“That’s sheer nonsense.” He pulled her over to him. “You’re much more appealing than she is. You’re the one I fell in love with, the one I married. And why this sudden concern about the way you look?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve gained almost ten pounds. And my hair’s gone stringy and my coloring’s off…”
“All temporary conditions, sweetheart. Didn’t the doctor tell you that?” he reminded her. “And your hair looks fine and your face is a constant source of joy to me. Don’t give her another thought, Maggie. She simply has no meaning in our life together.”
“Can she really do what she said? About making sure you don’t get a contract?” she asked after several minutes had passed.
“I doubt it.” He shrugged off the possibility. “She may work Tommy over a bit, but he’s not stupid, you know. He’s not likely to let someone walk away who could make money for his company. And I’ve always made money for whomever I’ve recorded for. I wouldn’t give it a second thought. I’m having lunch with him this week in the city, so we’ll have to just wait and see how it plays out.”
It played out pretty much as J.D. had predicted. Tommy had been more than happy to offer J.D. a good solid contract, which called for three albums over a five-year period. To J.D.’s amusement, Glory’s name never was mentioned.
“So what would you like to do now,” J.D. asked Maggie over dinner in a quiet, elegant restaurant. “Would you like to take a trip? I’ve a little time to spare, you know. I’m employed, but I don’t have to start work immediately. Would you like to go someplace? Paris? Rome?”
“What I’d like is to spend a few days here in London. Then I’d like to go back to your mother’s for a bit. It’s nice to have the time to get to know them, your mother and Judith and the kids. We’ll be going back to the States sometime soon, I would guess, and we won’t see them for a while. Paris and Rome can wait,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m spending the day with Lindy. We’re going shopping. In case you haven’t noticed, I have exactly three articles of clothing that still fit me comfortably. It’s time for me to buy some clothes specifically designed for my expanding midsection.”
“Well, then, by all means, shop with Lindy tomorrow. I’ll see what Rick is up to. Maybe we can get together with some of our old cronies.”
“Which old cronies?” She raised an eyebrow.
He laughed. “Some of the guys we used to hang around with years ago when we started out. Harry—you met him on Sunday—has a new band and I’d like to check them out. And maybe drag Hobie along if he’s still in town.”
“He is,” she told him. “He and Aden are staying at the Dorchester.”
“Then I’ll ring him up in the morning,” he said, adding, “I was happy to see that you and Aden hit it off so well. I doubt she was looking forward to the trip—the only other time she’d left Anjjoli was the one time Hobie brought her here to meet his mother.”
“She’d mentioned that. Mrs. Narood apparently doesn’t care much for her, which is sad. Aden is wonderful.”
“She is that. And she seems to have given Hobie roots, you know? I doubt he’d even realized how much he’d missed by not knowing his father until after the man died. But his mother, who raised him all those years, remember, was incensed that he had—in her opinion—turned his back on her and preferred the ‘uncivilized’ culture of his father.”
“Does Hobie make a lot of money?” she asked.
“I would think that he should. He’s highly regarded, worldwide, highly sought after. And he’s slated to begin a long tour in about six weeks. I’d say he does very well. Why do you ask?”
“Aden told me she makes some of her clothes,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “I mean, right down to weaving the cloth. And it struck me as odd—more than odd, actually—that she would do that. And they live very simply. She said their house has only four rooms, and Hobie and his cousins built it in a sort of family enclave.”
“So?”
“You don’t think it’s odd that an internationally acclaimed musician would build his own house while his wife weaves the fabric for the clothes she wears?”
“Hmmm, now there’s a thought,” he mused. “Maybe Aden could teach you how to—”
“Don’t even think about it,” she laughed. “But I can’t help but wonder, Jamey. Where do you suppose all Hobie’s money goes?”
A week or so later, as Maggie trailed around behind Luke as she tended her garden, an unexpected call came from Mary Elizabeth. The realtor that Maggie had contacted to find them a house phoned and wanted her to call him as soon as possible. She hurried outside to tell J.D. the news.
“Jamey, guess what? You’ll never believe this. I’m so excited—”
“For heavens sake, Maggie, calm down,” he said, looking up from the newspaper.
“I just spoke with my mother. She got a call from Mr. Lynch. You know, Mr. Lynch, the realtor I talked to back home, the one who’s looking for a house for us. He told my mother it’s for sale. Jamey, can we go home? Jamey, I’m afraid someone else will buy it, and I’ll never forgive myself if—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He folded the newspaper and dropped it to the ground as he looked into her shining eyes.
“My house. My house is for sale. Oh, Jamey, please, can we—”
“What house?” He hadn’t a clue.
“My house. The one I showed you, remember, with all the chimneys and—”
“And the overgrown yard and the peeling paint and the crooked front porch?”
“Yes, yes. It’s for sale. Can I call him and tell him we’re coming back and not to sell it to anyone until we look at it?” she begged.
“Maggie, I don’t think we’ll have to rush back. I doubt there’ll be a long line of buyers for that old place. I can just imagine what it must be like inside. I would suspect that the realtor may get a lot of curiosity seekers, but few real prospects.”
“Jamey, I don’t want to take that chance. I want to call him. I want to go back. Please, Jamey.”
“Call him and see what he has to say,” he suggested, then said to his mother, who was pruning a rose bush, as Maggie flew into the house, “Maggie has her heart set on this house that looks as if it’s about to tumble down in the next bad storm.”
“If she likes it that much, maybe you’d better go in and talk to the realtor.” Luke smiled.
“She hasn’t even been inside this place, but she’s enamored by it.”
“Then you’d best go in and see what the man has to say about it, J.D.”
He walked in the back door in time to hear Maggie say, “Well, no, I don’t know when we can get there, Mr. Lynch, it’s not as if we’re around the corner. I’m sure there are, but if you could just hold off showing it to anyone for a few days, I’m sure we… It would be absolutely criminal for someone to knock that house down and build apartments—please don’t tell me that. Well, maybe by Thursday…” She looked at J.D. with pleading eyes. He smiled and nodded, and she hugged his neck, telling the realtor that they would, in fact, be there by Thursday. She hung up the phone and wrapped her arms around him.
“Thank you, thank you.” She danced joyously.
“Just a minute, now. First we’ll have to see when there’s a flight. Then we’ll have to see the house. Maggie, we may not want it. Maybe it needs a roof and a heater and God knows what all. It may cost more to fix it up than it will to buy it. How much are they asking anyway?”
She stepped back and looked at him sheepishly. “I forgot to ask.”
He laughed.
“It can’t be all that much, do you think? I mean, obviously it needs some repairs. The realtor told me it does…”
He shook his head, still laughing, and called the airport.
Thursday at one o’clock, they walked up the drive with the realtor. Maggie was hardly able to contain her excitement while J.D. was wishing that he was still sleeping on the plane.
“Now, keep in mind that it is being sold
‘as is,’ ” Mr. Lynch was saying as he unlocked the front door, pushing hard to force it open. “She—Miss Whiteside, that is— didn’t use this door very often… Here we are. Now, what about that staircase?”
It was lovely, rising from the right of the front door to the second floor, a beautiful stained glass window at the landing bringing the only light into the downstairs hallway.
Maggie turned to the left of the hall and peeked into a sitting room. The windows were heavily draped and tightly closed, the air musty and suffocating. A room opened beyond, a huge parlor crammed with furniture, and across the hall, a large dining room. Thin, uneven fingers of peeling wallpaper reached from every wall. Layers of dust covered everything with a thick gray film.
Maggie walked into the dining room and found J.D. staring up at a large hole overhead where a chandelier had hung. The chandelier was on the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces, surrounded by a good portion of the plaster ceiling. He looked from her to the ceiling, then to the floor and back to her again without comment.
“I told you it was likely to need some repairs,” she said archly and, without so much as a blink, turned heel and walked into the kitchen, hearing him chuckle as she left the room.
The kitchen area, a rabbit’s warren of small rooms, could have possibilities, she thought, and a large rounded conservatory, filled with withered plants long dead, opened off to the left. There was a large screened porch, or what was left of it, off the back. J.D. viewed it all with a most skeptical eye, but one look at his wife’s face told him he’d never be able to talk her out of it.
He sighed deeply and said to the realtor as Maggie ran up the steps to check out the second floor, “How much are you asking for this pile?”
18
MAGGIE SIGHED, RELUCTANT NOW TO TURN HER INWARD sight from the glow of the memory. Those were the best years of my life, settling into the house, having the children, and living out those carefree days, so full of love and the tiny joys of everyday routines. Did I treasure them for what they were? Savor the sweetness of those days even as they passed? God, but we had everything… love and youth and time.
She was powerless to look away from those early times, those dearest times, when the children had started to arrive in such rapid succession, each a miracle of love in his or her own right. Starting with Jesse. God, but I’d been scared to death, that first time, but oh, how beautiful it had been. How beautiful that whole first year together had been…
“I have to hand it to you, Maggie,” Caroline said as they dragged the Christmas tree in through the front door. “I never would have believed this place would have been habitable this quickly.”
“Maggie beat the contractor’s men into a frenzy. Believe me, Caro, she was unmerciful,” J.D. told her. “And just when they thought they were almost through, she made them start on the second floor.”
“Amazing.” Caroline shook her head in wonderment, the change in the house had been so dramatic.
“So was the bill,” J.D. told her.
“It was worth it every penny, and you know it.” Maggie grinned at him and again admired the finished result.
The sitting room, where they’d decided to put the Christmas tree, had been transformed from a dark, dingy cave into a cozy nest. The carpet was a thick, deep rose wool, the loveseat and sofa, both large, comfortable overstuffed pieces, had been covered with a dark green fabric sporting florals in Maggie’s favorite shades of rose and lavender and cream, the walls, a gentle rose and white stripe. Two small wing chairs on either side of the fireplace had tiny checks of rose and cream, each home to a needlepoint pillow in a rose design made by Luke as a housewarming gift. Shutters painted cream covered the lower sashes of the windows, the tops draped with a simple swag of lace. Pictures found in the attic hung once again on the walls, and a collection of old hand-painted porcelain teapots, found wrapped in newspapers dated 1931 and stashed in a box in a second-floor closet, paraded across the mantle, interspersed with boughs of white pine and bunches of dried baby’s breath and roses, like tiny nosegays. Maggie’d had J.D. assist her in hanging ropes of white pine around the lace-covered windows. The effect was lovely. Even Miss Whiteside would have approved.
Maggie dragged a box into the sitting room from the hallway and went back out and returned with some paper bags.
“Christmas ornaments,” she said to Caroline. “These, in the boxes, were in the attic. Wait till you see.”
J.D. finished putting the tree in the stand and secured it, then went into the kitchen and made coffee while Maggie showed Caroline her treasures. Maggie had found the finely blown glass ornaments, colored, sequined, and feathered, in a trunk in an attic alcove. She opened the bags of new decorations she’d bought, and they discussed where to put what. J.D. returned with three coffee mugs.
“Jamey, here,” she said, handing him an object wrapped in tissue. “Be very careful, please, when you put her on the top of the tree.”
He gently unwrapped the paper to find a beautiful angel, bisque face and golden hair, white satin dress, and wings like gossamer.
“She’s lovely, Maggie. Where did you find her?” he asked.
“In the trunk with the other Christmas things. I took her to the dry cleaner’s to have her dress and wings cleaned up. I was afraid I’d ruin her. She is perfect, isn’t she?” Maggie beamed as J.D. placed the angel at the top of the tree.
“So, what do you hear from Rick?” Caroline asked as she fastened a small glass parrot onto a branch.
“Hmmm?” Maggie was digging absentmindedly in a box from which she extracted a glass Santa. “Oh, Rick. Not a whole lot. We saw him on and off last summer, but I haven’t talked to him in a few months. Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason.”
“Here, Caro, hang this one with the feathers up there,” Maggie pointed toward the top of the tree.
“Is he still seeing Lindy?” Caro stepped onto a small stool to reach the designated branch.
“Far as I know he is, when he’s here.” Maggie put down the box and stole a sideward glance at Caroline. “Why the sudden interest?”
“I just haven’t seen Lindy in a while and was curious, that’s all,” she said, shrugging casually. “How about we put those sparkly angels on the upper branches, like a heavenly choir.”
“Perfect,” said Maggie, beaming happily. “This will be the most perfect Christmas tree ever.”
Later, when Caroline had left, J.D. put Christmas carols on the stereo and joined Maggie on the floor in front of the fireplace. The faint glow of the fire draped its soft sheen across the room. The shadows from the crèche figures on a nearby table were magically cast by the pale light onto the far wall, the dim forms of Joseph, Mary, and the shepherds looming as enormous, eerie shapes that seemed to move slightly as the flames flickered.
“So, what is it that has you so deeply wrapped in thought?” he asked.
“Christmas. The baby. The house. You,” she replied. “I never knew just how good it could get.”
He pulled her closer, resting her head on his shoulder. “Do you realize,” she asked, “this time last year we didn’t even know each other? And now here we are, settled into our own home, our baby a little more than a month away. It’s absolutely mind-boggling.”
“Hmm, amazing,” he agreed. “You are aware, of course, that this will be the last Christmas when things will be this tranquil, aren’t you? That by this time next year, young Jesse will be crawling around and grabbing at the tree and playing havoc with the decorations? And, I’d venture, there will be a mountain of toys for the young master next year.”
“This year,” she laughed and reached over to the shopping bag near the chair and pulled out a large, soft brown bear, a huge red satin bow tied around its fuzzy neck. “Jesse’s first bear.”
She propped him under the tree, and they sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the recorded choir.
“It’s magical,” he said softly. “It’s a magical season and a ma
gical night. And just think, we have your left ankle to thank for all this.”
She smiled and snuggled down farther in his arms.
“And your eyes. Your emerald eyes. They’re so beautiful. Especially in this light, with the fire so close,” he said thoughtfully.
The words came to him in a rush and with an amused Maggie watching, he grabbed the first piece of paper he could find and wrote them down:
Pools of fire, draw me near.
Whisper, only I can hear.
Green eyes shining in the night,
Warm me with their gentle light.
Softly, softly, call my name…
Green eyes burning with the flame.
Dreams that hold me, in your eyes I see
Pools of fire that beckon me.
And so “Pools of Fire,” his first solo hit song, was written on the back of a Christmas card envelope, a loving tribute to his wife and to the quiet night they shared as their first year together wound to a close. It had hit the charts two weeks after its release and had stayed at the number one spot for well over a month. Unfortunately, it would be his last hit record for almost three years.
An insistent pressure in her abdomen woke Maggie early on the morning of the tenth of February, 1976, and she panicked momentarily, halfheartedly praying for one more day. In spite of all her reading and the natural childbirth classes they’d attended at the local hospital, she was scared silly. She rose silently, remembering she was to time the contractions, and searched through a dresser drawer for the stopwatch she’d used when she had been serious about her running. Those days seemed so long ago. She prayed she wouldn’t be in labor this time tomorrow.
As it was, she was blessed with a relatively short labor and an uncomplicated delivery. Jesse David Borders was born right before dinnertime, much to the delight of his parents. He was healthy and beautiful, vocal and alert. One of Maggie’s fondest memories throughout her lifetime was the image of J.D. in the delivery room, holding the small bundle that was their first child, speaking softly to him and watching the baby follow the sound until father and son were eye to eye, baby staring intently, father with tears in his eyes and on his face.
Moments In Time Page 22
