The Perfect Summer (Hubbard's Point)

by Rice, Luanne

  Could Bay see it from her window?

  He wanted her to . . .

  Staring across the marsh, he saw her house. Sean had bragged about it, of course. The big white farmhouse had been separate from the beach at one time; the farmer who owned it had used the salt flats to graze his sheep. Dan was glad that Bay owned such a great Hubbard's Point landmark. He would have killed Sean himself if he'd known that his recklessness would put Bay and the children's house in jeopardy.

  The moon was hazy around the edges: from summer's humidity, and from the fact that it was a few days shy of being really full.

  “Obvious” . . . what a potent word. Too bad Dan had never thought more about it, paid more attention to the obvious things in life. He had always been more drawn to the subtle mysteries.

  As he watched Bay's house, he saw a light upstairs go on. His heart sped up. He wished she would look out her window, see the moon, walk down to the boardwalk to see it on the water. The boardwalk they had built together.

  Dan wanted to talk to her. He wanted to tell her the whole story. Even more, he longed to be with a woman with whom he'd built something. Right now his chest was aching so hard, his heart hurting so badly . . . He really wanted to talk to Bay, to enjoy her gentle presence in his life again. To have her remind him to look up at the sky.

  It was as obvious as the almost-full moon, over the big rock.

  ON THE LAST TUESDAY BEFORE LABOR DAY, WHEN TARA went to work at Mrs. Renwick's, Bay accompanied her. She wore her garden clothes: chinos, a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt, white socks, green plastic clogs. And she brought her ratty old straw hat, soft deerskin gloves with a four-inch gauntlet to protect her arms from thorns, and her old Girl Scout canteen filled with ice water.

  “You're the only holdout I know, still putting tap water in that thing.”

  “I'm not going to spend a dollar on bottled water,” Bay said, staring at the Renwick manse as if it were a haunted castle. “That's the whole reason I'm doing this—because we need the money.”

  “Can you imagine what we'd have said, back when we were kids, if someone ever told us that we'd be paying someone a buck for water? What a bunch of suckers we all are,” Tara said.

  “That's for sure,” Bay said, yawning because she hadn't slept well the last few nights. The moon had been shining through her windows, trying to pull her down to the beach.

  The two friends stood outside Augusta's house, right by the kitchen door. Most of the windows were open, and white curtains were blowing around on the cross-ventilation of a breeze coming off the sea. Bay glanced up, thought she saw a shadow pass the window.

  “Is Augusta in there?” Bay asked.

  “Probably,” Tara said. “But she's pretty reclusive. She asked me to get you started.”

  “Well, you tell her that next summer she's going to have the most beautiful flowers on the coastline. Just look at those bushes! Black Beauty roses, hydrangeas, lilies, anemones . . .”

  “Go to it,” Tara said. “I've got to get the house done early today. There's an opening at the Black Hall Art Academy tonight, and I want to arrive at six sharp, to have my pick of the single artists. For whatever that's worth.”

  “Leave when you're done—I'll walk home,” Bay said, smiling and waving Tara away.

  She went into the garden shed, locating clippers, shears, shovels, rakes, and trowels. Cobwebs filled the space, but the walls were covered with fantastic, whimsical drawings by Hugh Renwick. Charmed, Bay spent a few minutes regarding the sketches he'd done of his wife in her sunhat, his daughters building sand castles and dancing with mermen, a sky filled with starfish, and a flying dog with a bone in his smiling mouth and a ribbon reading “Homer” around his neck.

  Then she filled her arms with garden tools and went outside.

  For four straight hours she walked the property, familiarizing herself with the land, starting in on some of the most tangled hedges and beds. Her grandmother had taught her to never be afraid of pruning.

  “Right down to the ground with those blue star bushes,” Granny Clarke had said in her Wicklow brogue.

  “But I can't,” Bay would protest. “It will kill them!”

  “No, darling . . . the new growth brings the flowers. Chop away . . . that's a girl . . .”

  And so Bay did that now, ruthlessly cutting and hacking away dead growth, snipping pennybright bushes straight down to the leaf nodes. Leaving a trail of small and large piles of sticks and brown leaves, like a series of bonfires waiting to be ignited, she made her way through the yard. Only when the air began to cool and the shadows lengthen did she realize that it was almost the dinner hour; time to get home to her kids.

  “I see that you believe in annihilation,” came the stern, throaty voice.

  Peering over one especially large heap of vegetation, Bay came face-to-face with her employer.

  “Oh, Mrs. Renwick,” Bay said, pulling off her garden gloves, reaching across the brambles to shake her hand.

  “So. You are my new gardener.”

  “Yes,” Bay said, smiling. “Don't be alarmed—I know it looks as if I've cut a lot, but I promise it will all grow back.”

  “I'm particularly concerned,” Mrs. Renwick said, drawing out the word with her extremely patrician accent, making it sound like consuhhhhned, “with all of those sticks that were once my husband's prize blue star bushes.”

  “And they will be again,” Bay assured her. “They've been choked by ivy and bittersweet, almost strangled; so now I've cut off all the dead wood, and all the vines . . . They'll focus their energy during the winter, and come back strong next summer.”

  “I certainly,” or suhhhhtainly, “hope so,” Mrs. Renwick said darkly, “for Tara's sake.”

  “Tara?”

  “She's your friend, isn't she? She recommended you.”

  “I know. Thank you for giving me this chance.”

  Mrs. Renwick stood tall, white tendrils of hair blowing in the wind, the legendary black pearls she wore everywhere, even to the A&P, at her throat. But she looked perplexed. “Why would you say that? Tara assured me that you are the best there is.”

  “Well, she might be a little biased. I am her best friend.”

  “So she said.”

  Bay tried to smile. “You came to my husband's funeral,” she said.

  “We haven't formally been introduced, Barbara,” the older woman said. “I, as you obviously know, am Augusta Renwick.”

  Barbara? Bay thought. No one called her that; it wasn't even her name.

  “It's actually ‘Bairbre,' but my friends call me ‘Bay.' ”

  “Bay,” Mrs. Renwick said. “I always thought that was such an unusual nickname, when your husband would speak of you.”

  “Sean spoke of me?” As the sun began to tilt downward toward the horizon, Bay felt herself getting paler by the moment.

  “Yes, he did,” Mrs. Renwick said, her voice thin. “He sensed that I would be amenable to hearing about his wife and three children. I have three children myself.”

  “I know,” Bay said.

  “Sean always knew what to draw on, in order to get what he wanted. He realized that we had three children in common, so he very often talked about his. Yours.”

  “He loved them,” Bay said.

  The wind picked up, and Bay felt the chill as she noticed the look in her employer's eyes. The conversation felt very tense, and suddenly Bay had the sinking feeling that Tara had talked them both into a situation that was all wrong.

  “So much,” Mrs. Renwick said, “that he disgraced them the way he did?”

  Bay felt her face turning white, her hands shaking as she twisted her leather gloves.

  “He stole from me,” Mrs. Renwick said.

  “I know. I'm so sorry.”

  “I hate being taken advantage of,” Mrs. Renwick said, suddenly seeming very old and fragile. “I trusted him! I trusted your husband!”

  “I'm so sorry,” Bay said again, reaching for her hand as Mrs. Renwick
stumbled backward, steadying herself on a thornbush, pricking her hand.

  Bay gasped, feeling suddenly frantic, realizing that this was a disaster, gathering up the tools. “I'll put these away, Mrs. Renwick,” she said. “It's getting late, so I have to get home and feed my kids, but as soon as I do, I'll come back and rake up these piles of brambles—”

  “It will be dark!”

  “That's okay. I'll come back to do it tonight, so you won't have to see me tomorrow,” Bay said, stepping on the head of a rake and whacking herself in the forehead. She was in a panic, upset with herself for thinking this job ever could have worked out.

  “Now, look what you've done,” Augusta said, sounding outraged. “You've gone and hurt yourself. This isn't going to turn into a lawsuit, is it? Because I'm telling you right now, if you think I'm going to let one more McCabe cheat me . . .”

  “No, Mrs. Renwick,” Bay said, her forehead throbbing and the bone above her right eyebrow starting to swell. “I would never, in a million—”

  “That's what I would have said about your husband!” Mrs. Renwick said, her voice rising. “I trusted him! That's what devastates me—I liked Sean very much!”

  Bay tried to block out the voice, gathering the tools together, dropping the shears, picking them up, slicing the palm of her right hand. So Mrs. Renwick wouldn't see, she slapped her hand into the pocket of her pants.

  “And now, to have YOU on my property, butchering my Hugh's blue stars and hurting yourself, why, it's too much! It's too much!”

  Bay's hand was bleeding, stars dancing in her vision, tears blurring her eyes. But as she looked across the pile of vines and dead wood, she saw the old woman bury her face in elegant hands—gnarled with age, but still with long, slim fingers pressed into her eyes—and begin to sob.

  “Oh, Mrs. Renwick,” Bay said, coming around the heap of vegetation. Not knowing what to do, not wanting to increase the woman's distress and needing to escape herself, Bay just stood there.

  “I trusted him . . . and I cared about him very much,” Augusta wept. “I saw you at the funeral . . . we are both mothers . . . Tara loves you very much . . . Oh, I wanted to help you. I did.”

  “You don't have to help me, Mrs. Renwick. I'm just so sorry for the pain we've caused you,” Bay said, starting to cry herself, moved by the old woman's acute suffering. Again, she remembered words her grandmother had once said to her: “Always look kindly on the old, Bairbre . . . Because they have loved people so much longer than you have, they have so very much more to lose . . .”

  “When I think of your children,” Augusta said, unable to look up, “I can't bear it. I simply can't abide the thought of what they must be going through . . .”

  “They're fine,” Bay said. “They'll be fine. They're my worry, not yours. Please, just forget I was here. I'll leave now . . .”

  And feeling dizzy with grief and pain, she began to walk.

  15

  BLACK HALL ART ACADEMY.

  Twilight.

  White wine flowing like white wine. Artists and people who wanted to meet or be artists buzzing, the art incidental to the conversation. The cognoscenti somewhere else because the word was out that Dana Underhill was giving a private gallery talk wherever that somewhere else was. New York, maybe. Tara tan and clad in a red sarong, eyeing the crowd.

  The evening was a bust, manwise, the opening a deadly bore, until into the midst of all the paunchy artists and skinny art students, everyone wishing they were Hugh Renwick—or could at least paint like he could—walked a true man. Arms like iron, a chest that wouldn't quit, blue eyes that could melt rock: Dan Connolly.

  Tara saw him enter the gallery from the parking lot side, thinking he really did look awfully fine, if awkward, in his blue blazer. The exhibit was a sculpture show: “Found Objects and Maritime Media”—work that incorporated things found in boatyards.

  “Way back in the day when you were reroofing the Hubbard's Point guardhouse, did you ever think that you could wire a barnacle-encrusted plank to a chipped propeller and get famous as an artist?” Tara asked, sidling up to him.

  “No, and I still don't.” Dan grinned. “But I told Eddie Wilson I'd come see the work he did with the old stem apron and hood ends I gave him . . . and I have to admit, I thought maybe you and Bay might be here.”

  “Really!”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, she's not here, but why don't I give her a call and see if I can tempt her to come? It was her first day at a new job, and I bet she'd enjoy the diversion. Meanwhile, do you see your friend's work?”

  Dan accepted a glass of wine from a tray being passed by a young art student, and pointed at a chipped and peeling sculpture that incorporated the worst of an old boat's stern with the worst of an older boat's bow.

  “The American Impressionists would roll in their graves if they could see what Black Hall has come to,” Tara said, rummaging through her bag for her cell phone.

  “Really? I think it's pretty cool,” Dan said, drinking his wine. “I wasn't expecting to like it, but I do.”

  “Oh,” Tara said, her eyes widening as she saw who was coming.

  “Bay!” Dan said, sounding as happy as a teenager in love one moment, looking as worried as a bystander at a disaster the next. “What happened?”

  Bay walked into the gallery and over to them, her face streaked with dirt and her red hair filled with twigs and leaves, her forehead bruised and swelling. But the truly frightening thing was the streak of blood soaking through her right pants pocket.

  “Tara,” Bay said, breathless.

  “Honey, what happened?” Tara asked, her heart beating very fast, alarmed by Bay's pallor, by the high pitch of her voice.

  “I saw your car here. Will you drive me home?”

  “Oh, Bay, what happened?” Tara asked, realizing that she was about to pass out—putting her arm around her and leading her to a chair.

  “She saw me from the window and thought I was desecrating her husband's blue star bushes. She's lost so much trust this summer already . . .” Bay's voice trailed off, and she bowed her head. “It was a huge mistake for me to be there, Tara.”

  “I hoped it would be good for both of you,” Tara said.

  “It was a train wreck.”

  “What happened to your hand?” Dan asked, touching her elbow. Her right hand was still shoved in her pocket.

  “I cut it,” Bay said, seeming to see him for the first time.

  “Let me see,” Dan said, frowning with worry.

  “I have to get home to the kids,” Bay said. “Tara, will you drive me?”

  “Let's go,” Tara said, helping her out of the chair. “Bay, you know I only did it because I love you, and because you needed a job, and Augusta needed a gardener . . . It was like one of those moments, when the elements come together so perfectly, you just know you'll get struck by lightning if you ignore them.”

  “I know that's what you thought,” Bay whispered.

  “Bay!” Dan cried, as she turned slightly, took a few graceful steps away from Tara toward one of the sculptures, weaved like a reed in the breeze, and fainted straight into his arms.

  WHEN BAY CAME TO, SHE WAS LYING ON AN EXAM TABLE AT the Coastwise Clinic. Two men were peering down into her face: a man in green scrubs, and Dan.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “You passed out,” Dan said.

  “My kids . . .”

  “Tara went home to feed them dinner.”

  She realized that he was holding her left hand, and that her right hand was stiff and aching. A clear plastic bag filled with fluid hung on a pole above her head; a tube ran into her arm. Hospital sounds of beeping machines and police radios were muffled, on the other side of a curtain.

  “Good, you're awake,” said the man in green scrubs. “I'll get the doctor.” He left the cubicle, leaving Bay and Dan alone.

  “I shouldn't have gone to the gallery,” Bay said, turning her head, so her cheek was pressed flat against the tab
le's cool surface. “But I saw her car, and I wasn't sure I could make it home.”

  “You couldn't have,” Dan said, squeezing her good hand. “Tara was very glad you stopped. Kicking herself for sending you to Mrs. Renwick, though. She's still the same as ever—irrepressible. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, but with a heart of gold. I'm glad you two are still best friends. She knows she put you in a bad situation, though . . . the last thing she said was that she hopes you'll forgive her.”

  “She knows I will,” Bay said. Then, as the seconds ticked by, “How did I get here?”

  “I drove you. Tara wanted to call nine-one-one, but I didn't want to wait for the ambulance to arrive.”

  “How did I get to your car?”

  “I carried you. To my truck. Now that they've got you stabilized, you're going to need stitches in your hand. I think they want a plastic surgeon to take a look; you cut it pretty deeply.”

  “I know,” she said. In spite of the pain medication they'd given her, her palm felt white-hot, as if she was holding molten iron.

  “And you've got a shiner and a bump the size of an egg on your head. What happened, did Mrs. Renwick beat you up?”

  Bay shook her head, which felt very foggy. “I stepped on a rake and grabbed a sharp pair of shears.”

  “Very graceful, Galway,” Dan said.

  “That's really a nice thing to say,” Bay said, trying to keep her words straight. “You have a world-class bedside manner, you know? I remember when I hit my thumb with that hammer.”

  “I remember that. You lost your nail.”

  “But not right away,” Bay said slowly, the memory washing through her. “At first, it just hurt like crazy—I'd split the skin along the side, and you had to take me to the clinic—here—for stitches.”

  “That's how I knew how to find the place tonight,” Dan said, still holding her hand. “From all the times I've had to drop what I was doing and drive you to the emergency room.”

  “One other time,” she corrected him.

  “Well, if you want to be exact,” he said.