Belonging (32 page)

Joanna turned to look at the young woman who was driving very seriously now, looking very determined and blinking back tears. The summer heat and humidity had made some of Madaket’s black hair escape from the braid and it twined and curled down around her face in glossy ringlets. Her profile was proud and beautiful, the strong cheekbones and wide nose and enormous deep dark eyes all struck into sharp relief by the shadowy light. Beneath her cotton dress, her huge bosom heaved with repressed emotion, and Madaket looked like a goddess, a dark goddess of earth and fecundity and nature and night: a goddess for the proud and fiercely alone. Joanna realized with a shock that this was probably the first time, or one of the first few times, that Madaket had heard concern for her expressed.

“You and Todd seem to be getting along very well these days,” Joanna said, wanting to make Madaket happy.

It worked. Madaket’s lips lifted in a spontaneous, irrepressible smile. “I know. We talk a lot. We’re getting to know each other. He’s really very nice. And he really wants to explore the tunnel.”

“Is this so important to you, Madaket?”

“Yes. Very.”

“Why? Do you actually think you’ll find treasure?”

“Joanna, we already did find something! You should have those stones valued. But it’s not the treasure. It’s the knowing. The discovery.”

“But what if you find more? What will happen to my precious peace and quiet, my privacy? What there is left of it.”

“Joanna, we’ve known about the rubies, or whatever they are, for twenty-four hours now. We would have talked about it right away if we were going to. But we haven’t told anyone. Your peace and quiet haven’t been disturbed. You should trust us.”

Joanna shifted in the seat, leaning her weight against the door. She was irritated by a strange tension stirring within her. She realized that she wanted Madaket to have her own way simply because it would make Madaket happy. She wanted that almost as much as she wanted to have
her
own way. It was unsettling to be pulled by contrasting desires.

“I do trust you, Madaket.” They were in the dark open countryside now. No more streaks of streetlights. Deep silence rolled in the air. She took a deep breath. “All right, Madaket. You and Todd can explore the tunnel.”

Madaket laughed, a pleased light laugh. It filled Joanna with delight.

Seventeen

Every warm September evening after dark had fallen, a flash of lights broke over the front of the house, and the red pickup truck crackled over the gravel and stopped. Todd entered the front door without knocking—they all agreed it was simpler if he did—and Wolf fell all over himself in a flurry of legs and fur getting down to greet him. Madaket followed more slowly, first checking to be sure Joanna was comfortable and had everything she needed for the night.

Equipped with battery-powered lights and spades and shovels, and taking down wood for bracing, the two young people climbed down the rickety ladder into the root cellar. They’d formed a plan about how they’d go about their search, and they had discussed it thoroughly with Joanna. Carefully they scooped sand into buckets, poured the sand in a pile in a corner of the cellar, and made arches of wood to support the roof and walls in the tunnel. They told Joanna their work was hot, boring, and dirty. So far they’d found nothing but sand.

When Madaket came up to bring Joanna her warm milk and nighttime snack, she’d have grains of sand glistening like bits of opals in her black hair. Often Todd came up to Joanna’s bedroom, too, appealingly awkward in his jeans and heavy work boots. Not wanting to get any of Joanna’s furniture sandy, he’d just sprawl on the floor, back against the wall. Wolf would throw himself on top of Todd, and there they’d sit, two especially successful strains of male animal, in Joanna’s very feminine room.

Joanna called Morris Lathern one day and told him she had a legal question. She would pay for his advice, and she wanted his promise of complete confidentiality.

“If any treasure is found in my house, in the attics or under the ground or anywhere on my land, to whom does it legally belong?” she asked.

Morris answered: “To you. Without a doubt. If it were something belonging to the former owner, which they might have accidentally left behind, then there might be a question. But if you’re talking about something that’s been hiding away there for over a hundred years, then whatever it is, it’s your property by law.”

“Don’t turn Madaket into your husband,” Tory advised Joanna one sunny day as they walked together down Main Street.

“What!” Joanna was shocked.

“I mean, don’t rely on her too much. Don’t invest too much emotionally. Bottom line, she’s your employee, you’re her boss. The way you’ve got her living there, you act as if she’s family. But that’s not fair to her, Joanna. She’s only nineteen. She can’t live here the rest of her life. She’s got to grow up and get married or have a career, have a life of her own. You’ve got to know she’ll leave you. You mustn’t get too dependent on her.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Tory.” As they walked into the Espresso Cafe, Joanna was irritated, unsettled by her friend’s remarks.

“You go on out and get a table in the shade. I’ll get the drinks,” Tory suggested.

“All right. I want an iced decaf cappuccino.” Joanna stepped out onto the sunny patio and settled at a table near a tub spilling with pink begonias.

Tory soon joined her, a glass in each hand. Sinking into her chair, she continued, “Well, I worry about you. I just don’t want you to become too dependent on Madaket.”

“Look, Tory, it’s not as if I have a choice. Gardner told me I have to take care. I need full-time help. Madaket’s my employee but also, thank heavens, I really like her. She’s agreed to be here for the next year. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing’s wrong with that, except that since she’s living in your house, it will be easy to get the roles confused. Between employee and friend, I mean. I don’t want you to get hurt when she takes off next year.”

“Who says she’s taking off next year?”

“Joanna, don’t be so touchy! No one’s saying that. We’re talking in circles. I mean only that she
might
take off next year. She’s not your family. Don’t count on her to care for you. She’s with you because you’re paying her.”

“I guess no one would stay with me otherwise,” Joanna snapped. She had intended to mention the discovery of the rubies and the cellar and the tunnel; she’d intended to let it all spill out in one rush of eagerness and anxiety. But Tory leaned back in her chair and regaled Joanna with descriptions of the clothes she’d bought for Vicki for school on their latest shopping tour. Joanna let all thoughts of the hidden treasure sink back into the shadows of her mind. Without asking she knew what Tory would say.

Early in September, Pat’s gallery held a private champagne opening for the painter
Wallace Stark. This was a grand occasion, admittance by personal invitation only.

“You’ve got to go,” Tory lectured Joanna. “Stark is probably the most famous painter in America and he never shows up in public. John and I bought a Wallace Stark oil fifteen years ago, when it had cost only fifty thousand dollars. Now that he’s in his seventies and producing little, it’s worth ten times as much. He’s a real character, and one who’s not going to be on this earth much longer. You’ll never get this chance again.”

“I know,” Joanna said, “but, Tory, it’s just so hard for me to get around these days.”

“Oh, Joanna, wait till you have your twins! Then you’ll really know what it is to be tied down. Come on. One last party.”

Joanna smiled abashedly. “I already gave my two invitations to Madaket. I just can’t go, Tory.”

“Well, I’ve got two, one for me and one for John, and he’s going to be in New York, so you can be my date. It’s settled. I won’t take no for an answer.”

When the night of the party came, Madaket helped Joanna into her familiar turquoise silk tent, and brushed her hair, and helped her down the stairs and out to the driveway and into Tory’s car. Wolf whined at their side; he’d adopted Joanna and didn’t like it when she left the house.

“Now, you’re coming, too, right, Madaket?” Joanna asked as the young woman gently and firmly closed the car door. “I know you don’t like snobs, but this is a different kind of affair. A once-in-a-lifetime occasion.”

Madaket nodded. “I’m coming. I just have to change.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Are you bringing a friend?”

Madaket smiled. “Yes.”

“Enough chat, ladies, I don’t want to miss a minute,” Tory said, and started the engine and drove out of the driveway and down the Squam Road and along into town. The night was breezy and mild, with just a bit of crispness in the air.

“Look, Tory,” Joanna said, pointing to her high wide stomach, which bulged here and there as the twins moved inside her.

Tory laughed. “It looks like your babies are dancing.”

“Practicing karate is more like it. Ooh! They can really kick.”

“How’s your blood pressure?”

“Gardner says I’m in a holding pattern. Not getting any better but not getting any worse.”

“You’re counting down now. Only two more months.”

Joanna groaned. “Each day seems like a month, Tory. I feel so helpless. So vast and vulnerable.”

“That will all change soon enough,” Tory replied offhandedly, not really interested. “Here we are.” She double-parked the car on the side of Main Street. “I’ll let you out. Wait for me on the bench. I’ll find a parking spot and we can go in together. And try not to talk about the babies
all
the time, okay?”

“Tory!” Affronted, Joanna searched her mind for a proper riposte, but Tory demanded impatiently, “Joanna, would you get out? I’m holding up traffic.”

Joanna negotiated her way from the car and across the cobblestones to the brick sidewalk. Sighing gratefully, she sank onto a bench to wait for Tory. It was a lovely evening. The sidewalks weren’t as crowded or noisy, and as she scanned the long block of shopfronts, she fancied that the stores, full of lights and luxuries and people, were a kind of theater and she was here in the dark audience, watching. Then Tory came and, taking Joanna by the elbow, helped her stand, and together they made their way into Pat’s art gallery and became a part of that particular play.

The gallery was crushed with people, the air rich with laughter and perfume. At the bar Tory took a glass of champagne, Joanna one of Perrier, and they slowly made their way around the room, looking at the newest, vast, lush, Wallace Stark paintings.

“I could eat them,” Joanna sighed.

“You could eat anything,” Tory told her.

“I think he’s bordering on the decadent,” whined a voice in the crowd.

The paintings were classical, pictures of nudes reclining in various poses on tapestry-covered beds, among hanging brocades, silver chalices, sly furry pets, enormous bowls overflowing with ripe fruit.

“I have to sit down,” Joanna told Tory after about fifteen minutes. “I’m sorry, but my ankles—”

“Fine. I’ll cruise.”

Joanna found a chair and sank into it with gratitude. The pictures were overwhelmingly sensual. She craved Carter. No, she craved anyone at all who would
cover her mouth in a kiss. Stark’s art brought back to her powerfully the sensuality she’d almost forgotten.

She saw Madaket enter. With Todd.

Joanna stared, hypnotized. Madaket wore a full, ankle-length, flowing, Gypsyish skirt of red, embroidered with gold and purple and green, and a green velvet vest which swelled and clung over her remarkable bodice, the top cut just low enough to show the deep cleft of her heavy breasts, the buttons tight enough to display her small waist and flat stomach. She’d let her hair free of its restraining braid and it curled and spiraled around her head while against it her gold hoop earrings glittered. On her feet were sandals, the laces crisscrossing around her ankles. She wore no makeup, but her face was radiant with pride and pleasure and she looked like a priestess or goddess, some magnificent female force representing all nationalities; she could be Indian or African or South American or Mediterranean or Mexican.

Beside her, Todd shone, too. He was her match, her complement, with his golden hair and dazzling blue eyes and tanned skin. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black blazer; the gold earring was no more bright than his young skin and eyes and white strong teeth.

Madaket moved through the room like a princess, her expression haughty. But when she looked up at Todd, her face softened with such sexual yearning that Todd always swayed toward her, and sometimes even bent to whisper in her ear, touching her shoulder slowly with his hand.

“Oh, dear,” Joanna said under her breath.

She didn’t want Madaket to find her sitting there staring, so she pushed herself up off her chair and made her way around the room, pausing to study Stark’s paintings. Soon Madaket and Todd approached her.

“These paintings are wonderful, aren’t they?” Madaket said. She glowed with happiness; she could have been looking at Mickey Mouse cartoons and found them wonderful.

“You are what’s wonderful,” Joanna said. “Madaket. You look absolutely amazing.” Seeing that she’d embarrassed the young woman, she said to Todd, “And you don’t look too shabby yourself.”

“Thanks,” Todd said easily, and continued earnestly, “And thanks for giving Madaket the invitation. Carpenters don’t often get invited to this sort of thing.”

“My pleasure,” Joanna replied.

“Hello, everyone,” Tory said, joining them. “Hi, Todd. Madaket, you’re looking fabulous.”

“Thank you.” Madaket was very dignified as she looked back at Tory.

“My dear young woman, how I would like to paint you.”

They all turned to look at a short, round, old dumpling of a man who had suddenly approached them and stood next to Madaket, staring up at her.

“Hello, everyone,” Pat said smoothly, quickly easing herself next to the stubby little gnome. “I’d like you all to meet Wallace Stark.”

As Pat introduced them one by one, the painter extended his short arm with its strong, plump, cool hand, and looked at their faces, his little piggy brown eyes alight with interest. There he was, the great master, America’s artistic pride, as rotund and likable as Humpty-Dumpty.