Belonging (21 page)

Yet she would not call him, or write him, and she knew she had to stop wanting him. She understood how the power of her longing was serving to blur reality, and she reminded herself that Carter was a man who always got his way. She wasn’t certain that even now she could withstand the force of his displeasure.

These days when Joanna walked down the main street of Nantucket, she saw
tourist families together, young sweet-looking men barely out of their teens with babies strapped to their chests in little canvas knapsacks. She saw couples walking together, mother holding one child’s hand, father holding another child’s hand, all of them eating ice-cream cones. She saw a bearded professorial type seated on a park bench with a tiny baby in his arms. He fed the baby from a bottle while his wife, inside a woman’s clothing shop, tried on garments, posing in the doorway for his approval. Couples like this made tears come into Joanna’s eyes and she wondered for the millionth time if what she was doing was right.

But what was right?

Had it been
right
for her parents to have a child when neither was capable of having a home? She certainly hadn’t had the perfect family, a daddy holding one hand, a mommy holding the other, and yet she’d turned out reasonably well.

So she tried not to think of Carter, and instead to concentrate on her work and her beautiful house.

“You’ll have to be patient,” Joanna told Madaket when she hired her. “And flexible. With all this work on the house, it’s bound to be chaotic.” But Joanna discovered that her life quickly fell into a comfortable pattern. Five days a week Madaket biked out, arriving at the house at eight o’clock, in time to fix breakfast for Joanna. Madaket joined her for coffee as they discussed the day’s schedule, then Joanna went onto the screened porch and spent the morning working on her books. Madaket cleaned house and cooked, the Snowmen hammered and painted and plastered away upstairs. After the lunch Madaket brought out on a tray, Joanna walked along the beach for an hour, returning for a catnap. Then she resumed work on her books until the hammering stopped and everyone left and she could relax in the still of the evening, eating at her leisure whatever Madaket had prepared for dinner. Still later, she talked with Tory on the phone, or often simply sat on the screened porch, looking out at the light playing on the water, sometimes listening to a classical CD, sometimes reading, sometimes only daydreaming, until, very early, perhaps at only ten o’clock, she climbed the stairs and went to bed, falling asleep instantly. She felt perfectly safe alone in her huge old house. It seemed to accept her and all the changes gratefully, holding the warmth of the day in its rooms at night, receiving light from the moon and stars in its deepest corners.

Joanna liked having Madaket in the house. The young woman was quiet; she was
quick. Obviously she was trying hard to please. Unlike Joanna’s city assistants, she wasn’t argumentative or pushy or strung out over her current lover or her landlord. In fact, she never talked about herself at all. Often as she worked she hummed under her breath, and when she came or left the room, a fragrance of herbs and spices drifted through.

The first morning, as they went over the plans for the day, Madaket stood in front of Joanna, hands folded decorously in front of her, but this respectful, rather servile attitude bothered Joanna, and she said, “Oh, Madaket. Sit down,” and gestured to the other side of the kitchen table. “I can’t think with you standing there like a little soldier at attention. Help yourself to a cup of coffee, and join me. And please, speak up if you have some thoughts. I need all the advice I can get!”

“Oh, I think you’re doing everything perfectly,” Madaket replied, but a few mornings later she surprised Joanna by taking the initiative. “Which cupboard do you want me to stack the plates in? And the canned goods? And the staples?”

“Why do we need staples in the kitchen?” Joanna asked, truly dumbfounded. “I have plenty in my box of office supplies.”

Madaket’s mouth twitched. “Not those kinds of staples. Cooking staples. Flour. Sugar. Baking powder. Those kinds of staples.”

“Oh, God, I’m an imbecile! Well, does it matter? I mean, are there rules for this sort of thing? Guidelines? Does someone anywhere care? There are so many cupboards. Look, why don’t you decide?”

“I’d love to,” Madaket replied eagerly. And as Joanna sat on the screened porch, reading through her files to the hum of her computer, she heard through the doors from the porch to the dining room and the dining room to the kitchen the companionable sounds of Madaket singing to herself punctuated by the pleasant, orderly tap of plates and cans being set down on wood.

The next day, when Madaket brought Joanna her second cup of decaffeinated coffee, she paused, then said, “Joanna, could I suggest something?”

Joanna turned in her chair. “Of course.”

They were on the screened porch. It was a cool, rainy day, and the rain drummed on the roof. The windows, thick with dripping vines, enclosed the room in a humid, fragrant green. Joanna had turned on the overhead light as well as the standing lamp, and the cool blue radiant lake of her computer screen gleamed. Madaket’s hands were behind
her back and she stood very straight, as if at attention.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Madaket began, licking her lips, and then, taking a deep breath, she forced it all out: “but you see, you don’t have much cooking equipment. It limits what I can make for you.”

Joanna shrugged. “I told you I was new to all this household stuff. All right, Madaket, sit down. Please. Now tell me. What else should I have?”

Madaket settled on the edge of a wicker rocker and leaned forward. “Loaf pans, and then I could make bread. I make delicious bread. A set of measuring cups and spoons. A Cuisinart. Cookie sheets. Pie pans so I could make you quiches or fruit pies. An electric mixer. A large breadboard. Decent knives. Slotted spoons. Wooden spoons. Some nice big pottery mixing bowls. Shall I go on?”

“You mean there’s more?” At Madaket’s affirmative nod, Joanna sighed. “You poor thing, what have you been using to cook with?”

Madaket grinned. “It’s been a challenge. You do have lovely china and crystal and silver, but you’ve neglected to buy the basics. If you’d like, we could go in together and select things.”

Joanna leaned back in her chair and considered. She imagined them together in the housewares department of Marine Home Center, debating over teakettles, and her immediate reaction was definite. She’d be bored to death. She always had been bored to death with kitchen paraphernalia, and it seemed she hadn’t changed. She wanted to spend her time on the architecture of her books, constructing a complete and satisfying thing from words and photographs and images and questions and answers, and so she asked Madaket, “Do you think you could buy everything yourself?”

“Yes, of course. But—”

“It’s just that I’m worried about getting these books done before the babies get here. And my energy is limited, and besides, Madaket, I can’t pretend, I just don’t know a thing about food except how to eat it and I guess I don’t really want to learn. I’d be grateful if you’d just go buy everything you need. I trust your experience and taste. Buy the best quality, that’s my only qualification. Okay?”

“Okay,” Madaket answered. Her eyes were bright. “This is going to be fun. And oh, you’ll be amazed at what I’ll be able to make for you!”

The young woman was practically wriggling, puppylike, in her eagerness. Joanna found it endearing that anyone could get so worked up over kitchen equipment. “Well, let
me give you a blank check. Go now, why don’t you. Never mind about the breakfast dishes. They’ll wait.”

“No, no, I’ll do those first. Then everything will be clean and in place when I come back.” Madaket jumped up, then turned back. “Perhaps you should give me two checks. Then I can run into town and buy some fresh Bartlett’s lettuces and veggies.”

“Yes, you do that.”

Madaket flew off. Joanna bent over her papers.

Three hours later Madaket returned, glowing. Joanna lost count of the trips Madaket made through the central hall from the Jeep to the kitchen. At last Madaket appeared in front of Joanna, breathless. “Would you like to see it all?”

“Not now, thanks. I’m sure you bought great stuff.”

“Here’s the receipt. I know it’s a lot of money, but you needed so much—”

“That’s fine, Madaket. That’s great. Thanks for doing it.”

“Well, I’ll fix you a nice lunch, then I’ll unpack it and wash it all and put it away.” She sounded as happy about the prospect as if she were going to a party.

The following day the gentle rains surrendered to a true summer storm. Wind howled and shook the windows. Raindrops as hard as marbles were thrown against the house, their staccato clatter competing with the more general buzz of the Snows working on the second floor. Joanna had Madaket carry her files into the dining room, and she sat at one end of her long pine table, working intently, until the seductive dark aroma of chocolate came curling around her like a crook. Dropping her pen, she went into the kitchen. Madaket was bending over the oven, taking out a pan of brownies.

“My mouth is watering.” Joanna reached out her hand.

Madaket tapped it lightly. “Don’t touch. You’ll burn yourself. They need to cool a bit before I can cut them.”

“Oh, all right, but I hope they cool fast.” Joanna went back to the dining room and her work.

When Madaket finally came in to Joanna, bearing a plate of brownies and a glass of skim milk, she asked, “Would you mind if I took a plate up to Todd and his father?”

Around a mouthful of warm, melting chocolate, Joanna replied, “Of course not. It would be cruel not to, with this aroma wafting through the house. They must be salivating like mad. Oh, Madaket, this is ambrosia.” She sipped some milk, then stretched
and yawned. “I’ll come up with you. I need to move this old body, and anyway, I’d like to see how far along they’ve gotten. Here, I’ll carry the plate. You bring along some glasses of milk.”

On the second floor they found both men in the center of what was now a long, open room. Splintered boards and nails were scattered all over the floor and plaster dust coated the room and the men as well. Both men had stripped down to white T-shirts and jeans, and over their chests and backs the white cotton was nearly transparent from perspiration. Her city senses were snagged by the fresh, brute, stimulating scents of sawdust and sweat in the air. Doug straightened up, turned, and hitched up his jeans, which were riding low on his narrow hips. Joanna was suddenly stunned with lust at the sight of the two muscular, very physical men. She had to clear her throat to speak.

“We thought you might like to take a break. Madaket just made these brownies.”

With his forearm, Todd wiped sweat off his forehead. “Great. Thanks.”

He approached Joanna and accepted the plate from her, then turned to Madaket and took a glass of milk. Joanna saw Madaket’s face as Todd approached her: the young woman’s black eyes scanned his face briefly, intently, greedily, a living camera snapping a shot to keep forever. Then she dropped her eyes. But when Doug Snow reached out to receive his glass of milk from her hand, Madaket did not raise her eyes, but stood paralyzed, and when the older man said, “Thanks,” her nod of reply was so abrupt it looked as if she had flinched.

“Well,” Joanna exclaimed, “you’ve gotten the wall down. It’s going to be a good-sized room.”

“We’ll need to redo the floor and the ceiling,” Doug pointed out, indicating the rough, jagged parallel lines left from the wall.

Joanna talked to him a bit more about the work he would do, or rather listened to him, nodding in what she hoped was an intelligent fashion. Really, she was thinking: what’s going on? Did this man emit sexual electromagnetic currents to which her pregnancy had tuned her sensitive body? For as Doug gestured, Joanna found herself captivated by the track of sweat through the white dust that had sifted onto the curly, ash-colored hairs on his taut, powerful arm. The veins stood out on his arms and hands, and his hands were abraded and swollen; his flesh would not feel soft like her flesh, but hard and rough. When he moved, his long, lean, solid thighs swelled within the fabric of his jeans. Doug’s strength was physical, and physically obvious in his every movement,
unlike that of the men she’d worked with every day at the network whose strength was in their minds. They used the cut and expense of the fabric that hid their bodies to indicate their power.

She came out of her trance to realize that Madaket had already gone down the stairs. Todd was leaning against the window, looking out at the rain while he ate.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” Joanna said, “and get back to my own. It seems like you’re getting a lot accomplished in a short time. Thanks.”

When she returned to the first floor, she found Madaket in the kitchen washing up the bowls and pans. Joanna took another brownie and leaned on the counter companionably.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I find both those men really sexy,” she confessed to Madaket in a low voice.

Madaket’s black gaze flashed over Joanna’s face then back down into the sink of soapy water. “Mr. Snow, too?” she asked.

“Mr. Snow especially. He’s got such an aura of intensity about him. I find him terribly interesting.”

Madaket smiled grimly. “I find him frightening.”

“Doug Snow, frightening?”

“Yes.” Stacking the final pan in the drainer and pulling out the sink plug, Madaket turned to dry her hands on a dish towel.

“How odd. I don’t get that feeling. I mean, Doug is shorter than Todd and slighter. And older. Todd’s bigger and has that rebellious teen idol look about him.”

Madaket bent over with a whisk broom and a dustpan just then, so Joanna could not see the young woman’s face when she said, “If Todd were a rebel, do you think he’d be working for his father?”

“You mean he wanted to do something else?”

“Oh, I don’t mean he’s ever talked to me about this personally. We know each other because we both grew up here, but I certainly don’t run with his crowd, but everyone has heard, everyone knows—Todd was a great football player, and he’s smart. He could have gotten an athletic scholarship to college, perhaps even an academic one. But his father didn’t want him going off to college. Didn’t want him to leave the island. Wanted him to work with him. And that’s what Todd’s doing.”