Home Fires Page 13

  “When did you start to feel it?” she asked.

  “That’s easy,” he said. “The minute I saw you.”

  She laughed nervously. She didn’t believe him or even want to believe him. What she felt for Thomas Devlin had evolved over months of getting to know him, of realizing that he was the only person she knew who had faced the horror. She didn’t believe in anything as romantic as love at first sight anymore.

  “No, really,” she pressed. “When?”

  “Anne, I told you. From the very beginning.”

  “It’s not possible,” she said, feeling her shoulders tighten, resisting the concept. “You didn’t know me then. All you saw was some deranged woman in a nightgown in the snow.”

  “Yes, that’s what I saw. And I did know you. The look in your eyes told me everything I had to know. I’d felt that intensity before, but I’d never seen it in another person. I fell in love with you right there.”

  “Hard to believe,” Anne said, even though she did. She leaned against him, letting him hold her tighter.

  “And you weren’t deranged.”

  “A little,” Anne said. “Maybe just slightly.”

  “Maybe you should invest in a lockbox, to keep the picture safe. I don’t want you running back into any more burning buildings.”

  “It’s in my bag,” Anne said. “I keep it with me.”

  “You have it here now?”

  “Yes,” Anne said, afraid that he would think her paranoid. She had shown him Karen’s drawing the day after they had first made love, when he had returned to fix the clock. She had explained all the elements in the picture, encouraged him to smell the crayon wax. He had appreciated it with her, listening to her tell about Karen, then sitting beside her in silence while time ticked by.

  “I told you I was deranged,” Anne said now, embarrassed.

  “I think it’s wonderful,” he said. “It’s not everyone who gets to carry paradise around with them.”

  Anne kissed him hard on the lips. He’d just reminded her why she loved him so much.

  PEOPLE were talking. Gabrielle heard it first from Steve, who had heard from Emma Harwood. Emma delivered the morning paper. One morning last week, just before sunrise, she had leaned out the window of her late husband Arthur’s Chevy 4 ¥ 4 to pop Thomas Devlin’s paper into the blue plastic tube bolted to his mailbox, and guess what she saw? The rosy fingers of dawn reflecting off the windshield of Anne’s VW.

  The nerve of Emma, telling tales on Gabrielle’s sister to Steve, was a matter of ethics that Gabrielle would save for later. The more pressing issue was Anne.

  Thomas Devlin was a decent enough, if mysterious, man. He kept to himself. You’d see him at the Firemen’s Picnic on the Fourth of July, the Cross-Island Fair in August, the occasional roast-beef supper at Grange Hall. He cut a romantic figure, living such a lonely island life, and being so tall and scarred.

  Gabrielle had once entertained notions of fixing him up with Monique Deveraux, her best friend from eighth grade. Monique had never married; she’d spent nine years hating men after being dumped by Winthrop Alcott, a rich summer kid from Baltimore who had dated her twelve summers straight, then run off with a girl from Bryn Mawr he’d known only four weeks.

  Anyway, Gabrielle had thrown a cocktail party—her first and only, not counting the ones she got paid to do. She’d bought a pony keg, a case of blanc-de-blanc, and a half gallon of rum; she and Maggie had spent one hot summer day making páté brisé and filling it with tasty aphrodisiacs like salmon roe, wild mushrooms, and smoked mussels. Gabrielle had felt giddy with the power of a born matchmaker.

  The idea was a bust. Totally. Monique came on too blue-eye-shadow and décolletage, and Thomas couldn’t stop blushing or think of anything more interesting to discuss than the record-breaking heat wave. Which had broken a full two weeks earlier.

  Standing at her kitchen stove, slicing yellow onions into a skillet, Gabrielle sighed. Thomas Devlin and Anne would never work. It warmed her heart to think of Anne sharing someone’s bed. That would be lovely, if that’s all there was to it.

  But Anne was vulnerable. She might not be completely in command of her faculties. She might be ignoring one crucial fact: that she and Thomas Devlin were about the least likely pair on God’s green earth to last longer than it would take to break each other’s hearts.

  Anne needed excitement, travel, the best of things. She needed a man who could run an empire, a man others looked up to. She needed a lot of attention. From the time Anne was old enough to date, Gabrielle had watched her dismiss the island boys. They hadn’t posed enough of a challenge. She wanted to keep a man guessing, and be adored for it. Island boys wanted meat-and-potatoes wives.

  Thomas Devlin was too reserved, too withdrawn, to be Anne’s sort of man. Anne needed a Fortune-500 CEO, a movie producer, something like that. Not Thomas Devlin—the local firefighting clockmaker. Gabrielle could understand the initial attraction, but she knew it wouldn’t last. She only hoped no one would get hurt.

  KURT wouldn’t give up. It kind of thrilled Maggie, to see just how far he would go. Roses in her locker, notes passed in the hall, telephone calls every day, no matter how vehemently she refused to talk to him.

  Still, she would not relent.

  She had gotten an A on her history test, a B+ on her last math quiz, an A with an additional Excellent and frightening! on her English homework, a short story she’d written about a girl hitchhiking to Boston who gets picked up by a serial killer.

  Vanessa called her stuck-up, and Eugene made pig noises when she walked past. It gave Maggie a kind of satisfaction. Let them waste their lives in the sewer, see where they wind up. Probably married to each other, fat and wasted, with a bunch of kids going to Island Consolidated.

  What a life.

  But one morning Maggie’s resolve was tested. Waiting for the bus, she realized that she had forgotten her French homework. She could just see it: on the sideboard in the dining room, where her mother had made her put it so they could have a heartwarming family dinner at the table where she’d been studying.

  “Shit,” she said, checking her watch. She had about three minutes before the bus would arrive. She glanced around at her fellow schoolmates. Dennis Lawson, third grade. Dori Adamson, sixth grade. And let us not forget Skip Adamson, dweeb man of the sophomore class.

  “Don’t let the bus leave without me,” she said to Skip in her most menacing tone.

  “You know it won’t wait,” he said, visibly stunned that she would even speak to him.

  “The ball’s in your court,” she said, leaving him reeling.

  Running home, she smelled the damp island earth, the first mark of true spring. The crocuses, the first robin, the departure of the seals were false signs. You knew it was spring when, and only when, the air began to smell like dirt. Wet dirt. Let’s be honest: you knew it was spring when the air began to smell like shit. The aroma of cow manure would drift downwind from Darlings’ Farm, and you’d know summer was right around the corner.

  Maggie raced into the house, grabbed her homework, and ran outside again. Her knapsack banging against her rib cage, she sprinted down the road. She heard the bus. At first she thought she’d made it. She thought the bus was just pulling in, but no: it was leaving without her.

  “You die!” she hollered, cursing Skip Adamson.

  Dejected, she was ready to meet her fate. She would walk home and ask her mother for a ride, and she would suffer the lecture on how her mother had never missed the school bus once in her entire twelve years at Island Consolidated. Then Kurt pulled up.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning over to open the passenger door.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Did you forget how to use the telephone or something?” he asked.

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Yeah, I notice you missed the bus. Want a ride?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Kurt said, not driving away.

  “Thanks anyway.�
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  “Okay,” he said again.

  She peered across the roof of his car, as if she were waiting for a much better, more exclusive bus. Feeling his eyes on her, she felt herself grow flushed.

  “Thanks anyway,” she repeated.

  “Maggie.”

  She tried not to, but she had to look at him. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

  “Yeah, well.” She resumed scanning the horizon for the phantom dream bus. She’d gotten herself into such a state, she half believed it would drive up any minute now. Tinted windows, a glass roof, hostesses dispensing chocolate milk and blueberry muffins. God, the air smelled like spring.

  “Please. Let me drive you to school.”

  She shot him a look.

  “You don’t want to be with me—I understand. I do. But how’re you going to get to school?”

  Reluctantly, Maggie opened the door. She climbed in. What was her alternative? Get her mother to drive?

  Once in the car, she felt herself relax. Kurt had Led Zeppelin in the tape player, hardly audible. He fast-forwarded to “Stairway to Heaven,” her favorite.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Hey,” he said, patting his pocket. “You feel like smoking a joint?”

  For one bee-sting second she felt tempted. Nothing would feel better than getting stoned with Kurt, listening to Led Zeppelin, ditching school to spend the day driving around.

  “No thanks,” she said, smiling. Removing herself from the danger zone. His frown told the whole story: he didn’t want Maggie bettering herself. He wanted to keep her zonked.

  Kurt gave Maggie a long, evil stare, loaded with disgust. “You’re different,” he said. “I don’t even know you.”

  “You hurt me,” Maggie said. “I hated that you wanted me to sleep with Fritz.”

  “How many times can I tell you I’m sorry?”

  “I’ve only heard you say it once.”

  “That’s because you won’t answer my calls. I feel like such an asshole, asking your mother if you’re there. She must be eating this right up.”

  Maggie didn’t say anything. She had to admit he was right.

  “You want to take after your aunt, right? Mrs. Above-it-all.”

  “If that’s how you see her,” Maggie said. She still felt a tug for Kurt: his ripped jeans, his glossy blond hair, the sexy sneer in his voice.

  “She’s fucking the freak,” Kurt said.

  “What?”

  “Burns. You remember Burns? The guy who pulled her out after she lit the house on fire?”

  “No way,” Maggie said, frowning. They pulled into the school parking lot. Kids were still straggling off the bus, so she knew she had a minute.

  “It’s true. She’s high-and-mighty one minute, and next thing she’s down and dirty. Think of that while you’re on your head trip,” Kurt said. Hurt, he looked out his window, away from Maggie.

  Maggie couldn’t help herself. Some of the old feelings trickled back, and she touched his knee. Her finger poked through the hole in his jeans, rubbing his skin.

  “It’s not a head trip,” she said. “I want to pull my grades up. This has nothing to do with you. Or my aunt.”

  “Yeah, well. I miss you, that’s all.”

  “I miss you, too.” There. She’d said it. Maggie glanced at the school and saw Vanessa standing by the door. She was watching Maggie and Kurt with a really sad look on her face.

  “Please, give me another chance,” Kurt whispered. “Let me prove how much I love you.”

  He had never said he loved her before. Maggie felt the color rise in her cheeks. All her plans, her resolutions to be a better person, her vow to stop seeing her old friends suddenly seemed ridiculous. Kurt stroked the side of her face with the back of his hand. Now he was leaning closer, kissing her ear, nibbling her neck.

  “Let me prove it,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” Maggie said.

  Kurt shifted into first and peeled out right in front of Mr. Jephson, the boys’ gym teacher. By the time they hit Orion Road, he’d lit the joint and handed it to Maggie. She let it burn for a few seconds, and then she took a hit. It was good pot, she realized as her head went cold. They were heading toward the lighthouse. She leaned against Kurt and trembled with the pleasure of being told he loved her.

  Chapter 11

  It had become a tradition that one Saturday every spring Gabrielle and Maggie Vincent would take a shopping trip to the mainland. They’d drive to Boston or Providence or one of the malls, have lunch, and shop. Sometimes they didn’t buy much. New clothes weren’t really the point. Going off-island was the important thing: being together, seeing the new styles, getting away from their neighbors.

  This year Anne joined them.

  She’d been happy to be invited along, but she’d hesitated before accepting. She wasn’t sure she should intrude on their mother-daughter day. But Gabrielle had insisted, and Maggie had followed up with a second phone call, for good measure, and finally Anne said yes.

  The ride over was typical for the early boat on an off-season Saturday: hardly any cars, even fewer trucks, people sleeping in their vehicles. Anne went into the cabin for coffee while Gabrielle and Maggie dozed. Was it her imagination, or did conversation stop dead when she approached the snack bar?

  “Black coffee, please,” she said to the girl behind the counter. Probably one of Maggie’s classmates, she was about sixteen. Handing Anne the steaming Styrofoam cup, she looked fearful and apprehensive, as if she were serving a witch.

  “Thank you,” Anne said pleasantly. “Hi, Arnie. Hi, Mike,” she said to two men standing together. Mike was a lifelong islander; Arnie had married one of Steve’s cousins. The two men nodded at Anne, friendly enough.

  “How’re you doing, Anne? Been a long time since you made it through an island winter,” Mike said.

  “It wasn’t too bad,” Anne said.

  “Sorry about your house,” Mike said, and Arnie joined in, nodding solemnly. But from their discomfort, the way they shuffled their feet and looked quickly away, Anne had the feeling what they were really sorry about was Karen.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thanks a lot.”

  Taking a seat, she turned to look out the window and distinctly heard one of them say “Dev.” Anne sipped her coffee, not particularly bothered. As a matter of fact, it kind of pleased her, people knowing about her and Thomas. It was better than before, when she’d pass by and imagine she heard people whispering about Karen.

  When she returned to the car, Gabrielle and Maggie were awake, discussing the shopping options.

  “Boston, please? Please, Mom?”

  “It’s so far,” Gabrielle said. “I was thinking the War-wick Mall.”

  “Anne, you’re the deciding vote,” Maggie said. Sitting in back, she leaned forward, her head between the two front seats.

  “No thanks,” Anne said. “I’m just along for the ride. Whatever you two want to do.”

  “Chicken,” Gabrielle said. “Go for it.”

  “Honestly?” Anne said. “I’d rather go to Boston.”

  “Me and my big mouth,” Gabrielle said cheerfully.

  The ride up I-95 was fun. They tuned in to a radio station that Maggie loved and couldn’t get on the island, Q-105 or something, and listened to the morning-show hosts tear each other up.

  It did Anne’s heart good to see Maggie enjoying herself. She had really noticed a difference in her niece since the truck incident. Most of the time she seemed brighter, more alive. When they drove past the Wakefield exit, where Anne had found her at the Quality Inn, Maggie reached alongside Anne’s seat and gave her hand a secret squeeze.

  “Enough of this new-wave grunge rock,” Gabrielle said after an hour on the road. “I want to hear love songs.”

  “You’re not changing the station,” Maggie said, gripping Gabrielle’s seat back with great drama. “Tell me you’re just kidding.”

  Gabrielle hit the see
k-mode button, and selected a station playing Michael Bolton.

  “There now,” Gabrielle said.

  Anne gave Maggie a sympathetic look.

  “Love,” Gabrielle said.

  Anne looked out the window, trying to remember the last time she’d been to Boston. Karen had been a baby; Anne remembered carrying her down Newbury Street in a Snugli.

  “I’m trying to set a mood,” Gabrielle said. When Anne didn’t reply, Gabrielle tapped her thigh. “I’m trying to set a mood. A romantic mood,” she said.

  “Really?” Anne said. “Too bad Steve’s not here.”

  “Mom!” Maggie said sharply, as if she knew what Gabrielle was up to.

  “What?”

  “Don’t be a jerk!”

  Anne waited for Gabrielle to reprimand Maggie, for talking to her like that, but Gabrielle’s attention was on Anne.

  “I’m all ears,” Gabrielle said, and suddenly Anne knew what she was after. Confessions about Thomas.

  “Oh,” Anne said. “I’m seeing someone.”

  “I’m glad you finally got around to telling me,” Gabrielle said. “Too bad half the island beat you to it.”

  The words were lighthearted, but Anne heard hurt in the tone. She didn’t really want to talk about Thomas; what went on between them felt so sweet and private, she couldn’t imagine discussing him with her sister; with anyone. She didn’t mind people knowing. Hiding their relationship seemed pointless, but she didn’t want to explain it either. Still, she didn’t want Gabrielle to feel bad.

  “When did it start?” Gabrielle asked.

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” Anne said. How did you define “start”? Was it that night at the coffee shop? The first time they’d made love? Or, as Thomas said, when they’d first seen each other at the fire?

  “First of all, I have nothing against Thomas Devlin,” Gabrielle said.

  “Good.”

  “But I’m worried about you.”

  “Gabrielle …” Anne said, the warning ringing in her voice.

  “Mom!” Maggie barked.

  “Just hear me out,” Gabrielle said. “You listen, too, Maggie. Sometimes we’re vulnerable to other people. To men. I’m lucky—I’ve been married to the same man forever, and he’s a known commodity.”