In the nursery she folded Tess’s clothes and arranged them in their designated drawers. Priscilla had gone out that morning, something she did two or three times a week. Gwen never knew where she went. Chores were taken care of by the Piacevics, there was no really upscale shopping available in the area, and Priscilla didn’t seem to have any local friends. Occasionally she’d walk next door to see her father, cutting through the wall of hemlocks to the east of Penaquoit. Other than that she kept pretty much to her bedroom, emerging early in the afternoon for half a cantaloupe filled with cottage cheese, served by Rosa Piacevic on the patio off the sunroom.
Gwen looked out the nursery window. Valerie Goodwin and Nick, both in bathing suits, stood by the shallow end of the pool, Valerie holding a naked Tess. The adults looked uncannily fit—there was more fat on the baby than on the two of them combined. Valerie’s tan skin glowed like bullion under the hot sun; that rare combination of red hair and dark skin was really quite stunning.
Valerie handed Tess to Nick, then executed a perfect racing dive from the shallow end, surfacing halfway down the pool. She did an elegant crawl stroke to the far end and back. Nick handed Tess to her. She slowly lowered the baby into the water, cradling her to her chest. Then Nick walked down the steps and joined them in the shallow end.
They stayed there for several minutes, both adults clearly focused on the child. Gwen had never seen a father so centered on his child. Mothers who obsessed that way were called overbearing or neurotic, but Nick’s preoccupation with Tess was appealing, somehow. Valerie wore the same rapt expression she’d had earlier, listening to Nick play piano. It seemed unnatural, really, how plugged into Nick she was—into Nick and his two obsessions.
Gwen was about to turn away from the window when she saw Priscilla Lawrence walk across the terrace and freeze, back from God knew where, dressed as always as if she were meeting a friend at Le Cirque: silk blouse, tailored slacks, a white sweater draped over her shoulders in that deliberately casual way some women manage to achieve. Nick and Valerie were too wrapped up in each other and the baby to notice their observer, but Gwen shuddered. Priscilla’s face looked rigid even from this distance, eyes wide open in the glaring sun, mouth puckered in an oval of pure rage.
“This is the socks and pajamas drawer,” Priscilla said when she entered the nursery a few minutes later to find Gwen still putting away Tess’s clothes. “Didn’t I mention that?” Her voice sounded shaky, as though she were barely holding it together. She bent down and started removing T-shirts from the drawer. “Isn’t it time for the baby’s nap?” she said over her shoulder.
The baby. “She usually sleeps somewhere between—”
“Fine, please go and put her down.” Priscilla picked up a stack of shorts, started to place them in a lower drawer, then slammed them onto the top of the little dresser.
“Are you sure you don’t want some help?” Gwen said.
Priscilla shook her head and continued rearranging.
Gwen left the nursery and walked outside to the pool, feeling overdressed in a heavy sweatshirt—the house was always air-conditioned to a Nordic chill.
“Isn’t Tess a little fish?” Nick said when he noticed her.
“It’s time for her nap,” Gwen said.
“Are you tired, my sweet?” Nick said to Tess, who responded by thrashing her feet in the water. He handed her up to Gwen.
When she looked back, Valerie and Nick were swimming side by side to the deep end, their long easy crawl strokes in perfect sync.
Gwen brought Tess to the nursery and was heading downstairs when Priscilla charged past her, carrying a pile of magazines. Her face was swollen. She had been crying. She crossed the foyer and stopped before a closed door.
“Gwen! Open this, please.” Gwen obliged, and Priscilla plunged down a dark staircase to the basement.
Gwen left the door open and went to the kitchen, where she made herself a sandwich and read a magazine while eating, enjoying the time to herself.
The phone rang. Priscilla usually answered by the second ring; after five rings, Gwen picked up.
“Russell Cunningham calling for Priscilla Lawrence,” said a woman’s voice.
“She’s busy right now,” Gwen said, wondering what kind of man had a secretary place calls to his daughter. “She can’t come to the phone.”
“Is she at home?”
“Yes.”
“Then she can come to the phone.”
Gwen sighed, put the secretary on hold, and walked to the basement door.
“Mrs. Lawrence?”
At the bottom of the uncarpeted staircase she found herself in a long, dimly lit hall. She headed toward a light from an open doorway and discovered a huge room full of row after row of neatly stacked magazines. She threaded her way through the room, noting some of the titles: Architectural Digest, Modern Bride, Road and Track, Vogue, Travel and Leisure, Gourmet, American Bird. All kind of weird for a woman who seemed interested in nothing. She recalled Nick’s words: You can’t let anything go, not even old magazines. What are you afraid of? The damp room was chilly as a cave, and the air had that sharp, stale basement odor, laced with the moldy scent of old paper. Unlike most basements, however, this one was organized perfectly. It was like a grid of mini-skyscrapers.
She heard muffled voices through another open doorway, and walked closer to investigate. Priscilla and Valerie, still wearing only a bathing suit, were standing very close to each other in the center of a room full of old furniture and large cartons. Priscilla was caressing Valerie’s face with her fingertips, murmuring something. Her own face looked swollen with blocked desire.
You have the most marvelous mouth…
Gwen turned in retreat but hadn’t gone two feet before she heard Priscilla call her name in a hoarse voice.
“Your father’s on the phone,” Gwen said quickly. “I told him…” I told him you were busy.
“Thank you,” Priscilla whispered as she hurried past Gwen and up the stairs. Gwen started to follow.
“Everything stops for Daddy,” Valerie said. “She’s still his little girl. I mean, look at this room.”
It was crammed with little-girl furniture: four-poster bed, rocking chair, dressers and bookshelves and night tables trimmed in pink. There were cartons of papers and photographs, and portable coat racks sagging with black garment bags.
“Nothing gets thrown away here,” Valerie said. “Not even old magazines.”
Gwen unzipped a thick garment bag. Inside were a dozen or more girl’s dresses on identical wood hangers, exquisite confections in pastel colors festooned with bows and ribbons and satin flowers, each of them monogrammed with a delicately stitched P.C.
“Tess will love these,” Gwen said.
Valerie snorted. “Don’t tell me you think that’s why they keep all this stuff.”
“Why else?”
“For immortality.” Valerie left the room on a breeze of chlorine and suntan oil. “They can’t live forever, but they work like hell to hold on to the past.”
Chapter 6
Valerie Goodwin was not at Penaquoit the next morning, and the house reverted to its stifling aura of hermetic isolation. Each time Gwen entered a room she felt as if she were setting off a disturbance of some kind, ruffling invisible feathers, breaking a host of unwritten rules.
Nick resumed his marathon practice sessions, Priscilla resumed residency in the master bedroom, leaving it only for lunch and the occasional midday drive. Gwen had established an easy but firm routine for Tess, who seemed to be thriving.
A few days after Valerie’s visit, Priscilla asked Gwen to take a family photograph on the terrace. Priscilla held Tess; Nick stood with one arm around her waist, his smile forced and his posture oddly stiff for a man with the easy grace of a natural athlete. Gwen took several shots before handing the camera back to Priscilla. Later that afternoon, while Tess was in the music room with her father, Priscilla summoned Gwen to the music room with a shout.
�
�Why was she allowed near this?” Priscilla held out the camera, its back opened, the film dangling out.
“I’m…” Gwen stopped herself from apologizing for something that wasn’t her fault.
“Sorry,” Nick said, “I wasn’t watching. We’ll take more photographs.”
Priscilla stormed out of the room; Gwen picked up Tess and followed her.
The next Monday morning, Gwen was awakened at home by a phone call at 7:00. She fumbled for the receiver, reassuring herself that Jimmy was safely asleep in the next room, and that no one from her old life knew her new phone number. This could not be bad news.
“Hello?”
“It’s Priscilla Lawrence. We won’t be needing you today. We’ve decided to watch Tess ourselves.” Her voice sounded flat—not bored so much as distracted. “We thought it would be nice to be together as a family for a change.”
Together as a family? What about the weekend that had just ended?
“Oh.” Gwen carried the phone to the window and opened the shade. Wispy clouds drifted across an otherwise clear summer sky; they would burn off in an hour or so.
“You’ll be paid, of course,” Priscilla said. “Enjoy the day off.”
“Right. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Gwen heard a man’s voice in the background. “Tell her not to come until we call her.” Not Nick’s voice: gruffer, deeper.
“We’ll let you know,” Priscilla said. “Wait until your hear from us.”
Gwen went downstairs to make coffee. Were they going to fire her? Was that what this was about?
She thought of Tess, competing with Beethoven for her father’s attention, ignored by Priscilla, with only the dour Rosa Piacevic for company. She spent a half hour fretting about Tess, then cursed the attachment she’d tried so hard to avoid. Good pay, good benefits, good riddance in a year’s time. Tess survived the weekends without her. She’d survive another day on her own.
She woke Jimmy up at 7:30. “Want to play hooky with me today?”
He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know how to play.”
“Trust me, it’s easy. Get dressed and I’ll explain at breakfast.”
She made pancakes and bacon; they ate second helpings, both enjoying the unhurried time together. Weekends were filled with T-ball games and errands and housework. Today was a bonus, a warm, sunny, agenda-free bonus.
“The caretaker at Penaquoit told me about this swimming hole nearby,” she said. “It’s called the Devil’s Ravine. Want to go?” He jumped up from the table. “My bathing suit is at work,” she said, “but we can stop on the way and pick it up.”
On the drive to Penaquoit she began to have second thoughts. Priscilla’s message on the phone had been clear enough: stay away. Well, she’d just run around to the pool house and grab her suit. No harm in that, surely. No one would know she was there.
She pulled up to the wrought-iron gates and briefly considered buzzing the main house for access. Instead, she punched in the access code. Six, two, three, Priscilla’s birthday.
“Wow!” Jimmy said as the gates swung open. She put the car in gear and drove through, swinging around to the side of the main house and parking in front of the garage.
“One, two, three, four…they have four garages,” Jimmy said. “How come?”
“For four cars, I guess.” She turned off the engine and opened the door. “Wait here just a minute, I’ll be right back.”
“I want to come with you.”
“Okay, but let’s hurry.”
Jimmy unbuckled his shoulder strap and got out of the car. This was the first time he’d been to Penaquoit and she wasn’t happy about having him here even for a few minutes. Though if asked she wouldn’t have been able to say why.
“How come they have four cars?” Jimmy asked as they circled the garage.
“I don’t know, Jimmy,” she said. “We need to hurry.”
“Why do we have to hurry?” he said as she pulled him along.
The pool was at least thirty yards from the house. With luck they wouldn’t run into anyone.
An elderly man emerged from the stand of hemlock trees that separated Penaquoit from the Cunningham house next door. He had a loping, determined gait, arms swinging at his side. His gray hair was cut very short, and his posture was vaguely military as well, chest thrust forward, shoulders squared. The clothes, though, were more country club than army issue: a bright madras shirt, pale yellow trousers, tan shoes.
“That must be Russell Cunningham,” she whispered to Jimmy.
“Who’s he?”
“He lives next door. Come on.”
Just before they reached the pool area she stopped and turned toward the big house. Priscilla Lawrence was standing on the patio, wearing sunglasses, watching her father approach. When he was several yards away she practically threw herself at him, flinging her arms around his shoulders. He patted her back a few times, then seemed to push her away. They exchanged words and were joined on the patio a moment later by Nick, the tail of his white oxford shirt hanging out over a pair of jeans. Even from thirty yards away, his hair looked disheveled. He crossed to his wife and put an arm around her shoulder; then all three of them went into the house.
“Where’s Tess?” Gwen said to herself, still staring at the empty terrace.
“I thought we were getting your bathing suit,” Jimmy said. He didn’t like her to mention Tess.
Tess was with Rosa Piacevic, no doubt…but then why the riff about spending time together as a family? And why had “family” suddenly stretched to include Russell Cunningham?
She got her suit from the cabana and hurried with Jimmy to the car. She backed out of the parking area in front of the garage, watching the rearview mirror, and caught an unexpected movement in the second-floor garage window. Rosa Piacevic was silhouetted in yellow light, not moving, her eyes on the car.
Thanks to Mett Piacevic’s good directions, she easily found the Devil’s Ravine on a winding back road just off Route 24. There were no other cars in the unpaved parking area he’d directed her to on Pleasant Ridge Road. They scrambled down a steep hillside, the sound of the stream and the whining of cicadas growing louder as they descended. At the bottom of the hill was a large pool formed by a natural dam of rocks and fallen trees across a fast-moving stream about twenty yards wide. From where they stood in the narrow valley formed by the stream, the forest on either side looked cool and dark, but warm sunlight streaked down into the clearing, illuminating the swimming hole as if by a landscaper’s design.
“How come it’s called the Devil’s Ravine?” Jimmy asked.
“Don’t know. It looks like paradise to me. Wait for me here while I change, okay?”
She undressed and put on her bathing suit behind a large tree a few yards away.
“It’s freezing!” Jimmy shouted when she rejoined him. He had gone in up to his ankles. They held hands and waded in over large, smooth pebbles. The water was indeed icy, and as clear and silky as moonlight.
“I can still see our toes,” she said when they were waist deep. “Ready to dive in? One, two, three—go!”
She dove into the water, shocked at first by the cold. She came up right away, anxious about Jimmy. He couldn’t swim very well on his own, and the water was just up to his chin. He was standing, smiling, his hair slicked back.
“It probably gets deeper in the center,” she said. “Want to swim with me?”
He put his arms around her neck and she floated on her back to the middle of the pool, relishing the warmth of the sun—and her son—on her face and chest, the cold of the water on her back. Even the cicadas’ wailing sounded benign there, an impenetrable wall of sound between them and the world beyond. Every few seconds she touched the bottom with one foot and pushed off. They drifted like that, from one end of the swimming hole to the other, back and forth, the only two people in this bit of heaven, the Devil’s Ravine. The only two people on earth, was how it felt.
She read Jimmy a story that
night, then opened the shade in his room so they could observe the moon.
“It’s a half-moon,” Jimmy said. “But how can you tell if it’s waxing or raining?”
“Waning,” Gwen said, “and I don’t really know. We’ll have to look it up in the morning.”
He seemed to fall asleep the moment she turned off the light. She hoped for the same luck as she went downstairs. She opened a book, read a few pages, then tried the television. Finally she picked up the phone and dialed. Priscilla Lawrence answered during the first ring.
“It’s Gwen. I was wondering if—”
“We don’t need you tomorrow.” She sounded out of breath, as if she’d run for the phone.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can’t tie up the line.”
Click.
Gwen hung up and started on the dinner dishes. She scrubbed the bottom of a sauté pan until a decade’s worth of someone else’s grime was gone, then kept on scrubbing until she could see her face in the copper. What the hell was going on at Penaquoit? And why the hell did she care so damn much?
Chapter 7
Gwen awoke early Tuesday morning after a restless sleep in which Priscilla Lawrence’s fingertips read her face like braille while her chilly voice ordered her to stay away, stay away. At one point she thought she heard a baby crying. She sat up and checked the clock: 2:00 A.M. She heard the crying again, but it was only a cat yowling outside her window, probably in heat.
Disillusions Page 5