True Blue (Hubbard's Point)

by Luanne Rice

  “I want you with me, Larkin. Here, there: What does it really matter?” he asked finally.

  “It matters,” she said, feeling a trickle of sadness because she knew the summer would end and he would return to his brand-new space observatory, just as he had left so many years ago.

  “Rumer…”

  “It matters to NASA,” she said. “Even if you wanted to stay here, wouldn't they have something to say about it?”

  He didn't want to think about it now He had Rumer in his arms, gulls were crying across the dark water, the waves were hitting the beach. Zeb closed his eyes because he had never been this happy in his life.

  THE HOUSE WAS almost perfect. Huge, shingled, with three chimneys, wraparound porches, and lawns sloping down to Long Island Sound, it positively screamed summer, Zee thought. Girls in white dresses should be swinging on swings, boys with cowlicks should be toting home freshly caught fish, and lemonade should be flowing from spigots in the kitchen. Tra-la.

  Inside, the owners had gone a little decorator crazy. There was chintz everywhere, but everywhere. Elsie de Wolfe leopard print rugs that would have worked in a Manhattan apartment ten years ago looked moderately absurd here in Evesham now. Portraits by the Black Hall Impressionist Hugh Renwick—and this was amusing—not of the owner's family, but of other people's families, bought at auction.

  “Needless to say,” said Marnie McCray Campbell, who had come to help Elizabeth settle in, “these are not the original owners.” The two old friends stood gazing at the portraits.

  “Something told me…”

  “It's happening all over the shoreline. People keep these beach houses for generations, and suddenly one heir wants the money, and they have to sell. At least these owners bought Renwicks for their walls. I wonder whether they even know that he lived at Firefly Beach….”

  “Just across the river,” Elizabeth said, looking toward Hubbard's Point.

  “I'm sure old Mr. and Mrs. Bowen would roll in their graves if they could see the marble bathroom. It was so shabby and divine up until it sold… but what are you going to do? I'm just glad the new people kept the ratty wicker porch furniture.”

  “Yes…” Elizabeth said. “I can sit out here, sipping tea and gazing at Abigail Crowe's house for inspiration.”

  “That's it, across the way,” Marnie said, pointing at the rambling white house surrounded by scrub pines, nestled in the hollow between beach and marsh. “Our two Connecticut movie stars, right here in the same place. Do you really think Barbara Walters will come to interview you here?”

  “Maybe,” Elizabeth said, although she knew she would not. The notice had been too short; Elizabeth had felt slightly scalded by the fact that Barbara couldn't rearrange her schedule to accommodate Elizabeth Randall's film commitments. Not wanting to reveal her true feelings to Marnie, she stretched and said, “This leaves me plenty more time to play with my sister and son.”

  “Zeb's still in residence at Winnie's guest house, you know,” Marnie said.

  Elizabeth yawned. “You don't say?”

  “Was your divorce… amicable?” Marnie asked, reddening at her own intrusion. Although they had been friends their whole lives, Elizabeth's status put the question into a tabloid perspective.

  “We're friendly,” Elizabeth said. “I'm not sure we'll make it to friends.”

  “He seems awfully happy to be back at the Point.”

  “Hanging around with Rumer, is he?” Elizabeth asked, nearing a tender spot.

  “Yes, quite a bit.”

  “It shouldn't surprise me. He went on a real woman tear right after our divorce. Everyone in L.A., it seems, wanted to date an astronaut. Nothing lasting: To me, it looked as if he was afraid he wasn't going to get sex, and they were afraid they weren't going to get him to propose. One liaison after the other, you know? He's finally worked his way out here to the East Coast.”

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” Marnie laughed. “He's not like that! Especially not with Rumer. After everything, she means too much to him.”

  “Hmmm,” Elizabeth said. Her marriage had not been a success, yet she had lost ten years of her life to it anyway. God only knew where her career would be now if she hadn't let herself be so divided—trying to be a wife and mother instead of a woman: Like Abigail Crowe, she might have three Academy Awards instead of one lonely nomination. Yet, hearing Mamie's words brought up old, poisonous feelings of jealousy for her sister from deep inside.

  “You and Rumer are still close, aren't you?”

  “The more time that passes, the less we have in common,” Elizabeth said. “I think she mourns the suburban fantasy that passed her by—matching bedsteads and the newest Pathfinder.”

  “Oh, I don't see her that way,” Marnie said. “I think your sister is the happiest person I know.”

  “She's a lonely woman who talks to cats and dogs,” Elizabeth said.

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” Marnie said, laughing. “She's the best vet on the shoreline. Isn't it wonderful, the way you both made your dreams come true? You're both so accomplished in your fields… and everyone always knew you'd be famous, just the way we always knew Rumer would work with animals. Les Dames de la Roche are very proud of both of you.”

  “Well, they're a touch on the clueless side,” Elizabeth said, and then she saw the expression on Mamie's face. “Present company excepted, of course…”

  “Anyway,” Marnie said, taking one last look around, packing the rental agreement into her bag. “You're all settled in now. If you need anything, just call. In any case, I know I'll see you at the Point.”

  “You will,” Elizabeth said, gazing across the serene water.

  While the kids were preparing for exams and Rumer was off scouting out stables to board Blue, Zeb planted lilies along the border of Rumer's and the Franklins’ yards. He thought of the questions he and Rumer had asked each other in bed, and he wondered whether she would be here next summer to see them bloom. He'd been thinking that if he had his way, she'd be out in California with him. They could make time in the summers to come back to the Point, always.

  Last night he had gone to bed with West Coast thoughts: Rumer relocating her practice and horse to California, of a fresh start in his new lab, of Michael surfing the waves at Dana Point. But this morning he had woken up smelling the Atlantic salt air—so different from the Pacific salt air—hearing the local seagulls— their cries different from Dana Point seagulls—and feeling that he could never leave, or take Rumer away.

  Zeb had woken up with the feeling that he was right where he belonged: back home, with Rumer, in Hub-bard's Point. He was part of the landscape, just like the rocks and trees and lilies.

  The Connecticut state flag hung from the Winnie's flagpole; bright blue, it bore a white shield showing three grapevines and the Latin motto Qui Transtulit Sustinet: “He who transplanted sustains us.” Although it referred to the first settlers, transplanted from Massachusetts in the 1630s, Zeb considered his own life as a serial transplant. First to New York, then to Los Angeles, then to Houston, then to space, then to Dana Point.

  It felt so good to be home.

  The earth here smelled so fine; it felt warm and rocky as he dug new holes to plant the lilies. He remembered seeing his mother crouch in the dirt just a few feet away from where he now dug, weeding around the tall, graceful stalks, as if she wanted to know every inch of her land as intimately as she could. Elizabeth never had; in the years she had owned the house with Zeb, he couldn't remember seeing her garden once.

  Zeb had never done much gardening, but he thought that he might just get used to it. He liked the sense of being close to the earth, rooted in the soil. It was the opposite of how he had spent his entire life, and at that moment he looked up at the sky and couldn't believe that he had once stayed up there for sixty-three consecutive days. Although he could never give up his dreams, he knew that the stars meant nothing without Rumer.

  “Well, the things you see when you haven't got a gun,” came the voice from do
wn below.

  Glancing at the road, Zeb spotted Tad Franklin climbing out of his Jaguar. He wore pressed gray pants, a white dress shirt, and a maroon cardigan sweater. Zeb wondered why he was always so dressed up.

  “Pretty close to the property line,” Franklin commented.

  “You want some?” Zeb asked, his hands covered with dirt, holding a handful of his mother's lily roots.

  “Look like garbage to me,” Franklin said. He waved his hand and made a face. “What are they anyway?”

  “Just old plants,” Zeb said, wondering whether Franklin could hear the irony in his voice.

  “Thanks anyway. My landscape architect is going to really make this yard a showplace. Everything old's gonna go. There'll be all new plantings—fantastic stuff. He's not just some yard mower, in case I haven't mentioned it before. He's a certified landscape—”

  “You've mentioned it,” Zeb said.

  “While I have your ear, let's talk about the other matter.”

  “What other matter?” Zeb asked, feeling the kick in his gut. Could Franklin have reconsidered his offer? Even without the trees, with the destruction of all the old gardens, Zeb would jump at the chance to buy the place back. No matter what happened, he wanted to spare Rumer—and himself, and all their friends at the Point—having to watch Franklin blast the rock. And then it came to him swift and sure: They could use this yard for Blue's new barn.

  “The girl. The little thief.”

  Quinn, Zeb thought, waiting. Even as he listened, he was seeing the property in a whole new light: the barn, a small pasture, a trail down the bluff to the beach…

  “She made a mistake,” Franklin said. “And I'm not sure what to do about it.”

  Zeb looked up. Was Franklin asking his counsel? “What are your choices?”

  “Her aunt's an artist,” Franklin said. “A real bo-hemian, like half the other people I see around here. I don't have much experience with gals like her. She really doesn't seem to get it—says the girl has apologized, that they're ‘handling it at home,’ and that's all there is to it.”

  “Quinn's grounded,” Zeb agreed. And he knew, because Michael was in torment over the shortage of their time together. She could no longer meet him before school, hang out after class, go to movies on the beach, or sit around Foley's. Dana allowed Quinn to go lob-stering—-just because Quinn had invested in all the pots and bait at the start of the summer, and to leave them baited and unchecked would be harmful to the lobster population—and she permitted her one hour of study time with Michael every day.

  “You consider that sufficient?” Franklin asked. “The girl steals rat poison, and she gets grounded?”

  “First of all,” Zeb said, never looking away, “she didn't steal it. She hid it—for about ten minutes. She knows it was a lapse of judgment, and she's sorry. Second of all, if the cops thought it was more serious than that, they'd be pursuing the case.”

  “You're admitting it's a case, then,” Franklin said.

  “No, I'm not. I—”

  “I get the distinct feeling people are trying to sabotage me around here. First you, coming to my office. Now, some might think your intention was to insult me and intimidate me…”

  “It wasn't,” Zeb said. To his surprise, Franklin looked hurt—his dark eyes bruised. “I wanted to offer to buy the land back from you.”

  “You made that clear.”

  “Then sell it to me.”

  “No. If you want it so bad, it must be worth more than I think.” Franklin chuckled, peering at Zeb. “What is it—treasure buried underground?”

  “Not the kind of treasure you understand.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “The treasure's the land itself,” Zeb said. “And the way some of us love it.”

  “You certainly let me know you don't like my plans.”

  “We don't have to, do we?”

  “We?”

  “Well,” Zeb said, pushing the hair out of his eyes, temporarily giving up his vision of Blue's stable in his old yard. His gaze shifted down the hill in Rumer's yard: Would there be room behind the garage? “It's a lot for the people around here to handle—seeing you change the landscape so completely.”

  Franklin's mouth narrowed as he surveyed the other yards. His eyes flicked over the scrub pines, the gnarly oaks up and down the dead end… was he wishing he could cut them all down and start over, beautifying the entire Point with his landscape architect?

  “It is my right,” Franklin said, folding his arms across his chest.

  “That is so.”

  “My wife has always dreamed of having a summer-house here…”

  Zeb nodded. Way back, that had been his grandparents’ dream. It had been Rumer's grandmother's as well, and together they—like the grandparents of many of their friends—had settled the Point. “It's a good dream,” he said.

  “I expected a different reception,” he said. “I thought we'd be more welcomed.”

  Looking at his expression—hurt and bewildered— Zeb actually felt sorry for him. The man was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make his property stand out—while he thought he was buying admiration, all the neighbors could see was the hubris of ruining the land.

  “You will be,” Zeb said to the man getting ready to bulldoze his old house and build something better.

  “Doesn't seem like it.”

  “This is a special place,” Zeb said quietly. “We care about each other here.”

  “Then someone ought to take control of that kid— my exterminator was just doing his job. Regardless of what she thought should happen… I was paying for a service. I want her punished.”

  “When people make mistakes, we don't hold it against them for long. There are lots of kids here—they tend to make mistakes. It's the nature of the species. The age. Think back…. Know what I mean?”

  Franklin scowled.

  “You say you wanted to be welcomed,” Zeb said. “I'm sure you will be as time goes on. But maybe if you understood the way things are here, you could feel like part of the place right away. I wanted to buy your land back from you to save it.”

  “Save it! Jesus Christ—what's so almighty terrible about a person improving their property?”

  “Look—as you said, it's your right—your land, your right. If you'd like, I'll show you satellite photos of the rock ledge, the glacial moraine that corresponds with its counterpart across the Atlantic. It's the backbone of Connecticut, and you're going to blow it up.”

  “Goddammit! That's what this is about? I've had just about enough of you and the rest of you crazies—”

  Emotions were boiling out of Zeb, and all he could think of was clocking Franklin.

  “It is about Quinn,” Zeb said quietly, fighting down the urge to leap across the property line and mess up the guy's dressed-up clothes, knocking him into the next nebula.

  Franklin gasped, as if sensing the danger. Straightening his shirt and sweater, he took a big step back. Regarding him, Zeb centered himself, getting his animal desire to rip the guy apart under control.

  “You can't just come into a place like Hubbard's Point,” Zeb said, “make changes like this, and not expect to get people upset.”

  “That's their problem,” Franklin said, “if they're upset.”

  Zeb actually smiled. He wasn't happy, but he felt flooded with Rumer's compassion; to his surprise, it was directed at Tad Franklin. “You'll learn,” Zeb said. “After you've been here a while. Once everyone forgives what you're doing to the land, they'll accept you as one of them. It might take a decade or so, but that's just the way they are here.

  “If they're still alive, Sixtus Larkin will invite you sailing, Winnie Hubbard will make your wife an honorary Dame de la Roche—even though you're going to blow up all your roches… Rumer will take your kids under her wing and teach them to make lists of all the birds they see… you might even meet the unicorns and the ghosts. It's a goddamn magical place.”

  “You
're crazy,” Franklin said, backing away.

  “Yeah, well,” Zeb said, watching him go. “What can I say?”

  Just then he heard the purr of a sports car; looking down the street, he saw a vintage Buick convertible followed by a Suburban driving along Cresthill Road. The vehicles parked at the foot of Franklin's hill and discharged a pack of teenagers. The driver and passenger of the Buick—twin boys, fair and small—cast proprietary glances over the property.

  “You really do have a beach house, Bart,” one of the girls piling from the Suburban called. “Hi, Mr. Franklin!”

  “Yeah,” one boy said laconically, ignoring his father. He and his twin dressed like preppys the same way Tad Franklin did: as if they were new to it, as if they had bought the image out of catalogues. “It's nothing like it's going to look. We're tearing that green shack down and building something decent.”

  “Nothing less than a mansion for Bart and Lance Franklin!” The girl giggled.

  “Got that right,” one boy said. Going to the trunk of the car, he removed towels and chairs. His friends did the same from the back of the Suburban. Dressed for the beach, they carried a stack of pizzas.

  “Those your sons?” Zeb asked in a low voice.

  Franklin, still pale from their encounter, ignored the question, and Zeb couldn't blame him.

  “We have a private way down to the beach,” one twin said with studied indifference. “Right down this path to the steps…”

  “Strictly speaking, it's a ‘right of way,’“ Zeb said to him. “It's not really private. Everyone gets to use it, but it just runs through your yard.”

  The kid gave Zeb a look as if he were gum on the bottom of his shoe.