By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (13 page)

"No," Quinta agreed. "That's my
grandmother's doing. She was very adventurous. Even now. She and my
step-grandfather are nearly eighty and on a round-the-world cruise.
Who does that? But anyway, my dad won't let us try to get in touch
with them; he doesn't want us to ruin their trip of a lifetime, he
says."

They were on Coggeshall Avenue now, abreast
of Almy Pond. Not until they made the turn onto Ocean Avenue, each
of them looking for a gray ivy-covered tower, did faux pas number
three occur to him: that he was, in the best tradition of Agatha
Christie, reenacting the crime for the sweet young woman next to
him who had merely wanted to be sure that the puppies were doing
all right.

He pulled the car over onto the shoulder,
stopped it, and looked at Quinta. She was staring straight ahead.
When she blinked, the first tear fell. He wanted to brush it away,
but another came rolling down directly behind it. He let them
be.

"I'm a complete ass, Quinta. I wasn't
thinking," he said softly.

"No, it's okay, really," she insisted, but
the words caught in her throat. "I wasn't ..." She stopped,
swallowed, wiped both eyes with the palms of her hands and said,
"... thinking either. But I'll have to go down this road
sometime—get used to it sometime. Dad too, even. It's a small
island. So … please."

He eased back on the road, and it was she
who spied The Gray Tower—an ungainly, square-turreted Victorian set
back behind enormous hedges a little away from the road. You had to
look for the mailbox and the small bronze signboard hanging beneath
it that said "The Tower" in tiny inch-high letters, which annoyed
him, so he said, "There must be easier ways to maintain privacy.
Why don't they just live in a cave, for God's sake?"

They turned into the circular Belgian-block
drive—the wrought iron gates that split the hedges were open—and
pulled up in front of a wide, wraparound porch painted all white,
with great copper washtubs bursting with red geraniums squatting on
either side of the top step. Before they had a chance to cross the
porch, the screen door was thrown open by an attractive middle-aged
woman and they were mauled by three tumbling, leaping, licking,
barking puppies. Quinta immediately fell down on all fours,
offering herself to them as playmate. Alan was hard-pressed not to
fall down beside her, so contagious was her happy abandon. But he
remained upright, and despite interruptions (one puppy was chewing
his shoe) managed to introduce himself and Quinta.

"Mr. Seton, I'm so very pleased to meet
you," the woman said, although Alan wondered why she should be,
since his wife had killed her prize Labrador bitch. To Quinta the
woman said softly, "I'm sorry about your father." Then, in an
interesting stab at diplomacy she added, "Still, these terrible
things do happen: we just have to make the best of them," as though
her loss and Quinta's were roughly equal.

She was typically Newport, from her pink and
apple green floral wraparound skirt to her matching green
espadrilles; from her carefully highlighted, perfectly cut blond
hair to the broad "a's" which peppered her speech. Her name was
Meredith Lacey Birman, and although she was not old, old Newport,
she had lived there long enough to feel comfortable about it.

"Oh, most of my life," she said in answer to
Alan's chitchat inquiry about her residence in the house. "My
father, who had a legal practice in Boston, bought the Tower as a
vacation residence. We spent our summers here, with him commuting
to Boston, until he retired, and then we moved in permanently. My
father loved the ocean, the solitude—and his garden. He died six
months before I married; my husband and I decided to stay on with
my mother, who now has chosen to live in the guest cottage on the
grounds. It works out well for everyone." She settled gracefully
into an antique wicker chair. "Can I get something refreshing for
either of you?"

Alan declined and Quinta hardly heard the
question. She was captivated by the animals. It was obvious that
she was capable of shutting out everything around her in a
celebration of puppy love. Alan sat on the top step with his head
leaning against the corner post, only half listening to the woman's
quiet enthusiasm about the Labrador breed, drinking in the
delightful scene before him.

Quinta was sitting cross-legged on the porch
floor with one of the puppies on its back inside her legs, his
little black paws wrapped around the shoulder strap of her bag,
growling and gnawing. A jealous sibling was trying to climb up the
side of Quinta's leg to join the fun, and the third was doing his
or her best to keep him or her from getting there. From somewhere
Alan smelled roses. The busy, enchanted garden that surrounded them
was in full summer bloom. When had he last smelled roses? High up
in a majestic oak tree crows cawed and blue jays queedled. Smaller
birds, finches, fluttered around a tube feeder hanging at the far
end of the porch, oblivious to the half-dozen non-birds at the
other end. It was a moment of delicious peace, a lazy daydream
after the week gone by. Out of chaos he had stumbled into an
orderly universe.

Quinta's hair, spun gold in the afternoon
sun, fell forward while she played, covering her face as she
murmured silly endearments: "Ooh, you vicious thing! You're so
darling, ohh, look at you!" Suddenly she looked up, her face
flushed and transformed with inspiration. "Dad would
love
a
puppy, don't you think, Alan?"

In a mock European accent he said, "Ach, who
could hate such a creature?" She'd called him Alan, and he felt
pleased at being accepted.

"Which one do you still want to give away
for adoption, Mrs. Birman?" Quinta asked.

Mrs. Birman did not want to
give
away
anything, and her quick look to Alan said so. Of course, it was
Alan who'd used the word "adoption" with Quinta. He held Mrs.
Birman's look just long enough to pass on wordless assurances that
the bill would be paid, and Mrs. Birman smiled and said, "The chewy
one in your lap, dear. He's the male. Absolutely adorable for a
pet, but he has some white hairs on his little belly. It's so cruel
to pluck them if you plan to show the dog," she added kindly. "A
few, yes—but he really has too many of them."

Quinta looked blank for a moment. It was
obvious that the idea of plucking hairs from the soft belly of a
puppy was new to her. "Yowch! Your teeth are sharp!" She shook her
hand back and forth in mid-air. "I'd definitely like to have him,"
she said simply.

"Then you shall have him!" Alan said,
banging his hands together regally. "That is," he added politely,
"if Mrs. Birman doesn't object." Turning to her he said, "I can
vouch for the girl, ma'am. She seems very kind and will make a
caring mistress."

They watched Quinta scoop up the puppy and
wander to the other end of the porch to commune privately with it.
"I think they were made for one another," Mrs. Birman agreed. "I'll
get the papers."

In twenty minutes they were on their way,
the puppy confined—as well as such animals can be confined—to a box
lined with old towels. Quinta was feverish with joy. In marked
contrast to her subdued, stoic manner on the way out, now she never
stopped talking, addressing Alan and the puppy alternately and with
equal enthusiasm.

"He'll be perfect for Dad, just perfect. I
was thinking of getting Dad a dog for Christmas anyway; it's been
so quiet around the house since ... my mother died, and Dad really
doesn't socialize anymore .... Of course, I'll be the one who has
to housetrain you, but you look so clever, you little beastie you
.... Do you think Dad will mind? Really, I mean? Oh, I know he'll
grump; he always does at first. He doesn't like you to spring
surprises on him—get back in that box, you silly dog. No-o-o-o ...
stay. Stay.

"I think Dad will need something to, you
know, get him
out
of himself," she went on. "And he was
trying to help the mother when she was hurt, so it seems logical
that he'd want to see that life, you know, goes on. Oh no, oh God!
He's peeing in the box. Oh
jeez,
I hope it doesn't go
through," she wailed. "Maybe if I lifted the box up," she said,
twisting around in her seat and reaching over to the back.

"No, Quinta, don't worry about it. Good
grief," he said with a laugh, "it's a little puppy. A little
puddle."

"That's what
you
think," she answered
grimly, and twisted back around to look at Alan. "What if he's just
an awful reminder of that night? I didn't think of that," she
confessed in a low voice. "What if he looks in the puppy's eyes and
sees—"

"That isn't what he'll see, Quinta," Alan
said firmly, partly because he hadn't thought of it either. "He'll
see a bouncing, playful animal, not a wounded one. He'll see a
young dog fetching a stick or licking his hand or curled up
faithfully alongside of him. That's what he'll see. Trust your
instincts," he said, more to himself than to her.

He pulled into the parking lot of the
Bellevue Shopping Center, and then they had a discussion over who
would go into the supermarket for dog food. Quinta was adamant: her
dog; she'd stay. Alan wasn't keen to go in—the place was a busy
social spa and he preferred to stay low. He suggested they flip a
coin. Quinta won.

Standing in the express line with a case of
Alpo on the floor in front of him (he considered it one case, not
twenty-four individual cans), Alan hid behind the pages of a
National Enquirer
and tried calmly to assess the current
shambles he was calling his life. Amazingly, he had given up his
long hard quest for the America's Cup. He was selling his beloved,
swift
Shadow.
He hadn't done beans lately about managing his
finances, although at least he wouldn't be throwing money down the
12-meter hole any more. He had basically ignored the shipyard in
Connecticut; thank God he had a manager he could trust to keep it
running smoothly. And he had got very, very involved, in a way he
wouldn't have thought possible, with a beautiful, exciting woman
whom he had considered, until recently, the enemy.

And, of course, there was Cindy. Or was
there? Cindy was the wild card in his life right now. At first he
was crushed by the news, convinced by her note that she'd killed
herself and that it was his fault alone. But then the doubts began
to roll in like the fog on the morning of her disappearance. Her
body hadn't been found, and his gut feeling was that it should have
been, despite the fog, the ebbing current, and a northeast wind
blowing out the bay. The never-worn cobalt-blue shoe that was left
behind ... had she planned to jump off the bridge wearing high
heels? It didn't add up. And a few nights ago something had nudged
him awake from his nightmare sleep, but he couldn't remember what
it was, except that it was a square peg, and all that the police
were offering were round holes. Maybe the fleet of investigators
he'd hired ….

"
Next,
please."

It was his turn in the checkout line. He
stuffed the paper back into the rack and forked over a twenty for
the dog food. The checkout girl recognized him and made an arch
remark that she couldn't
possibly
check out more than nine
items, but she'd make an exception in his case. When he dashed off
hurriedly she yelled, "Mr. Seton, you forgot your receipt" just for
the fun of saying his name aloud. Heads turned, but not that many.
Newporters are, by and large, a blasé lot.

He threw the dog food in the trunk of the
Mercedes, hopped into the front seat, and immediately felt better
again. Suddenly the most important thing in his life was, had the
puppy pooped while he was gone? It had not. The second most
important thing was, what should they name him? Because Quinta,
granting godfather status to Alan, was insisting that they christen
the puppy immediately.

"You can't leave without knowing what his
name is" she argued. If you did he'd just be 'the dog' to you, not
Blackie or Duke or whatever."

So then they plunged into an intense review
of dog names. At the moment the puppy was looking more like a Dope
than a Duke, but that would change, Quinta said. And anyway, she
wanted the name to have what she called relevance.

Alan lifted his eyebrows at that. "Oh?
Relevant to what?"
God. Youth today,
he thought. Relevance,
yet.

"Well, I guess to... circumstances. He's
kind of a—oh, what's the word—a continuation of things..."

He struggled along with her. "A legacy?"

"Good! That's what I'll name him. Legacy.
That's my house, the gray one with white trim."

There was an empty parking space. "Quinta,
Legacy is a very strange name for a dog," Alan argued as he pulled
into it.

"Oh, and I don't have a strange name?
Anyway, I won't
call
him Legacy. He'll be little Leggy,
won't you?" The puppy was lying on its back in her lap, droopy-eyed
and content, all four fat leggies sticking more or less straight
up.

"You know," she mused, "my sister is due to
have a baby any day. And now Leggy will be Dad's baby. Finally, a
boy." Her voice sounded terribly sad, and a little ironic.

"Did your dad really want boys so
badly?"

She laughed. "Oh God, yes! Whenever my
sisters and I got to be too much for him he'd shout, 'I'm
outnumbered! I don't need this! I'm moving to Alaska before you
females drive me crazy!' I always thought he meant it, isn't that
funny?" But she wasn't laughing.

To reassure her Alan said, "Parents aren't
so different from kids, Quinta; they always yearn for what they
don't have. But that doesn't mean they don't love what they
do
have. When my mother married my father she had twin
nurseries fitted out in the main house, one for the girls that were
to come, one for the boys. But I was her only child, and the
Bo-Peep Room—that's what we called it, because of the wall
murals—was never used. Any time my mother passed that threshold and
I was with her, she'd pause and sigh tragically."