
left. Joanna stood at the open door of her house, watching the young woman pedal away, the sun gleaming off the chrome of the bike.

  Sunday morning Joanna and Madaket pulled up at the small red Trustees of Reservations gatehouse. Wolf, a shaggy shepherd-mutt mix, sat happily in the backseat, his head hanging out the window, tongue lolling.

  “It costs forty dollars for a sticker each year,” Madaket informed Joanna, “but it’s worth it. You can drive out to Coatue and Great Point from here. Todd and Doug are probably out there casting for bluefish right now.”

  While Joanna wrote a check, Madaket let the air out of the tires. Then they were off, slowly rolling past the very civilized cottages and main building of the Wauwinet Inn. The road curved, became a track in the sand cutting through the narrow stretch of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the inner harbor. On their right, sand dunes lined with private summer cottages rose to a crest, obscuring the sight of the Atlantic just on the other side. On their left, the land sloped to the curving beach and the calm, dark blue harbor waters. A few hundred yards out a speedboat sparkled while behind it a waterskier skimmed over the waves. Boardwalks lay between the road and the beach to protect bare legs from the razor-sharp beach grass, which was spotted and tangled and woven with white daisies and pink roses and also with rampant, maliciously glistening poison ivy. Far to their left the sleekly trimmed lawn of the Wauwinet Inn sloped to the water.

  Madaket slowed the Jeep to a crawl over the sandy road which gave way and sank beneath the wheels, giving the passengers a drifting, swaying feeling.

  “Do you know who Wauwinet was?” Madaket asked.

  “I don’t. Tell me.”

  “Wauwinet was an Indian sachem. There’s sort of a romantic story about his daughter. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Sure.”

  Madaket stopped the Jeep, pushed a button and a lever, and it hummed into four-wheel drive. “In the 1600s two tribes of Algonquin Indians lived on Nantucket. They were always fighting over territory. Wauwinet was the sachem of the eastern tribe. His daughter Wonoma knew how to use medicinal herbs and plants and had a reputation as a healer, a kind of nurse. One day someone from the enemy village on the west came to say that Autopscot, the tribe’s young sachem, implored her to come help his people who were stricken by a devastating pestilence. He promised that she would be safe. She went, and tended the sick, and she and Autopscot fell in love. They wanted to marry. But Wauwinet knew her father would object, so when she returned to her own tribe, she kept silent, waiting for the right time to tell him.”

  As she spoke, Madaket steered the Jeep along the ruts of sand, turned left, and stopped, letting the engine idle as they looked out over a field of delicate green grass separating a bright blue saltwater lagoon from the strip of sandy beach and the far dark sweep of harbor water. “Look!” Madaket pointed. A white bird curved in elegant stillness in the lagoon. “An egret. They like it here.”

  “He’s beautiful,” Joanna said quietly.

  The Wauwinet Inn was now far off to their left. Madaket continued her tale. “One day some braves from Autopscot’s tribe hunted on Wauwinet’s land. Trespassing, a serious crime. Because of this, Wauwinet’s tribe decided to go to war. But the night before they were to attack, Wonoma sneaked out of her father’s village and paddled across this harbor and then ran, her way lighted by moonlight, all the way to Miacomet, where Autopscot’s tribe lived. She told her lover about her father’s plans. Autopscot hurried to Wauwinet to hold an audience before the fighting could begin. Autopscot told Wauwinet he would punish the men who had trespassed on Wauwinet’s land, and then told him that he loved Wonoma and wanted to marry her. This would unite the tribes. And so there was a truce and a royal marriage.”

  “What a lovely story. Sort of an American Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending,” Joanna said.

  “Right.” Sunshine poured through the windows and across the seats. “They say that since then there have been no wars on the island.”

  “Didn’t the Indians fight with the white settlers?”

  “Actually, no. The Indians sold their land to the first settlers, and they lived together in peace. Gradually the Indian population died off from smallpox and alcoholism and other white men’s disease.” Madaket steered the Jeep along a rough narrow path between the lagoon and a long rise of land forested with rugged evergreens.

  “That’s too bad,” Joanna remarked, looking out at the stretch of untamed landscape.

  “Mmm,” Madaket agreed somberly, and for a moment they were quiet in contemplation of the past. Then Madaket said in a wry tone, “Now, of course, we’ve got the ongoing wars between the year-rounders and the wealthy summer people.”

  “Would you really call them wars?”

  “Some people would.” The Jeep hit a spot of soft sand and bucked and stalled. Madaket turned her attention to maneuvering back onto the track. Joanna grabbed on to the handhold built into the door. “Hang on. We’re almost there,” Madaket assured her.

  At last the road emptied them onto the long stretch of beach. Madaket stopped the Jeep and turned off the engine. For a moment both women sat in silence, soaking in the intense, relaxing warmth, gazing out in an almost stuporous pleasure at the sunlight on the water. But Wolf whined, then barked sharply, and so they stirred, opened their doors, and stepped out onto the sand.

  “I’ll carry the cooler,” Madaket said. “Can you manage the towels?”

  “Sure.” Joanna followed Madaket to the water’s edge and spread the striped beach towels, which fluttered in the breeze. For a moment they both bustled around domestically, perfecting their temporary nest, holding down the towels with the ice bucket and cooler and beach umbrella and Joanna’s woven bag full of sunblock and lip balm and hairbrush and scarf. Wolf raced down to the water, then dug furiously in the sand.

  “Want to go for a little walk before we eat?” Madaket asked.

  “All right.”

  “The place I want to show you isn’t far away. I don’t think many people know about it.” As she spoke, Madaket turned eagerly away from the harbor, heading inland toward the scrubby forest. Wolf bounded after her, and Joanna followed, her feet sinking awkwardly into the soft sand. “Don’t take your shoes off just yet,” Madaket instructed. “We might hit poison ivy.” Madaket was barefoot herself, and wore a long white cotton man’s shirt opened over an old-fashioned one-piece black swimsuit which could scarcely contain her substantial breasts and rounded hips.

  An overgrown path cut up a sandy incline into a grove of gnarled and twisted cedars and pines. Stepping out of the sunshine, Joanna had the sensation, as surely as stepping over a threshold and through a door, of entering a room. Leaves and twigs and needles and branches wove overhead in a rich canopy and fell like tapestried walls to the ground, bathing the air in a dreamy green glow. Deeper in, the silence grew so complete that even the steady susurration of the water against the shore dimmed, then disappeared. Sunlight hung like banners in the shade. Ferns, grasses, and glossy-leafed bushes laced the air, now and then prickling Joanna’s legs. The modern world seemed far away, its troubles insignificant in this mysterious, ancient place.

  Madaket stopped before a silver-barked tree, certainly one of the larger trees Joanna had seen on the island. Perhaps it was three or four trees grown together, for its thick trunk was deeply grooved, and just at shoulder height its base radiated out into many branches which stretched and turned with the flexible grace of a many-armed Hindu goddess, forming several natural seats and cubbyholes just right for human bodies.

  Resting her hand affectionately on the rough bark, Madaket said, “This is what I wanted to show you. This is one of my favorite places on the island. I don’t think many other people even know it’s here.”

  “It’s peaceful here.” Joanna looked around. “A good place for daydreaming, I think.”

  “Yes. That’s what I do here,” Madaket admitted quietly.

  “And what do you dream about?”

  “The Indi
ans. Sometimes I imagine I can hear them, feel the ground pounding under their running feet, hear the rustle of the leaves and grasses as they pass. I think I would smell them before I see them. They would have such natural, vivid smells—sweat, of course, and animal oils used to smooth their hair and protect their skin, and the crisp grassy odor of the mats they wove and wore for clothing, and the leather thongs, and the clean earth on their bodies, like the ground tilled in spring, fresh, yet powerful, and salt dried on their skin from the sea. And I would hear them calling to each other. And laughing. They laugh a lot, especially now in the summer.”

  “God, Madaket, you’re giving me chills! I can almost see them!”

  “I like to imagine them, an entire tribe, and especially one family. I like to pretend that family is my family. My ancestors.” Madaket’s voice was wistful. “I like to imagine a girl, my age, who would have been my sister. If I had been alive then. Or, perhaps, we’ll meet in another time.”

  Suddenly something came crashing through the woods, making as much noise as a bear, and then Wolf broke through the brush, vines caught in his coat, trailing over his tail to the ground like ribbons.

  “Wolf, you fool, you gave me a heart attack!” Joanna cried, relieved. “Madaket, I’ve got to get out of here. I need daylight!”

  With Wolf circling them and barking happily, the two women walked back out into the sun. Returning to their towels, they carefully oiled themselves with sunblock, then unpacked the picnic lunch: green grapes, whole-wheat crackers with various cheeses, slices of carrots and peppers and celery. A healthful meal—except for Madaket’s dark chocolate brownies, which Joanna brought for dessert. She hadn’t forgotten Wolf. She laid out on a Tupperware lid a gourmet assortment of cold cuts. True to his name, Wolf swallowed them in one gulp, then lay with piteous longing watching Joanna and Madaket eat.

  They stretched out on their towels then, and rested, half dozing in the sultry heat. Joanna liked the way the warm sand beneath her could be scooped and molded to fit her body as she lay on her side.