Act of God (29 page)

“Okay.”

We were lying on an old comforter Nancy had found in the back of her hall closet. The grass under us was short and sweet, the Parks Department having mowed it for the holiday.

More resnuggling. “It was a great idea, John, staying in the city like this.”

The pleasure craft were politely jockeying for position in the Charles River in front of us, the MDC patrol boat herding them away from the dormant fireworks barge like a Belgian shepherd tending its flock. Three Hispanic kids were learning how to fly a kite with their father, the tail of the kite in red, white, and blue. A double date of college students roller-bladed by us, one couple expert and waving small American flags, the other awkward and holding hands to keep each other up. A fortyish guy in a beard, blue jeans, and no shirt strummed a guitar and sang old folk songs, mostly to himself until he noticed he’d attracted a gaggle of listeners and raised his voice a bit. He reminded me more of my squandered youth than Rush Teagle’s curtailed one, but it was enough to make me turn back toward the boats.

I said, “You want anything more to eat?”

“Un-unh. Stuffed.”

“Let me get up a minute, throw away the trash.”

“Do you have to?”

“Unless you want bees.”

“But this is so nice.”

“And it will be again. Two minutes.”

Nancy lifted her head, and I put my hands under it, lowering it gently to the comforter. “Thank you, John.”

I gathered up the remains of two paper plates, a pear, an apple, two turkey and swiss croissants, and two bagels, one blueberry, the other sesame. Leaving the plastic cups and the jug of champagne and orange juice, I took the rest to the green trash can already overflowing like a sluggish volcano onto the ground around it. A little after noon, there were only ten or twelve thousand people on the Boston side of the river, maybe half as many across it on the narrower Cambridge bank. By seven P.M. the numbers would swell to over five hundred thousand to hear the Boston Pops annual concert and watch the accompanying fireworks display.

By the time I’d gotten back to Nancy, I’d seen both a pet rabbit and a tiny black pig—I looked at it three times, a pig—on leashes, walked slowly like show animals by their proud owners. A couple of dogs wrestled around the bushes by the lagoon, but otherwise the crowd was festive not restive, no trouble simmering anywhere I could tell.

Nancy said, “What kept you?”

I sat down just behind her head. She was wearing a pink halter and white tennis shorts, the sun bringing out the freckles on her shoulders the way it already had the ones across her nose. She had amber sunglasses that reflected the light, so I couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed, but I’d have bet on closed.

“It was a minute-thirty, tops.”

“You lie, John Francis Cuddy.”

I thought briefly about Abraham Rivkind, the man who never lied, but I hadn’t been there to find his body, so he still seemed more a problem to me than a part of real life.

“You’re beautiful, Nancy Meagher.”

“What?” The sunglasses came off, the eyes wide open, looking back at me upside down.

“I said you’re beautiful. I would have used your middle name, too, but it occurred to me I don’t know it.”

She said, “That’s because I never use it,” but I had the feeling she wanted to say something else.

I used the pads of my index, middle, and ring fingers to rub circles lightly in the scalp above her ears. “How come?”

“How come I never use it?”

“Yes. It isn’t on your diplomas or bar admission, and I’ve never seen your driver’s license.”

“Because it’s a funny name.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m embarrassed.”

“Then I really want you to tell me.”

“Why, so you’ll make fun of me?”

“Yes.”

“Run up and down the river, yelling it to people, who’ll point at me and laugh?”

“Only the beginning.”

Nancy brought her right hand up to mine, running her nails along the veins on the back. “I like the way you say that.”

“Me, too.”

“John, I … we’ve been close for a while now, but I’ve never felt closer to anyone than I have this last week with you.”

“Even though I was in New Jersey for part of it?”

“Especially because of that. You being gone for a while after we had that talk cinched it.”

“Now I feel like a horse.”

The nails bit in a little. “A stallion.”

“You’ll turn my head.”

“Seriously, John.”

“Okay. Serious.”

“This past week, I felt as though we crossed some kind of line that had been there, ever since I met you. A line I thought we’d cross by making love the first time, but didn’t.”

“I know what you mean.”

Nancy nodded with her eyelids. “But now, I’m not sure how to phrase it exactly, but … you never told me I was beautiful before.”

“Now I don’t know what you mean.”

“In the past, you’ve given me plenty of reason to think you find me attractive, and I’ve been paid a lot of compliments over the years, but they’ve been … qualified?”

“ ‘Smart-looking,’ ‘striking’ …”

“I even had one date in college tell me I was ‘amazingly photogenic.’ ”

“Like he was interested in you as album art.”

“Or the way the other guys would nod and elbow each other in the ribs when he took my picture out of his wallet at the bar.”

“I don’t think I’d do that.”

“I know you wouldn’t. It’s just that … well, if you’re just pretty, you lose that as you get older. You lose a lot of things, but never—”

“Somebody thinking you’re beautiful.”

“The right somebody, anyway.”

I leaned over and kissed her upside down.

Nancy let my lips go with the half-smile. “You taste like mimosa.”

“Is that a veiled request?”

“It’s a holiday, and you’re making me feel like I don’t have a care in the world.”

I refilled her cup from the jug. “Save some room for tonight.”

“The party, you mean?”

“Buffet and bar both.”

“That’s not till seven, right?”

“Right.”

“And it’s just across the street.”

I pointed toward the tall, balconied building, then realized she couldn’t see me doing it. “Fifty feet from my doorstep.”

Nancy sat up and twisted at the waist, taking the cup from me. “In that case, we’ll have plenty of time to work off this meal before the next one.”

“What did you have in mind, counselor?”

Over the rim she said, “Giddyap, horsey,” and giggled into her drink.

Being able to walk to the party meant I didn’t have to move the Prelude from behind the building, which was a real advantage. Some of my neighbors were gone, but apparently not for the night, as they left trash cans at the curb-cuts of their spaces. Maybe that would discourage the frustrated who couldn’t find a legal spot to leave a car, maybe not.

Norm had one of the penthouse units in the skyscraper across Beacon Street. The doorman was prepared for us, his eyes lingering a little less on me and a little more on Nancy in a floppier pair of shorts and a sheer silk blouse that let even the casual observer guess the color of her bra. The guy working the elevator was less discreet, but I was feeling good and let it pass.

As Nancy and I rode up, she silently mocked the operator’s goggle-eyed look to his back, and I laughed just suddenly enough for the guy to turn and ask if everything was all right. I told him it was.

The elevator opened onto a large anteroom, with mirrored closets for coats. At the end of the mirrors the living room began, a broad, windowed expanse facing north toward Cambridge. There were already forty or so people in the room, a half dozen more out on the sixty-foot balcony, admiring the sunset. One of them was Elie from the Nautilus club, setting up a tripod camera to take some slow exposures of the western sky.

From my right came, “John. Glad you could make it.”

Norm looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of a calypso album. Sandals, white duck pants cut ragged at the shin, and a billowy, double-pocketed white shirt.

I said, “Where’s the straw hat?”

“Wind took it. How’s the shoulder?”

“Much better.”

“And the knee?”

“Same. Thanks for the advice.”

“Nothing you wouldn’t have learned on your own.”

“The hard way.”

“The usual way.”

I introduced him to Nancy.

Norm said to her, “Let me give you guys the Cook’s tour.”

With a wave of his big hand, he took in the buffet and liquor tables with catering staff in magenta vests. There was a den, a guest bedroom, and a magnificent master bedroom suite with access to another long but empty balcony looking south over Back Bay. Norm led us back to the bar.

“I’ve got more folks arriving. Just mill around. Lots of different people and two balconies, no waiting.”

As Norm moved off, Nancy said, “Nice man.”

“The ones who make it on their own generally are.”

I ordered a screwdriver for me, but just a tonic water with lime for Madam Mimosa, whose head wasn’t used to drinking through the afternoon. I saw somebody else from the club, but Nancy tugged on my arm, and we went back through the master bedroom and out onto the empty balcony there. The rooftops in front of us were at least fifteen stories below, giving a perspective of the neighborhood I’d never really had. “I’m surprised there’re so few roof-decks.”

“I feel like Mary Poppins,” said Nancy.

“Flying over Victorian chimneys.”

“Umbrella above my head, other hand on my hat.”

“So long as you don’t break into song.”

“Julie Andrews I’m not.”

I looked at her, the half-smile looking back. “Remember today, when you said I’d laugh if you told me your middle name?”

“I remember a lot about today that I liked.”

“Well, if you promise you won’t laugh, I’ll tell you what Hollywood figure you remind me of.”

“Uh-oh. Do I want to know?”

“Your choice. But you have to promise not to laugh.”

“Okay, I promise.”

I said, “Loni Anderson.”

“Loni … ?” A turn away, then an abrupt choking sound, the hand in front of the mouth, followed by a sidelong glance and a deep, strong laugh.

“Staunch of you, Nance.”

“Oh, John … I’m sorry … but … Loni?”

“Your smiles.”

“You’re not kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“John Cuddy, the things you see in people.”

At that moment, another couple came out and asked if they could join us. We kicked introductions around, they from a nice suburb named Sudbury and having spent an hour trying to park “the Volvo.” She knew Norm because of the real estate business, he ran a bookstore in Framingham. We left them to the view. As we walked back through the master bedroom, I heard her say to him. “From the street, you’d expect there’d be more roof-decks.”

We took Norm’s suggestion and milled around, spending a lot of time with Elie and his date, a woman who worked with the severely retarded. We spent a little less time with a sculptor and his poet girlfriend, a police commander Nancy knew slightly and his wife, a school principal, and a gay couple who owned an art gallery on Newbury Street where probably nobody in the room except Norm could afford to shop. Noshing from the buffet, we spent considerably less time with a stockbroker and her husband, a retailing executive who kept eyeing two fashion models in their early twenties, and the models themselves, Nancy’s hold on my hand and forearm becoming stronger the longer we were with them.

Norm asked everybody for their attention, and I realized that it was dark outside, the lights from the MIT buildings across the river twinkling through the glass.

He said, “Only a few minutes now. I’m going to put the concert on simulcast. When the fireworks start, the balcony should hold most of us, but please, no stamping of your feet, especially not in time to the music.”

Nancy leaned up to my ear. “Why not?”

“The force of all those feet could weaken the thing structurally.”

“Really?”

“It’s why when you march soldiers across a bridge, you tell them to go route step, meaning not in rhythm with each other.”

“Otherwise the bridge would fall down?”

“Been known to happen. Remember that hotel thing out in—”

“Oh, yeah.”

We grabbed some drinks and moved onto the balcony. The Hatch Shell looked like a miniature scallop, all lit up.

The crowd was barely distinguishable, only the occasional flashlight or lantern snowing you people in its beam. There were so many boats on the river around the fireworks barge, it looked like a flubbed special effect. Twenty- to forty-footers stern-lashed together. Little black commando dinghies riding the endless chop next to canoes and even a few kayaks. The music from the Hatch Shell was barely audible, the stereo inside the living room really letting you know where the orchestra was on its way to the
1812 Overture.

When John Williams signaled his people to strike that first chord from the overture, there was a swelling roar from the crowd. More lights appeared on the barge, and the voice level on the balcony rose as well. People dah-dahed toward the crescendo, and when it came, the fireworks display began.

Norm’s building was positioned so that the fireworks were shot toward us, their trajectory bringing the exploding flowers into our faces like a 3-D movie. The first time it happened, I gripped Nancy’s hand so tightly she had to say, “John, that hurts a little.”

“Sorry.”

She had a touch of concern on her face. “Remind you of something?”

“Only for a second. I’m enjoying it now.”

It was hard not to. The crowd went nuts over both the music and the display, the latter building itself to a thundering peak of teardrop colors in impossible combinations and blinding white flashes and explosions that pushed every other sensation of any kind to the side.

When it finally died, there was a grayish-blue cloud over the river and the smell of cordite in the air. We applauded and whistled and cheered with everyone else, Nancy hanging back on the balcony as the rest went in to freshen drinks and compare notes.

Nancy looked up at me, but without the half-smile this time. “John, can I ask you a question?”