Second Star to the Right

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “Bear with me, Mr. Farnesworthy,’’ he said, shaking his hand and handing him his coat. “I’m a scientist, and we’re a bunch of curious souls. Keep on it, and let me worry about the expense.”

  After dispatching Farnesworthy to his duties, Jack paced a tred in the carpet, lost in thought. He didn’t know his biological parents; nor did he have any memory of them. Yet it was painful all the same to think that they, someone, had severely beaten him as a child. Jack slowly walked into the garden, slumped into a chair, and sat with his chin in his palm for a very long time.

  Sometime later, after the stars came out and the crickets began their serenade, a light came on in the O’Neill flat. He looked up and saw the silhouette of a small, delicate woman on the lowered window shade. The shadow sat down, then picked up a brush from a table out of his view and began to brush her hair in smooth, rhythmic strokes. Faye. A small smile played on his lips as he remembered how those same hands gently stroked Tom’s head and how he’d ached with the yearning. In the few weeks that he’d known her, watched her with her children, he’d come to realize that though Faye O’Neill was wary and guarded on the outside, inside she was a warmhearted, gentle woman.

  Jack sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He’d never known the gentleness of a mother’s caress. Anne Graham, his adoptive mother, was a kind woman, meticulous and thorough in her care. Growing up, a morning never passed without a plate full of sausages and potatoes laid out on the table before him, bangers and mash, his mother called them. His clothes were clean and ironed, his homework corrected, his birthdays marked by a cake and a practical gift, usually a book and new clothes. She was a good mother, but she wasn’t affectionate in a tactile way.

  Jack had never burrowed his face in his mother’s belly the way he saw Tom hug Faye. His mother never scooped him up in her arms to plant juicy, wet kisses over his face the way Faye embraced her children. He never felt that he was the center of her universe, and there was no doubt that Maddie and Tom were Faye’s moon and stars.

  Jack leaned back in the hard, cool, iron chair, crossed his arms, and lowered his chin into his palm, never for a moment taking his eyes off Faye O’Neill’s marvelous hands as she brushed her hair. With each stroke, Jack imagined that he could feel her hands in his own hair. He watched, transfixed, until Faye finished her task, laid her brush down, then reached out and turned off the light.

  Jack sat in a deep, somber darkness, alone except for a boy of bronze for company. Peter Pan. Another orphan, like himself, he thought ruefully. Always on the outside of the window, looking in on what he could never possess.

  * * *

  In the following few weeks, whenever Jack turned around, the two O’Neill children were there beside him. When he put his feet up at night in the garden, Maddie would suddenly appear, slink into a chair beside the telescope, and begin asking a zillion questions while Tom wandered within earshot. Eventually even Tom sidled up to peer through the lens. Hearing the kids coo with wonder at the majesty of a star or a distant planet thrilled Jack more than any response he drew from his brilliant graduate students when he lectured on mind-twisting concepts. Working in the garden on weekends and stargazing at night became their kind of play, and in time the three of them became real friends.

  It was his other new friend, their mother Faye O’Neill, who remained an enigma. He chided himself that he had no time for involvements now. His experiments were coming to an end, and he would be leaving by September. Yet he couldn’t deny a strong attraction for her—though he didn’t know why. There was something about Faye O’Neill that made him a little nervous. Like a teenager with a crush on the pretty girl next door. At first he’d written it off as a simple matter of proximity. He saw her most every day so, like Henry Higgins, he was growing accustomed to her face.

  It was, after all, such a nice face.

  The only conclusion he arrived at was an old scientific law by Coulomb: Like charges repel each other; unlike charges attract. He couldn’t think of anyone more unlike himself than Faye O’Neill. Or anyone he found more drawn to.

  Chapter 7

  Faye knew something was up. Maddie and Tom had been whispering heatedly and hustling back and forth from their rooms to the garden ever since she’d returned home from work that evening.

  “Don’t look!” they shouted as they passed through the kitchen with their secret treasures.

  “I won’t,” she called back while chopping carrots and celery into small pieces for dinner and hoping that in her fatigue she wouldn’t nip off a finger in the process. It had been a long, high-pressure week, and she had a long weekend’s worth of work in her briefcase. A squeal of giggles erupted from the garden. Faye smiled. What were they up to?

  Three knocks sounded on the back door. Drying her hands on a towel, she hurried to open it, expecting to see a child’s face. She was close. It was Jack Graham wearing a boyish, conspiratorial grin on his face.

  “I’ve come to invite you out to the garden for an enchanting evening of drinks and firefly catching.”

  She heard a giggle and looked over his shoulder into the garden. It was a warm night, and the garden was inviting. Maddie and Tom’s red, yellow, and blue flowers had bloomed into a profusion of color.

  “Jack," she said, knowing she had to disappoint them, "that’s sweet but I’m far too busy making dinner, and right after I get the sweeties to bed I have tons of work on my ad campaign. Thanks anyway.”

  He was amused by her superior tone that implied behind the smile that some people had more important things to do with their time than to drink gin and tonics and watch the fireflies come out. And he loved that cute little manner of hers when she put her hands on her slim hips and arched her brow over those baby blue eyes.

  Jack felt he knew better about what was important. So after regrouping, he sent in his secret weapon.

  Tom took his mission to heart. The boy marched straight-backed into the kitchen, all serious in the face, tugged at his mother’s skirt, and whispered fervently into her lowered ear, “Please, Mom, come out to the garden with us.”

  To Faye, it was a gold-engraved invitation no mother could refuse. When Tom made a rare request, she followed through. Faye set down her pot, forgot all about dinner, and followed Tom to the garden, where Jack and Maddie were waiting. Jack’s knowing grin did not escape her.

  Faye was enchanted. The table was set with freshly cut flowers that Maddie proudly announced she’d arranged all by herself. Beside them was the sweeter, brightly colored paper place mats and cards that her children had painstakingly made, fashioning the names in childish script. Her heart blossomed. She let out a gasp when she noticed that the table and chairs had been freshly painted and searched out Jack’s gaze to transmit her appreciation.

  “Ah, look who’s finally come out to try this thing called relaxation,” he said, grinning smugly as he leaned far back in his chair.

  “I guess some people just have a gift for it,” she quipped.

  “Some of us are lucky enough to be born with it. But don’t despair, Mrs. O’Neill. I believe it can be learned.”

  “And you plan to teach me?”

  “Absolutely. I’m a teacher." He shrugged in the Gallic fashion. "It’s what I do. And Maddie and Tom have agreed to be my assistants, haven’t you kids?”

  Two small heads nodded.

  “The first thing you have to do is sit down.”

  Maddie took her mother’s hand and led her to a chair. Faye laughed and surrendered to the game. Tom came to her side and leaned against her. She absently stroked the fine hairs from his brow, and for an instant, Jack could almost feel those delicate fingers stroking his own hair.

  “Lesson one,” Jack said, clearing his throat and swooping his legs down from where they were perched on a chair. “A gin and tonic, expertly mixed. Add a little ice, some freshly cut lime, and here you go.” He handed her a glass. “Call it a refresher course.”

  “Thank you, teacher. Don’t mind if I do.
” Faye took the icy glass from his hand thinking that with his collar unbuttoned, his striped tie looped around his shoulder and his white shirttail hanging out, Dr. Jack Graham looked more like a boy excused from school than a professor of physics. She found it rather endearing, especially when his wild curls sprang at awkward angles from his head like coiled bedsprings gone awry. The mother in her made her want to lick her palm and tamp them down.

  “Now for lesson two,” he pressed on. “Kick off your shoes. Go ahead, I won’t care if you’ve got a hole in your stocking.”

  “I do not."

  “Prove it.”

  Maddie giggled as Faye shook her head in disbelief. But she removed her shoes. “Good. Next, you kids. Socks, too,” he ordered, tugging off his own. “Shoes and socks are instruments of torture if you ask me.”

  Maddie and Tom instantly scrambled to remove their own shoes and socks, giggling as they wriggled their toes.

  Faye’s heart felt light seeing her kids act silly once again. She felt a sudden loosening of her heartstrings and an inclination to be a bit nicer to the irrepressible man who made her kids laugh.

  "Everyone must wear a hat. It isn't a proper celebration without paper hats." Jack handed out the origami hats that were painted in brilliant colors, each with a name emblazoned across it. There was a great deal of laughing and fuss made about the hats as they each donned the designated hat.

  After they finished their drinks and crackers and the children their lemonades, and after several under the table kicks from Maddie, Jack rose. In the manner of a master of ceremonies, he delivered the prepared announcement.

  “As you know, Faye, the children have worked very, very, hard to create this lovely garden that we’re enjoying tonight.”

  Maddie sat straighter, and Tom nodded, tightening his grip on his mother in excitement.

  “I do know,” she replied with enthusiasm. “And a fine garden it is, too.”

  “And Jack worked, too,” chimed in Maddie. “He worked just as hard on the fountain!”

  Faye’s gaze met Jack’s, and her smile lingered.

  “So tonight,” Jack continued feeling a flush of satisfaction, “we have the pleasure of welcoming you to the ‘Official Turning On of the Fountain’ ceremony.”

  Faye clapped her hands, more caught up in the animation of her children as they hurried to slip into costume than in the prospect of a mechanical success. They trotted and gamboled like spring lambs. When the stage was set, and the children stood ready, Faye stilled her hands in her lap, more excited than she thought she’d be.

  Tom stood up solemnly and began walking toward the fountain.

  “No, not yet,” whispered Maddie loudly. Tom frowned, embarrassed, and hurried back to his position.

  Maddie stepped forward with great flourish wearing a lacy shawl, her mother’s lipstick, and a flower tucked behind one ear. When she reached the fountain she stood with her heels together and her shoulders straight.

  “Tonight I’m going to read from the book, Peter Pan, in honor of the fountain because Jack fixed it and because we think Peter’s the one who left the book here for us to find.”

  Faye cast a questioning glance to Jack and mouthed the word, "Book?" She didn't know anything about a book...

  Jack merely raised his hands in the universal I don't know gesture.

  Maddie dropped her formal pose and added quickly as an aside, “Or maybe it was the fairies who left it. I mean, the book was just laying there and it’s all about him you know,” she said, indicating the bronze boy to her mother.

  Faye’s expression was doubtful.

  Maddie raised the book higher, cleared her throat and with the look of utmost seriousness, she read Sir James Barrie’s words clearly.

  “You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.”

  Tedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.

  “And so,’’ he went on good naturedly, “there ought to be one fairy for every boy and girl.”

  “Ought to be? Isn’t there?”

  “No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says they don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”

  Maddie finished her reading and closed the book with the solemnity of a convert. Faye shifted uncomfortably in her seat and shot off an arch look at Jack. He shrugged his shoulders and lifted his palms innocently.

  “Thank you, Maddie,” he said. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment we’ve been waiting for.” He turned and nodded with meaning at Tom. The boy’s cheeks were rosy, and he wore a look of fervent intent under his paper hat. He marched over to the fountain, reached out, and flicked the switch. Then he ran back beside his mother, eyes round.

  They all leaned forward in anticipation. The seconds ticked by in agonizing slowness.A cricket creaked.A bird called, peent, peent, peent, overhead.The wind rustled the leaves.The old fountain sat quiet and still.

  Maddie looked forlornly at Jack. He hurried forward, scratched his head, then gave the fountain a hard kick. Suddenly, the night’s peace was rent with a high screeching and grinding noise that took them all a few steps back. This was followed by a slow, seeping hiss which culminated with a tremendous belch and sputter. The children gasped, then held their breaths.

  A loud metal clank sounded. Then abruptly, silence. Not one drop of water was squeezed from the pipes.

  The collective sigh of disappointment was audible.

  “Well, kids,” Jack said with a sorry shake of his head. “It’s back to the drawing board, as they say in the trade.” This was met with a great deal more heavy sighing and moaning.

  “Hey, failure is part of the job. We just have to keep on trying. No point in getting down in the dumps.”

  “I’ll go in and finish dinner,” Faye said, rising from her chair.

  He clasped his hand firmly on her shoulder. “Faye, let me buy you dinner.”

  “No, that’s not necessary. I can perfectly well go in and...”

  “Faye,” he said, interrupting her. His gaze was steady, and in his voice she heard an undercurrent of iron that his assistants in the lab would have instantly recognized. “You’ve worked hard this week. The children are disappointed. Why not let me offer you all something special? Something a little fun? Tell you what. I’ll order us some fish and chips from the corner. It’ll be a real party.”

  Faye blinked, registering the offer to make her life a little easier. That someone would even try flustered her. Beside her, Maddie was hopping on the balls of her feet and clapping her hands, silently mouthing, “please, please, please.” Tom stood erect and wide-eyed with appeal. How excited they were over a little carryout dinner. And how sad that it took a stranger to point out that even something small and seemingly inconsequential could be a party.

  “That would be lovely,” she replied, relinquishing her rigid control, at least for an evening. “Thank you.”

  He tilted his head to study her, then lifted his lips to a genuine smile, and said, “My pleasure, Mrs. O’Neill.”

  “Faye,” she replied with a nod which he promptly returned.

  A short while later the children were sitting in front of the TV munching fish and chips. Faye and Jack remained outdoors, eating their dinner at the wrought-iron table. They were both aware of being alone with each other in the moonlight, and they were both making efforts to pretend they weren’t.

  “It’s a shame about the fountain,” Faye remarked. Then, wagging a chip in his direction, she added, “But that’s what you get for making the children feel like murderers if they don’t believe in fairies. Shame on you.”

  “Hey, that wasn’t me!” he replied, his chocolate-colored eyes as innocent as a babe’s. “Blame it all on James Barrie. Besides, you don’t fool me. I’ll bet you’re a closet clapper.”

  “A what?”
she said with a light laugh.

  “You know, one of those folks who lift their noses and claim they don’t believe in anything, but whenever they’re told a fairy is dying they look over their shoulders to make sure no one is looking, then clap their hands to save the sprite—just in case. Yes, I can tell you’re a first-class closet clapper.”

  “Just how much have you been drinking, anyhow?” she asked, lifting her own glass to her lips to chill the burn of being pegged.

  Jack reached out and poured himself another drink. Under his rolled-up sleeves, she noticed his arms were trim and tanned and covered with soft brown hairs. She took another long swallow of the cool drink.

  “Not enough,” he replied with a frown. “That fountain is driving me crazy. There’s no reason that I can figure out why that stubborn contraption didn’t work tonight. I’ll be damned if I’ll let a bit of metal and rust get the best of me. This was just a temporary setback. I made those kids a promise. You’ll see water come out of that fountain or...”

  “Or what?” Faye’s eyes teased. “Seems to me you have a habit of making grand pronouncements. I seem to remember you claiming, what was it? Oh yes, you could prove the existence of Peter Pan.”

  “Oh yeah, that ” He scratched his jaw and cast a wary glance over at the fountain. “I think what I really meant was that I could prove the existence of an alternate reality.”

  “Sure, sure. Wheedling out already.”

  “Oh really?” he said, grinning, staring her down. “So you’re pretty sure that I can’t prove the existence of Peter Pan?”

  “Don’t take it personally...”

  “Well, okay then. We’ll just wait and see.” He leaned back and propped his bare feet up on a nearby chair.

  She couldn’t help but notice he had attractive, narrow feet with curved arches, long toes, and smooth, tanned ankles. Her own toes curled.