Belonging (45 page)

“I had my sons help me pick the toys and clothes out,” he confessed.

“Everything’s perfect. Oh, it’s so kind of you. And to fly here again like this …”

“Actually, I’ve got an ulterior motive.”

“Oh?” Laying Christopher on his back between them, she rattled the daisy above his tummy, and the little boy squealed and reached out his chubby hands, trying to grab it.

“Not to sound frivolous, Joanna, but it seems to me the universe is sending you some pretty clear signals that you shouldn’t be here. This place is hazardous to your health. You should come back to New York.”

“You know that was always my plan, Jake. But I can’t come yet.”

“Are you sure?”

Joanna looked up, surprised.

“I think Bob and I have suddenly discovered things we have to do in the other room,” Pat said, smiling. “Call us if you need anything.” The Hoovers left the room.

“Perhaps you’d like another year off,” Jake suggested. His tone was mild but Joanna felt his eyes on her face, reading her reactions.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I want an entire year off. The show … I don’t know what to say. Everything is so topsy-turvy right now—”

Jake reached across the sofa and gently touched Joanna’s cheek, stilling her words. “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you. I just want you to remember you’ve got a world waiting for you.”

Jake’s hand on her skin was so large, so male, so much more sturdy than anything she’d felt in a long time. For a moment she was caught in a spell. The starched edge of his shirt cuff lightly brushed her chin. Joanna met Jake’s eyes, seeing how the dark brown was flecked with gold and bronze and deep pure light, and in that moment she was entirely suffused with the memory of Jake’s tantalizing and mysterious Fourth of July kiss. She had often wondered what Jake had meant by that kiss. Was it only the lighthearted whim of a summer’s eve? Jake was not a capricious man.

Her thoughts made her shy, and she was glad when Christopher twisted, so that both Jake and Joanna bent to move the baby away from the edge of the sofa.

“He can turn over,” Joanna told Jake. “He can move at the speed of light when he wants.”

Jake leaned back and took a sip of his drink. “Have you thought about
Fabulous Homes
at all? How you’d envision it next season? If you’d change it?”

All thoughts of romance vanished; suddenly her mind clicked on. She picked Christopher up and held him in her arms. “Oh, Jake, have I ever! I want a whole new format. I’ve been thinking about the restoration of old homes. In some cases an old house is like a mountain, with a record of its years built in like eras of the earth. For example, I remember a house in which hideous 1960s silver foil wallpaper covered five other layers of wallpaper, then plaster, and underneath all that, horsehair used as insulation. I’ve been considering adding a segment called ‘Fabulous Homes Past and Future.’ ” She leaned forward as she talked, feeling an old elastic energy revive within her. “I know someone on the island who has a microwave oven built into a wall which still has the original eighteenth-century beehive baking oven in it. Another friend has an Indian room, a tiny cubbyhole built to hide valuables. And of course, so many houses have, as mine did, cool cellars. Root cellars.” At the thought of her own house, her energy dried up. She sagged back against the sofa. “I don’t know if I can do it, Jake.”

Jake ignored this lapse into despondency. “You say a segment about past and future. How would you work that into the present format?”

“Oh, I want to change the format,” Joanna told him. “I think the show would be better broken up into segments, past, present, and future. The function of rooms in houses
has changed considerably: colonial homes used to have birthing rooms, and Victorian homes had good parlors and daily parlors. Now houses are being built with specific rooms for computers or media or exercise equipment. I’d like to write and produce the shows, and perhaps do the intro and a short segment, but have other hosts for each different segment. Some Alistair Cooke type to talk about historical houses and a slick young thing to talk about contemporary homes and future designs. You know, Gloria actually would be great for that. She’s as shiny as stainless steel and she is knowledgeable. The show needs a new look, not the same leisurely stroll through just one house. I don’t like it, but TV today moves fast.”

“Right,” Jake agreed. “Clips and segments and bites. Here. Let me take him awhile.”

He reached out for Christopher, who had been squirming restlessly in Joanna’s arms and Joanna handed him to Jake, who laid him along the length of his thighs. Christopher was at once entranced by Jake’s thick fingers, and clutching one finger tightly with his entire hand, he tried to pull it toward his mouth for a good experimental chew.

“Sweet,” Joanna said, watching her son, then continued, “I’d like to play around with that format, inserting bits, flashing close-ups on details. Show an antique kitchen and a state-of-the-art kitchen side by side, perhaps have a psychologist discuss how cooking and family life have changed. Or remained the same. Also, there should be a home-decorating segment, with one room showcased each week, say a living room, with eight different styles of chairs shown in the same spot, so the viewers can see which they’d like best in their home. I think we’d get great sponsors for that bit.”

“Sounds good.” Jake’s voice boomed in his enthusiasm, and Christopher’s eyes widened with surprise.

“Also, Jake, I want to include in each show a brief bit about alternative homes. Hospices, soup kitchens, AIDS houses, halfway houses for the mentally ill making the transition back to the world, foster homes, communes, shelters, safe places for battered women …”

“Not quite what your audience is used to,” Jake reminded her.

“I know. But I’m determined. I’ll stick it in the middle, I won’t go overboard, I won’t scare off the advertisers. But I believe it might be a way for the show to help somehow. To raise public consciousness.”

Jake considered. “It’s worth trying. We could run an address at the end of each show for charitable donations.”

“Oh, Jake, that’s good.”

“When were you planning to start production?”

“I’ve already decided on several locations, and I’ve laid the groundwork, talked to the people, gotten some verbal commitments. I’ll need some secretarial help for the letters and contracts and logistical arrangements. If we can get the preliminaries done in April, we could start shooting in May. Oh, Jake.” Once again her own thoughts braked her to a full stop, and she looked across at Jake with troubled eyes. “All my notes are gone. All my names and addresses and phone numbers and locations. It’s all gone.” She felt as if she’d just been shoved out of an airplane. All around her, space whirled in a great confusion, and in response her stomach churned and her vision blurred. Sinking back into the cushions of the sofa, she closed her eyes.

Jake’s voice was reasonable, encouraging. “I’m sure Gloria has duplicates of most of the names and addresses in her files. And once you sit down with the list, you’re bound to remember other contacts, and when you come up with the name, Gloria can dig up the rest.”

Joanna shook her head. Her eyes were still closed against the dizziness. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“Well, give it a try,” Jake advised her equably. “I’d hate to see Carter and Gloria get it.”

Her head cleared. She opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

Jake was dandling Christopher on his knee and the baby was bubbling with pleasure. “I mean that Carter and Gloria want to do FH themselves.”

“Excuse me? It’s
my
show! I conceived it! I initiated it, I breathed life into it! God, Jake, it’s called
Joanna Jones’ Fabulous Homes
!”

Christopher turned his head and gazed at his mother with amazement.

“I know you did. I’m just telling you what’s going on right now. Carter and Gloria are talking to people at the network. They want to take over the show.”

“Well, they can’t have it.” Greatly agitated, Joanna rose and paced the room, rubbing the palms of her hands together as if kindling her thoughts. “Look. This is complicated. I can’t come into New York yet, not with everything in such utter chaos here. And I’ve got to spend as much time with Madaket while she’s recovering as I can.
You must understand that.”

“Of course.”

“Give me two months to get organized. And get me a new secretary. I can’t work with Gloria if she’s going to sabotage me. And get any FH files that are at the network away from Gloria and with my secretary. As soon as you’ve found someone, I’ll tell him what to look for.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Pat said, sticking her head in from the hallway, “but Bob and I are going to have some dinner now. It’s a casserole, and there’s plenty. Want to join us?”

Joanna threw a questioning glance at Jake, who rose, Christopher in the crook of his arm. “I’d love to. I’m starving.” He smiled at Joanna. “And I think we’ve accomplished what we needed to, at least for tonight.”

Over dinner, which tonight Pat and Bob served up in their cozy kitchen, Joanna and Jake conversed amiably with their hosts about babies and children, about television and the future of the entertainment media, the real estate market on Nantucket and the nation’s economy, good new books and movies. In the calm of their company, Joanna relaxed. She’d been roused to a state of indignation that was almost alarm over losing her show. She would not lose her show. She had work to do. But as the evening passed, she felt dropped from the heights of excitement to the depths of exhaustion. She excused herself from the table for a while to rock Christopher and tuck him in for the night. When she returned to the kitchen, she felt as if her limbs and nerves and mind were encroached upon by a melting fatigue until it was all she could do to hold her head up and keep her eyes open.

“Are you okay, Joanna?”

Jake’s voice seemed to come from far away, as if funneled toward her by a tube of air.

“I’m just so tired.” It was all she could say.

“Of course you are,” Pat exclaimed. Pushing back her chair, she rose. “You need to go to bed, Joanna.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” Pat replied.

Jake rose when Joanna did, and met her halfway with an avuncular hug and kiss.

“It was wonderful of you to come, Jake,” Joanna said, hugging him to her. “Thank you for all the presents.”

“You bet.”

“I wish you didn’t have to return to New York tomorrow.”

“So do I. But I’ll be back.”

“Jake—” She was frustrated. Overwhelmed with fatigue, aware of the Hoovers’ presence, she had no way to ask about his kiss; and how would she phrase her question? It had been only that, one kiss, between colleagues and friends.

Jake’s dark eyes seemed deep with emotion. “You get some rest, Joanna. I’ll be back soon.”

Like a cold person suddenly soothed and comforted by warmth, Joanna nodded, went to her room, and fell asleep the moment her head touched the pillow.

She woke once in the night to feed Christopher, and then they both slept until late in the morning. Jake had gone back to New York. Joanna summoned up her courage and asked Bob to drive her out to Squam. She had to see the remains of her house. She had to face it. Pat offered to stay home with Christopher, and in the early afternoon Bob and Joanna set off in Bob’s Mercedes station wagon.

It was a briskly bright February day with the sort of early spring sunlight that made everything seem excessively vivid. Joanna pulled out her sunglasses to shield her eyes from the glare.

“It was a little more than a year ago when I first brought you out to look at the place,” Bob mused as they bounced over the dirt road to her property.

Joanna smiled, remembering. “The moment I stepped inside I knew I wanted it.”

They turned in her driveway, down the winding lane, and there before them, with the blue sky and the wide ocean as a backdrop, were the remains of the house, a great hideous mound of blackened timber. Two brick chimneys rose alone intact from the debris.

Joanna’s heart contracted.

“Sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure.”

Bob turned off the engine and they got out. Joanna walked around the great pile of rubble which once had been her home. Bob followed behind her, quietly, at a respectful distance. On one side of the house blackened bits of wood protruded from the heaps of
ashes and burned timber. On the other side, piles of sand bordered an area which had been dug out, then hurriedly filled back in, after the bodies of Todd and Doug Snow had been found and removed.

It was a scene of terrible desolation.

Joanna turned her back on it and looked out at the ocean, where the water bobbed gaily, tossing up little waves that glinted with light. She walked around the edge of the moorland bordering the cultivated lawn, looking down at the brown and gray, brittle, winter-withered shrubs. Overhead, a gull called and swooped.

Quietly Joanna declared, “I loved that house, Bob.”

“Yes. I know you did. Well, you can build a replica, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want is for the fire never to have happened.”

“That,” Bob told her, “is one thing you can’t have.”

Twenty-five

Joanna could not seem to get enough sleep. Every morning she would awaken to Christopher’s cries, rise and feed him, drink a cup of freshly ground strong coffee in Pat and Bob’s kitchen, enjoy a bite or two of toast and marmalade, dress for the day, call to check on Madaket’s condition, then lie down on the bed with Christopher, instantly falling back asleep. Many days she didn’t leave the Hoovers’ house. Sometimes she didn’t even change out of her green cashmere robe, but shuffled around the guest bedroom, which had become her own snug, safe world. Whenever Pat offered to take Christopher out for a stroll, Joanna accepted, intending to use the free time for the myriad things she needed to accomplish, but, returning to her bedroom for a pen or list or phone number, she’d feel overcome by exhaustion and would collapse on the bed and fall into a heavy sleep until Pat and Christopher returned.