The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point) (19 page)

“How about Bay?”

“She liked it even less than I did. It depressed her, seeing so many old people dropping quarters into slot machines. She thought they were running through their retirement, coin by coin.” Tara smiled at Bay's words. “I remember her pointing to this little old lady, perched on a stool, with her arm through the handle of a coin basket as she pulled the handle over and over. There was a whole
row
of ladies like that, and they looked as if they
lived
there: personalized coin baskets, visors to cut the glare . . . ‘Can you imagine our grandmothers here?' Bay asked me, ‘instead of doing what they did? Instead of telling stories and teaching us how to garden, they could have taught us how to gamble.' ”

“Did she disapprove of Sean going there?”

“When he started going a lot . . . and lying about it.”

“So, that contributed to their rift.”

“Wouldn't it contribute to a rift with
your
wife?” Tara asked. “If every time she left the house she hightailed it out to be with someone else?”

The agent turned red. He really did—Tara saw the heat in his neck and cheeks. He wasn't wearing a wedding ring. Of course, she wasn't either. She felt a shiver go down her back as he tilted his head and gave her that sexy half-smile again.

“Can you tell me when it started?” he asked. “Can you relate it, at all, to the time he was passed over for the bank presidency?”

Tara thought back. “It seems funny you'd mention that, but it
was
shortly after he lost that job. I remember he bought his new boat and started gambling, and Bay became more and more upset and worried. She thought he was having a really expensive midlife crisis. But I think he just let himself get corrupted.”

“Corrupted,” Agent Holmes said. “That sounds like a very New England word.”

“Don't forget,” Tara said. “We're in a state that was founded by Puritans. Thomas Hooker.”

“Was Sean ever puritanical?”

“No,” Tara said, laughing. “He was always fun, ready to have a good time, from the time we were kids. The big jerk.”

“You're very close to his wife?”

“Very,” Tara said, feeling another twinge about Bay. She decided to change the subject. “So, will you show me your gun?”

“My gun?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“It's a ten-millimeter,” he answered, smiling. “You ask some interesting questions yourself, Miss O'Toole. You think like a cop.”

“I come from a long line of cops,” she said. “My grandfather was the captain of detectives in Eastford. He was the number-one pistol shot in America, back in the forties.”

“I know,” he said.

“You do?” she asked, shocked.

“Um, yes. Seamus O'Toole. You mentioned that your grandfather was an officer, and during the course of my investigation, I happened to look him up.”

“Agent Holmes,” Tara said, smiling and raising an eyebrow.

“So. Your grandfather was the number-one pistol shot . . .”

“Yes,” Tara said. “I inherited his guns. But I didn't want them in the house, with Bay's kids coming over, so I donated them to the State Library. They have a big collection of Colt firearms.”

“That's impressive,” he said. “So, Miss O'Toole . . .”

“Call me Tara,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Call me Joe.”

“Wow. I'm on a first-name basis with the G,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “As I am with Captain Seamus O'Toole's granddaughter. Let me get the cup. Maybe you can help me figure out where McCabe got it. He had it in his safety-deposit box at Anchor Trust . . .”

But just then his cell phone rang. It was important, and Tara had to go.

He had said he would call her to reschedule, but so far he hadn't. Just as well, she thought, riding down the beach road. All she needed was to fall in love with the FBI agent trying to dig up dirt on Sean.

And Joe Holmes was definitely material for falling in love. He seemed strong, as if he really knew who he was, Tara thought, wheeling up Bay's driveway on her bike. Her heart began racing as she knocked at the back door. Usually she just walked in and called out, “I'm home!”

Bay came to the door wearing an old white beach shirt, cutoff jeans, and half-glasses. The bump on her head had gone down, leaving a yellowish bruise.

“We just hung up!” Bay said, smiling.

“Somehow, that little phone call couldn't say enough.”

“Tara—stop. You've apologized too much already. I mean it, okay?”

Tara looked past Bay, into her kitchen, and saw all the kids' pictures, the basket of shells she and Bay had picked up on their beach walks, the piece of driftwood they had found that looked like a monkey. She thought the lump in her throat would choke her, but she just shook her head and said, “No. Not okay. These are yours with a poem,” Tara said, handing the flowers to Bay.

“They're beautiful,” Bay said.

And then, clasping her hands, the way the nuns had taught her to do while reciting, Tara went for it:

“Wildflowers

So rare,

To show you

I care.

You are gold,

I'm brass,

You should kick

My ass

But you know

I'm your friend.

I'll love you

Till the end.”

Bay stood there holding the wildflowers, her chin quivering and eyes flooding, but her face wreathed in an unambiguous smile. She opened her arms to grab Tara into a great hug.

Relief washed over Tara like a wild wave—the storm surge that comes later, after the sun is out and the sea seems calm. She clutched Bay as hard as she could.

“Oh, Bay,” she said. “I'm so sorry for being an idiot, a really big stupid idiot.”

“Tara!” Bay said, pushing her slightly away, sounding very stern.

“What?”

“Love means never having to say you're a big stupid idiot.”

Tara grinned. “No?”

“No. Come in and drink coffee with me, okay?”

“Till we get the caffeine jitters?”

“Yes, exactly. French roast.”

The telephone rang before the coffee could be poured. Tara was assembling mugs and silver spoons and glancing at the want ads spread across the table while Bay answered the phone.

“Yes . . .” Bay said. “I'm sorry . . . I didn't think that . . . Please, no, don't apologize . . . honestly, I understand . . . no, but . . . you're sure . . . well, actually, she's with me now . . . we can be there in fifteen minutes.”

Bay hung up and turned to regard Tara with amused eyes.

“Command performance,” she said.

“What?” Tara asked. “Someone heard about my poem already and wants me to go on
Star Search
?”

“Something like that,” Bay said. “Augusta Renwick wants to see us. Together. At her house, in fifteen minutes.”

“Gulp,” Tara said.

18

A
UGUSTA RENWICK PACED HER HOUSE. SHE TOOK
a
tour of every room and communed with her husband through some of his paintings. Not all of them “spoke” to her, but several did. His portraits of their daughters, for example. When Augusta viewed Hugh's paintings of Caroline, Clea, and Skye, she could feel his love for their children pouring through.

“It's not enough, Hugh,” she said, standing before the large painting of the three girls at the piano, “that I have bungled so disastrously with my—our—own children. Now I have been a clod with someone else's.”

Gravel crunched under tires in the driveway.

“Here they are, my darling,” Augusta said, checking herself in the hall mirror: white hair, beige cashmere shawl over black cashmere ensemble, black pearls, the Vuarnet emeralds in her ears. Augusta so rarely wore them, but today she needed all the magic she could get.

Knock-knock
—a rather bold approach to the satyr's-head door knocker. Augusta always judged callers by the force or timidity of their knocks, and this person had true brass in their knuckles. Marvelously dauntless.

“Entrée,”
Augusta said, finding Bay and Tara standing on the wide porch.

The two women walked in, dressed endearingly like hillbillies—cutoff jeans and flowing old shirts, Tara's tied around her middle.

“Hello, Tara, hello, Bay,” Augusta said.

“Hi, Mrs. Renwick,” they both said.

“Call me Augusta. Let's step in here, shall we?” She led them through the living room, past Hugh's great painting of the Renwick Barn, past the shelves of Renwick silver, including the empty spot . . . What had she done with that cup? She adored drinking Florizars from it . . .

Once in the study, Augusta gestured for her guests to take seats. They chose—as Augusta's own daughters might—to sit side by side on the sofa. Tara looked a bit apprehensive, as if she feared repercussion for her part in the drama.

“Relax, Tara,” Augusta said. “I've made peace with the situation and your part in it. Which was, honestly, quite kind and well-meaning.”

“Mrs. Renwick—”

“Augusta,” she reminded her. “After all these years you've worked for me, my asking you to call me by my first name should tell you something. I don't often do that . . . but I did it with your husband, Bay.”

“With Sean?”

“Yes.” At the sight of Bay's face, which fell at the mention of her husband's name, Augusta related completely and brimmed with compassion. “Please, don't think that I have brought you here to berate you for your husband's sins. I have quite another purpose in mind.”

Both women gazed at her mutely.

“First of all, I would like you to resume working as my gardener. I toured the property during the days after you did your work—and thank you for coming back to pick up the piles of cuttings, by the way. That couldn't have been easy, with your injured hand.” Bay looked surprised, but Augusta continued. “Therefore, I want you both to continue in my employ. Is that clear, and agreeable?”

“It is,” Bay said. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Augusta,” Tara said. “I'm very sorry—”

Augusta halted her with a stop-sign hand. “Enough! I loathe apologies that go on for days. It is over, do you hear me? I have daughters about your ages. Although you are all pushing, if not well into, middle age, you will all always be girls to me. I know the lengths my girls would go to, to help their sisters. You did nothing less.”

“We are sisters,” Tara explained. “In spirit.”

“How I longed for sisters, when I was a child,” Augusta said. “I never had any . . . only a series of doomed, fated pets . . . but that is another story. Anyway, back to the reason I've called you here today.”

“To talk about the garden?” Bay asked.

“No, dear,” Augusta said, leaning forward. “To talk about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. And what we are going through.”

“You mean, what Sean did?”

“Yes. I'd like to share with you a few of my impressions. Perhaps they will help you.”

“Go ahead,” Bay said, but Augusta saw her shut down—subtly but completely. People became concretized as life went on, just for their own protection. They wore invisible snail shells that got harder with every heartbreak.

“Your husband was a charmer. He was handsome and bright and witty, and he was very good with my money, and he had the gift of being able to make me feel beautiful and young. Well, maybe not young. But not so old.”

“That sounds like Sean,” Bay said.

“Believe me, I knew Sean well—because he was exactly like my husband, Hugh Renwick.”

That surprised them—Augusta could see she had Bay's full attention now. What could a small-town banker have in common with a giant of American art?

“Everyone adored Hugh. Men wanted to be him, and women wanted to sleep with him. Sadly—for me—he didn't resist their charms—women's, that is—as much as the girls and I would have liked him to.”

“I'm sorry,” Bay said.

“Thank you. As I am for you. But the main thing they had in common was competition. I understand about Sean having been passed over for Mark Boland. That would have driven Hugh mad.”

“Yes, Sean was furious.”

“Who can blame him? He was a highly valued executive, and then out of the clear blue, the board goes outside and brings in Mark Boland from Anchor Trust. How devastating to the male ego.”

“I knew he was upset by it,” Bay said, sounding tight; Augusta felt the defenses coming back up. “But I still can't imagine him starting to steal, just to get back at the bank—”

“I knew a jewel thief once,” Augusta said. “At Villefranche-sur-Mer. He would come around with the other artists once in a while, and I asked him why he did it. Why he stole.”

“Why did he?” Bay asked, her eyes sad and hollow.

“He told me he loved the game,” Augusta said. “He had women and expensive tastes, and he needed to finance his chaotic life. He was constantly upping the ante and increasing the excitement.”

“Sean loved excitement,” Tara agreed, eyes on Bay.

“Perhaps we'll never know exactly why he turned to stealing; perhaps he wanted to make Mark Boland look bad. Which isn't so hard to do; Boland's a cold fish. But obsequious. I see exactly what he's doing as he butters me up.”

“Are you sure you want me to work for you?” Bay asked, with tremendous dignity. “I'd understand if you didn't. The investigation isn't over yet. The FBI is still in town.”

“Of course they are, darling,” Augusta said. “This is bank business. If Sean had merely come in here and stolen cash and paintings, the case would be closed. But Sean was a banker—and I believe he didn't act alone. I have an instinct for these things.”

“Have they said anything? Do they suspect someone else?”

“They never say anything. But I was on the bank's board for many years, so I have my sources.”

“That FBI agent, Joe Holmes,” Tara said, with a telltale blush, “was questioning me the other day.”

“He is a dish,” Augusta said. “With a very high IQ.”

“You like him?” Bay asked. “I find him very hard to take.”

Tara shrugged and flushed more deeply, but Augusta could see right through her.

“Life is amazing,” Augusta said, gripping the arms of her chair and staring daggers at the two younger women. Did they know how wonderful they were, how short life was, how it would be over in the blink of an eye? “Passion,” she said mournfully.

Bay opened her eyes, extraordinary blue eyes filled with such love and sorrow that Augusta longed to hug her as she would her own daughters.

Augusta gazed at her. “I think perhaps this is why I reacted so strongly to you that day. I know what you are going through. I know what you have suffered. When I look at the portraits my husband did of me, I am forced to see that they lack passion.”

“Passion?”

Augusta nodded. “His love for the children was such a tremendous force, it's there for all to see in their paintings. Wild, unbridled love! But in the pictures he did of me—gentility, elegance, grace, propriety . . . but no passion.”

“I'm so sorry . . .”

“I'm not,” Augusta said. “Any longer. It caused me
anguish . . .” she paused, because the word was so inadequate, “. . . years ago. But I'm over that now.”

“You stayed together,” Bay said, obviously thinking of herself and Sean.

“We did. Our marriage was passionless and estranged. I could have, and perhaps should have, divorced him a hundred times over. But I didn't.”

“I should have, too,” Bay said.

“You're linked by your children,” Augusta said. “Let that be enough. Take all that passion he should have felt for you—that Hugh should have felt for me—and channel it into your life. If you fall in love again, make sure it is with a man who is wildly in love with you. Do you understand me? You couldn't bear it, knowing what you now know, to be with someone who feels less than insanely passionate for you.”

“I'll never fall in love again,” Bay said.

“But IF you do.”

“I won't.”

“But promise me—IF you do.”

“All right, Augusta. If I do,” Bay said, as if mollifying an old woman. Augusta didn't care; she'd done her good deed, exacted her promise. She gazed upon Bay McCabe and knew that something wonderful was out there for her.

“And you'll come back and make my garden as beautiful as Giverny?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Bay smiled.

“And
you'll
come back and make my house sparkle and dance?” Augusta asked Tara.

“I will.”

“And help me find my missing chalice? I can't imagine where I put it. Florizars just don't taste the same in anything else.”

“I'll find it,” Tara said. “Remember when you misplaced one of the Vuarnet emeralds, and I found it in the toe of your marabou mule?”

“Darling, you have a divine memory. And here it is, on my ear. Thank you. Thank you both. Bay, we'll work out the tedious financial details when you come again. Now, leave me be, so I can resume discussing important matters with the father of my children!”

“Thank you, Augusta,” the two friends said.

“You're so welcome, children,” Augusta said.

And then, rising, she kissed their cheeks twice each, the way she had learned how to do so very long ago, when she and Hugh had lived in Paris, in the Sixth, when they had still been young, when they had gotten drunk with Picasso, when they had fed each other sugar cubes dipped in Armagnac at the cafés of St.-Germain-des-Prés, when they had made love on the quays along the Seine.

When anything less than a life of passion would have seemed a tragedy.

THAT SATURDAY EVENING, BAY WENT SAILING.

Danny called to tell her the air and water were still warm enough, the breeze steady enough, to make it a perfect day to try out the new catboat. Tara had taken all the kids, including Eliza, to the movies and Paradise Ice Cream.

Bay was bundled up in jeans and a fisherman's sweater, her hand thickly bandaged, and she felt like no help at all, sitting in the stern while he made everything ready. Then he raised the sails, they caught the wind, and the boat sailed straight away from his boatyard dock, into New London Harbor.

He sat beside her, hand on the tiller, as the pretty boat made her way down the Thames River to the Sound. Their backs were straight, their arms not quite touching as the boat rounded Ledge Light, the imposing square brick lighthouse that guarded the mouth of the river.

As the wind picked up, he kept the sail trimmed, and they heeled over, exhilarated with speed and freedom. Bay felt the wind in her hair, salt spray in her eyes. She was able to breathe out here, and for the first time in months, she realized she wasn't looking over her shoulder to see who was watching.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For this. For helping me get away.”

“Get away from real life for a little while,” he agreed, and she knew he understood.

She glanced at him sideways, not wanting him to see her watching. He still looked so sensitive, as if he was more a part of nature and the sea than the rat race of modern life. His skin was tan and weathered, with deep lines around his eyes and mouth—squinting into the sun, working outside.

“Do you have a lot of starfish on your dock at the boatyard?” she asked.

“Quite a few. Why?”

She smiled, remembering when he had repaired the beach raft and found all the starfish clinging to the wooden underside; he threw them back into the water, to save them, before continuing the job on dry land.

“You told me that starfish fell from the sky, to make their homes in the sea,” she said.

“I did?”

“Yes. And that narwhals are really unicorns.”

“Wow. I was pretty poetic that summer.”

“And—this was my favorite—that the reason whales breach, heave their huge bodies out of the ocean, with such amazing force and effort, is that they were created to pull the moon . . . like great, primeval draft horses, harnessed to the moon, pulling it from one phase to the next . . .”

“Around and around the earth,” Dan said, his eyes softening as if with moon glow, looking down at Bay as she sat beside him.