Beloved

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Jane sighed deeply. "So this is it; a dead end."

  "As far as I know."

  He seemed to share her sadness; she couldn't imagine why. Or maybe it was the sweet and simple melancholy of the place affecting them both. They walked among the few dozen gravestones, a roll call of names familiar to the island and around the world: Chase and Hussey and Coffin and Mitchell and Folger.

  After they looked at them all, they began heading back to the truck. Mac said, "I suppose when you consider the fortune in shipping the Quakers made — in coffee and dry goods and whale oil — it's not hard to see why the Society of Friends died out on Nantucket. These were wealthy men; they wanted their mansions. And yet they couldn't put a second story on their lean-to houses without being disowned by the Overseers for extravagance."

  And they couldn't mark the graves of the ones they loved. "How is it you know so much of Nantucket's history?" she asked.

  "I do know how to read," he said with his usual irony. But he seemed not to want to break the mood of friendliness between them, because he added with a smile, "The winters are quiet here, and I don't have cable."

  She liked that smile. The truth is, she'd pay big money to see it more often. It softened the lines of his face and added even more depth and richness to his voice. What was it about him? He could be so defensive and so completely open at the same time. She'd never known anyone like him.

  They were at his truck. He said, "I'm headed out to Cisco, but if you need a lift back to town ..."

  She thought about the way he'd phrased his offer. He specifically wanted her to know he was headed in the opposite direction. God forbid he should spend an extra five minutes with her. "Oh, no thanks," she said, hurt. "It's a short walk back, now that I know where I am." She smiled and waved good-bye as he took off.

  I wish to hell I knew where I was, she thought with a sigh, staring after his truck.

  Chapter 13

  The first phone call Jane received on her newly installed phone was from her father.

  "Dad! Hi! Gee! How did you know I had a phone?"

  "Not from you, Robinson Crusoe. I have a meeting in five minutes, so I'll make this quick. There's an associate of mine whose company is looking to open a branch in Connecticut. He needs a place to stay for six weeks, and I thought of your condo. It'll pay your mortgage for a couple of months. Interested?"

  "You bet! I can't possibly finish Lilac Cottage in less than a month, and probably more. The timing couldn't be better. Will the guy need a car?" she added, fired with enthusiasm. "I'll be taking the Volvo back to Connecticut to be sold."

  "What's wrong with the Volvo?"

  "Nothing, Dad; it's just more car than I need."

  "It's a good, safe car."

  "Never mind; I shouldn't have brought it up."

  "That's a top-rated car, dammit. Sell it now and you'll take the whole hit on depreciation. What's wrong with the Volvo?"

  "Dad, I told you —"

  "I don't want you selling that car. I've got to run. Your mother will call you. Kiss."

  And that was that. Neal Drew had managed to find time for another pit stop in his daughter's life, and now he was roaring back onto the race course of his career. Jane wondered whether, deep down, he ever got tired of it. He didn't seem to. Every once in a while he paused long enough for the equivalent of an engine overhaul — that cruise on the QE II, for example — but by and large he seemed to thrive on speed.

  He wouldn't think much of Nantucket.

  Jane's mother called late that night to fill in the blanks on her father's proposal and to get a rundown on Jane's progress so far. Jane lied through her teeth about the progress and then was sorry, because her mother ended up offering to take the Volvo back to Connecticut for Jane the next time she visited, which was going to be in a couple of weeks.

  Perfect, Jane thought as she hung up. If I don't sleep between now and then and I hire a dozen good men, maybe, just maybe, I can bring Lilac Cottage up to her expectations.

  But Jane didn't have a dozen good men. All she had was Billy B., who showed up the next morning as he had promised. It was a rotten day out, raw and rainy and "typical," as he said. They decided he should work on the kitchen first. After giving Jane a gentle lecture on the futility of knocking down a wall to save part of a contractor's fee, Billy B. began trying to put the place together again.

  In general, Jane was pleased. Billy B. wasn't gabby and he kept on working while he drank his coffee. So things settled down into a kind of friendly domesticity. Jane worked her room and Billy B. worked his, and when they met in the kitchen for lunch, the conversation flowed easily. Billy B. was crazy about his new little girl Sarah, crazy about his son, crazy about his wife. If Jane really was headed for the poorhouse, she couldn't imagine a nicer person sending her there.

  On Friday the weather improved and Billy B., armed with metal flashing and a bundle of asphalt shingles, climbed up onto the roof for some selective patching and repair. As for Jane, she had decided to do just what Phillip Harrow warned her not to do: wallpaper.

  She had nothing against white walls; she loved them in her condo. But for Lilac Cottage, nothing less than rich floral prints would do. It would cost her more, and it would take more time, and if it killed a sale, she had only herself to blame — but as far as Jane was concerned, painting the walls of Lilac Cottage in up-to-date white was like dressing Queen Victoria in a miniskirt.

  Jane had managed to find a wonderful bird-of-paradise pattern in the same rich ivory, rose, and green as the antique paper in the fireplace room and was standing back, admiring the first laid strip of her handiwork, when she heard Mac shouting a greeting to Billy B.

  She stayed where she was, uncertain whether Mac had come to see Billy B. or her. When she heard the heavy rap of the brass door knocker, her heart did a completely unexpected and uncalled for cartwheel in her breast.

  "I'm on my way over to my uncle's place," Mac said when she opened the door. "Were you serious about wanting to see his pickup?"

  No hello; no how's things. Certainly no friendly smile. Disappointed, she said deliberately, "I'm fine. How're you?"

  "Yeah."

  Yeah? What kind of pleasantry was that? Yeah. He was impossible, always running hot and cold — well, warm and cool. She thought they'd begun to find common ground in the Quaker Burial Ground — where else, if not there? — but apparently she was wrong. Mac McKenzie had a bias against her, and nothing she could do on earth would change that. Well, nuts to him.

  "I was quite serious about looking at it, actually," she said in a laughably snooty voice. She never talked that way. Why was she talking that way?

  "Well, then, if you're quite serious — shall we go?"

  He gave her that look, the look that made her want to hit him over the head with a broom. God, he was infuriating! After a word or two with Billy B., she climbed into the truck with Mac and they drove off. For a while, no one spoke.

  "Was it something I said?" she finally demanded to know.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You seem particularly distant lately. In fact, I'd assumed this excursion was off. You never called to make arrangements."

  "I didn't know you had a phone," he said reasonably.

  "Bing knew. He called information."

  "Bing's a man of the world. I'm just a humble islander."

  "Stop it! Stoppit stoppit!" she cried, her patience snapping like a little dry twig. "I'm sick of this bumpkin routine! Where do you get off with such arrogance? Who do you think you are?"

  "I'm just a humble —"

  "Stop it! You can just start acting like the rest of us and brag and make a fool of yourself and just — be normal, dammit! You're a thoughtful, smart, well-read man and what you're doing is the worst form of reverse snobbism, and I for one am just — tired of it! Spare me! Please!"

  With a sigh of frustration, Jane leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Let him stop the truck if he wanted and boot her into a ditch. She really didn't care an
ymore.

  Mac was broodingly silent. Then, as he turned onto a well-traveled road dotted with surprisingly humble houses, he allowed himself a very small, very private chuckle.

  "I do wonder what the hell to do with you," he murmured.

  Jane stole a quick, sharp glance at him. Mac was looking straight ahead, so she couldn't read his eyes. Not that it mattered: his look was impenetrable anyway. As a result, her feelings went into a kind of free float: first rising, then falling, then settling on some vague middle ground.

  Mac pulled up in front of a plain little ranch house clad — like everything else on Nantucket — in weathered gray shingles. A plastic Season's Greetings wreath still hung in the picture window. Two flat-topped yews, one on each side of the stoop, were the only concessions to landscaping. Probably Mac doesn't offer a family discount, Jane thought wryly as she waited with Mac for his uncle to answer the door.

  When his uncle finally opened it for them, Jane was surprised to see that he looked nothing like Mac. After seeing Jerry, she'd assumed all the males came from the same cookie cutter. But this man was thin, frail and bald, and as outgoing as Mac was reserved.

  "C'min, c'min. Well, Mac, if you're gonna sell my truck out from under me, at least it's to a looker." He winked at Jane, found out her name, and introduced himself before Mac had the chance. "Ebeneezer Zingg. You call me Uncle Easy. Can't think of anyone who don't."

  "E-Z?" she repeated.

  "He'll say it's because of his initials, but don't believe it," Mac said with an affectionate shake of his head. "We started calling him Uncle Easy when we were kids, because he was so easy to shake down for a dime whenever we came around."

  "That was just to make 'em go away," Uncle Easy said with another wink. "Buncha pests."

  "Don't believe that, either," Mac said with a grin. "Uncle Easy rigged a big swing set out back for us, and bought us a pool; it was a real status symbol back then."

  "You're talkin' about the old place," he said with an instant faraway look. "Yeah. But it was only a twelve-foot pool." He ran his hand over his bald head, as if he were wondering, still, where all his hair went.

  "Listen, Mac, I got a problem," he said. "You remember when that nor'easter knocked down O'Riley's tree next door. I never noticed but yesterday that it took out a gutter bracket when it went down. Do me a favor and drive the damn thing back in. On the southeast corner of the house. Then we'll look at the truck."

  Mac glanced at Jane, and Uncle Easy said with another of his winks, "Don't you worry about her. She's all set."

  Jane smiled politely and Mac went out in search of the ladder. Uncle Easy shuffled with quick, stiff steps into the kitchen and put a pot of water on for instant coffee. "He's a good kid," he said. "Always a handful, though. Defiant. Never would take 'Because I said so' for an answer. Drove his mother crazy that way. I suppose that's how it is when you're the last one through the gate. Don't know; never had kids of my own. That I know of."

  His hands shook badly while he spooned Sanka into two stoneware mugs. Jane wondered how old Uncle Easy really was.

  "Mac's divorced, you know," he went on without looking up. Jane heard him make a tisking sound as he shook his head, obviously reliving the scandal of it all.

  "That marriage never shoulda happened," he added bluntly. "Me, I never took to the gal myself. She didn't want to share him with any of us, was the problem. But Mac, well, he don't forget family. When my furnace went out last month, he kept my wood stove goin' for me night and day 'til the new burner finally come in. I coulda done it myself," he added, "despite what Mac says."

  Jane remembered Mac's repeated forays in and out during her first days on the island. So much for my Colombian cartel theory, she thought, marveling at her simplemindedness.

  "Mac wanted me over his place while my heat was out," Uncle Easy explained, "but it's hard finding your way to a new bathroom in the dark. You know?"

  He poured from the full teapot with some effort, then put the teapot back on the burner, still on "high." Jane hesitated whether to say anything as, with an unsteady grip on the mugs, Uncle Easy began making his way to the table.

  "Uh ... the burner?" she finally ventured.

  Flustered, Uncle Easy wheeled around, spilling some of the coffee. "Gawdamighty, I do that nowadays." He shuffled back to the stove and turned off the burner. When he turned back around to Jane, the cheerful good humor was gone from his ashen face. "We don't have to say nothin' about this, do we? It's mighty embarrassin'."

  But he looked more than embarrassed. Jane's heart went out to him. She thought of Aunt Sylvia and her losing battle against entering a nursing home. She thought of her grandmother, and her grandfather. No one got to grow old at home anymore. Their kids were all gone, off in other cities, even other countries.

  "Oh, I do that all the time," she said cheerfully as she peeled off a paper towel and mopped up the spilled coffee. "Once I left the oven on for three whole days before I noticed."

  He was grateful to her for that. An irresistible smile set off a road map of wrinkles on his face; his blue eyes shone with renewed life. They settled down with the coffee, and Uncle Easy said, "So. Whaddya think of my nephew?"

  When she acted blank, he said, "Don't tell me you ain't interested. I know he's got somethin' that appeals deep down to women like you. Lookit Celeste. Who'da guessed they'd marry? Course, it was a disaster — but all the same, I'm curious. What is it about 'im?"

  Jane flushed and said, "If you mean, why would he be considered ... attractive, yes, I suppose that would be the word ... to some women, I suppose it's because he cares for his family ... he's hard-working ... he cares about the environment .... "

  "Yeah, yeah. Besides that. What is it about him?"

  He asked the question with a kind of wide-eyed innocence that Jane assumed came only with age. There was certainly nothing indecent in it. In fact, if anyone was feeling indecent about anything just now, it was Jane. About Mac. And it was new. And shocking.

  Oh no. Oh nuts. Oh damn. Is that what it was all this time, that feeling of being threatened? Nothing but simple, sexual desire? Impossible. She wasn't stupid. She'd been turned on before. She'd had men before. She knew what simple, sexual desire felt like. What she felt around Mac was nothing like that. It was scarier.

  "Well, you know how intrigued women get when they're around quiet men," Jane said with a nervous laugh. "They always want to know what the guy's thinking."

  "They won't find out from Mac McKenzie. Guaranteed. That boy knows how to keep his own counsel."

  Uncle Easy leaned over his coffee cup and tapped the table with the middle finger of his liver-spotted hand. "Lemme give you an example. When Mac was a kid, he got in some trouble over a car. He took the rap for it all by himself — but he wasn't alone. I know that for a fact."

  He sat back in his chrome-legged chair. "How do I know? Because he come by before supper on the night he sunk the Porsche. He was all excited, I remember it like it was yesterday. He told me, 'We're gonna test-drive Elway's new car tonight.' Course, he never said nothin' about stealing it first, but that ain't the point. He had an accomplice is the point, and whoever it was let Mac take the blame, and Mac never said nothin'."

  Uncle Easy folded one arm over the other. "That's the kind of boy he is."

  "But ... but his whole life might have turned out differently!" Jane said, dismayed by Mac's outlaw code of honor. "Maybe it was the other kid who actually did the thing ... maybe Mac just went along for the ride."

  "Now you're talkin'," Uncle Easy said, nodding sagely. "And I don't mind tellin' you I got a fair idea who it was. Local snot-nosed kid, his parents no better'n anyone else, but they inherited waterfront, sold some of it, put on airs and sent the little twerp off-island to some fancy-pants school in Andover."

  Something began moving in Jane's memory, like ice breaking up in a harbor in spring. She knew who the old man was alluding to, even though she couldn't possibly have known.

  "You're talking about
Phillip Harrow," she said, shocked.

  "He's your neighbor," Uncle Easy said quietly. "You ought to know what kind of man you got for a neighbor."

  "Phillip. But he had so much to lose!"

  "Exactly. He had so much to lose. So he run like a dog. Him and Mac was palling around all during that week. It was Phil's spring break—Phil went to grammar school on the island, so they were still friends of sorts. Who else could it've been?"

  "Did you ever tell this to anyone?" Jane asked.

  "Nope. Except to Mac. He said to mind my own business, which I done. But now I'm old and I don't care anymore. Besides, I didn't tell you," he added slyly. "You figured it out yourself."

  "This is awful! Mac's reputation has been ruined, if you're right ... but if you're not ... but you must be right ...."

  "Ruined? Hell, it was only a car."

  They heard the front door and Uncle Easy made a silencing gesture with his hand. "Shush. Water under the bridge," he said in a hiss.

  Mac came in and of course realized that the two conspirators had been gossiping about him. He looked from one to the other with a fine sense of irony and said blandly, "I cleaned out the leaves from the gutter while I was up there. Anything else before we go out to look at the truck?"

  "Nothin' at all. The place is runnin' like a clock. My thanks to you, lad. Now: Let's go sell the girl some wheels."

  They went out to the garage, tucked partly behind the house on the narrow lot. The truck was a true island vehicle: old and heavily rusted, but with low mileage. There was some talk of whether or not it would pass the next inspection, but that was almost a year away. It had been handpainted in camouflage rust, which the men considered a plus. The price was right, in the hundreds rather than in the thousands. Jane agreed on the spot to buy it. Virtually everyone on the island drove either a pickup truck or a four-wheel drive. Jane was pleased; she felt like one of the crowd.

  She wrote out a check and Uncle Easy gave her a laboriously written bill of sale and directions to the Motor Vehicles Registry in town. When she and Mac were settled back in his own pickup, which looked pretty spiffy by comparison, Jane said, "How will your uncle get around without a car?"