“Do you think this looks okay on me, Mom?” Rachel asked that Sunday afternoon. I was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on Beanie’s cake: carrot walnut with cream cheese icing—her favorite. Rachel stood in the doorway and turned around slowly. She’d shot up in the last year—and filled out. Though just thirteen, she could probably pass pretty easily for five years older than that. In the right light, dressed a certain way, she looked like a mature woman. As she did now. She had on the Gap halter dress that we’d bought at a clearance sale a few weeks before; it was made out of a silky pink material trimmed with pale pink lace. I hadn’t paid much attention when she tried it on in the dressing room; we were both too busy scooping up the deeply discounted items. But now I realized that it looked more like a slip, really, or a negligee. How sweetly seductive it made her appear, her lush innocence on full, naive display. We never bothered to dress up for these family celebrations; I couldn’t help but wonder why Rachel wanted to now.
“Mmmm. You look lovely,” I said carefully. Lately, Rachel had become so touchy and defensive about her appearance. She worried that she was “fat,” and went into a tailspin every time her acne started to flare up. I’d recently helped her buy her first real bra. And, with my approval, she’d begun to experiment with makeup. But each shaky step toward her inevitable adulthood was fraught with tension between us. She seemed to seek out my help and advice. But if I pushed my opinions a little too hard, suddenly I was “interfering and mean.” She wanted my approval, but only if it was unqualified. “I think you’ll probably need a sweater later, though. Which might spoil the look.”
“No, I’ll be fine,” she said, twirling around in the doorframe. “But I think I’ll try to put my hair up. It’s almost long enough now.”
I didn’t have the energy or heart to challenge her. These days, with my job demanding so much of my time and attention, it seemed like a luxury just to be in my own kitchen. I was beginning to realize how lucky I’d been to be able to stay home all those years while Rachel was growing up. Though I loved working, I missed being with my girls all day long. The last thing I wanted at that moment was to fight with Rachel. Though her appearance stayed on my mind, like a tension headache, the rest of the afternoon.
It was early June. Already warm and humid. Paul had put the screen porch up a few weeks back. We hung balloons from the rafters and laid out Finding Nemo plates, cups, and napkins. Paul was grilling, of course, a Beanie favorite of jumbo shrimp, red pepper, and onion shish kebobs. Bob, Kathy, and the kids arrived around five and soon all the younger children were running through the sprinklers Paul had set up near the wildflower field. Luke pulled up about half an hour later, a bulky package wrapped in newspaper and string tilted against the backseat of the convertible. All of the adults went back so far together and knew each other so well. I don’t remember what we talked about. Bob helped Paul with the grilling. Luke ran around with the hose, chasing the kids. Kathy and I could hear them squealing in delighted terror as we worked together in the kitchen, cooking the couscous and washing the lettuce for the salad. And then Rachel came downstairs. She’d arranged her thick honey-colored hair in a soft knot on the top of her head, little tendrils curling at her temples and around her nape. She must have been playing with my makeup; that glossy maroon lipstick was certainly not something I’d let her buy for herself.
“Oh, my,” Kathy said when she saw her. “You look absolutely gorgeous. Like a movie star!”
Paul stopped short when he came into the kitchen carrying the big tray of grilled food, his startled gaze moving quickly from Rachel to me. I gave him a small shrug.
“You want to go out and round up the kids?” Paul told Rachel. “We’re about ready to go here.”
“I better check B.J.’s diaper before we sit down,” Kathy said, following Rachel out through the porch.
“Jesus Christ!” Paul whispered. “Who the hell was that bombshell?”
“Your adolescent daughter. I don’t want to ruin things by arguing with her, okay? Can we just let it go for tonight? I would not let her leave the house looking like that, believe me. But what harm can it do here? It’s just family.”
Except it wasn’t, totally. There was Luke. And I realized almost as soon as we all sat down what prompted Rachel to get dressed up the way she had. I doubt she understood it herself. Why she insisted on sitting next to him. Or kept playing with her hair while she talked to him. She was so chatty. All lit up. The others didn’t notice. Almost all of the attention was on Beanie, ensconced in her booster seat at the head of the table, a silver and pink plastic tiara spelling out “Birthday Princess” perched precariously on her head. But I found myself, sitting across from Rachel, eavesdropping on her conversation with Luke, attuned to the tug and pull of my oldest daughter’s subconscious yearnings.
“… but you’re so lucky, you could go anywhere. Get in your convertible and just drive away!”
“But there’s no other place I really want to be, Rach.”
“I don’t believe that!” she said, touching his arm. Luke had put on a white button-down shirt for the occasion and had rolled up the sleeves, revealing his deeply tanned forearms, the soft down of sun-bleached hair. Rachel left her hand there. I felt my heart aching for her. What drove her now was the same impulse that had prompted her to ask Luke, so many years ago, if he would like to marry her. He was her first love. And now her body, and I have no doubt her heart, too, was drawn to him with a sudden new urgency. She wanted something from him, though she didn’t understand yet what it might be. I give Luke credit that he knew what she was asking. He realized what was happening. Women always wanted this from him. It was no mystery to him, no surprise. Though I believe that it shocked him that it would be coming from Rachel now. I picked up on Luke’s sudden alertness, his caution, the careful way he pulled his arm free to reach across the table for a roll.
“When you’re as old as I am you’ll understand,” he said. “That tired old line from the Wizard of Oz is one of the truest things ever written: there’s no place like home. Even if it’s just a run-down cottage by the side of the road.”
“Yes, of course, I know that. But it would be fun to travel, don’t you think? I’m allowed to go by myself to visit my cousins in Brookline this summer. I was going to take the bus, but you could drive me in the Oldsmobile.”
“Oh, baby,” Luke said. “That old car’s been through more lives than a cat. I’ll be lucky if it gets me home tonight.”
“Okay.” Rachel sighed, but she hadn’t quite given up. “You didn’t say anything about my new dress, Luke. Or my hair. Do you like it up this way?”
Luke turned and took her in. I saw him looking. It was such a long, slow gaze—and so full of sadness! He loved her, of course. I knew that. She represented everything he would never have in this world: daughter, family, home. And, too, she was her own unique and lovely self. His fairy queen, his growing girl. The best of himself reflected in her adoring gaze.
“Let me see,” he said, tilting his head, making it look as though he was giving her a considered, impartial appraisal. “Yes. I believe I do like it that way.”
Rachel helped me clear. As I was getting ready to light the candles on the cake, she told me to hold on. She was getting chilly, after all, and was going to run upstairs and put on a sweater. We had cake and ice cream on the porch; and then the evening coolness forced us inside to open the presents: a tricycle with pink plastic handlebar tassels from Paul and me, a book on horses from Rachel, and a Finding Nemo beach towel from Bob and Kathy. Luke went outside and brought in his bulky gift. It turned out to be a large cat, made from welded pieces of aluminum, which could turn in the wind, like a weather vane.
“Or you could put it on a stake in the vegetable garden,” Luke said. “You know, kind of use it as a scarecrow.”
“I love it!” Beanie said, hugging it to her as if it were a stuffed animal or a living thing. “It’s a very beautiful silver cat. And I’m going to keep it in my room.�
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“Or that, too.” Luke laughed, obviously pleased.
Bob, Kathy, and the kids went home soon after that. I took the girls up to bed.
“Stay around for some tea,” Paul told Luke. “I think we have some of that god-awful organic stuff you like somewhere.”
I knew Paul would wait until I came down again before broaching the subject. When it came to Luke, I had always played the bad cop. I think both men preferred it that way. They knew and cared about each other too deeply. Any fight between them, however small, was brutal and damaging on both sides.
“That was sweet,” Luke told me when I sat down across from him at the kitchen table. Paul had made me a mug of decaf, which I pulled toward me as Luke added: “Thanks for having me.”
“If I didn’t think it might wake her, I’d have you go up and take a look at Beanie. She’s sleeping with your cat right beside her. That sure was a hit.”
“Yeah.” Luke smiled and looked down into his mug of tea. “I had fun making it for her. She’s really something. And her vocabulary seems pretty amazing to me for three. She said: ‘It’s a very beautiful silver cat!’ A perfect little sentence. Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, she’s great,” Paul said. I could tell he didn’t want to get into it. That he wished the evening could stay just as it was: a happy time, a good memory. But we owed Luke more than that, didn’t we?
“You know, Luke,” I said. “I’m glad we have this chance to talk.”
“Oh?” He was instantly alert to whatever he heard in my voice.
“I read about your overdue taxes,” Paul said. “In the minutes from the finance committee.”
“Isn’t that kind of thing supposed to be private?”
“I’m a selectman now,” Paul said. “It’s part of my job to know these things. To help decide what to do. But I couldn’t make the last meeting and they went ahead and decided this without me: you’ve got one year to pay things off. Then the town will take legal action.”
“Which means what? It’s my property. It’s been in my family for almost three hundred years.”
“Legally? They can take possession. They can sell it. They can do whatever the hell is necessary to get it back on the regular tax rolls.”
“I don’t believe it. That’s insane.”
“No, Luke. It’s the law. It’s always been the law. Now, what the fuck is going on with you? You don’t have the money? Is that it?”
“Why should I pay rent for—”
“Oh, cut the crap, okay?”
“No. I do not have the money.”
“Fine. We’ll lend it to you,” Paul said.
“Lend?” Luke laughed. “How am I supposed to pay you back? You know perfectly well you won’t be lending it—you’ll be—”
“We don’t care,” I told him. It felt so good to be able to say that! To have risen so far and, yes, to realize that Luke had allowed himself to sink so low.
“Well, I do,” Luke said, looking across the table at me. “I care a whole lot. I’m not going to accept a handout from you guys. End of story.”
“No, it’s not,” Paul replied. “What about the taxes? Are you going to wait until they serve you with an eviction notice? Talk about insane. You’re the most goddamned stubborn—”
“Stop it, Paul,” I told him. “Calling each other names isn’t going to help.”
“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “I’m sorry to worry you both like this. I’m sorry to sound so ungrateful. I’m not. I’m really touched. I knew this thing was building, snowballing. It’s my fault that I didn’t figure out a way to cope with it before it got to this point.”
“How much are we talking about?”
“Over three thousand dollars. That new appraisal they did two years ago? Suddenly my hovel has an estimated value of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Now that is insane, admit it.”
“Yeah, well, they do most of that stuff on computers these days. It’s because of all the building. The million-dollar places are driving up values everywhere.”
“How many acres do you have, Luke?” I asked him.
“Around sixty, maybe a little more.”
“Well, I have an idea,” I said. “Why not sell some of it? You could get a hell of a lot of money for your land now. And it’s really so beautiful. All rolling hills and meadows. Just what real estate brokers would kill for. Since I’ve been working for Nana Osserman I’ve come to realize how little desirable land is still left around here. Land that could be developed. You’re sitting on a gold mine.”
“Maddie’s right, you know,” Paul said. “You could sell and pay off your taxes, and you’d still have more than enough money to keep you in the clear for years.”
Luke looked at Paul, then back to me.
“It would be like you guys selling one of your daughters. It’s what I love best in this world. It’s all I have.”
“I’m not saying you should sell all of it,” I told him. “Just what you don’t need.”
“No,” Luke said. “I can’t. Thanks for trying to help, though. I’ll come up with something. Not the land, though.”
Sitting in our kitchen after the party, Luke sounded so sure of himself, so positive that selling his land would be like selling his soul. So it was a surprise, to say the least, to hear his voice when I picked up my office phone the next day.
33
“Hey, Mad, it’s me.”
“Luke?”
“You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. I know I sounded pretty negative, but I’d like to talk to you some more about it. How do we do this?”
“Well, why don’t you come into the office and meet with us. Nana and me. When would be good?”
“Whenever. Now? This whole thing has been weighing on my mind. I’d like to get it settled.”
“Okay. Sure. Hold on. Let me check with Nana and see if she’s free.”
She was, of course. She knew about the Barnett estate. In fact, I even got the impression that she knew why Luke was thinking of selling, though she certainly didn’t hear it from me. I just said that he was an old friend, looking to cash in on the rising market.
“Well, sweetie, that’s just fabulous. Good for you. Let’s meet in my office. But you go ahead and take the lead on this one. I have to tell you I’m very impressed with your initiative.”
“I didn’t do anything but make a suggestion.”
“Oh, no! Don’t ever sell yourself short. Admit it: this was your idea, sweetie, and you sold him on it. I give you full credit. And I’m not one just to hand out praise. I’m not sure what it will be at this point, but if this all works out the way I hope, you’ll be getting a very nice bonus, as well.”
Later, of course, I would wonder many times over if what Nana said was true. It was what Luke accused me of, as well: that I’d orchestrated the whole thing. I’d manipulated Luke, persuaded him it was for his own good. And, all the while, I was really only doing it for myself. In the end, it did give my career a huge boost. Though I really don’t think I ever consciously meant for that to happen. But, who knows? I’ve lived through enough now to believe we only vaguely understand what motivates us. And, too, my feelings for Luke have always been so conflicted and confused. I thought I was helping him. It looked like such an obvious solution in many ways. And it really did seem to come to me so spontaneously—I have an idea: why not sell some of it? But maybe, in fact, a darker, more aggressive plan had been building inside of me for months at that point.
Luke had showered and shaved for the meeting. Put on a clean shirt. But he still looked scruffy. His hair was way too long, and I noticed that his tan had a kind of ground-in look; sun mixed with dirt. He wore jeans and work boots: a lean, self-contained man who didn’t fit into any of the usual categories. He seemed too aloof to be a local; too down-at-the-heel and eccentric for a weekender. I saw Nana sizing him up over her designer half-rim glasses as he greeted me in the hall outside her office.
“We’re going to
talk in here,” I told him. “This is Nana Osserman, the owner. Nana, Luke Barnett.”
“Delighted to meet you,” Nana said, though I noticed that she kept her usual effusion in check. We took seats across from her. Nana looked at me and nodded. This was mine. She wanted to see how I would do.
“I’m not sure what you already might know about the Barnett family,” I told her. “But Luke’s forebears actually settled most of this county. The Barnett estate was part of the original land grant from the English—”
“Was is the operative word,” Luke cut in. He sat forward in his chair, elbows on the armrests. He was very tense, I realized. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. “All that’s left now is about sixty acres and the mansion. I’ve decided that I want to keep just ten acres and the cottage I’m living in. Frankly, I can’t afford to hold on to the rest of it anymore.”
“Fifty acres? You really want to sell that much?” I asked him. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I think so. What you said the other night? It really makes a lot of sense. What’s the point of trying to keep it all now? It’s just not practical, and from what you tell me this is the time to sell, right?”
Why was Luke doing this? What made him change his mind? I’m still not sure, but I doubt it was because he’d decided suddenly to start being practical. And he really wasn’t the kind of person who paid much attention to market conditions. I don’t doubt that the overdue back taxes worried him. That he realized he couldn’t keep scraping along as he’d been doing. But, honestly? I think the real reason he decided to go through with it—against every conviction that he held dear—was that he wanted to ease Paul’s mind. He couldn’t tolerate Paul’s pity, just as he would never accept his charity. Yes, he needed to clear his name on the town tax rolls, but more important, he wanted to get straight with my husband.
“Maddie’s absolutely right,” Nana said. “You could not have picked a better moment. Now, I know Maddie’s already familiar with your property, Mr. Barnett, but would you mind showing me around? We could take my car—or yours. Whatever’s most convenient for you.”
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