Belonging (26 page)

“What a lovely story. Sort of an American Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending,” Joanna said.

“Right.” Sunshine poured through the windows and across the seats. “They say that since then there have been no wars on the island.”

“Didn’t the Indians fight with the white settlers?”

“Actually, no. The Indians sold their land to the first settlers, and they lived together in peace. Gradually the Indian population died off from smallpox and alcoholism and other white men’s disease.” Madaket steered the Jeep along a rough narrow path between the lagoon and a long rise of land forested with rugged evergreens.

“That’s too bad,” Joanna remarked, looking out at the stretch of untamed landscape.

“Mmm,” Madaket agreed somberly, and for a moment they were quiet in contemplation of the past. Then Madaket said in a wry tone, “Now, of course, we’ve got the ongoing wars between the year-rounders and the wealthy summer people.”

“Would you really call them wars?”

“Some people would.” The Jeep hit a spot of soft sand and bucked and stalled. Madaket turned her attention to maneuvering back onto the track. Joanna grabbed on to the handhold built into the door. “Hang on. We’re almost there,” Madaket assured her.

At last the road emptied them onto the long stretch of beach. Madaket stopped the
Jeep and turned off the engine. For a moment both women sat in silence, soaking in the intense, relaxing warmth, gazing out in an almost stuporous pleasure at the sunlight on the water. But Wolf whined, then barked sharply, and so they stirred, opened their doors, and stepped out onto the sand.

“I’ll carry the cooler,” Madaket said. “Can you manage the towels?”

“Sure.” Joanna followed Madaket to the water’s edge and spread the striped beach towels, which fluttered in the breeze. For a moment they both bustled around domestically, perfecting their temporary nest, holding down the towels with the ice bucket and cooler and beach umbrella and Joanna’s woven bag full of sunblock and lip balm and hairbrush and scarf. Wolf raced down to the water, then dug furiously in the sand.

“Want to go for a little walk before we eat?” Madaket asked.

“All right.”

“The place I want to show you isn’t far away. I don’t think many people know about it.” As she spoke, Madaket turned eagerly away from the harbor, heading inland toward the scrubby forest. Wolf bounded after her, and Joanna followed, her feet sinking awkwardly into the soft sand. “Don’t take your shoes off just yet,” Madaket instructed. “We might hit poison ivy.” Madaket was barefoot herself, and wore a long white cotton man’s shirt opened over an old-fashioned one-piece black swimsuit which could scarcely contain her substantial breasts and rounded hips.

An overgrown path cut up a sandy incline into a grove of gnarled and twisted cedars and pines. Stepping out of the sunshine, Joanna had the sensation, as surely as stepping over a threshold and through a door, of entering a room. Leaves and twigs and needles and branches wove overhead in a rich canopy and fell like tapestried walls to the ground, bathing the air in a dreamy green glow. Deeper in, the silence grew so complete that even the steady susurration of the water against the shore dimmed, then disappeared. Sunlight hung like banners in the shade. Ferns, grasses, and glossy-leafed bushes laced the air, now and then prickling Joanna’s legs. The modern world seemed far away, its troubles insignificant in this mysterious, ancient place.

Madaket stopped before a silver-barked tree, certainly one of the larger trees Joanna had seen on the island. Perhaps it was three or four trees grown together, for its thick trunk was deeply grooved, and just at shoulder height its base radiated out into many branches which stretched and turned with the flexible grace of a many-armed
Hindu goddess, forming several natural seats and cubbyholes just right for human bodies.

Resting her hand affectionately on the rough bark, Madaket said, “This is what I wanted to show you. This is one of my favorite places on the island. I don’t think many other people even know it’s here.”

“It’s peaceful here.” Joanna looked around. “A good place for daydreaming, I think.”

“Yes. That’s what I do here,” Madaket admitted quietly.

“And what do you dream about?”

“The Indians. Sometimes I imagine I can hear them, feel the ground pounding under their running feet, hear the rustle of the leaves and grasses as they pass. I think I would smell them before I see them. They would have such natural,
vivid
smells—sweat, of course, and animal oils used to smooth their hair and protect their skin, and the crisp grassy odor of the mats they wove and wore for clothing, and the leather thongs, and the clean earth on their bodies, like the ground tilled in spring, fresh, yet powerful, and salt dried on their skin from the sea. And I would hear them calling to each other. And laughing. They laugh a lot, especially now in the summer.”

“God, Madaket, you’re giving me chills! I can almost see them!”

“I like to imagine them, an entire tribe, and especially one family. I like to pretend that family is my family. My ancestors.” Madaket’s voice was wistful. “I like to imagine a girl, my age, who would have been my sister. If I had been alive then. Or, perhaps, we’ll meet in another time.”

Suddenly something came crashing through the woods, making as much noise as a bear, and then Wolf broke through the brush, vines caught in his coat, trailing over his tail to the ground like ribbons.

“Wolf, you fool, you gave me a heart attack!” Joanna cried, relieved. “Madaket, I’ve got to get out of here. I need daylight!”

With Wolf circling them and barking happily, the two women walked back out into the sun. Returning to their towels, they carefully oiled themselves with sunblock, then unpacked the picnic lunch: green grapes, whole-wheat crackers with various cheeses, slices of carrots and peppers and celery. A healthful meal—except for Madaket’s dark chocolate brownies, which Joanna brought for dessert. She hadn’t forgotten Wolf. She laid out on a Tupperware lid a gourmet assortment of cold cuts. True to his name, Wolf swallowed them in one gulp, then lay with piteous longing watching Joanna and
Madaket eat.

They stretched out on their towels then, and rested, half dozing in the sultry heat. Joanna liked the way the warm sand beneath her could be scooped and molded to fit her body as she lay on her side.

At some point she fell asleep, waking to find that Madaket had covered her with a beach towel to prevent burning. The sun was lower now, less direct, but the day was hotly silent, as if muted by heat. Joanna sat drinking a bottle of Perrier, and then she and Madaket set off beachcombing, walking ankle-deep in the cool water, stopping at the discovery of an especially remarkable shell. Here and there the tide had deposited the dark brown, menacing, tanklike shells of the horseshoe crab.

“Those are perfect animals,” Madaket told Joanna, pointing.

“The horseshoe crab?”

“Yes. We learned this in science. This creature has existed exactly as it is for billions of years. Its design works. Unlike human beings, who must be at the beginning of their evolution.”

“At least we’re prettier,” Joanna said.

“Not to a horseshoe crab,” Madaket retorted.

They strolled south, occasionally walking on spongy humps of dried eel grass, which felt pleasantly cool to the soles of their feet. Pink and white roses speckled the grassy dunes and perfumed the air. Seagulls swooped low over the water while farther down, a flock of tiny sandpipers scurried worriedly back and forth over the damp sand, seemingly involved in a neurotic search for something they’d lost. An older couple sat close together, staring out at the water, arms linked, their hair and smiles gleaming white against the leathery tan of their skin. Joanna and Madaket turned and walked north, retracing their footsteps in the sand.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known such quiet,” Joanna remarked. “Not ever in my life.”

“It’s a luxury, isn’t it?” Madaket said. “One of the greatest luxuries of all.”

“Luxury?” Joanna contemplated the idea, then agreed, “Yes. I suppose you’re right.”

Finally they gathered up their paraphernalia and headed home, even though the sky was alluring with its pearly streaks of high, fair-weather cloud. Joanna was so relaxed she was almost comatose, and even though she knew she should learn how to use the air
pump at the main road to fill the tires back to their proper air pressure, she was simply too tired to move.

“Look, Madaket, just drop me at home, drive yourself home, and bring the Jeep back tomorrow when you come out. I’m too blissed out to drive.”

“You’ll be okay out here without a car?”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll just lie on the sofa. I feel about as evolved as a clam.”

Madaket laughed, then looked anxious. “Shall I come in and fix you some dinner?”

“Of course not. It’s your day off. I can fend for myself. God, Madaket, what a perfect day. Thank you.”

In her house Joanna emptied out the hamper and shook sand from the beach towels. That done, she showered, then stretched out on her bed in her terry-cloth robe. She had a glossy new novel waiting for her on the bedside table, but all at once in the early twilight she was lonely.

It had been a lovely, perfect summer day, and she was glad she’d gotten to know more of Madaket’s world, but what sustained Madaket would not sustain Joanna. She needed more than trees and daydreams.

Although her daydreams had been pretty interesting lately. Jake’s kiss had stirred her deeply, roused her curiosity, and made her hungry for more … yet thinking of that kiss, Jake’s warmth and intensity, caused Joanna’s heart to trip and pound. Her face flushed, her fingers went numb. Not good. Not good for her pregnancy, and foolish besides, to indulge herself in schoolgirl fantasies. Jake was a kind man. He was fond of her. That was all.

But she could not stop thinking of him.

Perhaps it was only that she missed the network so much.

Impulsively she picked up the phone and dialed Dhon’s home number, which sprang complete into her mind.

“Happy birthday, Mr. President.” Today Dhon had the breathy tones of a fake Marilyn Monroe on his answering machine tape. “So sorry I can’t talk to you now, but I’m in a nice, warm, wet, perfumy bubble bath. Wish you were with me. I’d let you pop my bubbles. Leave me a message and you know what I’ll do.”

Abruptly the beep shrilled against her ear. Joanna put down the receiver. The very act of almost talking to Dhon had started her blood racing. Her mind churned with
confusion. She loved Dhon, she missed him, she was dying to hear how he was and to get all the New York gossip—but Dhon was so seductive. It would take him no time at all to find out where she was, and how she was, and why she was there. With the best of intentions, he’d spill out every secret he knew, and some he only suspected.

And with the best of intentions, he’d rush to work the next day to gush out to everyone at the network anything Joanna divulged to him.

She felt caught between two worlds and a part of neither. The network glittered dangerously in one direction; the silence of the summer dark lay emptily in the other.

Pushing herself up and swinging her feet to the floor, Joanna headed for her study. She’d do some work on her books; that would settle her down.

But a wave of nausea struck her. At the same time a bolt of pain hammered across her forehead and flashing lights sparked before her eyes. Sinking back onto the bed, she closed her eyes and just sat, holding on.

The message from her body was clear and direct. When the headache subsided, she carefully lowered herself back onto the pillows. Now the flashing lights dimmed, but in their place blinked words from the books she’d read on pregnancy:

Preeclampsia. Toxemia. A rise in blood pressure. Symptoms: Headache, nausea, flashing lights, vomiting. More likely if you are pregnant with twins or over forty. Danger to the babies: premature labor. Birth before the babies are mature enough to survive. Danger to the mother: convulsions. A possible state of coma. Treatment: bed rest.

Joanna forced herself to be still. She kept her thoughts on the summer day, the sunshine, the drugging heat, the expanse of sparkling water. She could feel her blood pressure falling. Only four more months, she told herself. She could make herself behave for four more months. Then she would have her babies.

Fourteen

Joanna sat on the edge of the examining table. She’d just dressed after having her July checkup, and with a polite knock, Gardner Adams opened the door and returned to the room. He looked worried. Her heart skipped a beat.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’m concerned about your blood pressure.” He leaned against the counter, folded his arms over his chest, and looked at Joanna. Backlit by the window behind him, he seemed, with his glowing halo of sandy hair, slightly angelic. “Let’s talk about this a little, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Have you chosen a birth partner?”

Joanna flushed. “No. Not yet.”

“Are you living alone?”

“Yes. Well, sort of—although it doesn’t seem like it. Doug and Todd Snow are at the house six days a week, eight to five, doing major and necessary renovations. Also, I have a young woman, Madaket Brown, who comes in every day to help with the housework and the cooking.”

“She cooks for you?”

“Most meals, yes.”

“I’d like to talk to her.”

“All right. She’s out in the waiting room. I have to have her drive me everywhere these days—I’ve gotten so big.”

“How many days a week does she cook for you?”

“Five. And leaves casseroles and so on for me for the weekend.”

“And you say she takes care of the housework?”

“Yes. I’m rushing to finish up two books.”

“
Two
books.” He sounded as if he were passing judgment. “Are you getting sufficient rest?”

“I think so.”

“Do you have any extra worries, added pressures, since we last talked?”

Joanna shook her head. “Not really. I’m very excited about these babies. I’m really happier than I’ve been before in my life.”

Gardner’s smile seemed affectionate. “That’s good. Let’s go talk to your cook.”