The seizing in my chest stopped as suddenly as it started. I shouldn’t care. It wasn’t like anything would happen between us. I didn’t want anything to happen between us. I wanted something to happen with the architect back in Long Island, that good-looking and sensitive artistic guy. He would be just right for me, I knew it, just the right sort of man for me—if I could bring myself to touch him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We parted at the garage, Jackson speeding off in his squad car, I following at a more tentative pace, unwilling to push the Porsche’s goodwill. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a packing box and a roll of strapping tape. Then I returned to the ugly old house, retreated to my room, packed up my father’s watercolors, and addressed the box to Grady, the architect in Southhampton. Just in case—just in case.
On the way to the post office, I called Grady on my cell phone to let him know the package would be arriving, and that I’d like the pictures arrayed on the walls of my new breakfast nook. He accepted this without demur, though I wondered if he’d be so tolerant when he saw the dinosaurs. The construction was going well, he assured me. “I miss—” and then, quickly, he added, “I miss your insights on the design. The contractor—well, he just follows directions.”
“A good thing in a contractor, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but dull. So will you be returning soon?”
I replied vaguely something about next week, wondering why two relatively experienced adults had reverted to a junior high school way of relating. He could just ask me out for a date, after all—or, for that matter, this being a new millennium, I supposed I could ask him out. But instead we traded innocuous comments that we meant to be heavy with significance, and neither of us took the risk of direct speech. When I got back, I promised myself, I’d just do it—take him out to dinner, take him dancing, take him to bed . . .
My chest tightened. I wasn’t ready. I just . . . wasn’t ready.
It wasn’t Grady’s fault. An intuitive man, he wouldn’t press me if I resisted.
I needed to know him better, I told myself. That was all. I needed to know him well enough to be absolutely sure that he would be kind and gentle, that he wouldn’t turn into a monster. I had to trust him.
Rationally, I knew he wasn’t a monster. I knew he would be kind to me. But my body didn’t know that. And I needed my body’s cooperation, if I were to resume a normal love life.
That night I crawled into my old bed, and dreamed of making love again—and for the first time in a long time, the dream didn’t become a nightmare. But the man in my dream, the man who took me past my fear, wasn’t Grady, the artistic, sensitive architect. It was Jackson McCain, the bad-boy turned cop.
I woke when the early morning light slid in through my lace curtains, and lay there, my face flushed, remembering the dream. It made some odd sense. I was like a virgin again, frightened by the prospect of sex yet desperate for it. And who better to initiate me than the man who had done it the first time?
By the time we all met at the attorney’s office, I’d figured Mother out. She was determined to give that college president more than he ever dreamed, and I didn’t see much reason to stop her. It was her money. Well, it was my father’s money, actually, but I supposed I was being sexist. She’d earned it, marrying well and staying respectable all these years, at least as far as everyone knew. And if she wanted one last chance—
I couldn’t blame her.
When Dr. Urich walked into the attorney’s office, I saw the shock in Ellen’s eyes. She couldn’t believe Mother had invited him. And Theresa, in her quiet way, radiated something— disapproval? No, that was Mother’s default radiation. Theresa radiated suspicion. Neither of them could believe that Mother would invite an outsider to this most complicated of family occasions.
But I wasn’t surprised. Mother always did whatever she wanted. Oh, she’d always say she did what she thought was proper, but that was a bit backwards. Whatever she did, she thought was proper . . . because she was the one doing it. And if Margaret Wakefield decided to take on a younger protégé and groom him up a bit, well, who was to say it wasn’t the entirely appropriate action?
Not I. Oh, I cringed a bit. No matter how old you get, it’s embarrassing to see your mother fawning. But she was still a woman, and Dr. Urich was a handsome, vital fellow, attentive and admiring.
He was acting, of course. I do it for a living, so I recognize it when I see it. His technique was good—a bit understated, self-deprecating, boyishly abashed. Good sincerity. But I saw that slight effort in the gestures, the dimming when she wasn’t looking at him . . . He was acting.
But then I noticed—so was Mother.
Not much. But she was a bit more . . . Mother than usual. Just turning up the heat a fraction.
I leaned back in my chair and watched more closely as Mother sedately outlined her grand plan for our old house. At first I thought she was doing this to rebuke us, to punish her ungrateful daughters. But no. She wasn’t playing to us. She had an audience of one—Dr. Urich. He was the one she was trying to persuade.
But he needed no persuading. Did he? He was clearly willing to accept this bequest on behalf of the college. He probably would regret any messy complications from the other heirs, that is to say, us, but he wasn’t about to turn this down.
So why was she turning up the persuasion factor?
Then I saw Ellen’s face. Poor Ellen. I wanted to tell her it was okay, that none of us really cared that much, that she didn’t have to feel guilty. Then she said, “I’d be willing to take charge of the house.”
Oh, Ellen, I thought, you don’t have to say that. She’d spent so much of her life running from the prospect of becoming Mother, the matriarch of this town, the responsible one, the one who took charge. And here she was, taking charge.
Then Theresa chimed in, saying that she would live there. In the house.
Mother didn’t even take notice. It made no sense. Theresa was her favorite, her baby. And no matter how tolerant she tried to be, I knew she was, well, disappointed in Theresa’s lifestyle choice. A Catholic nun—how did one explain that to the other deacons at Wakefield Presbyterian? The convent—especially that isolated cloister—must have seemed a denial of all the advantages Mother had given her all these years, a reversion back to that original form, the superstitious servant class with their crucifixes and rosaries and lawn shrines to the Virgin Mary. Now Theresa was making it plain that she might abandon that, return to Mother’s world—and Mother paid her no mind.
I couldn’t stand it. I found myself pledging to help out financially. Maybe even come to stay occasionally. Heck, I think I might even have volunteered to take charge of replacing the storm windows with screens every May—I don’t know.
Hey, Mom, the prodigal daughter returns. Hey, Mother! Hey, look at me! I don’t expect a fatted calf, but a bit of smug satisfaction wouldn’t be amiss. What, no I told you so? No I’m glad you’ve finally seen the light, girls?
Nothing. She turned the wattage up a bit on her smile, and promised Dr. Urich a maintenance fund too. The only indication that she even had daughters was her requirement that the house be named The Catherine Wakefield Memorial Hall.
I was relieved. Really. I didn’t want Ellen tied to this town. I didn’t want to Theresa to get stuck here, replacing one cloister with another. I didn’t want to worry about the window screens.
But . . . but Mother was giving our house away.
“And all the contents.”
This woke me up again, enough to make me protest this far more passionately than I’d protested the gift of the house. Stupid of me. Now she knew that I cared.
Fortunately, her eyes were full of Dr. Urich, and her ears full of his humble and hasty statements of gratitude. She probably didn’t even know I’d spoken.
It was all over quickly after that. I headed out the door and down the stairs, and was halfway across the town square when I looked back to see Ellen and Theresa emerging from the door. Ellen loo
ked depressed and defeated. I realized, rather suddenly, that she’d been subdued all this time—not her usual resilient self. I was about to go back and suggest that she come with me to the police lock-up dedication. I mean, that would cheer anyone up, right? But by the time I got this intention formulated, she’d disappeared around the corner.
Theresa, however, was coming towards me. I waited there under the Founder’s Oak tree, wondering if she’d join me. When she saw me there, she hesitated, then kept coming. “So what do you think?” I said when she drew up next to me. “About the house?”
“It’s Mother’s house. She can do what she wants.”
“Did you really decide you wanted to live here?”
She shrugged. I fought back a wave of irritation. Conversing with her was always such an ordeal. It didn’t help that she despised me and I loathed her. But I had to rise above that twenty-year-old grudge. “I think Ellen is taking this hard. Maybe if you speak to Mother—”
We were walking side by side, over the close-clipped grass of the courthouse square, close enough that my handbag banged against her leg. I switched it to the other side. “I mean, you do have maybe more influence with her than I do. Like several hundred times more.”
I said that lightly, but she took it seriously. She took everything seriously. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her smile, much less laugh. But she nodded. “I will speak to her about it, if I get an opportunity.”
I was inordinately pleased to get an agreement from her, and decided to follow it up with an invitation. “Do you want to go over there and check out the band? I never get a chance to hear real bluegrass anymore. They just have the fake kind in LA, bands with handsome young fiddlers who have a second career as a model.”
Theresa looked over at the bandstand in front of police headquarters. The sharp jabs of the fiddle were already gathering a crowd. She hesitated. Then she said, slowly, “All right. But I’m going to buy a drink first.”
“My treat,” I said, pulling a twenty out of my bag. I wasn’t sure she was allowed to carry cash. “As long as you get me a bottle of water.”
For just a moment, I saw the glimmer of amusement in her blue eyes as she took the bill. “This is Wakefield. Lemonade and sweet tea in plastic cups. If you want water, you have to go to the water fountain on the corner.”
I looked over at the corner. I remembered Jimmy Millstone throwing up into that water fountain after the junior prom. “Lemonade, then. I’ll be over by the bandstand.”
But I didn’t get there. I was just passing the bronze statue of Alexander Hamilton when someone grabbed my arm. Instinctively I pulled away and whirled around, only to see the flushed eager face of—of, oh, what was her name. Julie something.
I didn’t trust my memory. “Hi!” I said brightly.
She didn’t seem to notice my lapse. “Laura! I can’t believe you’re back in Wakefield! How long has it been? Graduation day, probably!”
It wasn’t the time to remind her I never made it to graduation day. “It’s been awhile. I—”
Before I knew it, she was raising her hand and raising her voice. “Lance! Come here! Laura Wakefield is back in town!”
Pretty soon I was in the middle of a curious little knot of former classmates. None of them asked for my autograph, fortunately, but I did get taken to task for not responding to the last announcement of the class reunion. And one insistent woman— I think I remembered her from the thespian club—demanded, “So did you get engaged or not?”
I kept my voice light. “Not.”
“I saw in People magazine that you were maybe going to marry that action star, what’s his name, the one in the Breakthrough movie—”
“Ken Haldrick?” the man beside her said.
I managed a smile, and nothing more revealing than that. “Oh, I think that was more our publicists’ doing than anything else. You know publicists. They live for the chance that they might get to sell photos of a big Hollywood wedding.”
The woman was disappointed. “So you aren’t really going with him?”
“Nope. Sorry.” I thought about starting a rumor that he only went out with women to conceal his penchant for pool boys. It wasn’t true, but—It wasn’t true, so I didn’t say it. In fact, I didn’t have to say anything, because at that moment, Jackson came walking up in his navy blue uniform, tapping a nightstick in his palm.
“All right, all right, folks, break it up.” He grinned at me as he put a hand on the insistent woman’s back and guided her towards the stage, where the old mayor sat on a metal chair. “The real celebrity is about to speak. The mayor.”
His arm brushed mine as he passed, and I felt a shiver of anticipation. He was so—manly. Teasing and playful but masculine too. Maybe I could do it. I looked at his back as he walked up the steps to the stage and thought maybe it was true. Maybe I could want him enough—
The fiddler saw him and broke off the old bluegrass tune, then started to play “I Fought the Law and the Law Won.”
“My theme song,” Jackson said, loud enough for the crowd to hear.
Then the mayor saw him and rose hastily, probably sensing the crowd might not pay him any mind now that the Man had arrived. He grabbed a microphone off the stand in front of the banjo player and raised his hand to cut off the music. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today for a great moment in our town’s history—”
I listened to his practiced political intonations, wondering why Mother wasn’t here for her town’s great moment in history. Oh, I’d forgotten. She was too busy choosing gown over town, lunching with the college president.
I was suddenly reminded that Theresa was somewhere out there, with my lemonade. Alone in this crowd. She probably didn’t like being in a crowd. So as the mayor droned on, I pushed my way back through the summer-sweaty bodies to the open area near the statue. I still couldn’t see her, so I clambered up on the low lip of Alexander Hamilton’s pedestal and craned my neck to look for her over the heads of the crowd. Then I saw her, standing under a spreading tree, both hands closed around plastic cups.
I filed this picture away as I jumped back to the ground. Someday, maybe, I would write a screenplay—yes, yes, we character actors don’t just fancy ourselves as future directors, we want to write all the lines too, and make sure they can be said by actual humans—about growing up in a small town, and I’d build the story line around such significant small town events—the fire department’s christening of the new ambulance, the Lion’s club fish-fry benefit for the boy with leukemia, the high school play. And maybe an almost-former nun, released from the cloister and alone in a crowd.
But as I made my way over to her, I saw a boy approach her from the sidewalk. He said something to her, a question, I thought from his posture. And as an answer she walked over to a trash barrel and dropped the plastic cups, the lemonade splashing up and then down again. Then she gestured to him to follow.
She was giving him directions. That was all, I realized with some relief, as she stopped at the corner and gestured across the street towards the old brick county office building. But then she stepped off the curb and into the crosswalk and he followed, sprinting a bit to catch up to her, talking all the while.
I watched, amazed. Theresa talking to a stranger. A male stranger. Well, he was hardly more than a boy, nothing wicked there, but—
But now the mayor’s ringing tones were fading, and I looked back at the stage, and there was Jackson taking the mike. And when I heard his cool voice, always with the laugh hiding underneath, I forgot about Theresa and her mysterious young man.
He didn’t talk long, just welcomed everyone and thanked them for the bake sales and the benefit concert and the support. And then the mayor trooped down the steps and over to the big red ribbon in front of the new annex. An aide handed him a big pair of pinking shears, and he snipped the ribbon in half. A cheer went up. The band started playing that old John Denver song about West Virginia, and that was all there was to the great historical moment for our to
wn.
Without conscious choice, I lingered there by the statue, waiting. Waiting for Theresa to come back. Waiting for Jackson to detach himself from the ones who tugged at his uniform sleeve and the ones who declared their loyalty to the law. Waiting.
Finally I turned to look again for my sister. But instead, across the heads of the crowd, I thought I saw my brother-in-law. Ellen hadn’t said anything about him showing up, but that was Tom, wasn’t it? Leaning against the black Jeep in front of the library?
I liked Tom. He was a good man, and good to my sister, and when he got drunk, he lapsed into the most delicious Irish accent. And I supposed I should go over there and welcome him to town. But Jackson was walking away, towards the police station, and—and I’d see Tom back at the house.
Just as well. In the time that I’d glanced over at Jackson, Tom had gotten back into his car and was starting to drive away.
I tried not to make it too obvious that I was, well, pursuing Jackson. After all, I told myself, my tax dollars, or at least my mother’s tax dollars, partly paid for that fancy new jail lockup, and it was practically my civic duty to inspect it. This got my shoulders straight and my head high, and I walked down the old sidewalk regally, my mother’s representative. Her ambassador. I entered the old police headquarters just a few yards behind Jackson, and, as my heels clicked on the marble floor, he turned and saw me.
He made it easy. “Come for a tour?”
I nodded. My civic duty. “The mayor made it sound like quite a commodious place.”
Jackson nodded to the sergeant manning the desk. “I’ll just be showing Wakefield’s most famous citizen the lockup.”
“Sure, Chief, whatever you say.” The desk sergeant’s expression indicated he had no idea who I was or why I was famous.
Not everyone we passed in the narrow hallway to the annex was similarly clueless. I felt the gaze of a policewoman on me and wondered if she thought I was poaching on her territory.
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