Safe Harbor

by Luanne Rice

  “Vickie, I love you,” Sterling laughed, “but you seem to forget: I’m interviewing Dana, not you. Dana, would you like to have dinner tonight? I promise you, going out with a man my age will be much more fun. I’ll like the same music you do—we’ll have the same frame of reference.”

  “Thank you,” Dana said, trying not to show her anger. “I can’t. I’m meeting a friend later.”

  “Not Jonathan Hull?”

  Dana shook her head, her shoulders tightening.

  “Personally, I’m glad. Although it would make a great end to my story—you two getting back together.”

  “It won’t happen.”

  “Never say never,” Vickie chided.

  “Never,” Dana said.

  “There’s never an end to Dana’s story,” Vickie laughed. “Don’t try to pin her down—she’ll just move to a different continent. Make herself a brand-new home.”

  Dana laughed then. Jonathan and Monique faded, replaced by three different faces in her mind. Usually the thought of a new continent would send a jolt of electricity through her: a dream, if not a plan, to move on. She had never lived in Australia, for example. Or Antarctica. Plenty of ocean in both those places.

  Instead, listening to Vickie and Sterling talk, she knew she didn’t want to go anywhere new. She felt just as happy as she had that morning, to be on her own in New York for a day. But right now, the thought of home meant Hubbard’s Point. It meant the gray shingled cottage, Lily’s overgrown gardens, the dark garage, the stone steps down to the beach. It meant Quinn and Allie, and to Dana’s amazement, it seemed also to mean Sam.

  She couldn’t wait for this luncheon to finish so she could go to her hotel for a shower and a nap, to change for the night ahead. After coffee, when Sterling asked and was denied a third time for dinner that night, Vickie made Dana promise she’d stop by the next day.

  “For your check,” Vickie said. “And a little something extra. You haven’t forgotten about money, have you?”

  Dana shook her head, shivering as she kissed Vickie’s cheeks three times and remembered the money in the box. They promised they’d see each other tomorrow, before she left, and then Dana grabbed her bag and started walking uptown.

  THE WINDOW was a piece of cake. Quinn couldn’t believe it. She sawed ten inches down, ten inches across, ten inches up, and ten inches across the top. Her father would have been proud. It took her all day, and she now had a muscle in her right arm the size of a grapefruit, but no one could accuse her of lack of determination.

  Now Aunt Dana had the north light.

  If Quinn could have wrapped it up in a bow and handed it to her, she would have. The window was pretty much square. Not perfectly square though, more like a leaning trapezoid. The leaning window of Hubbard’s Point.

  Just as she was getting ready to clean up the old boards and head over to her rock, she heard voices outside. Moving closer, she saw it was Grandma and Old Annabelle. They stood in the road, talking to each other, just the way Quinn’s mom and Marnie had done, the way Quinn and Cameron sometimes did now.

  Seeing them there in their flowered dresses and sun hats was enough to get Quinn all choked up. This was all wrong. The old mothers were supposed to die first. Quinn’s mother was supposed to be alive. She felt a kick in her stomach, as if the wrongness of it all might just kill her.

  Chest tight, she turned toward her window. It was really good, the best window any artist could hope for. Quinn prayed Aunt Dana would like it enough to stay. As much as she loved her grandmother, she didn’t think she’d be able to bear living with her the rest of her life. Grandma had so many aches and pains, and she just didn’t get it. She didn’t get Quinn’s hair or her writing or the way she had to spend hours every day at Little Beach.

  She didn’t get it, but Aunt Dana—and Sam—did.

  Aunt Dana and Sam; now, that was an idea. Staring at the window, mulling over the future, Quinn was absolutely shocked to see the two old ladies staring back at her, framed by the opening.

  “Ohmygod,” Grandma cried, clutching her throat.

  “I told you, Martha,” Annabelle said, frowning so hard, the tip of her nose touched the tip of her chin. “I heard sawing.”

  “Quinn, what have you done?”

  “Sawing,” Annabelle said, shaking her head from side to side. “Sawing, sawing, sawing. Marnie kept telling me it was a crow. T’ain’t a crow, I told her. I know a crow when I hear it, and that sound t’ain’t a crow. It wasn’t, was it now?”

  “Quinn?” Grandma asked, her blue eyes watery and sad, the way they always got when one of her granddaughters—usually Quinn—had let her down.

  “This is a north window for Aunt Dana,” Quinn said.

  “Now, Quinn,” Old Annabelle said, her southern accent getting thicker by the moment. “You know your daddy knew a thing or two about building.”

  “I know.”

  “Now, don’t you think if your daddy wanted a window there, he’d have put one there?”

  “You should have asked me before you did that,” Grandma said gently.

  “I was just trying to help,” Quinn said defiantly.

  “That’s a good way to help the garage collapse, that’s what you’re going to help,” Annabelle said.

  “She’s right, Quinn,” Grandma said. “What if you cut through a support beam? Your aunt’s painting could be crushed before she’s even half finished.”

  “People could die, dear heart. Never mind the painting,” Annabelle said.

  “I didn’t cut into a support,” Quinn growled through her teeth. Her father had taught her that much. She knew all about support beams and carrying walls, she knew that was the whole source of the trouble, the bad thing, the terrible fight, her mother’s awful words. The whole truth came crashing in on her.

  People could have died in the building her father had taken money for. They didn’t, but they could have.

  “Well, get out of there before the garage falls on you,” Grandma said.

  “Call Paul Nichols,” Annabelle instructed. “He’ll buttress up the wall, and you won’t have to worry. Though he does charge an arm and a leg.”

  “We’ll have to have a few more hot dog stands to pay for him,” Grandma said, starting to laugh, but Quinn didn’t stick around to join in. She had to get out of there as fast as she could, as far as she could. She knew where she was going and what she was taking with her.

  CHAPTER 21

  THE SUMMER NIGHT BY THE FOUNTAIN AT LINCOLN Center felt festive and alive. People strolled through the plaza arm in arm. A light wind blew the water, and a fine spray cooled Dana’s face and arms. Lights were coming on in the surrounding apartment buildings; beyond them, the first bright stars had appeared in a lilac sky.

  She had called her mother to check on the girls. “They’re fine,” her mother had said. “A little brouhaha with Quinn, but nothing too severe. She’s over at Little Beach now.”

  “What kind of brouhaha?”

  “Oh, sweetheart. Don’t worry. I’ll tell you when you get back. Just have fun, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Dana had hung up, relieved. A brouhaha with Quinn was absolutely par for the course; if there wasn’t one, she might worry. Set free for the night, she was ready for anything.

  She saw Sam coming from a long way away. As she sat on the edge of the fountain, her heart beat faster. He was so tall and good-looking, and even from there she could see the light in his gold-green eyes. Perhaps for the first time that summer it hit Dana: Sam had sacrificed most of his vacation to help her and the girls. The thought struck her, joined by excitement.

  “You remembered,” he said, walking over to her.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?” She smiled. They stood facing each other and for a moment felt awkward. But then Dana remembered Vickie’s three kisses, and she did it to Sam: one cheek, the other, the first one again. On the third kiss, he caught her and kissed her on the lips. The kiss was fast, but he held her with his arms and made he
r shiver all the way from her head to her toes.

  “You look beautiful,” he said into her ear.

  “Thank you. You look great too.”

  “I wanted to meet you somewhere where we wouldn’t get our feet sandy.”

  “This is the place,” Dana laughed, looking around. The fountain’s rush filled her ears, and she thought of London, of Rome. “It’s like being in Europe. I feel as if I’m at one of the great music festivals.”

  “That’s good,” he said, pulling two tickets from the pocket of his jacket. “We’re going to a concert. Mozart.”

  “My favorite,” she said.

  Sam nodded. “I thought so. You play it at Hubbard’s Point so often, I couldn’t resist when I read about this in the paper.”

  “Sam …” Dana said, touched that he would be so thoughtful. He didn’t give her the chance to thank him again. Taking her hand, he led her slowly across the plaza, past the great concert hall with its magical, soaring Chagalls, to the small amphitheater behind.

  Under the stars, in the middle of New York City, they listened to “Eine kleine Nachtmusik.” Sam held Dana’s hand, and she found she didn’t want him to let it go. She was moved by the music, by his thoughtfulness—the fact he would notice something like her love of Mozart and arrange this surprise.

  The strings touched her heart. They made her rise and fall, like a mermaid swimming in a calm sea. She held Sam’s hand the whole time. This was strange, different for her. Holding hands had never been easy for Dana. Her hands were her expression; she painted with them, mixed her colors, brushed the canvas.

  Sitting with other men, she would always move about. If they tried to hold her hand, she would pull it back. She would touch the air, direct the music, paint imaginary scenes of the feelings the music brought up in her.

  Not tonight. She sat perfectly still, holding Sam’s hand. The music was playful, joyful, yet underneath she heard tones of past loss. Something about it made her think of Quinn and Allie, and she knew—just by looking at his face—that Sam was thinking of them too.

  His eyes were soft green, the color of summer grass, and she thought about how long she had known him. She remembered those eyes—filled with joy his first day of sailing, wild with terror the day she’d hauled him out of Newport Harbor. Right then, sitting at the concert, she felt a rush of affection for the boy she had known back then that swelled into passion for the man he had become, the man who had cared about her enough to bring her here.

  When the concert finished, still holding hands, they walked past the fountain. She didn’t know where they were going, and she didn’t care. They started to walk east, talking about the music.

  She told him she’d fallen in love with Mozart during art school, when her favorite teacher told the class he kept it playing while he worked, that he loved to fill his studio with music.

  “Do you do that?” Sam asked.

  “I do,” she said. “Not in the garage at Hubbard’s Point, but at home.”

  “France?”

  “Yes, Normandy.”

  He asked, and she told him about her studio there: the ancient house, the barn out back, the huge arched window facing north.

  “Must be brighter than the garage,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, picturing its view across meadows and the English Channel.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “In some ways, I’ve missed it all summer …” she said, trailing off.

  “And now?”

  For the first time in hours, she pulled her hand away. They had strolled along Central Park South, turned right onto Fifth Avenue. Even at ten o’clock, the city was bustling. Tourists thronged the streets, gazing up at the Beaux Arts buildings, walking past Tiffany’s and Bergdorf Goodman.

  “And now …” Dana said in a low voice. “I don’t know.”

  As if that were all the answer Sam needed, he nodded in silence. They walked a little farther, and then he hailed a cab. After holding the door for her, he climbed in and gave the driver an address on Bleecker Street.

  It was a jazz club. “We had Mozart for you, and now I want to give you the music I love,” he said.

  Dana smiled, delighted by the idea of “giving” someone music. They went inside, down a long stairway. Completely dark except for votive candles burning in blue glass holders on each table, the place felt like a cozy den. Dana and Sam sat side by side on a tight banquette in back, listening to the musicians—a trio of piano, bass, and horn.

  If Mozart had been summer, this music felt like winter. Warm—no, hot—and sexy, the jazz melted Dana inside. She forgot about the August sky, about the sea. She was deep in the mud. Sam had taken her hand again, and that was just fine with her. She painted in her mind: a clam, buried deep in the velvety silt, the whole water column extending above her for miles upward. When the music stopped, Sam turned to her.

  “Do you like it?”

  “I love it.”

  “I remember the first time I ever heard live jazz,” he said. “My brother had been telling me about it for years, saying he’d take me to a little club in New Orleans… .”

  “Your brother lived in New Orleans?”

  Sam laughed. “Joe lived everywhere. He was like you—so many places to see, I think he was afraid he’d run out of world. That he’d be bored. New Orleans was one of his favorites. He befriended an old pirate in a jazz club on Bourbon Street, bought a presumably useless treasure map from him, and wound up getting rich on the gold he found two hundred yards off Key West.”

  “And did he wind up taking you to hear jazz?”

  “No.” Sam shook his head. “I did that on my own.”

  “In New Orleans?”

  “Martha’s Vineyard.”

  Dana was silent, staring at the blue candle on their table. Without looking up, she heard Sam go on.

  “Circuit Avenue, Oak Bluffs. It was my first night there. I didn’t know my way around the island, and I ended up in a bar—the Star Thrower. Three guys were playing, just like tonight. It was the greatest music I’d ever heard.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Ten years.”

  Dana pictured the Gay Head cottage, the painting tent she’d erected in the backyard.

  “What were you doing there? On the Vineyard?”

  “Looking for you.”

  Once again, Dana fell silent. She didn’t know what to say, but her heart was racing. She thought of someone throwing a star—white fire hurled through the sky, landing in her heart.

  “I knew you were on the island,” he said. “I’d never really lost track of you.”

  “We knew each other only that one summer. And you were eight.”

  “Maybe you had to know what it was like at home to understand. I’m not sure myself. You taught me sailing. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. My mother was there, but … not there.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Sam.”

  “You were amazing. You cared about me, Dana. That meant more to me than you can imagine. Then summer ended, and you were gone. I was back to feeling like I didn’t matter. I couldn’t wait till the next summer… .”

  “And I didn’t go back to Newport,” Dana said.

  “No. I went down to the Ida Lewis Yacht Club, and they chased me away. The new teacher wouldn’t even talk to me. The kids laughed, thought it was hilarious.”

  Dana’s throat ached, thinking of her young friend Sam, and she just kept staring at the candle flame darkened by blue glass.

  “So I got busy. Got a summer job at the lobster company and kept it till high school. I thought of you a lot. You’d changed my life that one summer, and that’s not something I could forget. But you were out of my mind—or on the edge of it—until ten years ago, when I was in college myself.”

  The waitress passed by, taking orders. People at the next table laughed loudly, and Sam waited for everything to settle down.

  “I was nineteen, about the age you had been when I met you. Maybe a little youn
ger, but I knew you’d been in college. I started thinking about you then, wondering where you were, what you had done with your life. I was on the way to becoming an oceanographer. I wondered whether you had stayed an artist.”

  “I had,” she said.

  “I know. I called RISD—told them I wanted to buy one of your paintings. They looked you up and said you were represented by Victoria DeGraff, here in New York.”

  “I still am.”

  Sam nodded. “She was very nice, friendly. Said she’d send me a catalogue of your recent work, that you’d recently been acquired by the Whitney and the Farnsworth museums. I took that to mean your work was out of my price range, but I didn’t let it stop me. I asked where you were painting… .”

  “The Vineyard,” Dana whispered.

  “Yes. She said you had gone back to live on an island you visited periodically, off the coast of Massachusetts, on painted cliffs overlooking the sea.”

  “Gay Head.”

  Sam nodded. “I didn’t know the island, but Joe told me. He gave me grief for chasing you.”

  “Because I was too old for you?”

  “No.” Sam smiled. “I didn’t give him the details. Back then, he was just constitutionally opposed to chasing anyone. That was before he set his sights on Caroline, but that’s another story.”

  “I’d love to hear it.”

  “See, I’d never thought you were too old for me. Too cool for me, maybe. You were an artist getting famous. I was just a student. He didn’t want me getting hurt.”

  Now Dana looked at him. The trio was back, getting ready to play. The bass player lifted his instrument, holding it against his chest as if it were a woman. She gazed at Sam, saw those warm green eyes.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked, and although a touch of sadness entered, none of the warmth left.

  “No. You didn’t. Not intentionally.”

  “What happened?”

  “I went to find you. Gay Head’s small—back then, there were just a few houses. I found the lighthouse… .”

  Dana could see it now, the dark redbrick lighthouse on the sand hill, surrounded by salt hay, its white and red beam shining out. Aquinnah: high ground. She could see the cliffs themselves, brilliantly pigmented clay, rising out of the blue sea. She and Lily had played with Quinn on the beach below, looking up at the red and orange clay stripes, one hundred million years old, imagining they saw fossils of prehistoric whales, dolphins, island deer, wild horses.