“Human male company,” she qualified. “Nothing against you, you fine feline.”
Gabriel butted her chin gently with his forehead, leaving his scent to reclaim her as part of his pride.
* * * * *
Peter arrived at four o’clock, emerging from Martin’s Lexus bearing a grease-stained sack. Martin, knowing there were no horses on the property, honked and pulled away after placing Peter’s two rolling suitcases and a duffle bag on the lawn. Lucinda went out to the driveway to greet her brother.
“He can’t stay,” Peter said. “The Mulholland job’s going full tilt.”
They hugged. Peter hugged a long time, and when Lucinda began to pull away, she stopped, and then held him close again.
“We practice hugging meditation at the monastery. I’m a convert,” he said, finally letting her go.
He was back in jeans, which were threatening to slide off his narrow hips, and there was half-inch hair sticking up straight on his head. She ran her hand over it.
“Like bottle brush bristle,” she joked.
He submitted himself to the ribbing and then pulled out the extension handles of the suitcases. Lucinda grabbed the duffle bag.
“The abbot let me borrow his luggage,” Peter said as they entered the house and set the bags down in the hallway. “He’s predicting I’ll be back. It’s curious. He thinks I have unfinished business to do at home before I’d be ready to settle in to ‘the work.’”
“I wonder what that means,” Lucinda said.
Peter shrugged. “Another of his koans, I suspect.” He looked into the dining room.
“Like the plover!” he said, stepping toward it.
“Aden helped me find it. In Newcester.”
They both admired the painting.
“Bart took a bunch of photographs with him, so the walls are still half empty. I was hoping he’d be back by now.”
Lucinda looked out the window as if Bart might pull up to the house in his van any minute. As if he’d just gone out for Chinese takeout or something. She hadn’t felt that way since late last winter. Peter walked over to the sink and filled the tea kettle, and then he removed two mugs, a filter for coffee, and a dinner plate from the kitchen cabinets.
“Butterscotch cupcakes and blueberry scones,” he said, arranging them on the plate and placing it on the table.
“You should eat most of them. God! How much weight did you lose?” she said, reaching for a cupcake.
“Fifteen pounds!” he said, holding his waistband out from his body. Peter took a seat facing the plover, Lucinda the bay window.
“What is up with Bart?” he said.
“Well, I didn’t exactly let you know the worst of it ‘cause I knew you’d worry. But he’s really sunk into drink.”
Peter chewed his scone thoughtfully. Gabriel rounded the corner of the first landing of the stairway, eyes at half-mast like he just woke up from a nap, most likely in the sun on Lucinda’s bed. When he saw Peter, his eyes popped open wide, like a cartoon cat.
“Hey, Gabe! How you been keepin’?” Peter called out. The cat let out a croak that sounded like frog, then flowed down the stairs and hopped into Peter’s lap in one motion.
“He always did like you the best. Of the men in my life,” Lucinda said. She got up to attend to the whistling kettle.
Once they were settled back at the table again with coffee and goodies, Peter asked, “So what is it you were afraid to say about Bart?”
“He’s passed out twice on the streets. Well, one time was almost in the ocean. Martin and John Pringle — Frank’s chef and the featured artist,” she indicated the plover with her right hand, “have hauled his drunken butt to the hospital or to their place. I talked to him afterward each time. I thought maybe the second time he was coming around to going to rehab. But he’s disappeared again.”
Lucinda glanced at the plate of baked goods and her stomach twisted.
“I just don’t know what’s in his heart. And the worst part is, I’m wondering whether I really care anymore.” She looked into Peter’s face. Peter covered her left hand with his right. “Or whether it’s just familiarity that’s making me cling to the idea of him.”
“Hey, it’ll sort itself out. I’ll try to track him down tomorrow. See what’s up.”
“Peter, that would be great. He usually listens to you. Well, he used to.”
“I can try. We haven’t been in contact since I left for the monastery.” Peter took his hand off hers and inspected his fingernails. “I seemed to have failed at becoming a monk.”
“It’s not for everybody,” she said. “Have a cupcake.” She lifted the plate and offered it to him, grinning. He chose one piled with frosting, put it in front of him, and then looked out the window toward the barn.
“Hey, where’s your mare? The barn looks empty.”
“She’s at Salt Marsh. We’re training for a dressage show.”
“Wow,” he said. “That’s amazing! When I left, she was just a skinny, jumpy thing. Now you’re showing her?”
“In November. I’ll take you by the stable this week. You’re guaranteed not to recognize her.”
“Sounds good,” he said, leaning against the chair back and shutting his eyes for a few seconds. “I’m really looking forward to sleeping in!”
“Late as you want.” Lucinda smiled. “Peter, what happened up there? I thought this was your new life path.”
He licked frosting off his index finger. “I’m not really sure. I still totally believe in the basic principles, but I need more engagement with people in an unritualized way. I thought it would be cleansing, contemplative, all that stuff. But I went stir crazy. The abbot told me I could do better service living the principles in the world. Using my financial knowledge to pursue Right Livelihood.”
“What’s Right Livelihood?”
“Taking a big view of your profession or vocation and all its impacts and making sure you are doing no harm to people, animals, plants, or the planet by pursing it. And that you’re contributing something essential to the world, preferably using your highest talents. Radiating your Buddha nature. Seeing your Buddha nature in everyone. Treating everyone you meet as if in some former life they were your mother.”
“Pheeeew! That’s a tall order.”
He smiled at her. “No kidding. Probably way harder than being in the monastery.”
“Maybe you can have a word with Frank about the concept,” she joked. Peter’s eyebrows rose, although there were no bangs for them to slide under. “I’m not going into gory detail today. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Why don’t you unpack? I’m going to do another load of laundry and figure out dinner.”
Peter busied himself unpacking his few clothes, shoes, jackets, and toiletries, while Lucinda fed Gabriel and Catcher, threw a load of towels in the wash, and contemplated the contents of the refrigerator.
“Cinda?” Peter said. He approached the kitchen from the guest bedroom, his voice carrying a base note of disbelief.
“Yes?” Lucinda called, still facing refrigerator shelves, which were two-thirds empty. “We’ll need to go food shopping.” She shut the door and turned to face Peter, on his face a deep expression of disdain.
“What the hell is this doing in your house?” He held a .38 caliber hand gun, flat in his palms, cradling it as it if might explode, and positioning it away from his body as if it were glowing with radioactivity.
“Oh, my God! I stuck it on that shelf in the guestroom closet and forgot about it.” She stepped toward him and lifted it, still horizontal, out of his outstretched hands.
“What on Earth is it for?” His voice had slowed, and his face began draining of blood when he looked at the gun.
“Calm down,” she said. “Here, have a seat.”
She guided him over to a counter stool.
“My sister has a gun?” He shook his head as if to disperse the mental image.
“Darnell Harris insisted I take it as a precaution. Honor bought it for me,”
Lucinda said, making light, like it was akin to putting reflective tape on her clothes to walk on the road at night. “Since I’m alone, and… .”
Peter’s face had sunk into a brooding frown. “Having a gun invites violence. On that point, I do agree with the abbot.”
Lucinda’s breathing sped up and she put the handgun on the counter. She lifted her hand to her forehead.
“Are you ok?” Peter asked.
“Little dizzy.”
“Cinda? What’s really going on?” he said. He moved toward her and placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders.
“I have an on-and-off stalker,” she whispered.
Tiger in the Night
“I’m going to haul his ass to rehab. The worst he can do is tell me to go to hell.”
Lucinda looked doubtful. “I bet if it’s not his idea, it won’t stick.”
Peter continued, ignoring Lucinda’s doubt. “I think the one in the western part of the state instead of the Thornbury one. What’s it called? Greenbough?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“I would imagine it too embarrassing to go through it near where you lived,” he said.
Peter and Lucinda were back on the boulder overlooking the loyal Labs’ graves.
“Any idea where I should start? Address?”
“Call John Pringle,” Lucinda said. “He’s probably got a better clue than me about Bart’s crashing places.”
It was as clear to her as today’s view off Plumcliff’s coast that Bart was in an epic personal struggle, and the question of the two of them getting back together was going to remain up in the air. And she couldn’t help him. He just resented her, no matter what he said. She could feel it.
She pulled up her knees, hugging her shins, and watched something soar up, up very high beneath the one extra puffy cumulous cloud in the sky. A turkey vulture? Shutting her eyes against the bright sunlight, she tilted her face upward to better enjoy the humidity-free heat. Peter watched his sister with piqued interest, as if she might surprise him with something else along the line of a gun.
“So what are your plans?” she asked him, her eyes still shut.
“Plans?” Peter said. “I’m thinking of starting a financial advice column or something like that. Help out my friend the abbot with his investments. Give financial journalism a try, maybe. Who knows? I still have a lot of contacts in the city.”
“Where are you going to stay? You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you need to.”
It would be great to have company in the house just now. She’d almost called Aden, just to hear his voice, the night before Peter arrived. Which thoroughly scared her — she knew it would be too easy to become even more dependent on Aden.
“Thanks. I’d like to,” he said.
She opened her eyes and took a fresh look at her brother. He did look gaunt, but he also had a kind of gentle comforting weight about him that was not of flesh.
“Great! But if you’re going to hang out here, I’ll have to tell you about the cop in the barn.”
“Huh?”
“Hey, look!” She pointed to a pair of gold finches picking at the thistle flowers in front of the iron gate. Peter looked briefly at the bright birds then turned back to his sister.
“They breed later in the summer, the goldfinch,” she said. “Anyway, I told you that I was being stalked for a while. It seems to have let up. Honor Emerson and Darnell Harris have put me under armed guard. My own private Secret Service. And I have this cell, which is a direct line to Harris.”
“I wondered what that was. I knew you were glued to your cell for work but I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“It’s quieted down.” She didn’t feel like dredging up Orion again. “Jay Parnell returned to cause trouble for me and others, but he’s gone now.” No need to go into that whole debacle either. “I don’t know, Peter. It’s just a battle to keep things going at work. Frank’s creating his own empire and not consulting me about anything. He working on replacing me — I think the shoe’s going to drop in October, November. Something like that. He’s got Warren telling donors I’ve moved on. Aden’s sticking by me. I don’t know what I would have done without him these last six months.”
Peter listened while watching the goldfinches suddenly push off the thistle together and dip together at intervals, like synchronized flyers, away through the orchard.
“You don’t have to stay you know,” Peter said. “At P-H? I’m mean, needing a guard? Come on! It’s not worth it. You’d be snapped up in no time for development at another school. Maybe even president somewhere.”
Lucinda considered for a moment. “They’re not going to push me out. I’m dug in,” she said, offering that smile he knew so well, of determination and grit. Some call it stubbornness.
“Your Aunt Jean smile,” Peter said.
* * * * *
Bart’s shoulders and head were supported by a soot-covered brick wall in an alley in the oldest part of town off a street Paul Revere most likely strode down on the way to or from the many successive locations of his silversmith shop. On Bart’s right, there was a precarious pile of mostly flattened cardboard boxes under which disappeared a skeletal tiger cat, who’d just sniffed Bart’s hand on the pavement, then disappeared.
A short, heavily muscled man in a black tee shirt and dirty jeans approached, hunting knife in one hand. Noticing that the huddled form reeked of beer and did not stir, the man put the knife down and dug into Bart’s jeans pockets. Bart did not rouse. From the left rear pocket, he removed a scuffed leather wallet molded to the curve of Bart’s butt. No credit cards, but fifty-one dollars and a subway pass, which he pocketed. He threw the wallet onto Bart’s crotch and disappeared past the cardboard pile.
* * * * *
Peter had started at Brent’s apartment in his quest to find Bart. Brent said he’d not run into anyone of Bart’s description, although he did vaguely remember the Sealands exhibition, mostly because of local TV coverage of the senator’s attendance. A call to John Pringle did not reveal where Bart lived — no one seemed to know — but John did list off Bart’s three favorite local watering holes. So Peter, possessing a clarity born of untold hours of meditation, decided to fan out in a radius from each establishment. Chances were, if it were evening or night, Bart was either at one or in the vicinity of one of his three “home” bars. Peter didn’t mind that a cool summer rain had started to fall, only that it made it darker without the moon to help light the way. He’d rely on street lights and a tiny flashlight he’d borrowed from Brent.
Peter had just left the last bar on his list when he passed the end of an alley, he’d been checking all the alleys he passed, and saw a collapsed cardboard pile and beyond that something he couldn’t make out in the dark. Feeling the Buddha inside himself, he didn’t hesitate to turn into the dark alley. He came upon a dark form. A man, a body? He lay on the pavement, curled into the fetal position, a tiger cat sleeping enfolded in his arms to keep out of the rain.
Ready to Talk
“I insist, Frank. I’m not making any more moves without Lucinda’s expertise,” Chester said into the phone. “She’s a true gem. A whole gold mine really. I’m ready to talk estate planning, but I’ll only do it with her in attendance.”
Chester admired his wife admiring the Homer. She’d told him it was the best present he ever bought her.
“Not to speak ill of your new man. Warren, is it? But Lucinda and I go way back.”
“Yes, well,” said Frank. “We’ll both be there then.”
“Excellent! Enjoy the rest of your evening,” Chester said.
“You too,” said Frank. He slipped the phone into his jacket pocket and dipped his scowl into his wine glass.
“Somebody die?” Margo joked. She sat opposite Frank in a booth at The Captain’s Table. If he were going to ask her out for dinner with “no strings attached” at the best restaurant in Newcester, she was not going to turn him down. Perhaps they could start over.
; “Mulholland. He insists that Lucinda be at our next pow-wow. About his estate.”
Margo smiled. “Then give him Lucinda on a platter. You can’t do this one yourself, Frank. Much as I’m sure you want to. He’s big time. And she knows planned giving. It’s as intricate as hedge funds.”
Frank admired Margo over their plates of crab tortellini appetizers. She was gorgeous in a sea-green-and-ivory cap-sleeve dress that showed off her spectacular arms and shoulders. All that riding was doing her good, he thought. She wore dangle earrings, slender inverted triangles of malachite outlined in gold. Frank would have loved to convince Margo to leave her job and marry him — not that she couldn’t work, just so they wouldn’t have the nepotism issue to contend with — but he knew she’d have no part of that arrangement.
The best he could wish for is to make up for what went wrong between them this spring. Had he mixed up his own intentions about her? He told himself now to leave Margo out of his P-H corporate doings entirely since he really did care about her. At least until things were settled and safer, with Lucinda out and Warren comfortably in charge of development. Corporate donors stepping up to the plate, major athletic successes, much higher visibility for graduates… .
But recent actions by Lucinda, Bomi, and Honor were giving him pause. And Cliff was starting to make unpleasant noises as well. Now Chester insisted on Lucinda as his main contact. Had the two of them met recently? And Fargill was toying with him — wanting more directed research for the three million instead of as a lead gift for the capital campaign, of which dollar one had not yet appeared. There were silent explosions going off all around his carefully laid plans. He looked over at Margo, and it all went out of his head.
“What’s the latest on the chess game?” Margo asked.
“Huh?” said Frank, lost in contemplation of the way the candlelight glowed on Margo’s neck near one of the malachite stones, the earring pointing to her luscious shoulder.
“In the Pecan Room?” She laughed. “They’re following it in The Sentinel now. A big deal last week when one of the players got Check.”
Halt at X: A North of Boston Novel Page 28