Belonging

by Nancy Thayer

  The waiter appeared beside them to take their order, and when he’d gone off, Joanna leaned toward Jake and said eagerly, “Tell me about the network.”

  “All right. What do you want to know?”

  “Well, let’s see … how’s Dhon? Is he still with Perry? And does everyone still hate the new executive from the West Coast, what was his name—Mack?”

  “Mike.”

  “Mike. And how’s the fall lineup looking? And—”

  “Hang on,” Jake ordered, laughing. “I can’t keep up with you.”

  They leaned toward each other, passionately discussing the network, and the people who worked there, and Fabulous Homes, and the waiter set before them lobster ravioli, and medallions of beef in a buttery garlic sauce, and a crisp salad and hot freshly baked bread, and they talked and laughed together as they had so often before. Joanna was aware of the curious and envious looks flashed their way by the others in the restaurant and she remembered how much she liked it, being slightly celebrated and admired.

  “You look pleased with yourself,” Jake remarked over coffee.

  “I am.” Joanna tossed her head just to feel how light it was now. That day she’d had her hair trimmed in this prep school boy’s cut, which was wonderfully becoming. “I haven’t had such a lovely evening in a long while.”

  “Do you miss New York?” Jake asked.

  “You know, Jake, I do. Although I haven’t had much time to think about it, with working on the show and taking care of the baby. Not to mention the fire.”

  “Are you going to rebuild?”

  “Yes—if I can ever decide on what I want. I’ve looked at floor plans and blueprints until my head aches. I can’t seem to find anything that thrills me. Not the way the house did when I first saw it standing there, so square and powerful and … enduring. Enduring. Well. All right,” she announced, leaning back in her chair, “you might as well tell me how Carter and Gloria are. Don’t worry, Jake, whatever the news is, I can take it.”

  Jake studied her with his dark, shrewd eyes. “Carter’s going through with the divorce from Blair. He and Gloria were living together in an apartment on West Seventieth. They were agitating to coproduce their version of Fabulous Homes. As you know, I scotched that.” He paused for effect. “Then Gloria ran off with the new vice-president in charge of advertising. He’s a lot younger than Carter, closer to Gloria’s age.”

  “You’re kidding!” Joanna exclaimed. “Poor Carter.” She nodded her head, and then felt a slow, immensely pleasurable grin spread across her face. She was so satisfied by this news. “Serves him right.”

  “Well, he’s available again. Now more than he ever was.”

  “Are you implying that he and I could get back together? Forget it.” Joanna shook her head.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you don’t still love the guy.”

  Joanna sipped some coffee and considered. “Honestly, Jake, I don’t. I don’t feel anything for Carter anymore. I don’t even hate him.”

  “If he shows up at your door someday, you might feel differently.”

  “No, I’m sure I wouldn’t.” Laughing, she said, “It’s as if loving him was an illness, a fever, but now I’m immune. I can search my heart and not feel a thing.” She leaned forward. “Please. Let’s change the subject.”

  “All right,” Jake agreed.

  “You mentioned a proposition when you called,” she reminded him.

  “A proposition. Yes, I did.” He shifted in his chair. “It’s not professional, Joanna. It’s personal.” He spoke slowly. “It’s more in the nature of a proposal than a proposition.” Now he looked at her steadily. “I wonder what you’d say if I asked you to marry me.”

  Joanna stared.

  “I’ve missed you.” Jake’s voice was soft now, so that she had to strain to hear him. “I missed you for a long time before I realized why. I’ve thought about this a lot. If you’d been excited about seeing Carter again now that you know he and Gloria have broken up, I wouldn’t have broached this. I’d have proposed some new format for FH. But Carter never was good for you, and you don’t seem to care for him like you once did. I’m not saying you could care for me passionately, the way you cared for Carter. But maybe you could care for me … somehow.”

  Joanna looked at Jake, really looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time, which in a way she was. The muted noises of laughter and conversation and silver clinking against china drifted around them like a gentle snow, and like a figure in a paperweight she was surrounded by the magic of this moment.

  “I do care for you, Jake,” she said honestly, talking through her thoughts. “But … I’ve never thought of you personally. I mean, I’ve always thought of you sort of as a Symbolic Persona: The Boss.”

  “I can understand that. I always thought of you as the Joanna of Fabulous Homes, and then as Carter’s girl. Sorry. Woman. Not until you left did I realize how much I liked having you around. How happy it made me to see you.”

  “Jake, I really don’t know what to say. It’s going to take a while for this to sink in. I’m flattered, obviously. But—I’m so surprised I can’t seem to think.”

  Her cool ringless hand rested on the table and Jake covered it with his large warm one. “Joanna, let me press my case. I’m forty-nine. My health is excellent. I’m well off financially; you know that. I’d like to adopt Christopher, raise him as my own.” A smile broke over his face. “I can give you some good references on that score from my two kids. I’ve been attracted to you for a long time, but just didn’t know what to do about it. But now—life’s gotten short. For me; for you, too, I think. I want to be happy, and it would make me happy to be married to you, and I think I could make you happy, too.”

  Joanna studied his familiar face, trying to analyze her feelings. “I need some time to think,” she told him.

  “Then think. Take all the time you want.”

  “Joanna! How are you! And Jake!” June and Morris Lathern entered the restaurant and swooped down on their table. The intimate mood was broken. The four chatted about the gorgeous spring weather, then the Latherns went off to their own table. The waiter brought Jake the check. Jake and Joanna left the restaurant and went out into the mild dark night.

  “Want to walk a bit?” Jake asked.

  “Sure. Let’s go down by the water.”

  Side by side in a companionable silence, they crossed over the cobblestones toward Easy Street and sank down together on a wooden bench looking out at the harbor. Flocks of ducks paddled amiably along, looking for handouts. Occasionally a pair of lovers or a family strolled by and stopped to feed them bits of chips or popcorn. The sky seemed infinitely high and luminous. Jake reached out and took Joanna’s hand. A complicated charge of emotions raced through her and she kept very still, letting her body sort it all out. His hand was warm and hard and large and steady. Reliable. Not displeasing. Not at all displeasing.

  She turned to look at him. Beneath his beautifully tailored clothes, he was a stocky, solid, earthy man who enjoyed all his appetites. Feeling her gaze, Jake turned, too, and studied her face. Pulling her close to him, he kissed her mouth. His breath smelled of garlic and wine and coffee and his kiss was tender, then increasingly ardent. A warm desire flushed through Joanna, and her body felt suddenly vulnerable and voluptuous. She’d been so obsessed with maternal sensuality that she’d almost forgotten other kinds of desires and indulgences. Now she gave herself over to the sensation of his great strong arm around her, the pressure of it, the weight and bulk. She put her hand on his chest, and let the kiss intensify. Yes, her body signaled her, oh, yes, she could make love with this man.

  Jake was the one to pull away. He seemed slightly shaken and a bit shy. A group of schoolgirls passed by them, giggling. Jake kept his arm around Joanna. Tentatively she lay her head on his shoulder. His large, firm, steady shoulder. They sat that way awhile, looking at the lights of the boats on the water.

  “Madaket!” Joanna said suddenly, sitting
straight.

  “What?”

  “If you and I were married, we wouldn’t live on Nantucket all the time.”

  “No,” Jake agreed. “We wouldn’t. I have to be in the city. You will, too, once you get your show going again. But we could build a great summer house on your land and spend weekends in it. Christopher could grow up with the best of both worlds, New York and Nantucket. Madaket could live with us, travel with us …”

  “I don’t think so, Jake.” Joanna moved away from the pleasure of his embrace and, leaning her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, stared out at the water, thinking furiously. “She won’t want to leave the island. It’s her life. And I can’t just leave her, not now, not after all she’s done—”

  “Well, give yourself some time to think about it,” Jake advised. “You don’t have to decide everything right now.”

  “Yes, I do,” Joanna said. “If I have any integrity, any sense of responsibility in the world, I do. Jake, remember what Madaket did for me. She saved my life. She saved Christopher’s life. She risked her own life, and she—destroyed her own beauty—for us. I owe everything to her. I can’t possibly let myself think of abandoning her.”

  “But if you married me, that wouldn’t be abandoning her …”

  “Please, Jake.” Joanna rose. “Don’t press me on this. Don’t try to make me change my mind. I can’t. I won’t. I can’t leave the island. I want to stay here. I have to stay here and make a home for Madaket.”

  Jake studied Joanna. “For the rest of your life?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Joanna was determined. “For the rest of my life.”

  Twenty-seven

  It was raining again. May had been an inordinately dismal month, windy and cold and bleak. Joanna parked her Jeep in front of the hardware store and turned to Christopher, strapped into his car seat in the back.

  With a cheerfulness she didn’t feel, she cooed, “Hang on, now, sweetie, Mommy’s got to get your chariot rigged up.”

  Stepping out onto the sidewalk, she rushed to pull out the stroller and set up the canopy which would protect her baby from the rain. Hurrying as strong winds sent curtains of water lashing over her, she fiddled unsuccessfully with the brake lock, which, with almost malicious timing, tended to jam. By the time she’d wrestled the contraption into submission, she was drenched from rain and sticky with perspiration.

  “Damnation!” she swore under her breath, giving the stroller a furious jerk. Opening the Jeep door, she found Christopher wailing. She’d just returned from four days in South Carolina, where she and her crew shot the first FH show in the new series. Working again had been pure, unadulterated bliss. She’d trotted around on her high heels like a prima ballerina back en pointe. Energy had flowed ceaselessly through her. She’d been clever. She’d been charming. She’d been brilliant. Even the most minor technical problem caused a blissful sense of challenge. She had actually felt the pure clean lines of creative acumen emerging from the hormonal fog she’d been buried under the past year. She’d been purely flawless at work, delighting the cameramen and hosts equally, solving lighting or angle or design problems quickly, working with the streamlined efficiency of a Concorde jet slicing through the atmosphere.

  She returned to find that Christopher had developed some kind of separation anxiety—about Madaket. He cried when Madaket left the room, and glared at Joanna when she tried to hold him. It had taken her three days to get him used to her again, or perhaps, she thought, to coax him into forgiving her, for she could tell by the way he looked at her that he recognized her. He was furious with her for abandoning him, she decided. And in two more days she had to go off for another shoot. So she tried to keep him with her every minute she was on the island so that he would understand how much she loved him, and feel secure in the reliability of her love.

  This morning Madaket had to see Gardner for a checkup on her healing scars, and Joanna had to check out a possible location for an island office. Her work was simply too complicated and the paperwork too voluminous to be contained in a portion of the shack.

  “All right, all right,” Joanna murmured, lifting Christopher into her arms and kissing him. As she bent, a thin stream of rain spilled from the hood of her rain slicker right onto the baby’s forehead. Christopher gasped, then wailed. “Poor baby, Mama’s sorry,” she murmured, grabbing a diaper from the bag and drying his head, but he’d been insulted and he would not be consoled. Somehow Joanna maneuvered his chubby, eight-month-old, furiously wailing body into the stroller, pulled the plastic canopy over his head, grabbed her briefcase and diaper bag, and pushed off toward Easy Street, grateful she had only a block to go.

  She turned off into the trim, neat yard of a quaint brick and shingled building with a bow window on the first floor. Rain lashed the roses clinging to the white picket fence, and despondent flowers whipped by the wind hung their heads over the slate walk. Bob Hoover was waiting for her just inside the open door.

  “Let me help you,” he said, and together they got the stroller up the steps and in out of the rain. Once inside, Joanna looked around. The door opened onto an entrance hall barely large enough to hold them, with a side door opening to a real estate office on the ground level and steps leading directly to the second floor. Rescuing Christopher from behind his plastic shelter, she lifted him into her arms and followed Bob up the stairs.

  The Realtor unlocked another door and stood back for Joanna to enter. She tossed her wet hood back and looked around. The wide bright room was large and newly refinished, with the clean scents of paint and polyurethane lingering in the air.

  “Plenty of electric outlets,” Bob pointed out, moving around. “Two walls of built-in shelves and a long worktable. All you’d need would be a chair and your equipment and you’re set.”

  Joanna crossed over the gleaming pine floors to look out the window.

  “Great view of the harbor,” Bob said.

  “Yes,” she agreed, although right now the rain obscured everything. She looked up and down the narrow one-way street. “In the summer the parking would be impossible,” she observed.

  “Not really. You’d just have to park a few blocks away in the residential areas and walk in.”

  “That would be a drag with piles of papers, especially in the rain.” She jiggled Christopher in her arms. “And I’m not sure I’d like those stairs.”

  Bob leaned against a spotless white worktable that ran along one wall. “Joanna, are you sure your heart’s in this?”

  “Of course!” she snapped. “What a question.”

  “It’s just that everything I show you is wrong. That office space out of town you didn’t like because it had no view. The rooms in that great old house near Children’s Beach were too noisy.”

  “I’m sorry I’m being difficult,” Joanna said, feeling around in her pocket for a zwieback. Christopher was no longer crying, but recently he’d started teething and often fussed unless he had something to gnaw on.

  “Joanna, it’s not that you’re being difficult. It’s just—at one time you worked quite happily on a screened porch.”

  Joanna set Christopher on the worktable. It continually surprised her how heavy a baby could be, how her arms could ache. Perching on the edge of the table with one arm firmly around her child, she looked directly at Bob. “Pat’s been talking to you, hasn’t she?”

  “Pat always talks to me,” Bob responded, shrugging, and then he dropped all pretenses. “Joanna, we’re worried about you.”

  “You don’t need to be. Honestly, Bob. I’m fine.”

  “We both think you’re making the wrong decision to stay here just because of Madaket.”

  “Look, Bob, Pat and I have been over and over this ground. Everyone in Madaket’s life has left her. Her parents, her grandmother, and then in the fire she lost Wolf and Bitch. I asked her to give up her garden at the house she’d lived in with her grandmother. I just can’t leave her, especially not after all she’s done for me.”

 
“Didn’t she just turn twenty?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  Joanna was silent.

  “Let’s be blunt. You’re afraid Madaket will be alone all her life because she’ll never be able to get a husband.”

  Joanna shook her head. “I don’t think Madaket ever thinks in those terms. ‘Get a husband.’ ”

  “All right, then, you think no one will ever love her because of her scarred face.”

  Joanna glared at Bob. “That’s right. I do think that. I also think Madaket has never had anyone of her own and now she never will. She’s never had anyone she can trust. I want her to be able to trust me. Bob, she saved my life. She saved Christopher’s life. The least I can do is stay here with her and help her get her own life on some kind of track.” Christopher dropped his zwieback. Joanna picked it up.

  “But why can’t you marry Jake and take care of Madaket?” Bob asked.

  “Because Jake wouldn’t live here all the time, and I don’t want even to suggest to Madaket that she move to New York.”

  “There’s got to be some way to work it out. If you really want to be with Jake. I think you’re being a bit of a martyr, Joanna.”

  “Perhaps I am. I think I’m just being responsible. Committed.”

  “You should be committed,” Bob punned, trying to lighten the atmosphere, “if you’re going to stay on the island with Madaket merely out of a sense of duty.”

  Joanna was intense. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Bob, and I feel very strongly about this. No one cares about a sense of duty anymore, but I do. I want to. I’m obligated to Madaket, and I’m obligated to Christopher, and I’m going to stand by them both.”

  “Even if it makes you unhappy?”

  “But it won’t make me unhappy. In an odd way, it’s deeply satisfying, knowing at last I’m truly part of someone’s life. I like knowing that I’ll have responsibilities, a strong connection. An enduring connection.”

  “What about your connection to Jake?”