Belonging

by Nancy Thayer

  “Tiffany,” June said reprovingly, “you had a perfectly wonderful father.”

  “No! You had a perfectly wonderful physician! My father was never there for me. What do you think happened when I was the star little pony in my ballet recital? Do you think he came? And saw me? And told me how beautiful I was? No. He got called in to deliver some damned woman’s baby. And that’s what happened over and over again all through my life. He couldn’t take me to the father-daughter dinner at my high school. Hell, he didn’t even see me graduate from high school!”

  Joanna watched Tiffany. She was very beautiful with rage flushing her face, making her glow and shimmer even more, and as she tossed her curls and nearly shuddered with indignation, she fairly burned with anger. But at the other end of the table, Gardner sat looking purely miserable. He wasn’t staring at his beloved with awe at her beauty but rather sinking into himself, as if his very chest and the heart within were collapsing.

  When Tiffany finally stopped to drink some wine, Joanna leaned toward her. “I can understand,” she began, intending to confide that her father had also been a doctor.

  But Tiffany snapped her head, tossing her curls back, and glaring at Joanna, interrupted: “No one can possibly understand.”

  The maid entered then to ask people whether they’d like coffee, decaf, or tea with their dessert, which would be cherries jubilee, and as the guests concentrated on this, the little miasma of fury that had settled over the table lifted off and floated away into the night air.

  “She’s selfish and self-absorbed and young,” Joanna whispered to Tory, “but beautiful. And passionate.”

  “Yes,” Tory agreed. “I can see why Gardner loves her. But God, if any two people in the world ever seemed incompatible, it’s those two. Look at him, Joanna. She’s going to eat him alive.”

  “Tory, are you and John racing tomorrow?” Morris directed his calm gaze at Tory, and the conversation shifted to sailing.

  Except for an occasional disdainful sniff, Tiffany remained quiet, pouting, for the rest of the evening. Joanna sat back in her chair and enjoyed a few bites of the very sweet dessert. Her stomach was so crushed in on itself by the burgeoning bodies of her babies that she could scarcely work up any kind of appetite. At several points during the conversation Joanna opened her mouth to mention the discovery of the room beneath her house, and the rubies hidden in the room, but each time she changed her mind, closed her mouth, let the others speak. She had no energy left for what would be a turbulent discussion. And there had already been enough drama at the table for one night.

  They adjourned into the living room for after-dinner drinks. Joanna sipped on clear seltzer and tried to stay awake. At ten-thirty Pat called, “Joanna, your ride’s here,” and Joanna rose awkwardly and kissed her hosts goodbye and said goodbye to everyone and lumbered toward the front door where Madaket waited.

  “Did you have a good time?” Madaket asked. She steered the Jeep along the narrow lanes toward Main Street, which was wide and shadow-swept and flickering with people strolling and laughing and gazing in shop windows under the swaying canopy of summery lavish-leafed trees.

  “Umm.” Joanna yawned and stretched and scratched her belly in blissful abandonment. “But I’m exhausted. Oh, God, these cobblestones.”

  “I thought you’d like to hear the street musicians.” Madaket slowed the Jeep. Music drifted in on the warm air from a folk guitarist, a saxophone player, and a bizarre overwrought young man who played “Feelings” on his violin to the taped accompaniment of a synthesized orchestra.

  Streetlights flared and dimmed across the windshield as they turned down Orange Street. Joanna trailed her hand out the window in the lake of cool night air.

  “I’m beginning to feel a bit decadent,” Joanna admitted, “with you chauffeuring me everywhere. I feel like … some old depraved Roman empress. Next I’ll be nagging at you to peel the grapes.”

  Madaket laughed. “I don’t think you know what decadence is.”

  “Oh, and you do.”

  “Well, I’ve worked in some pretty decadent homes on this island.”

  “Such as?”

  “Three years ago I worked as a cook for a family who had rented a house on the Cliff for a month. Forty thousand dollars for the month of July. The wife was there only three days, the husband only one. But their children were there the entire time; the son was nineteen and the daughter was seventeen. The wife had compiled a complete set of menus for three meals a day for the entire month. Lots of fresh fish, fresh vegetables, fresh fruit. Lots of homemade desserts and whole-wheat breads. The decadent part was that—never mind that at nineteen and seventeen people should be capable of fixing their own meals—the daughter was anorexic and ate only about three chocolate chips that month. The son had a lot of friends and mostly they drank and ate pizza and vomited.”

  “God! Did you tell the woman?”

  “I told her secretary. I felt it was such a terrible waste of food. But the secretary said the woman insisted that I make decent meals available in case her children were hungry, and that if I didn’t, she’d find someone else who would. Every now and then the secretary would stop by the kitchen to be sure I was doing my job, and the woman had sent one of her maids over to keep the house clean, and I suspected the maid was reporting on me, too. So that entire month I cooked three nutritious, delectable meals a day, and set them on the table, and waited for a while, then threw all that beautiful food away.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. There’s another woman on the island, a terribly wealthy woman, who hates to wait for trees and shrubs to grow and bloom, so she hires a landscaping company to plant full, flowering bushes in her garden, and when she’s tired of looking at them, she has the landscaper dig them up and take them to the dump. But before they go to the dump, the landscapers have to sever the plants from the roots—while she watches. She’s afraid that someone else might take them from the dump and plant them in their own yard. She buys them with her money and she wants no one else to have those plants.”

  Joanna had been listening with her eyes closed. Now she opened them and looked over at Madaket to see her expression. “Does all this make you angry? Resentful? Jealous?”

  Madaket considered. “I’m sorry about the plants and food. I regret the waste. But I pity the people. I think they must be so lonely, cut off from the important things.”

  “But, Madaket, they have so much. You have so little.”

  Madaket shook her head. “No. I have so much. You’ll see after you’ve lived here for a year. After you’ve had the seasons on the island. Each day here is like a treasure. And somehow, you get to keep it. It stays with you. A wealth in your soul.”

  Joanna searched the young woman’s face as she spoke and saw there a soft radiance that fairly glowed off her. “You are lucky,” she agreed. “To love someplace so much.”

  “You will, too,” Madaket assured her, “after you’ve lived here awhile.”

  After a few moments of companionable silence, Madaket asked, “Have you thought any more about the tunnel?”

  “Not really. Oh, I don’t know, Madaket. I really don’t know.”

  “We would only explore it. Look around. Anything we found we’d bring to you.”

  “It’s not that. Not the matter of possession. It’s more a matter of—anxiety, I guess. What if the tunnel caved in? I can’t get down there to see it and judge myself.”

  “We wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

  “I know, but, Madaket, I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

  Joanna spoke honestly, but she meant it in a selfish way, and so she was surprised when Madaket replied in a choked, hushed voice, “Oh, Joanna. I didn’t know that.”

  Joanna turned to look at the young woman who was driving very seriously now, looking very determined and blinking back tears. The summer heat and humidity had made some of Madaket’s black hair escape from the braid and it twined and curled down arou
nd her face in glossy ringlets. Her profile was proud and beautiful, the strong cheekbones and wide nose and enormous deep dark eyes all struck into sharp relief by the shadowy light. Beneath her cotton dress, her huge bosom heaved with repressed emotion, and Madaket looked like a goddess, a dark goddess of earth and fecundity and nature and night: a goddess for the proud and fiercely alone. Joanna realized with a shock that this was probably the first time, or one of the first few times, that Madaket had heard concern for her expressed.

  “You and Todd seem to be getting along very well these days,” Joanna said, wanting to make Madaket happy.

  It worked. Madaket’s lips lifted in a spontaneous, irrepressible smile. “I know. We talk a lot. We’re getting to know each other. He’s really very nice. And he really wants to explore the tunnel.”

  “Is this so important to you, Madaket?”

  “Yes. Very.”

  “Why? Do you actually think you’ll find treasure?”

  “Joanna, we already did find something! You should have those stones valued. But it’s not the treasure. It’s the knowing. The discovery.”

  “But what if you find more? What will happen to my precious peace and quiet, my privacy? What there is left of it.”

  “Joanna, we’ve known about the rubies, or whatever they are, for twenty-four hours now. We would have talked about it right away if we were going to. But we haven’t told anyone. Your peace and quiet haven’t been disturbed. You should trust us.”

  Joanna shifted in the seat, leaning her weight against the door. She was irritated by a strange tension stirring within her. She realized that she wanted Madaket to have her own way simply because it would make Madaket happy. She wanted that almost as much as she wanted to have her own way. It was unsettling to be pulled by contrasting desires.

  “I do trust you, Madaket.” They were in the dark open countryside now. No more streaks of streetlights. Deep silence rolled in the air. She took a deep breath. “All right, Madaket. You and Todd can explore the tunnel.”

  Madaket laughed, a pleased light laugh. It filled Joanna with delight.

  Seventeen

  Every warm September evening after dark had fallen, a flash of lights broke over the front of the house, and the red pickup truck crackled over the gravel and stopped. Todd entered the front door without knocking—they all agreed it was simpler if he did—and Wolf fell all over himself in a flurry of legs and fur getting down to greet him. Madaket followed more slowly, first checking to be sure Joanna was comfortable and had everything she needed for the night.

  Equipped with battery-powered lights and spades and shovels, and taking down wood for bracing, the two young people climbed down the rickety ladder into the root cellar. They’d formed a plan about how they’d go about their search, and they had discussed it thoroughly with Joanna. Carefully they scooped sand into buckets, poured the sand in a pile in a corner of the cellar, and made arches of wood to support the roof and walls in the tunnel. They told Joanna their work was hot, boring, and dirty. So far they’d found nothing but sand.

  When Madaket came up to bring Joanna her warm milk and nighttime snack, she’d have grains of sand glistening like bits of opals in her black hair. Often Todd came up to Joanna’s bedroom, too, appealingly awkward in his jeans and heavy work boots. Not wanting to get any of Joanna’s furniture sandy, he’d just sprawl on the floor, back against the wall. Wolf would throw himself on top of Todd, and there they’d sit, two especially successful strains of male animal, in Joanna’s very feminine room.

  Joanna called Morris Lathern one day and told him she had a legal question. She would pay for his advice, and she wanted his promise of complete confidentiality.

  “If any treasure is found in my house, in the attics or under the ground or anywhere on my land, to whom does it legally belong?” she asked.

  Morris answered: “To you. Without a doubt. If it were something belonging to the former owner, which they might have accidentally left behind, then there might be a question. But if you’re talking about something that’s been hiding away there for over a hundred years, then whatever it is, it’s your property by law.”

  “Don’t turn Madaket into your husband,” Tory advised Joanna one sunny day as they walked together down Main Street.

  “What!” Joanna was shocked.

  “I mean, don’t rely on her too much. Don’t invest too much emotionally. Bottom line, she’s your employee, you’re her boss. The way you’ve got her living there, you act as if she’s family. But that’s not fair to her, Joanna. She’s only nineteen. She can’t live here the rest of her life. She’s got to grow up and get married or have a career, have a life of her own. You’ve got to know she’ll leave you. You mustn’t get too dependent on her.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Tory.” As they walked into the Espresso Cafe, Joanna was irritated, unsettled by her friend’s remarks.

  “You go on out and get a table in the shade. I’ll get the drinks,” Tory suggested.

  “All right. I want an iced decaf cappuccino.” Joanna stepped out onto the sunny patio and settled at a table near a tub spilling with pink begonias.

  Tory soon joined her, a glass in each hand. Sinking into her chair, she continued, “Well, I worry about you. I just don’t want you to become too dependent on Madaket.”

  “Look, Tory, it’s not as if I have a choice. Gardner told me I have to take care. I need full-time help. Madaket’s my employee but also, thank heavens, I really like her. She’s agreed to be here for the next year. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with that, except that since she’s living in your house, it will be easy to get the roles confused. Between employee and friend, I mean. I don’t want you to get hurt when she takes off next year.”

  “Who says she’s taking off next year?”

  “Joanna, don’t be so touchy! No one’s saying that. We’re talking in circles. I mean only that she might take off next year. She’s not your family. Don’t count on her to care for you. She’s with you because you’re paying her.”

  “I guess no one would stay with me otherwise,” Joanna snapped. She had intended to mention the discovery of the rubies and the cellar and the tunnel; she’d intended to let it all spill out in one rush of eagerness and anxiety. But Tory leaned back in her chair and regaled Joanna with descriptions of the clothes she’d bought for Vicki for school on their latest shopping tour. Joanna let all thoughts of the hidden treasure sink back into the shadows of her mind. Without asking she knew what Tory would say.

  Early in September, Pat’s gallery held a private champagne opening for the painter Wallace Stark. This was a grand occasion, admittance by personal invitation only.

  “You’ve got to go,” Tory lectured Joanna. “Stark is probably the most famous painter in America and he never shows up in public. John and I bought a Wallace Stark oil fifteen years ago, when it had cost only fifty thousand dollars. Now that he’s in his seventies and producing little, it’s worth ten times as much. He’s a real character, and one who’s not going to be on this earth much longer. You’ll never get this chance again.”

  “I know,” Joanna said, “but, Tory, it’s just so hard for me to get around these days.”

  “Oh, Joanna, wait till you have your twins! Then you’ll really know what it is to be tied down. Come on. One last party.”

  Joanna smiled abashedly. “I already gave my two invitations to Madaket. I just can’t go, Tory.”

  “Well, I’ve got two, one for me and one for John, and he’s going to be in New York, so you can be my date. It’s settled. I won’t take no for an answer.”

  When the night of the party came, Madaket helped Joanna into her familiar turquoise silk tent, and brushed her hair, and helped her down the stairs and out to the driveway and into Tory’s car. Wolf whined at their side; he’d adopted Joanna and didn’t like it when she left the house.

  “Now, you’re coming, too, right, Madaket?” Joanna asked as the young woman gently and firmly closed
the car door. “I know you don’t like snobs, but this is a different kind of affair. A once-in-a-lifetime occasion.”

  Madaket nodded. “I’m coming. I just have to change.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Are you bringing a friend?”

  Madaket smiled. “Yes.”

  “Enough chat, ladies, I don’t want to miss a minute,” Tory said, and started the engine and drove out of the driveway and down the Squam Road and along into town. The night was breezy and mild, with just a bit of crispness in the air.

  “Look, Tory,” Joanna said, pointing to her high wide stomach, which bulged here and there as the twins moved inside her.

  Tory laughed. “It looks like your babies are dancing.”

  “Practicing karate is more like it. Ooh! They can really kick.”

  “How’s your blood pressure?”

  “Gardner says I’m in a holding pattern. Not getting any better but not getting any worse.”

  “You’re counting down now. Only two more months.”

  Joanna groaned. “Each day seems like a month, Tory. I feel so helpless. So vast and vulnerable.”

  “That will all change soon enough,” Tory replied offhandedly, not really interested. “Here we are.” She double-parked the car on the side of Main Street. “I’ll let you out. Wait for me on the bench. I’ll find a parking spot and we can go in together. And try not to talk about the babies all the time, okay?”

  “Tory!” Affronted, Joanna searched her mind for a proper riposte, but Tory demanded impatiently, “Joanna, would you get out? I’m holding up traffic.”

  Joanna negotiated her way from the car and across the cobblestones to the brick sidewalk. Sighing gratefully, she sank onto a bench to wait for Tory. It was a lovely evening. The sidewalks weren’t as crowded or noisy, and as she scanned the long block of shopfronts, she fancied that the stores, full of lights and luxuries and people, were a kind of theater and she was here in the dark audience, watching. Then Tory came and, taking Joanna by the elbow, helped her stand, and together they made their way into Pat’s art gallery and became a part of that particular play.