Beloved (15 page)

She found it almost at once, in a brittle newspaper clipping dated a month after Sam
'
s letter to his wife. It was an obituary, cut out of the
Inquirer.
Sam Merchant had died on December 11, 1918, exactly one month after the armistice was signed at Compiègne, when the transport vehicle he was riding in overturned.

So the Army had never found out, and neither did
Nantucket
, that Sam had made other plans for himself. Which had come first to Sylvia Merchant, Jane wondered
—
the news from the Army, or the news from her husband? The postmark on Sam
'
s letter was illegible, and Jane couldn
'
t find any death notice from the Army. Either way, it was a sickening one-two punch.

And who had posted Sam
'
s last letter? The handwriting on the envelope was French, undeniably. His mistress? Could any woman be that cruel? Or was she just doing the rational thing, the French thing, and tying up loose ends?

A kind of morbid, fatalistic curiosity overtook Jane, and she began reading Sam
'
s letters
—
there were a dozen or so —
from the earliest to his last. They were short, sweet, and simple, spanning about six months. There was the initial
excitement of landing in a foreign country; predictable raves when he passed through
Paris
; some gossip about the men in his unit; expressions of hope that the Germans would soon be defeated.

Sam also wrote of the French people, whom he found aloof and indifferent
—
that is, until he met a soldier who was a fisherman by trade, with a boat on the
Meuse
. After all, Sam was a fisherman, too, with a boat on
Nantucket
; they spoke a common language.

After that, Sam became more enthusiastic about the French. By the time the Germans abandoned
Sedan
, and the
U.S.
military respectfully encouraged the French to reenter their town first, Sam was a staunch ally. That was the day before the armistice was signed. Three weeks later, he didn
'
t want to come home.

What had happened? Was it really love at first sight, or was it the war? How could he be so sure it was love?

Jane stood up and wandered over to the window, the one that opened onto the huge lilac bush, and stared out at the bleak late-winter landscape beyond. For thirty-three years Jane had been waiting to fall in love at first sight. How hard could it be? All her friends apparently had done it. She
'
d heard all about the symptoms: pounding heart, stumbling speech, sweaty hands. But the only time she
'
d experienced
those
symptoms was when she had to make a presentation at the office.

Jane picked up the photograph of the Army unit again. She had no idea which of the soldiers was Sam Merchant. They all looked alike: young and naive, and new to the game. How could any one of them have made a decision to go AWOL in a foreign country and leave behind a wife and a home
—
and a boat? It seemed such a monumental, passionate thing to do. She felt a sudden stab of jealousy for someone so thoroughly ravaged by love.

She laid the curled photograph face down on the letters and tied them up with the ribbon.
Never mind,
she told herself.
You have a list of the symptoms. When it happens, it
'
ll be obvious.

She thought about it and smiled.
Just like the flu.

****

That evening Jane decided, after all, to go to St. Michael
'
s bazaar; with any luck she
'
d find out something more from Mrs. Adamont about her aunt. She put on a black wool skirt and a bulky teal sweater, and black leather boots which weren
'
t very waterproof, and headed off for the day care center.

St. Michael
'
s Day Care was a small gray-shingled house standing alongside a small turreted church of the same name, near the
Nantucket
Airport
. The area was one of the less fashionable in
Nantucket
, probably because it was too far inland for the pied-
à
-terre set. The parking lot was reasonably full. Jane followed the signs and ended up in the church
'
s basement, a wide-open, well-lighted room filled with tables and tables
of ...
stuff. She had no idea what to expect
—
she
'
d never actually been to a church
bazaar
—
but this one looked like fun.

There were raffle tables, a take-a-chance display, a handmade crafts and linens table, a book sale, and a white elephant section. There was even a concession table serving up pizza and Coke. A long table set up at the far end held a mouth-watering assortment of baked goods, including three still-warm coff
ee cakes Mrs. Adamont had just
put out.

"
Isn
'
t that nice, you
'
ve come,
" she said to Jane when she s
aw her. She leaned over and whispered,
"
Buy this one; it has extra apricots.
"

Jane bought it. And two slices of baklava. And two cupcakes with sprinkles. And a Napoleon. She and Mrs. Adamont were arranging the haul in a brown paper bag when the churchwoman spied someone behind Jane.
"
Hey! Mac! Come over here!
"

Jane whipped around in time to see Mac McKenzie laughing with a couple of men behind the pizza table. It was like being splashed with cold water. McKenzie
—
laughing! McKenzie
—
at ease with other human beings! So he
wasn
'
t
a misanthrope. And he didn
'
t look anything
like
an ax murderer. He glanced over with a wave of acknowledgment and sauntered toward them, hands in the pockets of his corduroy slacks. If he was surprised by Jane
'
s presence, he didn
'
t show it.

"
Mac, you never endorsed that third-party check over to St. Michael
'
s,
"
Mrs. Adamont said, rummaging through her handbag for it.

She found the check and laid it on the table, then dove back into her purse for a pen. Jane, normally the soul of discretion, read the front of it. It was from Bing Andrews to Mac McKenzie for thirty dollars. On the memo line, Bing had written
"
plow J.D. drive.
"

"
There
'
s a pen here somewhere,
"
said Mrs. Adamont.
"
I
'
ll find it.
"
She plunged into her purse with both hands, like a clamdigger with a bull rake at low tide.
"
I
'
ll find it.
"

McKenzie turned his back to the bake table and murmured pleasantly to Jane,
"
Slumming?
"

It was uncalled for. Almost everything he
'
d ever said to her was uncalled for.
"
Not until now,
"
she said, just as pleasantly.

Mrs. Adamont brandished a pen in triumph.
"
I found it! Sign it over, Mac. Before you change your mind!
"

McKenzie bent over the table to endorse the check and Jane found herself assessing the broad expanse of his back. She averted her eyes, she wasn
'
t sure why. She studied his signature instead: strong, quick, illegible. His personality exactly.

"
Thank you, Mr. McKenzie, sir,
"
Mrs. Adamont said cheerfully, snatching up the check.
"
This is a lovely donation. But take something with you, at least. For dessert.
"

McKenzie grinned and said,
"
Okay. If I can
'
t have you, Adele, then I
'
ll take one of those Napoleons I saw earlier.
"

Mrs. Adamont looked crestfallen.
"
I sold the last one to this young lady.
"

Instantly Jane said,
"
You
'
re welcome to it, I have more than enough of everything
—
"

"
That
'
d be my guess, too,
"
he said dryly.

"
Lighten up, McKenzie,
"
she said through a clenched smile. She opened the top of her brown A&P bag and said,
"
Help yourself. It
'
s right on top.
"

He bent over to see at the same time that she bent over to check, and they knocked heads. Jane let out a little cry of pain and annoyance. McKenzie said,
"
We seem to do a lot of this, don
'
t we?
"

"
Yes! No. Here you are,
"
she said, reaching in the bag and pulling out the pastry.
"
Take it.
"

It wasn
'
t exactly a peace offering, not in any real sense of the phrase. But Jane wanted to be on the granting end, not the receiving one, with this man. It was important to her. She wondered why. Maybe she knew, instinctively, that he
'
d resent it. The way he must
'
ve resented Bing
'
s check.

She watched him take the sweet, and for a second she thought he was going to donate it back to Mrs. Adamont. But instead he smiled and bit down on it with strong, white teeth, savoring it, and that made her instantly want the Napoleon more than anything else in her bag.

This is absurd,
she thought, compressing her lips.
This guy drives me nuts. He does it on purpose.

She passed her grocery bag over the table to Mrs. Adamont.
"
Can I leave this with you until I
'
ve looked at some of the other tables?
"

"
Sure you can. Mac, you take this girl around and show her the bazaar. She was very nice, giving you her Napoleon.
"
She dismissed them like two preschoolers and turned her attention to the next customer.

As they walked away, Jane said quickly,
"
I
'
m sure you have other things to do.
"

McKenzie polished off the last of the cream-filled puff
paste and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.
"
If I get a better offer,
"
he said, wiping his hands clean,
"
I
'
ll let you know.
"

"
Please do,
"
Jane said coolly, and stopped, ignoring him, to peruse the white elephant table. It held the usual array of castoffs: awful bowls and orange vases, odd glasses and gold-trimmed pitchers, and linen calendar towels, never used, from years gone by. There was also a wooden crate filled with old and broken tools.

McKenzie beat her to it. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he poked around in desultory fashion through the collection of screwdrivers, coping saws, planes, and chisels. One of the things he laid aside in the process of sorting through them was an old-fashioned rotary hand drill.

"
A hand drill!
"
Jane said, delighted.
"
I
'
ve been looking for one.
"

McKenzie looked almost embarrassed.
"
I
'
m, uh, sorry
...
I took it out to buy.
"

"
Oh. Well, natura
lly, since you saw it first ..
. Ah, the handle
'
s missing,
"
she added quickly.
"
I wouldn
'
t have wanted it anyway.
"
She picked up the next thing she saw, a Phillips screwdriver for fifty cents, and paid the man in a Bruins cap who was standing guard.