Authors: Nancy Thayer
Joanna opened her purse and took out a black velvet jewelry box. Inside were the two rough-cut rubies. Mr. Vandermeer actually smiled as he studied them under his magnifying glass. When at last he lifted his gleaming bald head, he said, “These are top-quality rough-cut rubies. I could pay you thirty-five thousand dollars.”
Joanna shook her head and sighed.
Mr. Vandermeer sighed, too, then said sadly, “Each.”
“Very well. That seems a fair price.” Joanna sipped her tea while the jeweler called in various employees to deal with the paperwork. In a remarkably short period of time, she had a certified check for seventy thousand dollars and a stamped bill of sale. She shook hands with Mr. Vandermeer and went back out into the bright winter day. Two blocks of walking brought her to a branch of one of the banks with which she had accounts. She went in and deposited the check in her checking account. No use to open a special money market account for it, she decided, she’d be writing a check to Madaket almost immediately.
She had some free time before her flight back, so she walked along Newbury Street, looking in the windows at the fashionable shops. People passed her on the sidewalk without a second glance. Had her face been forgotten so soon? She grew tired
more quickly than she thought she would and went into the Ritz for tea. The gracious room was filled today; it seemed she was the only one alone. Pairs and groups of friends bent toward each other over the tea tables, and the air was sprinkled with soft laughter and the hum and buzz of intimate talk, and Joanna looked and listened with envy, suddenly pierced through with longing for the bustle and perfume of city life. She couldn’t wait to get all this treasure business settled, and proof the galleys of her books, and gear up for a book tour. Her figure, while not yet in its original shape, was slimming down very nicely, thanks to the nursing. But she could be more diligent about shaping up. She’d heard there was a health club in Nantucket. Perhaps she should start working out, to build up her strength and flatten her tummy. And then she would have to buy some fabulous new clothes!
Madaket and Christopher were waiting in the airport. Madaket was holding Christopher up and exclaiming, “There’s Mommy! There’s your mommy!” To her delighted surprise, Joanna’s heart jumped at the sight of them, her almost-family, waiting eagerly only for her.
“He really missed you,” Madaket said. “He didn’t like his bottle at all.”
Joanna leaned over and rubbed her nose against her little boy’s. “Hi, Christopher. Did you miss me?”
“Bbuuhh,” Christopher said, blowing bubbles of joy at the sight of his mother. He waved his fat arms bulkily in the padding of his snowsuit. Christopher had Carter’s piercingly clear blue eyes, rather startling in a baby, but the expression in those eyes was winsome and sweet and terribly yearning, as if Christopher were trying to talk.
Joanna grabbed her baby and kissed him all over his face, smooching him ecstatically, and Christopher laughed a deep hearty baby chuckle and cooed and wriggled for joy.
“God, I’m just spurting milk!” Joanna whispered to Madaket.
They raced to the car.
“You drive. I’ll nurse him right now.” She buckled herself in and hastened to unfasten all the buttons and snaps on her clothing. The baby’s toothless bite on her nipple brought a surge of relief. “Did he cry?”
“No, but he fussed a lot. I was busy entertaining him!” Madaket steered the Jeep out of the airport parking lot and toward home. “How was your trip?”
“Successful. I’ll tell you about it later.” Joanna stroked the side of Christopher’s head as he nursed. His skin was as soft as silk.
“Joanna, I have some good news for you.”
“Oh?” Christopher clamped his fist around her finger.
“The Snowmen returned today. Just showed up about ten o’clock and started pounding away on the sunporch floor. The trapdoor is all covered over with subflooring now, and they said they’ll put in the tile tomorrow.”
“Oh. What a surprise.” Joanna looked over at Madaket to watch her profile as she spoke. “How very odd that they showed up the day I was off the island.”
“It is a strange coincidence, isn’t it?” Madaket agreed. She didn’t seem ill at ease, and yet Joanna wondered: had Madaket called the men and told them it was safe to return to the house because Joanna was gone for the day? Joanna studied Madaket. She’d come to rely on the young woman so completely she’d stopped really seeing her. She was beautiful, exotically, erotically beautiful.
As they pulled into the driveway, the Snowmen were leaving in their red truck. They’d been alone in her house, Joanna realized. Suddenly she was overwhelmed with fatigue.
“I’m tired,” Joanna said as they entered the house. “I think Christopher and I will spend the evening in bed reading magazines.”
“All right. Shall I bring your dinner to your bedroom?”
“That would be nice.”
Madaket went off to the kitchen. Later, after she’d brought Joanna’s dinner up on a tray, she went up the stairs to her attic room.
Joanna played with Christopher, and looked at magazines, and nursed Christopher again, then slid into her wide bed with Christopher next to her and fell asleep. When the baby woke her for his night feeding, it was two in the morning but bright with a high cold winter moon. Joanna nursed and changed the baby, then tucked him into his crib. The lazy evening had left her restless and she’d been having unpleasant dreams. Pulling her heavy down robe on, she went down the stairs, planning to fix herself a cup of chamomile tea.
The overhead kitchen light was too glaring when she flicked it on, so immediately she flicked it off and crossed the room to turn on the small light above the stove. As she moved around the kitchen in the soft cottony light, she realized that Wolf wasn’t around,
following her every step with hopeful eyes. That was odd. No matter that he slept in the attic with Madaket; if Joanna got up in the night, he always heard her and came down to accompany her, especially when she was eating.
She checked the back hall door. It was unlocked, and Madaket’s parka was gone. So even in this weather she was out walking at night, Wolf undoubtedly by her side. The kettle whistled. Joanna poured her tea, then walked through the dark house, looking out the windows. Under the silver moonlight the property around her house rambled off in a tangle and blur of bushes and moors. It was still another two months before the bulbs would be piercing up through the cold ground. Madaket had described it all: crocuses and snowdrops would come first, then the tulips grouped under the windows in the shelter of the front of the house, and finally the daffodils scattered wildly across the back lawn and iris and lilies in the garden. It would be beautiful.
She spotted Madaket at the front of the property, walking slowly around the long rectangle of earth she’d dug and fertilized and worked for a garden last fall. Wolf was by her side. Probably she was planning her spring planting. On the dining room windowsills and in rows in the pantry, small boxes of seedlings and ceramic pots of herbs sprouted. Madaket intended to set them out when it was warm enough. Marjoram, tarragon, parsley, mint—Joanna couldn’t name them all. In the sunroom, too big for a sill, sat fat tubs of Madaket’s grandmother’s ancient and rather gnarled geraniums with stems as thick as fingers and leaves as large as saucers. It made Joanna oddly melancholy to see the plants waiting so patiently, so mutely, through the night, their scalloped leaves angled for the morning sun.
She was cold. Carrying her tea with her, Joanna hurried back up the stairs to the warm oblivion of sleep.
Twenty-three
The next morning Joanna sat at the kitchen table, nursing Christopher, while Madaket puttered around, squeezing fresh orange juice and stirring a pot of hot cereal and honey for Joanna’s breakfast. It was a mild and oddly oppressive February day; the white sky seemed unusually low and the ocean looked heavy and dark and sullen, and the wind, when it came, was sudden and forceful.
“It’s so strange out there today,” Joanna remarked.
“They’re forecasting a storm,” Madaket replied cheerfully. She was wearing one of the sweaters Joanna had given her, a brilliant turquoise, over a long brown skirt, and thick brown stockings and her work boots. “Here’s your breakfast. Want me to take the baby?”
“No, thanks. He’s not quite finished. I can eat and feed him at the same time.”
Madaket took a mug of coffee and sat down at the other end of the kitchen table with a pad and pen. “I’m going into town this morning to stock up on supplies. Food. And a lot of videos. If it really blows, we might be stuck out here for a few days. And of course if it gets bad, all the planes and ferries will be canceled and the grocery stores will be empty.”
“You sound happy about it.”
“I love a good storm. Do you want some books from the library?”
Joanna shifted Christopher to her shoulder and burped him. “I want to buy some books at Mitchell’s. If we’re really going to get a big storm, perhaps I’d better go in with you while I can. Christopher can nap in his car seat.”
“Great. I’ll be ready anytime. Candles,” Madaket said, writing her list. “Flashlight batteries. Do we have enough diapers?”
“I think so. This makes me nervous. I’m going to see what the weatherman says.”
Joanna went off, Christopher snug in the crook of one arm and a hot cup of decaf in the other hand. Sinking onto the sofa, she set her mug on the end table and switched on the television and watched for the weather forecast. Christopher flexed his muscles eagerly. He was gaining weight, becoming a nice little bundle, plump and sweet-smelling in his blue terry-cloth romper. He had stopped crying every evening, had taken to
sleeping several hours at a time during the night, waking Joanna for a feeding only once, and in the mornings he was active and happy and eager to play. She held him facing her on her lap, and put her hands under his arms, supporting his torso so that he seemed to be standing on her legs. He loved this. His eyes brightened while, with enormous effort, his fists clenched, his entire body tensed, he attempted to pull himself up, as if he thought he could stand on his own.
“Big boy,” Joanna cooed. “What a big boy.” Christopher shrieked with pleasure.
According to the Weather Channel, a major storm was headed their way this evening, or it might veer off into the Atlantic. National weather forecasters weren’t always accurate about Nantucket because it was so far away from the mainland. Joanna finished her coffee and headed upstairs with Christopher. She changed his diaper and carried him into the study with her.
Her desk was piled with notes she’d been scribbling to herself about ideas for
Fabulous Homes
. Vaguely she heard noises downstairs: the front door opened and slammed shut, Wolf barked joyfully, voices rumbled. The Snowmen had arrived. They’d probably finish the floor in the sunporch completely today. Good. Joanna had bought a little red automatic swing for Christopher. She could have Madaket assemble it and put it out there, and she would call the cable people to ask them to send someone out this week to move the television cable from the living room to the sunporch.
She turned to her work. Families. She’d made a memo to herself about the definition of the word “family,” which came from the Latin
familia
, meaning servants in a household, or just household. The first definition in Webster’s dictionary was “all the people living in the same house.” She wanted to do some research and have CVN’s Research and Graphics Department create some models, drawings, perhaps three-dimensional reproductions, of ancient houses, Roman houses, when the servants lived in the same house as the family they served. Also, she thought, scribbling rapidly, medieval homes. Castles and forts were lived in by the servants as well as those they served. Now, to the twenty-first and even twenty-second centuries: as more women joined the workforce, it became more important to have good, trustworthy, live-in help, which often meant, in the cities, at least, having a self-contained apartment for the nanny or cook or housekeeper.
She wrote as fast as she could with her right hand while with the left arm she jiggled Christopher against her body. When she glanced at him, she saw that he’d fallen
asleep. He was so perfect, so lovely … and he was getting heavy. Quietly she padded down the hall and into the nursery, where she lay him on his tummy in his crib. He sighed a sweet high baby sigh and scooted up so that his little diaper-padded bottom stuck up in the air; his current favorite way to sleep. Joanna covered him with a light thermal blanket and stood watching him. Why was it that a baby’s sleep was so particularly hypnotic and pleasing?
“Joanna,” Madaket whispered from the door. “Are you ready to go into town with me?”
Joanna left the side of the crib and went out into the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. Now the nursery would stay cozily warm, without the long hallway leeching out the heat.
“I’ve changed my mind. I think I’d better stay here, Madaket. There’s some work I want to do, and now that Christopher’s settled in for a nap, I think I’ll have some time to concentrate. Let me give you a list of books I want you to buy. Just charge them to my account.”
Together the two women went into Joanna’s study, and Joanna wrote a few titles on a sheet of paper, and Madaket took the list and some signed checks from Joanna for the groceries and gas for the Jeep and some fresh flowers for the house.
“I’ll be back by lunch. Doug and Todd are working in the sunporch. They think they’ll be through today.”
“Good.” Joanna was not completely comfortable with this arrangement of relaying messages and knew she needed to talk to the men directly. But
Fabulous Homes
was on her mind, and she didn’t want to break the flow of ideas. She sat down at her desk. “I’ll see you later.”
She was aware of Madaket’s steps as the young woman went down the stairs, and she heard the front door slam and then the rumble of the Jeep’s engine and the crackle of gravel. Because the house was so large, she’d installed a monitor in the nursery, so that she could hear instantly when Christopher awoke or cried, and now she heard only the faint regular sounds of his breathing.