by Luanne Rice
CHAPTER 15
Jane climbed into Dylan’s fire-engine-red truck, and he slammed the door behind her. She could almost feel Sylvie’s eyes on her, staring out from behind the white curtain. The sense of being watched was strong. She could feel her sister’s disapproval and blame. Refusing to look at the window, she turned to Dylan with a big smile as he got in. As she did, she felt the first stab of guilt: Their connection was being built on layers of lies about her motives.
“How are you?” she asked, pushing the feelings far down, knowing she’d do anything to get closer to Chloe, knowing too that she genuinely liked Dylan.
“Great,” he said. “And you?”
“I’m fine. But I’m so ready to go out.”
He laughed. “I kind of wondered. I was halfway to the door, and you practically mowed me down coming out of the house.”
“I’m sorry.” She smiled. “I was just feeling stir-crazy and housebound. I think I’m too old to sleep in my old room. My mother and sister—”
“I know, I know,” he said, shaking his head. “I have my mother and brother . . . our ages may change, but the dynamic stays exactly the same. Whoever you were in the family at fifteen is just who you are now.”
Jane was silent. His words rang in her ears. Outside the truck, the land was lush with spring. Lilacs bloomed all along the road. They were white and deep purple and pale purple and lavender and violet; their scent came through the open windows. New leaves covered the trees with sharp, fragile greenery. The early May night was dark and warm.
They headed north, toward Providence. The skyline came into view. Growing up, Jane had known the two tallest buildings as “the Kleenex box and the Superman building.” Hospital Trust was tall and square; Fleet, then Industrial National Bank, looked like a rocket ship and had been rumored to be the building featured at the beginning of TV’s Superman: the building George Reeve could leap in a single bound. Off to the right was College Hill, with the rosy brick buildings of Brown crowning the rise. Steeples were everywhere, reminding her that Providence was a town founded by the very religious.
“Like coming home,” she said.
“Providence?” he asked.
“My other city . . .”
“Mine, too,” he said. “Though it can’t really compete with New York.”
“It doesn’t have to,” she said softly. “It has magic New York could never begin to understand.”
He laughed. They passed the zoo and then the blue cockroach—a huge bug atop a warehouse, advertising an exterminator—and the harbor came into sight on the right. Tankers off-loading oil, container ships discharging cars from Japan. The ferry was in its slip at India Point. Jane’s maternal great-grandmother had sailed into that same dock on Christmas Eve, in 1898. Her baby brother had been born on the passage from Ireland, and her parents had let her name him: George. Jane thought of telling Dylan, but didn’t trust herself to recount any story involving a baby. She stared at the calm silver water, its surface undisturbed by any breeze.
Dylan merged onto Route 195 and took the Wickenden Street exit. Providence had many cities within its limits: the Italy of Federal Hill, the academic section around Brown, the bohemians sharing Fox Point with the Portuguese, the blue bloods of the East Side, the artists of RISD. Jane glanced over at him.
“What?” he smiled, as if feeling her gaze.
“Just wondering where we’re going,” she said.
“Don’t you trust me to find a good place?” he asked.
She laughed. “No, I do. I’m just curious about where it will be.”
Smiling, he drove them up Benefit Street, elegant with gaslights and colonial mansions. The traffic seemed heavier than it should have been. It crept along past the John Brown House. Jane kept her eyes straight ahead. Her alma mater was just up the hill. Chloe had come into being on a street just a few blocks away.
They passed the white-columned neoclassical Atheneum, and the buildings of RISD, and the majestic brick Rhode Island Supreme Court house, and then Dylan broke free of the cars by turning left and then right into an alley. He came to a chain-link fence, pulled up to a keypad, and punched in a few numbers.
“What’s this, a top-secret parking place?” Jane asked, as the fence slid open and admitted them to a small courtyard.
“Got some rare apple stock in the back of my truck,” he said. “And I don’t want to tempt any wayward horticulturists.”
“But how do you even know that combination?”
“Being an ex-agent has its rewards,” he said, smiling lethally.
He opened her door and they left the alley, the fence ratcheting along the track, shutting behind them. He offered her a cigarette. She said no. He lit one for himself, and in the gesture Jane observed intensity, passion, and self-loathing. Walking through a maze of alleys, wondering what had brought Dylan into this dark cove, Jane recognized that she was with a man who had secrets of his own.
He led her between two brick buildings, and they emerged on South Main Street. Several restaurants lined the block. He slid his arm around her briefly, pivoting her through the front door of a very tiny place called Umbria. It smelled of herbs and olive oil. Candles flickered on the tables. The brick walls were bare. Wooden beams were painted pumpkin.
Two women seemed to be doing everything: hostess, waitress, and possibly chef. They wore black Chinese pajamas and cotton slippers. Their jewelry was sculptural; the tattoos on their wrists were mesmerizing, complicated, and beautiful, leading Jane to understand that they came from RISD.
Dylan ordered mineral water; Jane wanted the same. There was no printed menu. One of the women listed the day’s offerings. She was warm, but in a completely impersonal way. Jane would have sworn she’d never seen Dylan before, but when she was finished, he said, “Thank you, Oley.”
“Oley?” Jane asked.
“Yes. Olympia,” he said. “Her partner is Del—Delphine. They met in art school and couldn’t ignore the fact they had both been named after places in Greece.”
“So, you come here often?”
He shrugged. “I used to come to Providence for this RICO case I was working on, and there was a restaurant in this same space that I liked a lot—Bluepoint. But they closed, and Oley and Del came along, and I was in the habit of stopping in here, so I gave it a try.”
“Different from the red-sauce Italian places up on Atwells Avenue,” Jane said, dipping a small piece of olive bread into a dish of green-gold oil.
“Very,” he said.
“I like it,” she said. “I’m glad you asked me to come.”
They ate and talked. The conversation was general, about baking pies and planting trees. Oley’s tattoo was on her left wrist and Del’s on her right.
“Tattoos have come a long way,” Jane said, “from when I was young. It used to be that only sailors had them. Now they’re practically ubiquitous. Do you have one?”
Dylan shook his head. “No, do you?”
Jane smiled enigmatically, taking her time and savoring a small green olive and trying to be delicate as she removed the pit.
“Would you like wine?” he asked.
“I don’t drink,” she said. “But feel free.”
“I don’t drink, either.”
“Really?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had enough. In the big, global, cosmic sense. I liked it too much, for a while . . .”
Jane’s heart lurched. She knew what he had to be referring to. Anyone would drink after losing a child. She should know. . . . “I liked it too much, too,” she said.
He looked at her, as if knowing there was much more to the story, but they both stayed quiet and ate their salads. She had started out the evening feeling like a thief: with her sister staring reproachfully from behind closed curtains, knowing she was after something that didn’t belong to her. But as she ate she relaxed, and when she looked up at Dylan and saw him watching her, she gazed back and felt they were meeting somewhere in the silence.
The door opened and four people walked in. Two couples, different generations. Jane summed it up in her mind, and Dylan said it out loud.
“A Brown kid, out with his girlfriend and her parents.”
“What if they’re his parents?”
“The girl looks just like her mother,” Dylan said. “And the boy is nervous as hell. I remember the syndrome so well—only back in my time, the parents took us to the Harbor Room.”
“I remember the Harbor Room,” Jane said. “Did you go to Brown?”
Dylan nodded, and Jane put down her fork.
“So did I,” she said.
“A few years behind me . . . when did you graduate?”
“I didn’t,” she said. “I left after sophomore year.”
“Oh,” he said, waiting for her to continue. She couldn’t. Her stomach dropped, and dropped again. Her food was only half eaten. She forced herself to pick up her fork and keep going.
“Well, obviously you didn’t need a degree,” he said. “You had a calling, to open your bakery . . .”
“It’s nice to think of it that way,” she said, feeling a jab of dishonesty, knowing she had to hold back the real story.
“How did you start baking?” he asked.
The topic seemed neutral, but it wasn’t. Jane pretended to be focused on her plate as she spoke. “Some relatives had a bakery in Twin Rivers,” she said. “So I grew up liking the whole idea. It seemed magical to me. Mixing ingredients, stirring them together, and poof: a cake. Making bread was the best. Covering the bowl with a damp towel and finding that the dough had risen—took a lot of faith and science to believe in it all.”
“And all those good smells . . .”
Jane nodded, closing her eyes. “Yes. They’re so wonderful and comforting, even to this day.”
“So your work comforts you?”
“It does.”
“Is that why you chose it? Did you need to be comforted?”
Jane didn’t reply. She pretended he hadn’t asked the question. The Brown kids were at the next table, talking about the theater department and the play they were in. “My cousin taught me,” Jane said. “Showed me all her secrets of making pie crust, decorating cakes. She was a really generous person—she always wanted to give her customers something beautiful.”
“You do that with Chloe.”
Jane’s eyes opened. Her insides churned. Talking about Chloe was so necessary to her; but this was a special dinner with Dylan, and she couldn’t bear the lies, the unspoken lies.
“Yeah,” he continued. “The way you latched on to her working at the stand. And the way you decorate the pies you make. She’s really proud to sell them.”
“I’m glad,” she said, her voice stretched thin.
“She needs this,” Dylan said.
“What?”
“This summer, I guess,” he said. “A chance to feel her feet on the ground. She’s a really special kid. Not everyone understands her.”
“What about her,” Jane asked, unable to help herself, “is hard to understand?”
Dylan seemed to think about her question. He refilled their glasses. Jane’s throat hurt, and the water did nothing to quench it.
“After the shooting,” he said, “I thought I was alone in the world. With Isabel dead, I felt as if my heart had left my body. That’s crazy, I know, but—”
“No, it’s not,” Jane said. “It’s not crazy.”
He glanced up, maybe wondering how she would know the feeling. But he went on. “I came back to Rhode Island. Couldn’t stay in New York . . .”
Jane closed her eyes again. She had gone to New York because she couldn’t stay in Rhode Island. She was practicing treachery, to get what she wanted. But her feelings were real. She was talking to the man because she had to, because her heart would quit if she didn’t.
“I thought I’d be a hermit here. I wanted to hide out, forget about life, quit talking. I thought I’d take care of the orchard. I wouldn’t have to see people, wouldn’t have to answer the phone. I’d just dig holes and prune trees and think about Isabel.”
“And that’s what you did?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t hide. Not really. Because, it turned out, someone needed me.”
Jane waited.
“Chloe. She felt Isabel’s loss almost as much as I did.”
“They were close . . .”
“Yes, they were. But it was more than that; like I said, Chloe’s special. Different.”
“You did say . . .”
“She’s only fifteen,” Dylan said. “But she’s got an ancient heart.”
“In what way?” Jane managed to ask.
“You have to see the way she is with animals. Once a bird fell out of its nest, and she ran all the way through the orchard to get me to put it back. She takes care of the cats as if they’re her own kids. When Isabel died, she was so worried about me—knowing how I would feel to lose her. I looked into her eyes, and I could see my own pain. You know what I think it comes from?”
“What?”
Dylan opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Never mind,” he said. “I’m not a psychologist.”
Sitting very still, Jane blinked. She felt transparent. She could imagine Dylan seeing through her skin, seeing her blood rush through her body. She felt he could see her bones, and she wanted him to realize the truth and forgive her for it.
“I wish you’d say,” Jane said.
Dylan turned his fork over and over in his hand. His gaze was deep and intense. He stared at the food on his plate as if it couldn’t begin to fill him, yet he didn’t seem inclined to eat it.
“There’s something about you,” he said, “that makes me want to talk.” He laughed. “I’m not used to that.”
“Me, neither,” she said. “What is it?”
He seemed to think, staring at her. “I think you know things,” he said, “that other people don’t. I’m not afraid of shocking you. It’s a good feeling.”
“So—tell me more about your niece,” she said, feeling a slightly queasy lurch of betrayal.
“Shouldn’t do that to my brother,” Dylan said. “She’s his child, not mine.”
“But he’s a good father, right?” she asked carefully.
“Yes. Very good. A loving man. That’s why I ought to just leave it alone.” Dylan trailed off. The Brown family at the next table had ordered champagne and were making a toast to the kids’ play and to Monday, when they would graduate. Dylan grinned, his face suddenly relaxed and almost happy. “Hey—”
She raised her eyebrows, heart still racing as she waited to hear where he thought Chloe’s empathy came from.
But he seemed to have left that topic. He raised his water glass and tapped Jane’s. “We might not be able to get you a Brown diploma on Monday, but I know what we can do tonight—”
“Tonight,” Jane said, her mind working: Friday night on graduation weekend. She realized what he meant—the traffic on Benefit Street suddenly making sense to her—even as he said the words.
“Campus Dance,” Dylan said. “Did you go your freshman or sophomore year? It’s pretty cool. I’ll take you after dinner. . . .”
CHAPTER 16
Chloe stood in the orchard. She had sneaked out her window, shinnied down the drain pipe, to meet Zeke in the circle of trees. She wore jeans and a filmy white shirt with bees embroidered on the chest. She had stuck an atomizer of Muguet des bois cologne into her pocket, and she’d squirted it on once she’d hit the ground, so her parents wouldn’t smell it in the house.
Stars were caught in the tree branches. She wished she could keep stars in her pocket, just to give him every time she saw him. The cats kept her company. They swarmed around, meowing their secrets for the world to hear.
She heard his bike, roaring from a long way off. A passionate environmentalist, Chloe would never have thought she’d want to see headlights in the orchard. But as Zeke came bouncing across the bumpy earth, she felt the joy of watching a meteor streak acro
ss the sky.
He stopped, both feet on the ground, hands on the handlebars. His hair shined, bleached white in the starlight. His eyes were as green as the cats’. A head gesture told her to climb on behind him. She did, without thinking twice. As if she’d been riding her whole life, she knew what to do: slipped her arms around his waist.
“Hold tighter,” he said, and she did. “Watch your left leg,” he said. “That you don’t burn your calf on the pipe. It’s hot. Ready?”
“Yes,” she whispered into the back of his neck.
They rumbled through the orchard, low branches clicking into her face. She kept her eyes closed, smelling Zeke’s neck. She kissed it secretly—even he didn’t know. He rode her around the whole orchard. The feeling of motion was thrilling, but it paled in comparison with the sense of her body pressed against his.
They passed through openings in the rustic fence. The red barn looked ghostly atop the hill. Its cupola had windows on all four sides. Chloe imagined someone watching her, gazing out with love. Isabel, maybe. Or Chloe’s real mother. She didn’t feel their disapproval, for what she was doing. She felt them being happy for her.
When they came to the stream, he stopped his bike. This was the borderline, where the Chadwick orchard met some neighboring land. Chloe loved it here. This brook was where she had caught her first frog, where she had learned that brown trout spend hot summer days in the deepest holes. Zeke held her hand, helped her across.
She laughed. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“The orchard stops at the brook, right?”
“Right. Why?”
“I want to get you off your family land.”
Zeke slid his arms around her. She thought she would faint on the spot. The touch of his hands was light and hot. He slid his hands under her filmy shirt. They held her sides. His fingers were inching their way toward her breasts. He hadn’t even kissed her yet, and the top of her head was already on fire.
“Zoe . . .” he whispered.
“Chloe,” she corrected him, slightly shocked and scalded.
“I know.” He laughed. “I just thought it would be cool if we both had names that began with the same letter.”