by Nancy Thayer
Off she went, her long brown and gold dress swaying around her rounded hips. Joanna leaned her head wearily back against the rocking chair and raised her baby so that he rested against her shoulder. Her arms were tired, her shoulders ached, and she was heart-sore. Outside, the door of the Jeep slammed with its solid resounding thud and then the engine purred into life and gravel clicked and spattered as Madaket drove away. Joanna knew she and her son would not have done so well without the continuous care Madaket gave them. Madaket was always there, ready to take the baby and change his diaper or help weak Joanna rise from her bath. Madaket cooked the meals, did the endless laundry, answered the phone, rocked the baby, rubbed Joanna’s back, hurried into town for groceries, cleaned the house, and took turns walking the floor late at night when Christopher in his sixth week went into a colicky period.
Yet all of Madaket’s actions were tainted for Joanna, edged by the conversation Joanna had overheard on the stairs between Madaket and Todd. She did not know that Madaket had succumbed to Todd’s charms, of course, and it was just possible that Madaket would remain loyal to Joanna. But they were both island people, and young and poor, and Joanna remembered Tory’s admonitions. Also, she knew full well how sexual attraction could cause a person to change her life.
And why should Madaket not betray Joanna? Betrayal seemed only another component of nature. Wouldn’t it be simply the easier course to give up hoping and believe the worst? Why not?
Her eyes were closed, and the bitter tears were rising, stinging against her eyelids.
Gravel crackled again, and again a car door thudded. Madaket had forgotten something, the grocery list, a check, the mail. Joanna bit her lip to check her tears. The front door opened, closed, and then she heard footsteps come up the steps. Heavy steps, not Madaket’s. A man’s.
“Hello?”
Before she could answer his call, Doug Snow came down the hallway and stood in the doorway, his slim, intense masculinity contrasting with all the pastel innocence of the nursery walls. His hair and beard glittered a thousand shades of gold and his skin was bronzed by the sun, so that his blue eyes seemed particularly vivid. Joanna could smell him: the tang of fresh air, dried sweat, movement, leather and denim and hard tools and strength. Facing him as she sat in her chair, she felt lazy and heavy and slow, and she knew that her swollen breasts showed against the fabric of her nightgown. Sensation flowed into her breasts, stung and shoved against her nipples. She wanted him to cross the room and kneel by her chair and put his mouth on her breasts.
“Sorry to bother you,” Doug said. “How’s the boy?”
“Almost asleep.”
He lowered his voice. “I was hoping I could talk to you a minute.”
“Of course.” She brought the baby down from her shoulder and held him against her breasts, to cover herself.
“It’s about the tunnel.”
Joanna waited.
“Todd and I were hoping that you’d let him come back at nights to explore it. He’d be very quiet about it. He wouldn’t bother you or your baby. He wouldn’t need Madaket to help.”
Joanna stopped listening. You haven’t come for me, she realized with a sudden despairing clarity; your desire for me has not driven you here, nor have you come in ordinary friendship. Why, you haven’t been lusting after me, it’s only me who’s lusted after you. You haven’t chosen me. You want to find the treasure and claim it for yourself, and if flirting with me is part of the price you have to pay, then you’ll pay it. If charming me makes it possible to manipulate me, then you’ll do that. And I interpreted your kindnesses as I wished.
Doug was staring at her, vehemence darkening his eyes, every line of the long thick muscles of his body straining against his clothes. “The kids did find that chest with two rubies in it. It seems a shame to cover it all over when we could be so close to finding the treasure—”
“No,” Joanna interrupted him, her voice cold. “I was going to call you. I’d like you to resume work out here in the day again. I’m tired of having the house torn up. I want you to go ahead and cover that floor and finish that room as soon as possible. I’ll need it for the baby.”
Doug flinched slightly and his eyes blazed. “Look,” he began, his voice louder, antagonistic.
“I don’t think we need to discuss it any more. Please leave. I’m tired.”
He took two great strides into the room and stood before her, a powerful, handsome man, nearly vibrating with suppressed anger. “Joanna, you’re not being fair. You have no right to keep us from finding more of the treasure.”
“I have every right. I own this house,” Joanna told him coldly. “Now please leave.”
Doug stared at her, insolence heating his eyes. He was fiercely handsome, with the braced, keen, virile handsomeness of a lion poised to attack. Fear streaked along her nerves.
“Joanna,” he said again, and she thought she heard a threat in his voice.
She raised her chin. “Shall I call the police?”
He looked startled, then contemptuous. “Oh, Christ!” He turned and left.
Later that day Madaket returned from town, and after she’d unloaded the groceries and dry cleaning and shopping from the Jeep, she came quickly up the stairs to see if Christopher and Joanna were all right. Joanna had taken the baby to bed with her and fed him, and they had both napped and now lay together in the tousled sheets. Joanna was on her side, head propped on one hand, looking down at Christopher, who lay on his back, smiling and kicking his legs and waving his arms and cooing to her. This was a tantalizing, seductive thing that he could do, Joanna thought, watching him, for his eyes shone with light and happiness as he looked up at her and he blew bubbles of pleasure each time she spoke.
“Hi, guys,” Madaket called, entering the room. She tossed a pile of new and glossy magazines on the bedside table and knelt down on the floor next to the bed. “Here, Joanna, I brought you lots of stuff to look at. Now I get Topher for a while.” Leaning over, she fondled the baby, and her speech dissolved into baby talk. “How’s my best little apple dumpling sweetie pie?” she asked, touching him gently on the tummy. Christopher shrieked with joy.
Joanna studied Madaket as she played with the baby. The young woman’s face was full of happiness and affection, all genuine, Joanna thought.
“Madaket, I’ll let you take Christopher off for a while so I can bathe, but first I need to tell you something. Doug Snow came out here and asked if Todd could begin digging in the tunnel again. I told him I want the floor covered over.” Was she right, did the brightness shining from Madaket’s face dim slightly? “I really do believe that if there was anything else to be found, you and Todd would have found it by now. It’s just so unlikely that any other jewels would have gotten separated from that box. I don’t want to live with the house in a state of disorder.” Why was she making so many excuses? Angry with herself, she said, “Do you understand, Madaket?”
Perhaps her voice had been sharper than she’d intended, for Madaket looked at her in surprise and Christopher went quiet.
“Yes, Joanna, I understand. I’m disappointed, but I understand.”
“You can’t really think there’s more treasure under there.”
“I think it’s possible.”
As if hurt by their voices, Christopher screwed up his face and began to cry. Madaket rose to her feet and lifted the baby up and jiggled him, charming him with baby talk. Joanna threw back the bedcovers and slid her legs over the side of the bed. “Well, I’ve decided, and that’s that. I told him I want them to come out and cover the floor and finish the room.”
“If that’s what you want,” Madaket replied, speaking in a light singsong voice as she bounced the baby. Then, as if Joanna’s decision were of little importance, she said, “I’m going to go change His Majesty’s diaper. Then I’ll take him downstairs while you shower. Okay?”
“Great. Thanks.”
Joanna stalked into her bathroom and threw off her gown and turned on the taps full bl
ast, then stood under the pounding water for a long time, wishing her soul could be washed clean.
Now the days of October and November turned golden and whirled off into the past like autumn leaves and Joanna felt buffeted by the rising wind, the humming, swelling, insistent Goyaesque wind which sped over the ocean toward her house like a dark galleon of ghosts under full sail. Her life was turbulent, her spirits restless, and her body seemed to flap like a scarecrow around the aching core of her soul.
The Snows did not come to finish the floor and the sunporch. They did not come at all. After a week Joanna asked Madaket to call them, and Madaket did, reporting to Joanna that she got only their answering machine. She left messages. Joanna tried several times, also got the answering machine, and also left messages. They were miffed, she thought, and were punishing her. Or perhaps they were deeply angry and insulted and intended never to come back again. In that case, she needed to get names and references for new carpenters so that the work could be finished. But she was too tired, and too busy with the baby, to deal with all that just yet.
Twenty-two
Gradually, as the days and nights passed, Joanna’s strength returned. Her first social outing with her new son was on Thanksgiving Day, when she and Christopher and Madaket were invited to Tory’s. The Randalls’ drafty house wasn’t insulated, and its location high on the ’Sconset bluff exposed it to the wind which gusted off the choppy ocean, so that the shutters closed over the upstairs guest bedroom windows tapped, and the windowpanes on the ocean side rattled, and throughout the house the fireplaces occasionally whistled with wind. Schools of clouds sailed and swerved over the lemony sun, sending flickering shafts of pale cool light through the windows. But a fire of applewood burned in the living room, and in the dining room the food was delicious and abundant, and everyone laughed and gossiped and feasted. They lingered around the table over pie and whipped cream and warmed their hands around their coffee cups.
The Latherns came, and the Hoovers and Gardner, contentedly alone, and Tory’s husband, John, was there, and Jeremy, home from boarding school, and Vicki. Joanna leaned back in her chair, holding a drowsy Christopher against her shoulder, secretly comparing Tory’s children with Madaket; all three were of an age, and yet Madaket seemed infinitely older but at the same time much more innocent. Madaket wore a long, loose, supple, finely woven wool sweater in a bronze that accentuated her skin over a Gypsyish skirt of blacks and browns and greens and golds. She’d pulled her black hair back with a paisley scarf. She looked autumnal and comfortable and appropriate, as if she were paying homage to the season. Jeremy, on the other hand, wore his sweatpants and a ripped sweatshirt all day. When Joanna first arrived, she’d overheard Tory say in surprise, “Jeremy, you’re not wearing your sweats to the table?” Her son had replied, “Get a grip, Mom. It’s freezing in here. Besides, we’re on vacation.” Vicki didn’t seem to mind the cold. She wore brief black shorts over fishnet stockings and black knee-high boots along with a black bustier and a black choker. Her fingernails and lipstick were a brilliant crimson and her bare arms and meager chest an anemic ivory. Neither one of the Randall children helped bring the feast to the table or clear afterward; Madaket with easy smiles and graceful quick gestures carried and passed platters while at the same time taking part in the conversation.
The difference is, Joanna reminded herself, that Jeremy and Vicki are Tory’s children. Madaket is my paid help, and she has to be pleasant while she helps out, or I might fire her. Obviously Jeremy and Vicki placed importance on Madaket’s housekeeper status, for neither one spoke to her, although Jeremy’s eyes lingered on the large round bosom which Madaket’s loose clothing only slightly camouflaged. Gardner, on the other hand, was kind to Madaket. He sat next to her and throughout the dinner engaged her in conversation about her grandmother’s recipes for curative herbal drinks and poultices. Perhaps he wasn’t only being kind, Joanna thought, watching, for he seemed genuinely interested, and as the rest of the table joined in, discussing homeopathic medicine and holistic health, Joanna noticed that Madaket could hold her own in such conversation. She really has a field of expertise, Joanna thought. Madaket cited research done by clinics in Maine on the use of castor-oil packs to stop uterine bleeding in pregnant women, and Gardner chimed in, yes, he had heard about those studies. She spoke of the newest books out on herbal drugs. The Latherns and Hoovers looked impressed by Madaket’s knowledge, and as Joanna watched, she felt the oddest small shiver of pleasure, pleasure for Madaket, and for herself, a little frisson of pride.
But why do I feel this? Joanna asked herself. Madaket is not mine. She is not my family, not my daughter. My daughter is lying in a coffin lined in white silk under the sere ground. Suddenly she was exhausted by all the food and laughter and by the pelleting of these emotions against her wounded heart. Christopher cried, and she excused herself to slip into the living room, where she curled up on the sofa in front of the fire to nurse him. No one chided Joanna when later she awoke to find that she and Christopher had fallen asleep together on the sofa.
By December Joanna had enough energy to enjoy the season. She ordered Christmas presents from catalogs and sent out Christmas cards, freely giving out her address now that she had nothing to fear. She rode into town, her baby tucked away in his car seat, Madaket driving, to see Main Street decked out in holiday finery. Together Madaket and Joanna bought a tree and wrestled it into the back of the Jeep and then into the house and its three-footed stand. It was the first time that Joanna had decorated a tree for Christmas, and she and Madaket went wild, buying everything, then hanging lights and old-fashioned shining balls and twisted glass ornaments and candy canes and icicles. They put green and scarlet candles throughout the house. In the evenings Joanna lay in her living room, Christopher in her arms, dozing, soothed by the fragrance of fresh pine, listening to Christmas music on CD. Christopher turned his wide calm gaze toward the tiny multicolored tree lights and smiled.
Her pleasure was only slightly spoiled by a disagreement with Tory, who called early in the month to invite Joanna and Christopher to spend Christmas with the Randalls in their home in New York. When Joanna asked if she could bring Madaket along, Tory became annoyed.
“Can’t you go anywhere without her? I’ll help you take care of Christopher. I’ll ask my maid to give me some extra hours if you think you can’t handle the baby by yourself.”
“It’s not a matter of my needing help,” Joanna insisted. “I just wouldn’t feel right leaving Madaket all alone at Christmas. She’s been so—”
“All right, all right, stop!” Tory interrupted. “I don’t need to hear you sing her praises one more time. If you won’t come, you won’t. And I refuse to invite her to my house. She’s only a maid, after all, and you know how I feel about all that. Besides, I don’t like the way Jeremy was looking at her. She’s got that vulgar body—”
“—she can hardly help that!” Joanna snapped.
“—and I can just see her getting knocked up by Jeremy and forcing him to marry her,” Tory finished.
“Tory, you’re ridiculous and insulting,” Joanna said.
“And you’re a fool!” Tory shot back, and hung up the phone.
Later, Tory called back to apologize and Joanna grudgingly apologized, too, and in the spirit of Christmas they agreed not to fight anymore, but as Joanna put down the phone, she thought that probably the only way she and Tory would avoid fighting would be simply not to speak to each other for a while.
As it turned out, she didn’t have time to think about Tory again, for she and Madaket and Christopher were asked to a number of Christmas parties and to the Latherns’ for Christmas Eve and to the Hoovers’ for Christmas Day and to Claude’s for a New Year’s Day buffet. She began to feel part of the smug, cozy community who lived on the island year-round.
The month whirled by. Joanna and Madaket had bought presents for each other, and there were presents under the tree from friends as well. When Joanna came down the stairs in her qui
lted robe, with Christopher bundled in his warm red holiday outfit, she found that Madaket had already made a fire in the fireplace and turned on the Christmas tree lights. Outside, the day was cool and damp and foggy, and the crackling sounds of the fire and its warmth were especially welcome. Wolf ambled in with a huge red bow tied around his neck, and even Bitch condescended to join them, curling up proprietarily on the hearth, her back to the roaring fire, her eyes in slits of pleasure.
Christopher received the most presents—everyone had given something to him, and Joanna and Madaket took turns opening all his boxes of clothes and toys and stuffed animals. Madaket had presented the Latherns and several of Joanna’s other Nantucket friends with jars of her homemade jams and jellies and in return they had given her books and a scarf and some earrings and much the same sort of things to Joanna. As she sat surrounded by all her loot, she felt very warmed and pleased and even slightly teary to think that she’d made so many good friends on this island, so many friends who knew about her life, and cared.
When it came time to trade gifts with Madaket, Joanna was excited. First she gave Wolf a great box of assorted dog treats, and to Bitch she gave a catnip mouse which sent the cat into purrs and fits of ecstasy. Christopher’s gift to Madaket was a red plaid robe and fleece-lined leather slippers. Joanna’s gift to Madaket was under the tree, a large box covered in silver and pink foil; inside were seven sweaters in a rainbow of colors, all long and large and loose, just the way Madaket liked them, and seven matching scarves and twists for her hair.
“This is too much!” Madaket protested, kneeling by the tree, holding the creamy sweaters so that they seemed to pour from her hands.
“No, no, not at all, Madaket. Please. They’re so beautiful and perfect colors for you, and I couldn’t bear not to get them all.” She did not say: and besides, you need them, I know you do, I’ve seen you biking back from town with your Second Shop bargains in a brown paper bag. “Christmas is about luxury,” Joanna said. “You have to accept them.”
